Four Verts: Please be patient with Jaxson Dart, and what in the world was that, Jordan Love?

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We’ve reached the (quasi) quarter pole of the NFL regular season, and the picture of some teams and players is starting to firmly take shape. We saw one of the most baffling plays from a talented quarterback in recent memory in a high-profile spot in Week 4, but let’s start with a rookie QB who needs patience after a debut that was both promising and offered a glimpse of all the work still to be done.

There’s still a long way to go for Jaxson Dart

Let’s start here: Winning is objectively good. The Giants were able to shock the world and get their first win of the season over the Los Angeles Chargers in an upset at home. As everyone who follows the NFL or lives within spitting distance of New Jersey knows, rookie quarterback Jaxson Dart got the win in his first career start. A 21-18 upset win over an AFC contender is a great way to begin his career, but he’s still got a lot of room to improve before he can match some of the hype being thrown his way this week. 

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Saying the Giants won in spite of Dart is probably a bit too far; he was effective on designed runs for the Giants, allowing them to open up a few more read plays that gave the Chargers’ defense a bit of hesitation. Dart ran for 31 yards and a touchdown on seven carries and was the only Giants runner to finish with positive expected points added (1.1) on designed runs. That is something to start building what this offense can look like in the immediate future, which is good, because the dropback game left a lot to be desired.

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On 28 dropbacks, Dart managed just 86 net passing yards. He was sacked five times on 10 pressured plays by the Chargers, giving the worst pressure-to-sack rate of Week 4 at 50% — the next-closest quarterback was Josh Allen, who was sacked on 37.5% of his pressures against the Saints. That number will improve with more reps and no one should be expecting him to play all that well when his first start was against one of the best defenses in the NFL. He and the Giants will definitely want to figure out a way to reduce his punishment in this area if he is going to be such an important member of their rushing game. 

None of this is to say that Dart can’t be the long-term quarterback for the Giants. He at least has the requisite physical talent to be that. However, let’s give Dart a chance to actually do it before crowning him as the savior of the Giants and Brian Daboll’s job. Like all young quarterbacks, this is about the process of proving future production. Let him get a few starts under his belt then come back and reassess what his prospects are looking like. 

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This is going to be difficult without the services of Malik Nabers, who tore his ACL trying to catch a pass on Sunday, but if Dart is the quarterback that the Giants have been hyping him up to be, he should be able to rise above to a degree. Again, just give him a chance to do it. 

Jordan Love almost made the most baffling play of the season

There are seldom times that players at this level of football dabble in in-game decision-making that will truly make people gasp, but the Green Bay Packers and Jordan Love managed to have one. The Packers kicked a field goal as time expired to leave Dallas with a 40-40 tie, but they nearly lost the game with one of the most ridiculous pass attempts you’ll ever see, given the circumstance and the amount of time left. The Packers were, quite literally, one second away from falling to 2-2 for the season in the most embarrassing way.

To give Love some credit, he did get the Packers into a position to kick the game-tying/ending field goal in rather quickly. The Cowboys’ porous defense gave up 64 yards on the final drive of the game and the Packers held the ball with a running clock and mere seconds left in the game. Instead of spiking the ball to set up for the eventual kick, they ran a play. It wasn’t one of those time-waster play either, it was a real pass play that started with only six seconds left on the clock. Love launched the ball toward Matthew Golden in the back of the end zone the ball fell incomplete with one second left.

What in the world? It’s been days and this play still doesn’t make any sense. At that point in the game, taking a tie is perfectly acceptable. There wasn’t much time left, they were out of timeouts and it’s certainly better than taking a loss. However, Love saw glory and almost gave the Packers their second consecutive loss against a team they were favored to beat. Luckily, that one second with a stopped clock gave them the opportunity to kick the ball as time expired and end the game.

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This isn’t to make any grand statements about the quality of Love as a quarterback — he is stellar and had a fantastic game up to that point, but it was such a ridiculous pass attempt that it deserves some finger wagging and questioning. 

One. Second. A completely unnecessary risk that, thankfully for the Packers, ended as a harmless blooper as they try to get another win on the board moving forward. That doesn’t erase whatever insane decision-making was going through the heads of the people and players who made the decision to risk another loss in that fashion. 

