Were officially past the midway point of the NFL season. The pictures a little prettier right now in Miami than it is in Atlanta or with the NFLs prime-time games, but this edition of the Four Verts column starts with this weeks half measure in New York.
John Mara just cant get this thing all the way right. The Giants made the clear and obvious decision to relieve head coach Brian Daboll following another brutal start to the season. Since the Giants made the playoffs in Dabolls first season, theyve been just 11-33 and have been struggling to find any sort of consistent success. It doesnt take that long to build a stable core of a football team.
And the person who built this roster has somehow saved their job. Giants general manager Joe Schoen, who owns the same exact 20-40-1 record as Daboll, will get a chance to at least lead the coaching search and maybe even continue bringing in players. That is confusing.
One, this team is bad! They have suffered some unfortunate injuries to Cam Skattebo and Malik Nabers that will impact the outlook moving forward, but Schoen built a team that has won just 11 of its previous 44 games. It doesnt really make sense how he was able to wiggle his way out of this, but he will get a chance to rectify four years of poor decision making.
Second, the new head coach and Schoen wont be on the same timetable as Schoen desperately needs quarterback Jaxson Dart to develop into a consistently good starter in order to keep his job. Dart has had some exciting moments this year, but he has taken just way too much punishment and appears set to miss this week with a concussion. This isnt to say that Dart will fail or he wont be healthy enough to come back, but putting him into an ecosystem where he can just stay healthy while also not sacrificing what makes him an intriguing prospect is of the utmost importance. Its hard to say with any confidence that Schoen is the unequivocal right man for the job there.
It hasnt been all bad for Schoen. Nabers, Skattebo, tight end Theo Johnson, the trade for Brian Burns there have been some good moves that hes made. But its clearly not enough, or else New York wouldnt find itself in this position. The Giants do have a nice collection of talent at the top of their roster, but that can be said about many teams in a salary-capped league.
The Giants should have cleaned house after last season and found themselves in no mans land with everything riding on the performance of a rookie quarterback. Now, theyll be hiring a coach who might well be tasked with getting that quarterback up to speed in a new system immediately to save the general managers job. Its just bad practice that weve seen fail throughout the years. Alignment is key for success, and the Giants might partially fracture in their timeline for how they define it.
The Dolphins have been pretty solid lately! This team has been much better since they started so slowly, getting trounced in most of their games amid a 1-6 start. However, this team has been playing credible football lately to the point where there is some optimism about where they are and when the eventual reset is going to happen.
Miami is 3-7 and not a threat to make the playoffs or anything, but if you squint you can see things are slowly starting to come together, potentially delaying the decision on head coach Mike McDaniels future by at least a year.
While the offense has always been the source of excitement and interest for the McDaniel-led Dolphins, the defense has had a strong turnaround compared to where they were to start the season. Over their first five games, Miami had the worst defense in football. According to TruMedia, they allowed the most yards per drive (42.9), the highest success rate for opposing dropbacks (56.4%), and they ranked last in explosive play rate (13.9%) and 31st in expected points added per play (0.18). They looked destined to be one of the worst defenses in the history of the league.
However, things have changed in a big way. Since Week 6, another five games worth of data, the Dolphins have been one of the better defenses in the league. Theyre ninth in yards per drive (28.4), 11th in success rate (39.9%) and theyve gone from allowing over three points per drive to 1.93 over their last five games. Most notably, theyve arguably been the best rushing defense in the league within that timespan. They rank first in expected points added per rush (-0.25) and 4th in success rate (33.1%), which is a massive jump from where they found themselves at the start of the season where they were bottom two in both categories.
If they can continue that defensive performance throughout the rest of the season, theyll be competitive in every game they play. That improved play isnt coming against nobodies either. They completely dismantled Atlanta and Buffalos running games, which is no small feat, and just bottled up the Bills explosive offense for four quarters. Defensive coordinator Anthony Weaver deserves a ton of credit for once again figuring out how to fix things in the middle of the season. The defense is still doing the heavy lifting, though, as Tua Tagovailoa and the Dolphins passing game continues to sputter this season.
Whats worked on offense is the play of DeVon Achane, who is doing whatever he can to keep the Dolphins moving the chains. In that same five-week timespan, 19.3% of Achanes 83 carries have gone for explosive runs and he ranks second in expected points added on rushes (14.1). McDaniel is still one of the best at dialing up a running game in the league and he has figured out how to keep the explosives going even though they still do still need to improve the passing game.
