WHAT WE LEARNED: NFL WEEK 4

BY ADAM GREENE

It was an eventful first week of October in the NFL. Here’s what’s on my mind as we head into the second frame of the season.

SEPTEMBER CHAMPIONS MEAN NOTHING

While you can certainly lose a Super Bowl championship in September, you can’t win one. As good as the Los Angeles Rams looked in the first three weeks of the season, finishing sitting atop everyone’s Power Rankings, in their first game of October, the Rams were thoroughly dominated at home by their NFC West rival Arizona Cardinals, 37-20. This was a team Sean McVay had never lost to as a head coach and the Cardinals put it on them in their own house.

Winning can gloss over a lot of issues, but a loss is where they all come home to roost. Yes, Matthew Stafford didn’t produce the performance he’d been delivering since Week 1, but the bigger problem is Raheem Morris’ defense. Morris inherited the No. 1 D in the NFL. Yes, they did lose a couple of pieces in free agency, but no one irreplaceable and certainly no one to turn into a crew that could give up the sixth most yards in the entire league. There is far too much talent on that unit for that. Morris has been handed the keys to a Lamborghini and he seemingly has no clue how to drive it.

Of course, with every new game comes new opportunities and Morris is learning on the job. He needs to adjust quickly. Expecting a No. 1 defensive ranking again might not have been realistic, but LA is currently the ranked 21^st in the league in defense and that is all on the defensive coordinator. That’s just unacceptable. They didn’t trade away all these picks for Stafford just for the defense to turn into saloon doors.

CARDINALS ARE FOR REAL

In the preseason, I picked the Arizona Cardinals to miss the playoffs, but still post a winning record. As of this writing, that prediction appears dead wrong. The thinking was that the NFC West was still too good and they were a year away. It turns out, thanks to Kyler Murray playing at an MVP level, they’ve closed the gap in a hurry.

I don’t think they’ll remain undefeated much longer. Even if Trey Lance gets his first start for the San Francisco 49ers this Sunday, that game’s no cakewalk. Playing at the Cleveland Browns will probably seal their first loss, then they’ve got games against the Green Bay Packers, two against the Seattle Seahawks, another against the Rams and Niners and a trip to the Dallas Cowboys in there. These are not guaranteed losses by any means, but there’s no way Arizona runs the table.

What they will do is make the postseason. A team that starts 4-0 has an 85 percent chance to punch their ticket to the playoffs. The 15 percent that don’t, likely played  a ridiculously easy schedules (the Cardinals haven’t) or lost a quarterback to injury. Murray has a knack for avoiding the big hit, even when he’s working his way downfield with his feet. This isn’t the Baltimore Ravens, asking Lamar Jackson to take blows like a running back. Murray can do damage with his legs, but it’s because plays break down and people are covered. It’s magic that has worked in the NFL ever since Frank Tarkenton did it in the 1970s.

BRANDON STALEY TAKES THE EARLY LEAD FOR COACH OF THE YEAR

You’ve got to hand it to the Los Angeles Chargers. Just five years ago Brandon Staley was the defensive coordinator for NCAA Division III John Carroll University. He got his shot as a linebackers coach with Vic Fangio, first with the Chicago Bears and then with the Denver Broncos. That’s where the Rams’ Sean McVay found him and brought him in to run that system with the Rams.

Staley, in his first season, took the Rams defense to the top of the league. They finished ranked No. 1. But still, Staley was young, just 38, and had only been in the NFL since 2017. There were plenty of reasons to let the guy prove he could do it again. I’m sure there were lots of teams who crossed Staley off their head coach list for that very reason.

The Chargers weren’t one of them and now they’re 3-1 in first place of the AFC West, with huge victories over the Kansas City Chiefs and Las Vegas Raiders.

Yes, as I made clear earlier, these first four weeks are not a full season, but no one can feel bad about Staley as a head coach right now and there are probably plenty of teams kicking themselves for not waiting or sealing the deal on his services.

LA looks every bit like a playoff team, if not an AFC West champion and the Rams’ defense is nowhere near as good as it was with Staley calling the plays. The man has made a statement in the first month of the season.

URBAN MEYER MIGHT BE THE FIRST HEAD COACH FIRED

At the beginning of the season, it would have sounded ridiculous to make a claim that Meyer, taking over a Jacksonville Jaguars team no one expected to win more than 4-5 games, could find himself unemployed, but here we are.

Meyer was caught on a video posted on social media drunk and getting grinded upon by a young woman who (obviously) was not his wife in a Columbus, Ohio bar after the Jaguars dropped a 24-21 game to the Cincinnati Bengals last Thursday.

Once the video broke and Meyer was in the crosshairs, he cancelled a team meeting Monday, scared to face his own players. He issued a public apology and has apparently had a significant meeting with team owner Shad Khan. After which, Khan stated that Meyer must “regain our trust and respect.”

His attempts at reaching out to his own players in smaller groups has gone over like a turd in the pool. According to the NFL Network’s Michael Silver, the players are openly mocking their head coach.

“He (Meyer) has zero credibility in that stadium,” the unnamed player told Silver. “He had very little to begin with.”

The thing is, why the hell was Meyer out at a bar in the first place? His team lost. He has a lot of work to do. This is not the time to go carousing at a bar, even if he wasn’t a married man. And in a pandemic, no less, with a Delta variant and breakthrough infections a real danger, letting some co-ed dock herself on your knee is not the smart move. Jay Gruden was fired by the Washington Football Team for similar behavior (and losing).

If there’s a way Khan can get out of this Meyer contract, firing Meyer with cause, and starting all over with someone more suited to the NFL this offseason, he needs to consider it. This is not NFL head coach behavior.

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