The Los Angeles Rams aren’t the Super Bowl juggernaut everyone expected.
At least they got a big comeback win on Sunday that might lead to some positive momentum. The Philadelphia Eagles, meanwhile, are backsliding.
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The Rams looked done when they trailed by 10 points in the fourth quarter. Nothing had been going right. The offense was plagued by miscues, including a couple of interceptions and mostly lackluster play by Matthew Stafford for three-and-a-half quarters. But the Eagles couldn’t put them away.
Philadelphia went 0-for-12 on third downs, and it couldn’t keep a drive alive in the final minutes to keep LA off the field. The Rams stormed back for two touchdowns in the final four minutes to win 24-20. Both teams are 2-2 and neither can be too happy with its start. However, there’s a clearer path out of an early-season slump for the Rams. The Eagles haven’t looked great yet this season, and injuries are piling up.
The Eagles were without receiver DeVonta Smith and tight end Dallas Goedert going into Sunday’s game, and then it got worse. Saquon Barkley came up limping near the end of a run and later reached for his hamstring. He went to the locker room. Philadelphia was down its top three skill-position players. That could be the case for a while. The offense has been mostly mediocre with Barkley and it really might get bad without him, if he has to miss more games.
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And the Rams still couldn’t do much for most of the game, particularly against a Philadelphia defense that was shredded by Case Keenum and the Bears in Week 3. Eagles receiver Darius Cooper, who couldn’t have been in many fantasy lineups, caught two touchdowns including one where he took an interception away from the defender in the end zone. The Rams’ offense was poor, and gave away points due to Stafford’s interceptions. One bad interception on a needlessly risky throw downfield late in the half allowed the Eagles to get Cooper in the end zone for the second time, with three seconds left before halftime.
Stafford wasn’t good in the season opener. He threw two costly interceptions including a pick 6 last week. He threw two more picks Sunday. it wasn’t just the interceptions. He missed Davante Adams deep after Adams got wide open. He threw a bad pass well behind Tyler Higbee on a fourth-and-8 in the fourth quarter. The Higbee misfire came after the Rams stopped a fourth-and-1 tush push in Eagles territory. Even that didn’t spark the offense at the time.
But the Rams’ lethargy wasn’t enough for the Eagles.
Stafford came alive when it counted most, leading a pair of clutch drives late in the fourth quarter that both ended with Kyren Williams touchdowns. The Eagles’ offense was bad without its stars, with just 172 yards. Jalen Hurts was particularly ineffective, which was the case in last week’s loss to the Bears as well. Philadelphia has won two games this season but hasn’t looked great yet. It needed to stop a 2-point conversion to beat 1-3 Washington at home, and a touchdown with nine seconds left to beat 0-4 Tennessee. The blowout loss to the Bears and the blown lead to the Rams make the first two wins look even more empty.
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The Eagles are in bad shape, with a sputtering offense and a defense that ended up allowing 415 yards and blowing a 10-point lead. The Rams aren’t much better yet. They have not looked like a Super Bowl favorite. But they got the win, which makes it more palatable as they fix their issues. The Eagles, on a two-game losing streak, don’t have that luxury. It’s only four games into the season but Philadelphia already should be worried. Hurts hasn’t played well since winning Super Bowl MVP and he’s unlikely to carry the offense without stars. Nick Sirianni was the toast of Philadelphia after coaching a Super Bowl champion, but now he might be back on the hot seat after a disappointing 2025 season and an even less inspiring start to this season.
Here are the rest of the winners and losers from Week 4 of the NFL season:
WINNERS
Patrick Mahomes: There was no guarantee Mahomes was going to be this good, especially early on this season.
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He was coming off a torn ACL sustained about nine months before this season started. But he made it back. And the Chiefs are back.
The Chiefs held off a tough challenge from the Las Vegas Raiders and won 30-27 to improve to 4-0. Mahomes threw for 225 yards and two touchdowns, and led a go-ahead drive after the Raiders took a lead with less than five minutes to play.
The Chiefs had a down season in 2025, and the low point was Mahomes’ injury. There was concern over whether he’d be back for the opener and if he’d look the same. In the first month of the season Mahomes has answered every one of those questions.
Efton Chism III: Of all the possible stories to develop Sunday, Chism saving the New England Patriots’ chances of winning the AFC East was far off the radar.
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Chism, an undrafted player last year with five career catches for 74 yards before Sunday, made one of the catches of the year to help the Patriots to a huge 29-26 win over the Buffalo Bills.
Drake Maye threw deep to Chism with the Patriots trailing 26-21 late and Chism made a phenomenal one-handed catch in the end zone for a 23-yard touchdown with 1:50 to go.
New England then picked off Josh Allen and got a first down after that to seal the win.
