We’ll be taking a look at each team from the American Football Conference on where we stand now that we’ve reached the first quarter (four games) of the season. How are the defending Super Bowl champion New England Patriots doing? Or how is Patrick Mahomes performing after winning the MVP award last season?
Some newcomers have jumped out while some teams can be hard to pinpoint each week. The NFL is a fickle thing to identify as there are a lot of moving parts, but we’ll do our best here at Last Word on Pro Football and dive right in!
What We Know Through Four Weeks: AFC Edition
AFC East
The New England Patriots (4-0) have performed just as well as you might not want to admit before the season started — which is a Super Bowl winning-type of a team. Even at 42, Tom Brady, simply, knows how to win games. Whether through the air, ground, or surprisingly, defense, they’ve looked quite unstoppable through the first four weeks. Whether you want to credit that to facing mostly vastly subpar AFC East teams or not is up to you.
Yes, they struggled on offense against the Buffalo Bills (3-1) this past Sunday, but they were never in any danger of losing that game — even before quarterback Josh Allen left due to a concussion. In fact, it took until Week 4 to finally surrender their first offensive touchdown.
The only other team in this division to jump out to a 3-0 lead were the Bills. Josh Allen continues to improve in year two under head coach Sean McDermott and they have a team that is stifling on defense. If Buffalo wins games they would normally lose from year’s past, then they are definitely a playoff team. Hell, they were just a few seasons ago.
The ageless wonder in running back Frank Gore should help ease off some pressure off Allen and that defense is going to keep them on the field. The pressing question now is the status of Allen who suffered a concussion in their loss against the Patriots. Backup journeyman Matt Barkley looked fine once he came in, so hopefully for Buffalo, if Allen does miss time, then Barkley should be able to fill the void for the time being.
Welp, when your starting quarterback goes down with mono, it can be hard to replace him with another young signal-caller. But that’s what Adam Gase and the New York Jets (0-3) will try and do in replacing Sam Darnold with Luke Falk. There’s no way that Le’Veon Bell is going to be able to handle the entire workload with a team with little offensive talent.
Darnold played well in the season-opener against the Bills, but it’s impossible to gauge how well he would’ve done at full health. Darnold’s progress has been slow due to the Jets organization failing to provide him with weapons.
The Miami Dolphins (0-4) are not a good team by any stretch of the imagination. We’re not trying to be mean here at Last Word on Pro Football, but with a team that has no problem committing to tanking, Dolphins fans should check out or jump on another team’s bandwagon.
Every player wants to be traded, they did trade away one of the best players in Minkah Fitzpatrick, and they don’t have an answer at quarterback in Josh Rosen or Ryan Fitzpatrick. For Miami, it’s just not there and perhaps, just perhaps, an 0-16 record is awaiting them.
Tank for Tua, right?
AFC North
After two head-scratching losses to the Tennessee Titans and Los Angeles Rams, the Cleveland Browns (2-2) bounced back with wins against the New York Jets and Baltimore Ravens to jump into first place in the AFC North. This is a team that’s loaded on offense with Nick Chubb, Jarvis Landry, and, of course, Odell Beckham Jr.
What’s more surprising was their dismantling of the Ravens on Sunday to take the division lead. When this team gels together on both sides of the ball, they can be a truly special team in the making. But, like with all contending teams, it starts and ends with Baker Mayfield.
Lamar Jackson has evolved from a running quarterback to a passing quarterback, and because of that, the Baltimore Ravens (2-2) have emerged as one of the top offenses in the NFL. They’ve taken the world by storm and with a number of AFC teams, the Ravens look like a team that can cause a lot of noise down the stretch.
Yes, they just got blown out at home by a division rival, but as long as there’s no carry over to the next game, then the Ravens will be just fine. Playing high-octane offenses like the Chiefs and Browns will do a lot to your defense — no matter how great they may be.
No one would’ve predicted a 1-3 start for the Pittsburgh Steelers without Antonio Brown and Bell this season, but to also lose Ben Roethlisberger to injury for the rest of the year? An absolutely brutal start to the season. The other huge problem the Steelers have had is inconsistency at the back-up quarterback position. Mason Rudolph has a big arm, surely, but he’s also highly inexperienced.
