Week 4 NFL Power Rankings: Fins Up! Bears Down!

Is Lamar Jackson the best dual threat quarterback in NFL history? Is he MVP? Is he him? After setting the AFC East alight in his first three games, the 2019 MVP is off to a torrid start. Find out the answer to these questions—and more!—in our unimpeachably correct Week 4 NFL Power Rankings. 

The only possible knock against the undefeated Philadelphia Eagles is that they’ve beaten up on below-average competition, stacking wins against non-contenders like the Detroit Lions and Washington Commanders. This, of course, ignores that the Eagles are loaded. Their offensive line is the best in the NFL and quarterback Jalen Hurts looks like an early MVP favorite. Pick any metric and the Eagles will probably rank towards the top: they lead the NFL in yards and rank seventh in yards allowed; they score the most points per drive and allow the 5th fewest. Going forward, the Eagles should be heavily favored in every game until they host the Green Bay Packers in Week 12. 

Through three games, the Dolphins have beaten the greatest coach of all time, the 2019 MVP and the presumptive favorite to win the 2022 MVP. After showing off their offensive explosiveness against the Ravens in Week 2, the Dolphins upset the Buffalo Bills 21-19 in Week 3 by tightening the screws on defense. Thanks to lockdown cornerbacks Xavier Howard and Byron Jones each erasing a side of the field, the Dolphins put a lid on the Bills’ offense by deploying two-high safety looks and daring Josh Allen to dink and dunk down the field. It worked so thoroughly that not even a butt punt could derail Miami's rapid ascent up the Week 4 NFL Power Rankings.

After buffaloing (this is a clever pun, shut up) the Rams and Titans to open the season, the Bills met their match in Miami, losing 19-21 to the Dolphins. Still, the Bills looked dominant in defeat: they doubled up the Dolphins in yardage (497 to 212), first downs (31-15), plays (90 to 39) and time of possession (40:40 to 19:12).  While they have a tough schedule over the next few weeks, it’s only a matter of time before the Bills go back to smashing their opponents rather than their Microsoft Surface tablets. 

Lamar Jackson leads the NFL in passing touchdowns and rushing yards per carry. He’s one of the five best passers and five best runners in the NFL, a kind of two-way greatness that makes him the quarterback equivalent of Shohei Ohtani. It doesn’t matter that the Ravens’ secondary is an ongoing forest fire or that his receivers are just guys; Lamar Jackson’s got this. 

Entering the week, the Chiefs looked like inner-circle Super Bowl contenders. Patrick Mahomes had voltroned his ragtag receiver group into something bigger than the sum of its parts, maximizing his pass catchers’ strengths while hiding their weaknesses. In their first two games, they demolished the Cardinals and then squeaked by the Chargers, demonstrating that they can win playing a variety of styles. And then, this week, they lost to the Colts, who just last week were shutout by the Jaguars. Football is weird.

The Packers play like a team that doesn’t realize it has Aaron Rodgers. In their 14-12 slugfest win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Green Bay leaned on their stout defense once their offense stalled out for the game’s final 40 minutes. Although Rodgers isn’t quite able to summon the same level of greatness that he did the last two years, he’s an expert game manager who has shown burgeoning chemistry with rookie wideout Romeo Doubs (eight catches, 73 yards and a tuddie versus Tampa Bay). And with an elite defense and running back committee behind him, that’s more than enough. 

The defense is terrifying and made of knives. The offense should be too, if their receivers can get healthy and Tom Brady can bully his interior offensive linemen into being good. A 14-12 loss to the Packers is proof of how good the Bucs can be, but also how a combination of injuries and personnel can and will hold them back if left unremedied. 

Ok, Justin Jefferson isn’t actually going to be the first receiver to break the 2000 yard mark and single-handedly win me my fantasy league, but the Vikings stack up with just about anybody in the NFC. The offense is deep with enough weaponry to compensate for Kirk Cousins’ Kirk Cousins-iness; the defense is bookended by two stud pass rushers in Danielle Hunter and Za’Darius Smith. The playoffs are well within reach—and Minnesota is likely gunning for even more. 