Jaguars might be a real team, finally

Hey, hey, hey. Liam Coen has the Jaguars moving in the right direction during his first year as their head coach. They just traveled to San Francisco and took down the 3-0 49ers to improve to 3-1 on the year and position themselves as a legitimate playoff contender as the middle of the season approaches. The offense has had spurts of competency but is still trying to find its way overall. However, the defense in its first year under Anthony Campanile appears to have some real bite, and is leading what feels like a legitimate resurgence for Jacksonville.

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Through the first month of the season, the Jaguars boast an elite defense. They rank first in turnover percentage with a whopping 28.9% of their defensive drives ending in a turnover. They’re also second in expected points added per play (-0.11) and third in success rate (36.2%) while being tough in all facets of the game. Devin Lloyd has emerged as a star at linebacker, Jourdan Lewis has been lights out as their slot cornerback and the defensive line has really started to play up to its potential. Travon Walker has become a legitimate pass rusher across from Joshua Hines-Allen, but is now dealing with a wrist injury that knocked him out of their game last weekend. 

The defense being this good gives them a dominant unit that can carry them to the playoffs if they continue playing to this level. That would be a great start for Coen’s tenure with the team, but there is still room to improve with the offense. Trevor Lawrence and his pass catchers have been inconsistent this season, but there have been moments where the talent level of the group shines through in a big way. The rushing game right now is the best part of this offense behind an improved offensive line. The Jaguars currently lead the league in rushing yards on designed runs (555) and rank fourth in expected points added per rush (0.07).

If Lawrence and the rest of the offense can get going, this team has the potential to host and win a playoff game — barring a major injury, of course. There’s a lot of untapped production here with Brian Thomas Jr. trying to recapture his form from late last season and Travis Hunter still getting used to the demands of playing wide receiver in the NFL. Their win over San Francisco showed that this entire unit is getting closer to playing up to the name-brand recognition they have. 

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It feels strange to say, but the Jaguars are showing some real promise in their first month with Coen running the team. Hopefully this isn’t a mirage and the Jaguars actually get the breakthrough they’ve been chasing since they drafted Lawrence in 2021.

A quick look at the Titans before they’re banished from view

Cam Ward is a truth speaker. The most honest interviewee in the league told nothing but truth when he described the Titans offense as “ass.” Through four games, they’ve been a complete disaster, which might be putting it lightly. At 0-4 with an offense this bad, it seems like a win is still far from their grasp — especially after scoring zero points against the Texans this past weekend. Their season is over and their fans should turn their attention toward the 2026 draft, but before we move on let’s just take a look to see how bad they’ve been.

The Titans are last or next to last in so many offensive stats, it’s a miracle that they still have fans lining up to watch these games. According to TruMedia they rank 32nd in yards per play (3.7), net yards per pass attempt (4.0), points per drive (1.16), total offensive EPA (-56.99), dropback success rate (35.6%), percentage of plays that go for a first down or touchdown (22.2%), percent of plays that go for no yards (41.3%) and third down conversion rate (27.8%). Phew. The only thing they’ve been OK at this year is running the ball, ranking 15th in rushing success rate (40%). 

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They look disorganized, discombobulated and disinterested throughout the course of these games. There have been some real flashes of brilliance at times from Ward, the first overall pick, but they just don’t have the infrastructure in place to buoy the negatives that come with a risk-taking rookie quarterback. Second-year head coach Brian Callahan is now 3-18 with the Titans and is sitting on a seat that, understandably, gets hotter by the week.

Considering this has been the offensive trend for Callahan’s run as the head coach, it doesn’t seem likely that they’ll improve much from here. They should get a bit better as Ward gets more reps, but it’s not really hard to improve from no points scored. They seem destined for a major shakeup after the season, but the presence of Ward and some offensive line investments should still make this an attractive destination for coaching candidates.

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But, MAN, do they stink right now. This should be the last the Titans are mentioned in this column until next season, barring what seems like an impossible improvement. 

This news was originally published on this post .

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