The Patriots would have been 1-3 with a loss and far behind the 4-0 Bills. Instead, New England is 2-2 and only a game back in the division of the Bills, who are 3-1. Nobody expected Chism to be the hero in keeping the Patriots’ AFC East hopes alive.
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CeeDee Lamb: The Dallas Cowboys needed a win to avoid starting 1-3, and they got a massive game from one of their superstars to lead the way.
Lamb was unstoppable in a 34-30 win over the Houston Texans, who fell to a very disappointing 0-4. Lamb had 17 catches for 189 yards and what ended up being the game-winning touchdown with 40 seconds left.
The Cowboys haven’t been great to start the season, and their defense again showed some holes. But they’re 2-2 and tied with the Eagles for second place in the NFC East, thanks mostly to Lamb and Dak Prescott coming through on Sunday.
Zay Flowers: If Flowers stays healthy, the Baltimore Ravens have a receiver who can help carry their offense.
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Flowers was off to a blazing hot start in the opener with five catches for 150 yards and a touchdown when he hurt his hamstring late in the second quarter against the Colts. He missed a game, was limited in Week 3 but looked healthy Sunday. For the second time this season he had 100 yards before halftime, putting up 119 yards and a touchdown in the first half against the Tennessee Titans.
The Ravens had to play the second half without Lamar Jackson, who suffered an ankle injury, but it didn’t matter because they had built a 24-7 halftime lead in part because of Flowers’ big plays. The Ravens went on to win 24-18.
Jackson and Derrick Henry are future Hall of Famers. Flowers has been a very good receiver but hadn’t ascended to the top tier of the NFL. He seems to be making that leap this season.
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Liam Coen and the Jaguars: Jacksonville is demanding your attention and respect.
The Jaguars are one bad half at the Denver Broncos away from being the talk of the NFL. They improved to 3-1 with an impressive 22-17 win at the Cincinnati Bengals. It was a complete victory, with the offense sustaining drives with the running back tandem of Bhayshul Tuten and Chris Rodriguez Jr., and the defense making the Bengals one-dimensional by completely shutting down their running game. The Bengals rushed for 23 yards on 15 attempts.
The Jaguars came up with a key stop at the end when it needed it, stopping Chase Brown a yard short on a fourth-and-10 pass at the 12-yard line in the final minute.
Coen took over as the Jaguars’ head coach last season and they’re 16-5 in the regular season since then. They’ve played one bad half of football this season, and the rest of the AFC South looks terrible. Keep an eye on the Jaguars, who are the best team nobody is talking about.
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Bears’ defense: Forget the story of Ben Johnson winning games with three different starting quarterbacks this season. Tyson Bagent became the third, helping Chicago to a home win over the New York Jets on Sunday.
Bagent played well, completing 25-of-34 passes for 268 yards, and it’s impressive the Bears are winning even with Caleb Williams out with a hamstring injury. But the real story in Chicago should be its defense.
That side of the ball was expected to be a problem this season but it has been far from that the past three weeks. Chicago gave up nine pints in a loss to the Vikings in Week 2 and seven points last week when the Bears blew out the Eagles. Then the Bears completely shut down Geno Smith and the Jets in a 23-12 win Sunday. By the time the Bears took a 20-6 lead with 2:26 left in the third quarter, Smith had completed just 5-of-11 passes for 44 yards. New York had only five first downs through three quarters. The Jets had multiple injuries on offense and aren’t very good, even when healthy, but it was still an impressive performance from a Chicago defense that had a lot of questions coming into this season.
When Williams comes back, the Bears’ offense is going to be even better. He might have a good defense helping him out too.
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LOSERS
Justin Herbert and Mike McDaniel: The Los Angeles Chargers won’t fire Herbert, even though he has surprisingly been a detriment to the offense most of this season.
McDaniel, on the other hand, might end up taking the fall for the offense’s problems.
The Chargers rallied from a miserable start and somehow had a shot to tie or beat the Seattle Seahawks in the final two minutes. But Herbert was strip sacked, the Seahawks recovered and held on to a 30-23 win that really wasn’t that close, mostly due to a miserable first half by Herbert and the Chargers.
Herbert threw two awful interceptions in the first half and that contributed to a 20-6 halftime deficit to the Seattle Seahawks. In the first half Herbert was 5 of 14 for 36 yards and two interceptions. His passer rating was 4.8. The Chargers, who are now 0-4, played better in the second half and maybe that carries over. It better.
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Herbert has not taken to McDaniel’s scheme. When the Chargers hired McDaniel, the former Dolphins head coach, to be their offensive coordinator it was celebrated by nearly everyone as a great hire. So far the Chargers have been the NFL’s most disappointing team. They’ve looked bad every week. McDaniel is just four games into his first Chargers season but it’s worth wondering if he’ll last to the end of it.