Ever since acquiring Matt Stafford before last season, the Rams have been a pass first team, and understandably so. Stafford and Cooper Kupp are awesome! On Sunday, though, they dusted off a rushing attack that’s been largely toothless since Todd Gurley’s knees were devoured by arthritis, rushing for five yards per carry and two touchdowns against the Cardinals. Most promising, inconsistent third year back Cam Akers showed signs of life for the first time this season, earning 61 yards and a touchdown on 12 carries. While Stafford and the non-Cooper Kupp receivers muddle through a chemistry-less first quarter of the season, a revitalized running game could be a boon for the defending champs. 

This is either the worst good team in the NFL or the best bad one. Either way, the Broncos are 2-1, although they’ve played probably a grand total of 12 good minutes across their three games. For the first 50 minutes of the Broncos’s 11-10 victory against the 49ers, Russell Wilson offense looked incredibly impotent, racking up nine three-and-outs. Fortunately, the defense looks stout and the punt team downs balls inside the 20 like gangbusters. Going forward, Nathaniel Hackett has delegated time-telling and clock-reading duties to a super special assistant coach, freeing more time for him to work with the offense. More exposure to Nathaniel Hackett is probably not a good thing for Wilson and friends.

Despite entering the season as the darling of the football nerderatti, the Chargers have kinda stunk. Justin Herbert can’t breathe without wheezing like a harmonica and their vaunted defense has been decimated by injuries to Joey Bosa and JC Jackson. Worse, stud left tackle Rashawn Slater is out for the season with a torn bicep. Their 10-38 ass-whooping against the Jaguars dropped Justin Herbert’s career winning percentage to 45.7% worse than Baker Mayfield or Mitchell Trubisky. 

The 9ers would be the best team in the NFL if their quarterback were somebody better than Jimmy Garrapolo. If their loss to the Broncos in a 10-11 slopfest is any indication for what the rest of the season, it’d be a shame if this gorgeous himbo harpoons the primes of All-Pro stars like Fred Warner, Nick Bosa, George Kittle, Trent Williams, Arik Armstead and Deebo Samuel. 

Fresh off a 3-14 debacle last season that featured some of the worst coaching in pro sports history, the Jags are actually good! In Week 3, they cemented their bonafides as an Actually Good team by pulverizing the Chargers 38-10 in Los Angeles. Here, the full vision of who the Jags want to be—and are quickly becoming—was on full display. Trevor Lawrence threw three touchdown passes without a turnover, continuing his ascent from budding franchise quarterback to just a franchise quarterback; the overhauled defense bottled up Justin Herbert and the Chargers, holding him to just 124 completed air yards, the eighth lowest mark of his career.  

Cooper Rush is an unheralded quarterback with a three syllable name who went to college in the state of Michigan and only became the starter after his team’s putative franchise quarterback got hurt. Sound familiar? In his first three career starts, Rush is 3-0. 

To be fair, their 24-0 drubbing at the hands of the Jaguars looks a little better now. And their 20-17 upset of the Chiefs will look good all year long. Slightly worrisomely, Jonathan Taylor has only rushed for 125 yards combined over the last two weeks, but that’s probably more of a fantasy football concern than a real life one, considering how well the Colts played on Sunday.

Just a few days after collapsing against the Jets, the Browns redeemed themselves by flattening the Pittsburgh Steelers on Thursday Night Football. Once the Evilest Man in Football returns from his too-short suspension in Week 12, the Browns have the supporting infrastructure to become a legitimately good team. 

By beating the New York Jets 27-12 on Sunday, the Bengals broke their season-opening two game schneid, potentially saving their season in the process. For the first time this year, Joe Burrow played like Joe Brrr, slinging the ball for 275 yards and three touchdowns. While the team may never equal the heights of last year’s Super Bowl run, this is still the most talented offense in the NFL; no team has the skill position depth to match up with Burrow, JaMarr Chase, Tee Higgins and Joe Mixon. Now, the Bengals just need to figure out how to keep Burrow upright long enough to take advantage. 

