What We Learned: NFL Week 4

Every week we reset the NFL’s clock to see what’s changed, what we were wrong about and the stories and teams which we need to pay the most attention.

WHAT WE LEARNED: NFL WEEK 4
BY ADAM GREENE

Here’s what we learned in Week 4 of the NFL season.

WE STILL DON’T KNOW WHAT’S UP WITH THE RAMS

It’s not looked right for the Los Angeles Rams since Week 1, but they’ve won. And winning paints over a lot of problems. After an embarrassing 54-40 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers Sunday, there’s not enough paint in the world.

All the possible disaster storylines remain. Can Jared Goff prove he’s worth his massive contract? (Not so far). Is Todd Gurley healthy? (Maybe) What no one expected last Sunday was the defense to play like they’d just woke up from an all-night bachelor party with Zach Galifianakis with Mike Tyson’s tiger trapped in the bathroom.

Wade Phillips and the Los Angeles defense had no answer to anything Bruce Arians and the Bucs were doing. And this wasn’t Tom Brady picking them apart. It was Jameis Winston. Not every team the Rams will face will have the receiver talent Tampa Bay possesses, but there was nothing good about what the L.A. showed on D Sunday.

The good news is, in the second half Goff looked OK. My guess is he was in his own head this first month, trying too hard to prove he’s worth the money. The same can be said for Gurley, who fielded questions about his knee all offseason.

Games like Sunday’s can be an aberration. It seems every Super Bowl team drops at least one stinker a season and, while it might take an extra flush or two to put this one in the rearview, the Rams don’t have time to mope around. They travel to Seattle for a Thursday nighter.

THE RAVENS LOOKED GOOD BECAUSE THEY HADN’T PLAYED ANYBODY

It was great to get all excited about the Baltimore Ravens and their quick start out the gate, but reality has set in and it’s not been kind. While you can forgive a loss to the Kansas City Chiefs, as plenty of teams will fall to that juggernaut this season, they were favorites over the Cleveland Browns and they were at home. Baltimore was never really in the game.

Those first two “impressive” wins? They were against the tanking Miami Dolphins and the Arizona Cardinals, teams that, combined, might win four games this year. The cupcakes are off the schedule now and the Ravens have a murderer’s row coming up with the Seahawks, New England Patriots, Houston Texans and Los Angeles Rams lying in wait, not to mention two division games against a Pittsburgh Steelers team that might be decent and the Browns again. And don’t sleep on the Buffalo Bills and San Francisco 49ers, either.

This could be a brutal stretch for a team that got everyone thinking Lamar Jackson was the MVP material back in Week 2.

IT’S EARLY, BUT CAM NEWTON MIGHT BE LOSING HIS JOB

And believe it or not, that’s a good thing. If Kyle Allen keeps rolling and the Carolina Panthers keep winning, it won’t matter that Cam Newton has taken “time away” from football to heal up.

Newton admitted to hiding the extent of his injury in a Youtube video last week, and I honestly get a little “Andrew Luck-y” feeling about the whole thing. His heart might not be in it, anymore. I mean, the fact that he’s wearing a regular human hat and not a leopard skin feathered sombrero is a bad sign.

Allen is 2-0 with a 71.7 completion percentage, 493 passing yards, four touchdowns and no picks. We have a league with 32 NFL franchises, but not 32 NFL franchise quarterbacks. If Allen turns out to be one, and Newton unquestionably is, then that’s one more that could land on a QB-needy team and improve the league overall.

Hopefully, Newton comes back fully healthy, either way. Honestly, I’d feel better if, in his next Youtube vid, he showed up in a bedazzled purple velour Smurf cap. Just so I know he’s OK.

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