As much as McDaniel has struggled recently, its fair to be dubious about their ability to upgrade from him given where the peaks of this game have gone. If he can just have them playing more like they have over the past few weeks instead of the start of the season, the practical move might be to heavily invest in offensive line and try one more time next season. This might not be done just yet.
Hey man. NFL, you okay? Whats going on here? The past few prime time games have been absolutely disgusting to watch, with this week featuring the Pittsburgh Steelers barely participating in a 25-10 loss to the Chargers on Sunday Night Football, which was sandwiched in between two 10-7 finishes in Broncos-Raiders on Thursday night and Eagles-Packers on Monday night.
These games were so disorienting that by the end of the week, Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni made one of the most baffling game management decisions ever when Jalen Hurts launched a go ball on fourth down that gave the Packers a chance to win that game at the end which, of course, they couldnt convert. It wasnt even like this was purely some elite defensive struggle. There is a difference between beautiful, cohesive defensive football and slop. That was slop.
This week followed up last weeks prime-time slate of Baltimore blitzing the Dolphins, the Cardinals beating the Cowboys by two scores and Seattle calling off the dogs AT HALFTIME of their 38-14 win over the Commanders. Please, how is the nation going to defeat the weekly routine of Sunday Scaries without exciting NFL games to distract us? It does feel like many of these island games have been tough to watch this season, but perhaps that just sample size and the effects of injuries weighing on them.
I dont even have a solution here. This is 100% complaining and confusion at how lopsided these games have been in recent weeks and it is my right as an American to demand to be entertained.
The Atlanta Falcons seem to be fairly stunned with how poorly their season has gone so far. At 3-6 heading into a crucial stretch of divisional games, their season is on life support with the futures of head coach Raheem Morris and general manager Terry Fontenot extremely in doubt.
Throughout the offseason, the Falcons positioned themselves as a team that was built and ready to go on a run. They traded their 2026 first-round pick for an extra pass rusher, maxed out what little cap space they had left and even sat their quarterbacks in the preseason. Thats the sign of a team that thinks they’re all in, which looks wrong now. As they get ready to hand a potential top-10 pick to the Rams in next years draft, the idea that they didnt see this season as a possibility just becomes more and more ludicrous because whats happened so far shouldve been about the expected outcome.
In certain ways the Falcons are better than they were last year, even if they wind up with a worse record. The defense is the feistiest its been in years and has a young nucleus of talent. They also have a strong collection of skill and offensive line talent thats been stacked through the years that normally gives the offense a solid floor. They have just enough high-end talent to intrigue, but ultimately this is still only the framework of a good team, instead of an actual contender.
Where Atlanta has clearly struggled is scouting the quality of pieces they already have. Going into the season without making a serious upgrade on the interior of the defense has often neutered the pass rushers drafted in last springs first round, Jalon Walker and James Pearce Jr. Even this past Sunday, the Falcons sacked Colts quarterback Daniel Jones seven times but still lost because they couldnt stop the run when it mattered the most. That shouldnt have been a surprise, considering it was a core issue the Falcons had last year and they didnt improve it. Pearces struggles as a run defender have only exacerbated some of those issues, and the offense hasnt been good enough to protect them in spots where they struggle in recent weeks.
By having an incomplete assessment of their own defense, they unknowingly placed too much on the shoulders of second-year quarterback Michael Penix Jr., who entered the season with only three starts under his belt and, for some reason, no preseason action. The Falcons being high on their young quarterback coming into the season was fine, but leaving themselves in a position where he had to be great was a mistake. He was too inexperienced, and it was by choice, because they sat him for the majority of his rookie season and both preseasons hes had so far. The expectations were unfair for him and the rest of the team given the problems that they had just last season. Hes been wildly inconsistent this season, leaving the Falcons as an incomplete team with just three wins through nine games.
Unfortunately, not having a 2026 first-round pick is a huge hindrance on what happens next for the franchise. They will undoubtedly be cutting Kirk Cousins after the season and will be dealing with the dead cap ramifications of that, making building the 2026 roster a little more difficult. All of this was avoidable if they were more honest with themselves about their overall talent level. Now, they have to face the reality of dumping this many assets into a team that just simply isnt very good.