Ranking the 9 dumbest mistakes in a messy NFL Week 4

It’s really hard to pick games in the NFL. And no, we’re not just saying that because this week, our entire panel got beaten by a (very good) dog. There are few guarantees in a league so parity-driven that after four weeks, 13 teams are sitting at 2-2.

Even the slam-dunk predictions— the Patriots and Chiefs will win; the Dolphins really, really won’t — looked dicey for most of Sunday. Well, in the Dolphins’ case, for three minutes and 47 seconds. Progress, anyway.

Week 4 ended up being especially difficult to figure out. On Sunday, road teams went 10-3, including upsets like the Bucs over the Rams, the Browns over the Ravens, and the Raiders over the Colts. Almost all the games had a face only a mother could love, too. Jared Goff, Josh Allen, and Dwayne Haskins all threw three interceptions each. Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes failed to score a touchdown. The Saints and Cowboys somehow combined to score fewer points than their 13-10 slugfest last season.

We’ve seen better football than we got on Sunday, but at least that unpredictability gives us a wide array of choices for this week’s edition of dumbest mistakes:

Strangely, the most exciting game of the day was a back-and-forth battle in Detroit between the undefeated Chiefs and the technically undefeated (at the time) Lions.

The Lions jumped out to an early lead, but the Chiefs came back to tie the game 13-all heading into overtime. Apparently both teams sat in their locker room soaking in giant tubs of butter, because this is how the first six drives of the second half went:

Yes, the Lions and Chiefs totaled five lost fumbles IN ONE QUARTER. It’s so ugly, it’s almost beautiful, like Detroit itself in about a month and half when the slush starts coming.

The Chiefs scoring on a fumble recovery — and the refs not blowing their whistles too early like it was a Saints game — ended being the difference in a 34-30 win for the visitors.

It must be a nightmare being the Dolphins quarterback. Rosen has to deal with drops and horrible blocking, and even when he has an excellent start to a game like he did in Week 4, it’s just not nearly enough.

Rosen could help himself by avoiding horrible plays, though. The interception he threw to Chargers cornerback Michael Davis was so bad it was confusing.

Did Rosen just not see Davis? That’s usually the explanation for such an egregious mistake, but it sure looks like Rosen takes a long look that direction then decides “Screw it, I can make that throw.” And even if Davis weren’t there, the throw was so late that Dolphins receiver Preston Williams wouldn’t have had a chance at staying in bounds.

At this point, the 2019 season is just an audition for Rosen to prove to the Dolphins (or maybe another team) that he has franchise quarterback potential. Those kind of throws aren’t going to look good on his reel.

Amari Cooper is the most dangerous receiver on the Cowboys’ roster. The Saints knew this, which is why they sent four defensive backs to cover Cooper as Dallas ran its two-minute drill in the fourth quarter trailing 12-10. Dak Prescott knew this, which is why he threw the ball to Cooper anyway.

The end result was ... familiar to Lakers fans:

Cooper actually had a better shot at hauling in the pass than anyone could have imagined, but it still fell to the turf. Three plays later, an improbable comeback effort ended with a Marcus Williams interception of Prescott’s last-ditch Hail Mary, handing the Cowboys their first loss of the season.

Tom Brady’s career has been predicated on good decisions. Finding the right windows downfield. Choosing the right workout regimen to keep him chugging along at age 42. Deciding which foods not to eat (see you in hell, strawberries!).

But every now and then — way too often in the Super Bowl, if we’re being honest — Brady sees ghosts in the red zone and throws at them, making an entirely indefensible decision in the process. This was one of those times:

The Bills took the ensuing possession 52 yards to kick a field goal seconds before the two-minute warning — in effect doubling the amount of points the Patriots’ defense had given up in 2019. He finished his day with just 150 passing yards and zero touchdowns, leading to a 45.9 passer rating. Statistically, he’s never been worse in a New England victory.

Generally speaking, NFL head coaches are painfully conservative and risk-averse. Titans head coach Mike Vrabel earned a spot on this list for the exact opposite reason, however.

Tennessee was up 24-10 early in the fourth quarter and in the red zone threatening to add to that lead. A touchdown would’ve been great, but even a field goal would’ve saddled the Falcons with a 17-point deficit.

So why did Vrabel think it was a good idea to go for a fourth down on the Falcons’ 10-yard line? The Titans were already 0-for-2 on fourth down tries in 2019 and failed to convert their third attempt too.