The Steelers just have too many question marks at too many important positions. Can Rudolph play the hero? WillJames Conner and JuJu Smith-Schuster take the role of AB and Bell? Can that defense stop anybody?
The Cincinnati Bengals (0-4) are shaping up to have a disastrous season. The team’s newly-appointed head coach Zac Taylor was given was a poorly constructed team left over from Marvin Lewis. The play and ability of his players should not be placed on Taylor’s shoulders.
However, with a team that’s not destined to go anywhere, Bengals faithful has to hope that Taylor will eventually right the ship that’s been shipwrecked for many seasons now. The Andy Dalton-era should come to a close and it’s time to think about moving A.J. Green.
AFC South
The AFC South finds itself in a four-way tie with every team boasting a record of 2-2 after four weeks. And with that record, every team has been interesting in their own way.
The Houston Texans were poised to run away with the division entering the season but two gutwrenching losses against the New Orleans Saints and Carolina Panthers have caused us to wonder if they are the team to beat. They still have one of the game’s best receivers in DeAndre Hopkins and Deshaun Watson continues to make strides on offense. Their defense has been suspect lately, especially given their 2-2 start, but do feature a group that can tighten the screws.
Then there’s the Jacksonville Jaguars and Gardner Minshew II. You want to talk about a rising legend of epic proportions then look no further than the mythological creature that is Minshew. Since Nick Foles went down in Week 1, Minshew has played exceedingly week every week and given the Jags at least a chance to win — which you couldn’t say about this team in a long time. Jalen Ramsey aside, the Jags could be the sneakiest team to win the AFC South this season. As long as he keeps making magic happen, then you can overlook the no-names on offense other than Leonard Fournette.
The Tennessee Titans have to be one of the most polarizing teams across the entire NFL. One week they look like deers caught in the headlight and other weeks they have the greatest offense, ever. They’re that up-and-down. Which you might figure would be Marcus Mariota‘s last season as a Titan if he can’t prove he’s the guy they all wished he would be.
Lastly, we have the Indianapolis Colts, who have probably been written off by people with each passing second. This may turn out to be true, but given they’re also 2-2 in the AFC South, so you just don’t know how the season might turn out. No Andrew Luck and yet they have two wins. Jacoby Brissett has played well but has yet to get it done in crunchtime situations.
All four of these teams have suffered from through four weeks in the season. Once one of these teams starts to win close ball games and puts together consistency from week to week, then one of these teams will emerge as the true victor.
AFC West
What else can we say about the Kansas City Chiefs (4-0) that hasn’t already been said? The 2018 MVP looks as comfortable as ever in 2019 with his torching of opposing defenses. Patrick Mahomes is quickly emerging as the face of the NFL, but to truly get there, he’s going to have to win a Super Bowl. The Chiefs defense is still allowing points — which is going to be a problem as they continue to face better competition in 2019, and they will. But for now, life is good if you’re a Chiefs fan.
As for the rest of the AFC West?
The Los Angeles Chargers (2-2) are off to another one of their extremely slow starts. The proof was against the Miami Dolphins on Sunday, in which the Chargers let them hang around for a good chunk of the game. If history has taught us anything, they will get it going and turn it around. Maybe once Melvin Gordon gets back into football shape, then they’ll start to be the offense we know and love.
The Oakland Raiders have two wins this season and we know how the Brown situation panned out and adding Trevor Davis will give them some jump to their step. However, Derek Carr and company are just too sluggish to sustain drives. If they can’t win against good teams, then they’re looking at another high draft pick come April.
Then … there’s Denver. Look, you never want to see a team struggle, and the Denver Broncos (0-4) have struggled mightily. Whether it’s late-game losses, slow drives or a defense that has done nothing, the Broncos are truly snakebitten. Joe Flacco hasn’t panned out, and Bradley Chubb is done for the year with an ACL tear, Emmanuel Sanders should probably be dealt, and, who knows, maybe it’s time for John Elway to move on.
The AFC West is a one-team division, which isn’t surprising. The Chiefs are the only team that will be a contender for the foreseeable future. The other three teams will battle for draft positioning until finally one of these teams comes out of rebuild mode.
