NFL, What Do You Know? Week 4 Edition

Here’s what I know.

Bills Mafia Sink Dolphins

The Buffalo Bills steamrolled the Miami Dolphins 48-20 in their highly anticipated Week 4 matchup. The Dolphins were coming off of their historic victory over the Denver Broncos where they scored 70 points and seemed to be the consensus number one offense in the league heading into the game. After their disappointing Week 1 performance, the Bills bounced back with two dominant wins over the Las Vegas Raiders and Washington Commanders. Going into the game, I gave the advantage to the Dolphins even though the game was in Buffalo. It felt like their offense was unstoppable at this point, and I thought they performed very well last season in their two trips to Buffalo. They lost both games by three points, and that included a playoff game where they had to start Skylar Thompson. 

For me it’s quite simple, the Bills go as Josh Allen goes. Right now, he’s going. Since his horrific performance against the Jets, Allen has thrown for nine touchdowns and one interception. Against the Dolphins he completed 21 of 25 passes, threw for 320 yards, had four touchdown passes and a perfect quarterback rating of 158.3. It doesn’t take a genius to figure how dangerous the Bills can be if Allen is playing at that level. The Bills’ defense was the concern I had going into this game. For such a talented unit, they get picked apart far too often. On Sunday however, that was not the case. They forced two turnovers and they did what teams really haven’t been able to do much this season. Which is getting to Tua Tagovailoa. Until Sunday’s game, Tagovailoa had only been sacked once. He was sacked four times against the Bills. I think this is just a blip for the Dolphins, but for now the Bills have control of the AFC East. 

Cowboys Back on their Horse

After their humiliating loss to the Arizona Cardinals in Week 3, the Dallas Cowboys got back to winning ways and dismantled the New England Patriots 38-3. The Cowboys did what teams that have Super Bowl aspirations do. Which is making sure that losing to far less inferior competition doesn’t happen in consecutive games. The Cowboys’ offense and defense were both clicking from the jump. The defense was back to causing havoc and forced three turnovers. Daron Bland was able to get himself two interceptions on the day. Bland took one of them back to the house and Leighton Vander Esch recovered a fumble and also took it back for a touchdown. 

Dak Prescott had another extremely efficient game against a good defense. Prescott completed 28 of 34 passes, threw for 261 yards and a touchdown. According to Next Gen Stats, against the Patriots, Prescott completed +10.7% of his passes over expected. This stat tracks the likelihood a given pass is completed at the time it is thrown. It is his seventh game with a CPOE of over +10% in the last two seasons. No other quarterback has more than five such games over that time period. Even the Cowboys’ special teams joined in on the fun with a two point conversion after faking an extra point attempt. 

They will now shift their focus to the red hot San Francisco 49ers team in Week 5. Fairly or unfairly, it is these types of games that the Cowboys will be judged on. Going into the game, there are a couple of things from a mental standpoint that I think they will have to overcome. First of those being their red zone offense. Despite putting up 38 points against the Patriots, their red zone offense still wasn’t good. The other thing is the questioning of if the 49ers just have their number. After all, they are the team that has ended their season in back to back years. 

Zach Wilson’s Lifeline?

If you read the Week 3 edition of this column, you may have seen that I was basically begging the New York Jets to bring in anybody to replace Zach Wilson. Heading into Sunday Night Football, where the Jets played the Kansas City Chiefs, the fact that Wilson was in at quarterback just tainted the excitement I had for the game. As we all know, this was supposed to be Aaron Rodgers vs Patrick Mahomes. 

The game started even worse for the Jets than I imagined that it would. Before you knew it they were down 17-0 at the end of the first quarter. I expected the rest of the game to be about Taylor Swift and we’d have to sit through a boring game. Instead, as the saying goes, sports is the best reality show. Wilson goes on to have probably the best game of his career. He went 28 of 39 for 245 yards passing and two touchdowns. He finally showed signs of life as a starting quarterback. He was decisive, he showed mobility and displayed great ball placement on some throws. 

To go along with his play, the thing that showed me that he still may have a chance to turn his career around, was the way his teammates like Allen Lazard and Randall Cobb supported him after he was blaming himself for the loss after he fumbled, and the fact that he was taking accountability in the first place. That was something that we didn’t see enough from Wilson last season. It’s just one game, but we saw a glimpse of what the Jets hoped they were getting when they drafted him.    

Header Photo: If this already wasn’t a known fact: The Bills are a dangerous team. Their win over the Dolphins just proves that even more. (Jeffrey T. Barnes/The Associated Press)

Write to Mohamed Warsame at mohamed.warsame@mnsu.edu