By and large, it’s generally not a great sign when your entire offense relies on one guy performing miracles. Especially when the miracle-doer is probably not even one of the 10 best quarterbacks in the NFL and needs a booster seat to see over the middle of the field. In retrospect, there’s a reason that Kliff Kingsbury went 19-35 in the Big 12. 

Head coach Dan Campbell is the most football-pilled man in existence. Through sheer force of will and 40 daily ounces of espresso, Campbell has transformed the Lions into a sneaky dangerous team, one capable of pushing Super Bowl contenders like the Eagles and Vikings to the limit. Although the Lions lost 24-28 to Minnesota on Sunday, it’s hard not to feel encouraged by their performance to start the season. Tellingly, they still have a positive point differential despite their losing record.

The Giants' 2-0 start was probably always a fluke—teams with quarterbacks as crummy as Daniel Jones are seldom good. Still, Saquon Barkley is once again the most dynamic ball carrier in football and the defense is hungry and good. According to the proprietary formula behind the ONE37pm Week 4 NFL Power Rankings (i.e. Jack's addled brain), this is the best Giants team in several years, which is either exciting or depressing, depending on your point of view.

Despite being a patently bad team, the Chicago Bears are 2-1. I don’t know either.

In the first half of their 8-24 loss to the Eagles, the Commies had -16 cumulative passing yards once you factor in the lost yardage from their six sacks. On the bright side, Wentz is usually due for one or two total meltdowns each season, so at least he got one out of the way early.  

Dear reader of the Week 4 NFL power rankings, I cannot recommend watching the Carolina Panthers in good consciousness. This team is boring and cruddy. Avoid!

Basically the Panthers, but with more gumbo. 

As if it weren’t bad enough that the Patriots coaching staff was composed entirely of Bill Belichick’s friends and family, sophomore quarterback McCorkle Jones will miss several weeks with an injured ankle. The team is bad, the coach is an out-of-touch grump and the quarterback is now the immortal Brian Hoyer. In the two games the Patriots have run up against an above-average offense, Belichick's vaunted defense has gotten torched by young, exciting quarterbacks. May this continue forever.

Shockingly, famously bad quarterback Mitch Trubisky has been bad in Pittsburgh. With a stacked defense and a promising receiving corps, Pittsburgh still has hope to salvage their season by letting Kenny Pickett take matters into his own tiny baby hands.

The Falcons may not be good, but they’re fun. And here at the ONE37pm Week 4 NFL Power Rankings, that counts for something. Through three games, the Falcons are the ninth-best offense and the seventh-worst defense and haven’t had a game decided by more than four points. The offense is way better than expected, with Marcus Mariota partnering with Cordarrelle Patterson, Kyle Pitts and star rookie receiver Drake London to form the spine of a funky, lethal attack. In their 27-23 victory over Seattle, the Falcons demonstrated the breadth of their talents by pairing a forceful run game (179 rushing yards) with an opportunistic aerial attack (13.9 intended air yards per attempt). 

The cumulative toll of 900 carries over the last three seasons has finally caught up to Derrick Henry. That means one thing: it’s Ryan Tannehill’s time to shine! Yikes. 

Mercifully, Joe Flacco’s reign of terror in East Rutherford is over, coming to a close with a 12-27 beatdown by the Bengals. Legendary dog-in-him haver Zach Wilson will take over in Week 4, hoping to prove that he can nail hole-shots against two-high safety defensive looks and not just his mom’s friends.  

Boring! Next!

Raiders are the last winless team in the NFL. For whatever it's worth, their roster is considerably better than their spot in the Week 4 NFL power rankings, but their secondary is permanently ablaze like the Al Davis Memorial Torch.

This isn’t a real football team. Somebody save Brandin Cooks.