NEWSLETTER
Another fun week of NFL football is behind us! Who won and lost the week? Are there teams we’re overreacting or under-reacting to? Let’s recap the week that was in the NFL with a stock report around the league, shall we?
Stock Up: Washington Commanders
The NFC East is so weird this season. The Giants are about who we thought they were. Philadelphia looks like a mess. Dallas is 2-2 but hasn’t looked good. And the Washington Commanders of all teams look like the best in the division!
There’s certainly a whole lot of season left to go, but so far Jayden Daniels looks phenomenal and the Commanders have played some really good football. On the season, the second-overall pick has a completion percentage of 82% and in his past two games has completed nearly 90% of his passes. He’s also thrown the ball to the other team just once in his rookie campaign.
To be fair, Washington has taken advantage of two defenses not playing the best football in Arizona and Cincinnati, but they’ve also done what good offenses should do to struggling defenses.
Offensive Coordinator Kliff Kingsbury has done a great job designing the offense around his rookie quarterback’s strengths and hasn’t asked him to do too much while still letting him take some shots. Head Coach Dan Quinn has a defense that doesn’t have the greatest talent playing good football.
Washington’s offense will be tested in the next two weeks against Cleveland and Baltimore, but through the first few weeks of the 2024 season, Commanders fans have a lot to be excited about in terms of their future.
Stock Down: Philadelphia Eagles
Sticking with the weird NFC East theme, the Philadelphia Eagles sure do seem to have fallen off a cliff. After scoring 34 in the opener against the Packers, they’ve scored no more than 21 points in a single game and have been held to 16 or fewer twice. Quarterback Jalen Hurts has as many interceptions as he does touchdown passes. Their wide receiver room has been crushed by injury. (Luis: Yikes! Glad I stayed away from drafting Eagles on my fantasy team).
Defensively, they’ve been a roller coaster despite sinking assets into it during the offseason. Baker Mayfield threw for 347 yards and two touchdowns against them this past week in Tampa. The Bucs combined for 111 yards on the ground and averaged 4.4 yards per carry. Six different receivers caught multiple passes and three caught six or more.
Philly hasn’t felt like the same team since its Super Bowl loss to Kansas City and the departure of Shane Steichen and Jonathan Gannon. Luckily for them, the division feels like it could be wide open this year, but at the same time, they have a whole lot to get cleaned up if they want to be a playoff team. Luckily for them, they have a bye week to heal up and figure things out before a winnable game at home against Cleveland.
Stock Up: Baltimore Ravens
Watching vintage Derrick Henry will never not be fun. No one was counting out Baltimore after their 1-2 start, but the blowout win of the Bills who were riding as high as anyone through three weeks was a perfect example of how good the Ravens can be.
The Ravens run the ball very well. Buffalo has some issues stopping the run. So the Ravens pinpointed that weakness and hammered it all night long to the tune of 271 yards on the ground and eight yards per carry. Defensively, they held Josh Allen to under 200 yards passing and held him without a touchdown pass for the first time this season.
Losing to the Raiders at home was without a doubt a headscratcher but since that point, they’ve established their identity as a team that will run the ball down your throat. That’s what got them to the AFC Title game last year. Now, with one of the best and most physical backs in the game, their run game is looking even better. Henry is averaging over 170 yards per game in his last two and has carried the ball 49 times in the Ravens’ two-game win streak.
The usage rate will need to come down at some point for Derrick Henry, but if he’s healthy and rolling come playoff time Baltimore will be a very tough out.
Stock Down: The Chargers Rushing Attack
Through the first two weeks of the season, the rushing attack for Jim Harbaugh’s Chargers was one of the league’s top stories. JK Dobbins had over 130 yards in each of LA’s first two games and was averaging over 10 yards per carry with a pair of touchdowns. Those two games, however, were to not-so-great rush defenses in the Raiders and Panthers.
Now after back-to-back weeks against the Steelers and Chiefs, that ground game appears to be coming to a screeching halt. Dobbins is averaging under three yards per carry in the last two games and has failed to rush for more than 45 yards in either. As a team, Los Angeles just has 116 yards total on the ground in their last two matchups – both of which were losses.
Part of this might be attributed to Justin Herbert not being totally healthy so teams focusing more on stopping the run, but there is no denying that LA’s ground attack has fallen off a cliff these last two weeks.
Next week won’t get much easier for them as they head to Denver to take on a Broncos defense that’s been outstanding so far this year. Can they get back on track in that one? It’s too early to call any game a make or break in the NFL, but next week might be a pretty strong indicator of what the Chargers are capable of in 2024.
Stock Up: D’Andre Swift
After three straight weeks of feeling the wrath of Bears fans, D’Andre Swift got the message! Or, it might have had something to do with Roschon Johnson nipping at his heels for more carries.
Either way, Swift had a fantastic game against the Rams this Sunday going for 93 yards and a touchdown over 16 carries in addition to 72 yards on 7 receptions. While he’ll never be a true in-between-the-tackles kind of running back, Swift ran with a little more purpose, saw and hit holes more efficiently, and wasn’t as hesitant to get north and south. We also saw just how explosive he can be when he hits the hole and gets some space at the second level.
Again, he’ll never really be a true bell-cow, every-down running back that hammers the ball up the middle 15 times a game, but the tandem we saw with him and Roschon Johnson on Sunday is one that the Bears can lean on quite a bit going forward.
Stock Down: The AFC East
I’m not really worried about Buffalo, they’ll be just fine and potentially have a chance to run away with this division. However, they did just get absolutely bullied and exploited in their Sunday Night Football loss to a team they might have to go through come playoff time.
In addition to that, the Jets lost at home to a Broncos team that is granted strong defensively but was able to muster less than 200 yards of total offense Sunday. Aaron Rodgers looked pretty pedestrian. The run game which had been pretty solid so far was held to under 70 yards total and less than three yards per carry.
Elsewhere, the Dolphins look totally lost without Tua Tagovailoa. They just got smoked at home by a Titans team that was led by Mason Rudolph and was previously winless. With Tua out of action, they’ve been unable to get Tyreek Hill going which is a problem. Last night with Tyler Huntley at QB they looked like a mess and completely disorganized.
Lastly, after a Week 1 win over the Bengals, New England has started to look more like the team we thought they’d be – a squad more likely to compete for the first overall pick than a playoff spot.
In the long run, Buffalo will probably be just fine. But the rest of the division looks very flawed at the moment.