The field goal would’ve been a 27-yard attempt for Cairo Santos, who already drilled a 45-yarder earlier in the game. Luckily for the Titans, the recklessly aggressive fourth-down call didn’t come back to haunt them, because the Falcons’ subsequent drive fizzled in Titans territory.

Buffalo was in excellent shape to hold the Patriots’ feet to the fire. New England hadn’t trailed at all in 2019 when the Bills charged deep into its red zone trailing 16-10. A touchdown would give Buffalo and backup quarterback Matt Barkley a fourth-quarter lead and some very real momentum in front of a raucous home crowd.

Barkley didn’t like what he saw when he stepped behind center on second-and-goal, but by the time he finished talking it over with tight end Dawson Knox, there was nothing he could do. With his team having burned all its timeouts in the third quarter, the veteran QB could only walk from the line of scrimmage and accept a five-yard loss.

Barkley’s next play would drive Buffalo all the way down to the Pats’ 2-yard line — deep enough to have been a touchdown without the previous penalty. Frank Gore was stuffed on third-and-goal, and then the Bills’ fourth-down pass from an empty backfield fell incomplete. Buffalo wouldn’t get this close to the end zone again in Week 4, falling to 3-1 and handing the Patriots their third AFC East victory of 2019.

The Bears were up 7-0 in the second quarter when they faced a decision on fourth-and-3 from Minnesota’s 34. At first, it looked like they were going to try for a field goal before then sending out punter Pat O’Donnell late into the play clock. Chicago was about to just take the delay of game penalty, until Vikings coach Mike Zimmer called a timeout.

While it looks like the Vikings did have 12 men on the field, the Bears were ready to give O’Donnell the extra room to punt:

After getting a little more time to think about it thanks to Zimmer, the Bears opted to go for it on fourth down — and they converted. Even worse, Chicago got a field goal on the drive to go up 10-0 before halftime.

Zimmer took the blame after the game, saying, “That’s a bad mistake. That’s my fault,” as the Vikings fell to the bottom of the NFC North standings.

The Texans had the perfect opportunity to take over sole possession of first place in the AFC South. They were hosting the Panthers, who were trotting out Kyle Allen at quarterback for the second week in a row. Despite coming into the game 2-0 as a starter, Allen also hadn’t faced a defense as disruptive as the Texans’ before.

After Allen’s second of three fumbles, the Texans got the ball at their own 34-yard line in a 3-3 game. Deshaun Watson picked up two first downs in a row before a Carlos Hyde run set them up with second-and-4 at Carolina’s 18-yard line. The home team had all the momentum at that point — until, that is, Bill O’Brien decided to dial up a little trickeration.

It did not work.

DeAndre Hopkins is without question an elite wide receiver. He is not a great passer, though. That was the second time he has attempted a pass; the first time, last year against the Bills, was an incompletion. And it prepared Ron Rivera and the Panthers to be on the lookout for it:

The Panthers went down the field and scored a touchdown to go up 10-3. After the game, O’Brien admitted it was a bad call. It was also arguably the turning point in the game.

Even so, the Texans were still in it late. The problem was O’Brien had used up all three timeouts with more than four minutes to go. One of those was lost on a challenge he obviously wasn’t going to win: this Christian McCaffrey superhuman play (O’Brien wasn’t sure if he was challenging the catch or the spot.)

That meant they couldn’t stop the clock when the Panthers were driving down the field for a late field goal to go up 16-10. They also couldn’t stop the clock when they had a chance at a game-winning drive. With 28 seconds left, Watson was able to get them to midfield to set up a Hail Mary attempt in the end zone. It, too, did not work.

At least Hopkins didn’t throw it, we guess.

Remember only a couple weeks ago when Antonio Brown was being calmed down by Vontaze Burfict, of all people? We probably should have seen Burfict being the voice of reason as a sign of the end times, but it didn’t last. Burfict is back on his bullshit.

Burfict has a long history of dirty hits and subsequent punishments by the NFL — more than $4.2 million in career fines and 10 games of suspension, per Spotrac. At this point, it’s a wonder why someone who cares so little about the health of his fellow players is still even in the league.

After laying that blatantly vicious hit against the Colts tight end Jack Doyle, Burfict was ejected and once again handled it with the same nonchalance as usual: he was smiling and blowing kisses to the stands as he went to the tunnel.

The next day, the NFL suspended Burfict for the rest of the season.