The NFL’s most surprising 2018 QBs got a rude awakening in Week 4

Week 4 was a showcase for some of the league’s top quarterbacks. Carson Wentz and Marcus Mariota combined for nearly 700 total yards as the Titans beat the defending champion Eagles in an overtime thriller. Tom Brady returned to form with a 274-yard, three-touchdown performance against the previously undefeated Dolphins. Mitchell Trubisky tripled his single-game high when he threw six touchdown passes to absolutely demolish the Buccaneers.

But that rising tide didn’t spread its way evenly across the NFL. Three of 2018’s most surprising performers will have plenty to assess when they look at this week’s game tape.

Before Sunday, Ryan Fitzpatrick led the Buccaneers to the top of the NFC South by throwing for 400-plus yards in three straight games. Ryan Tannehill had pushed his Dolphins out to a perfect start with some of the best football of his career. Josh Allen engineered the biggest upset the league had seen in more than two decades when he emerged to knock off the Vikings in Minneapolis in Week 3.

But in Week 4, all three looked absolutely awful in defeat.

Heading into his date with the Bears, Ryan Fitzpatrick was on pace for more than 6,500 passing yards and 59 touchdowns. By the second half of Week 4, he wasn’t even playing with Tampa’s starters.

Fitzpatrick’s first five drives covered a grand total of 74 yards over 21 plays. His final drive of the afternoon ended in an interception. That was enough for head coach Dirk Koetter to lower the curtain on Sunday’s FitzMagic show — and possibly for the rest of 2018. Fitzpatrick was replaced after halftime of a 48-10 rout by Jameis Winston, who earned a relieving role despite what Koetter admitted was an awful setting.

“We put Jameis in a terrible situation today, and I told him that,” Koetter told reporters after the game. “I told him right off the bat at halftime, that we were putting him in a bad situation. And I knew Jameis would go in and give us everything he had, and he did.”

Winston completed 18 of his 20 passes — though two of those were to Chicago defenders. Even with those mistakes, it was more promising than Fitzpatrick’s 9-of-18 performance against an opportunistic Bears defense that bullied him into an interception and a fumble in two quarters.

When he was asked whether Winston had regained his starting job, the coach more or less confirmed it.

“Probably, but we’ll worry about that on another day,” said Koetter.

“Another day” turned out to be the very next day:

What impact will this have going forward?: Fitzpatrick was going to have to keep up his historic start in order to fend off a returning Jameis Winston on the Buccaneers’ depth chart. A regression was coming — the question was just “when?” Turns out it was in Week 4.

Fortunately for Tampa Bay, the team can turn to its 2015-17 starter in hopes of regaining the magic of the team’s 2-0 beginning. After Winston threw two interceptions against the Bears’ swarming defense, it could take a while to get there. Fortunately, the Bucs’ upcoming bye will allow them some time to make a decision — and to mourn FitzMagic that was too pure and beautiful for this world.

Through three games, Tannehill’s comeback from the ACL tear that cost him his 2017 season appeared to turn him into a totally different — and significantly better — quarterback. His 3-0 start in Miami saw him record personal bests in completion rate (73 percent), touchdown rate (9.5 percent), yards per pass (9.3), and quarterback rating (121.8).

And then he faced a Patriots defense that had been gashed by the Jaguars and Lions the past two weeks and regressed to the mean like a broken satellite plunging through the Earth’s atmosphere. He completed 11 of his 20 passes (55 percent), threw zero touchdowns, gained just 5.0 yards per pass, and recorded an entirely unpleasant 47.9 rating.

It was a familiar performance for fans in Foxborough. Gillette Stadium has been inarable land for opposing AFC East quarterbacks in the Bill Belichick era. Division opponents are just 2-25 against the Patriots on the road since 2008. Tannehill dropped to 0-6 in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for his career; he’s never had a game there where he’s thrown more touchdown passes than interceptions.

His inability to get anything going led to a garbage-time appearance from Brock Osweiler, who took advantage of a disinterested Patriots defense for a 4-of-5, 35-yard performance that led to the Dolphins’ only touchdown of Week 4. The failure wasn’t solely on Tannehill, however. One week after getting gashed by the Lions and allowing Detroit’s first 100-yard rusher in nearly five years, New England limited Miami’s rushing game to 56 yards on 18 carries.

What impact will this have going forward?: Miami’s 3-0 start was a product of Tannehill’s solid play behind center, but unlike teams like the Jaguars and Bears, the Dolphins aren’t built to survive games where their quarterback doesn’t show up. With dates against Cincinnati and Chicago (each 3-1) looming, the team could fall all the way back to .500 if its starting QB can’t revert back to form.

No matter what happens, though, at least he gave us this.

Unlike the other two quarterbacks on this list, Allen’s hot start in 2018 was really limited to two quarters against the Vikings — but what a two quarters they were. He ran all over a hyped Minnesota defense and threw for 196 yards to lead his team to an emphatic victory. A young, mistake-prone Packers secondary would give him the chance to prove he was worthy of a Bills’ first-round pick last spring.

It was not to be.

Allen played like a rookie who was one of the draft’s most divisive prospects, starting his afternoon with a 3-of-13 stretch that included just 19 passing yards. His first five drives of the game resulted in 20 offensive snaps and 37 total yards. When he finally made it to the red zone with time winding down before halftime, he did this:

The Allen who showed off solid pocket awareness and escaped pressure en route to a pair of rushing touchdowns in Minneapolis was gone. In his place was a first-year passer who ran backward when pass rushers broke into the backfield — which was often. Allen lost a whopping 64 yards on seven sacks, and even that fails to tell the story of how bad his blocking was in Week 4.

With little time to set himself in the pocket, he frequently skipped balls in front of open receivers. His sideline floater to Kelvin Benjamin didn’t just lead to a HaHa Clinton-Dix interception, but it also allowed his stretched-out wideout to absorb a hit that put him in the concussion protocol.

His final line? He had 16 completions on 33 passes, two interceptions, one fumble, and 151 passing yards in a 22-0 loss.

Oh, and he also tried to shove fellow rookie Jaire Alexander in the first half. It didn’t work out great for him.

What impact will this have going forward?: Even with last week’s upset win in Minnesota, 2018 was always going to be a rebuilding year. This fall is all about building Allen up from uneven prospect to consistent quarterback. Sunday’s shutout confirms what we’ve expected all along — that the Bills aren’t contenders in 2018. Another poor performance from Allen could be a learning opportunity, or it could wind up being endemic of the problems he’ll have going forward. It’s up to Buffalo to figure out where he’ll land.