Broncos offense with Davis Webb calling plays: The Denver Broncos have played eight halves of football. The offense has barely showed up for six of them. That has happened with a potential Hall of Fame coach voluntarily not calling plays.
Sean Payton gave play-calling duties to Webb, his offensive coordinator, and it’s not going that well. The Broncos defense played well but the offense made very little happen. The Broncos didn’t score their first touchdown until 4:05 remained in the game. The two-point conversion cut the 49ers’ lead to 17-14. But George Kittle scored a 56-yard touchdown after that, practically sealing the 24-14 win.
Big second halves against the Jaguars and Rams are the reason Denver is 2-2. But it hasn’t been pretty, particularly for the offense.
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If it continues, it will be curious if Payton takes back play-calling duties. It would be tough to explain why he watched the Broncos offense struggle for too long without making that move.
Vikings’ offense: The Minnesota Vikings’ best offense this season is watching Will Reichard kick field goals. Really, it has been their only offense.
The Vikings didn’t score a touchdown in Week 2, scored only one in Week 3 and didn’t score any in Week 4. But for the second time this season the 4-0 Vikings won without a touchdown, as five Reichard field goals led to a 15-10 win over an 0-4 Miami Dolphins team.
Kyler Murray hasn’t been great when he has played, which shouldn’t be a big surprise because he wasn’t great with the Cardinals before he joined the Vikings. The Vikings didn’t get in the end zone, and since coming back to the lineup last week after suffering a concussion early in the season opener, Murray hasn’t made much happen. He hasn’t had Justin Jefferson most of the last two weeks. Jefferson injured his ankle in the first half last week and was inactive Sunday. Still, the offense should look better than it did against a talent-poor Dolphins defense. The game might have turned out differently had a long Miami touchdown to Chris Bell not been called back because Bell had barely stepped out of bounds before he caught the pass, which was an illegal touch penalty.
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The Vikings are 4-0 and that’s the most important stat. But it will be hard to keep getting wins unless the offense shows up.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ offense without Baker Mayfield: Jalon Daniels did the best he could do. He shouldn’t have been in the spot he was in, starting as an undrafted rookie quarterback in Week 4, but the Buccaneers didn’t do any more to fortify the QB position behind Mayfield. Now they’re going to pay the price for it.
Daniels was mostly ineffective starting in place of Mayfield, and the Bucs fell to 0-4. Mayfield is expected to miss at least three weeks with a dislocated right thumb. The Packers held on for a 17-14 win. By the time Mayfield is back the case might be closed on hot seat head coach Todd Bowles and others.
The Buccaneers had a shot because the Packers showed little interest in playing well. Green Bay turned it over twice in Tampa territory in the fourth quarter but Daniels couldn’t rally a go-ahead or even game-tying drive. He threw incomplete on fourth down in the final two minutes to end it.
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Daniels played OK, completing 19-of-27 passes for 148 yards. But he’s unlikely to save the Buccaneers’ season that is quickly going down the drain.
Jacoby Brissett: He might not have the Arizona Cardinals’ starting quarterback job too much longer.
Arizona might have been forced to stick it out with Brissett as long as they were winning, but they took a 36-24 loss to the New York Giants on Sunday to fall to 1-3. The Cardinals had a chance to win it, trialing 36-30, when they drove to the Giants’ 4 in the final seconds. But Brissett threw an interception that was returned 98 yards for a touchdown by Deonte Banks with no time on the clock. Brissett threw three interceptions against the Giants.
Rookie third-round draft pick Carson Beck looked good in the Hall of Fame Game to start the preseason. Brissett would have kept him on the bench with good play and more Arizona wins. But once the Cardinals decide there’s nothing much more to play for this season, they’ll want to get a long look at Beck. Brissett might have sped up that process on Sunday.
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Dan Quinn: Washington’s head coach is probably on the hot seat, and by the time a decision is made on his future, his bad luck in London will be long forgotten.
The Commanders had a good shot at a win against the Indianapolis Colts. They were up 3-0 and driving on their second possession when Marcus Mariota had his leg pinned underneath him. Jayden Daniels was out (elbow), Mariota was ruled out after that and rookie seventh-round pick Athan Kaliakmanis was in. Kaliakmanis played as well as could be expected but it wasn’t great and wasn’t enough to win. The Commanders lost 30-13 to a Colts team that wasn’t sharp. Daniel Jones struggled most of the game. But Washington was in a bind after Mariota was injured in the first quarter.
Quinn’s Commanders are 1-3. They could have won Sunday if Mariota didn’t get knocked out of the game early. But when the final record is tallied that probably won’t matter. It was just a bad break, when Quinn needs all the luck he can get.
