Week 4 NFL Takeaways: Joe Flacco Is Still a Great Story

Plus, Tom Brady’s impact on the Buccaneers, Kirk Cousins discusses another close finish, Zac Taylor on the Bengals’ first win and more.

Flacco throws a pass in relief of Anthony Richardson against the Steelers / Marc Lebryk-Imagn Images

Jump to a team

1. Indianapolis Colts
2. Tampa Bay Buccaneers
3. Atlanta Falcons
4. Cincinnati Bengals
5. Dallas Cowboys
6. New York Giants

Week 4 is rolling toward Monday. And we’re rolling with The MMQB Takeaways from an entertaining NFL Sunday. As we’ve been doing all season, we’ll publish the takeaways Sunday and update them live through Monday morning. So come back again if not all 10 are here yet …

Indianapolis Colts

Joe Flacco is a great story. Again. The Indianapolis Colts’ quarterback is honest to a fault. So excuse him if a little piece of his brain processed the fact that he played as well as he did last year with the Cleveland Browns, and didn’t get a shot to start somewhere in 2024, as frustrating.

The rest of us saw it, too. He probably did play well enough to get that chance.

“Yeah, for sure,” he affirmed late Sunday afternoon. “You never know what’s gonna happen in this league. Some things aren’t up to you. So all you can do is go out there, play the best you can and forget about everything else. Listen, there was a lot to it. It was so much fun last year going out, playing the way I did. Definitely, I think you always kind of hope that you get a chance to go play for real again. But, hey, this is the nature of it, and this is where I am.

“So I just got to make the most of it. Enjoy every day. You can’t be negative because if you’re negative, it’s going to affect you in a lot of ways. And a day like today, when you’re called on and the team needs to rely on you, you’re not going to be there because you’re in this negative headspace. And that’s the last thing I want to do.”

Safe to say, Flacco was in a positive place going into and coming out of Sunday.

Coming in for an injured Anthony Richardson (who’ll undergo tests on his hip Monday), the forever-young almost-40-year-old (more on his birthday shortly) was just what the Colts needed to outlast the previously perfect Pittsburgh Steelers 27–24 in Indy on Sunday. He finished with an efficient 168 yards, two touchdowns and 105.9 rating, but was just what Shane Steichen’s team needed to get back to .500 going into the season’s second month.

And whether Flacco gets an extended run like last year or not—that’ll ride on Richardson’s health—he remains a great example of a guy who has the right approach to the position he’s found himself in, even if that’s not quite the position he was hoping for back in March.

The funny thing is this guy with the great approach wasn’t quite sure which one to take to the job Sunday. Richardson first got nicked up in the game’s 10th minute on a collision with Steelers safety Minkah Fitzpatrick. He left for two plays, during which Flacco got off his first throw of the season, on an underneath angle route to Jonathan Taylor on a four-verts call.

“They came out in two-high [zone] and kind of took away all the deep stuff,” Flacco says. “So I just kind of said, All right, just don’t do anything stupid here. Take the easy completion. See what happens. And that’s what I did.”

Flacco came out a play later, but Richardson’s return lasted just one play—after he crumpled to the turf awkwardly on a run—after running again into Fitzpatrick. At which point, Flacco says he blacked out.  

“I wish I remembered [what I was thinking],” Flacco says. “Definitely not the easiest situation. It was a little weird. I have gone in as a backup for some plays. But I haven’t gone in and then finished the game like that. And, initially, I wasn’t really sure what [Richardson’s injury] was. So I think that kind of delayed the process of really it sinking in and being the guy. But it's definitely a weird feeling, not something that I’m used to. I don’t think you would ever get used to that. You kind of just have to go out there and just turn your brain off a little bit and go play. …

“And then a couple plays later, I’m hitting J.D. [Josh Downs] for a little touchdown, just putting it on his chest. And it doesn’t get much easier than that one.”

During our conversation, Flacco mentioned that Richardson asked him for his birthday a while back, when Richardson figured out that his backup was born in 1985. “I said, ‘January,’” Flacco says. “He said, ‘January what?’ I said ‘January 16.’ He said, ‘Oh my god, my mom was born on January 8.’”

The two laughed about it, but it’s also a good reminder of how much Flacco has seen and experienced. Now in his 17th season, and second stint playing for Steichen (his first, in Philly, was a reason he signed with the Colts), there’s a lot he has to give to the game.

But as Flacco will remind you, he can still play a little bit, too. And with all of those years on his body and mind, he has a pretty good perspective and appreciation for days like Sunday.

“I’m not 23 anymore,” he says. “It’s not just me and my wife. I have five kids. I have more people that I get to enjoy it with. That’s one thing that makes it different. I was out of the league, not being there and realizing that you want to be there. It is a good reminder. No matter what your job is, it is a job. I think at times, for NFL players, you do view this as a job, and every now and then you need to remind yourself that this isn’t a normal job. This is the best job in the world.

“And every now and then, something happens that does that for you. And that’s kind of what last year was. It was that reminder, like, Dude, how fortunate are you to be able to do this? And when I got back in there last year and had that opportunity again, I definitely was aware of all that, and it definitely made it more enjoyable than ever—because of that. So you need those reminders and little resets to kind of remind you what we do.”

As for what was most fun about Sunday? “Winning,” he says.

As he showed us all last year, he’s still plenty capable of that, too.

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Brady and his former receiver, Mike Evans, before a Week 4 game against the Eagles. / Nathan Ray Seebeck-Imagn Images

Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Tom Brady made his mark in Tampa Bay, and what the Buccaneers built around him is very clearly sustainable. This, of course, came up this week with Brady making his first visit to Florida’s Gulf Coast in his new capacity as Fox’s top color guy. And in doing so, Brady fired back at Baker Mayfield’s contention (a contention Mayfield himself said was taken out of context) that he’s helped lead a less stressful workplace post-Brady.

“I thought stressful was not having Super Bowl rings,” Brady said on the broadcast. “There was a mindset of a champion I took to work every day. This wasn’t day care.”

Really, it still isn’t.

The Buccaneers improved to 3–1 after their 33–16 win over the Philadelphia Eagles, and it’s just the latest piece of proof that the mentality Brady instilled lives on as the Bucs pursue a fourth consecutive AFC South title. A good example came with the reaction I got from Lavonte David, the 13th-year Buccaneer, when I relayed Brady’s words (he hadn’t heard them yet).

He didn’t get defensive; he laughed.

“That’s typical Tom, man. That’s typical Tom,” David says. “All you care about is winning—no matter what’s going on, no matter what the outside noise is, all you want to do is win and win Super Bowls. And that’s the reason why he got seven of them. That’s one of the reasons why I love and appreciate him for bringing me one.”

This particular Sunday was a pretty good example of what Brady left behind, with a well-stocked roster and a well-run program headed by Todd Bowles.

Last week, a previously winless Denver Broncos team led by rookie Bo Nix dealt the Bucs a 26–7 loss. Sustaining the blow led to a very clear message from Bowles and his staff: If Tampa was going to be a great team, they couldn’t let the shiner Denver left them with beat them twice.

It was clear Sunday that wasn’t going to happen. The Bucs jumped out to a 24–0 lead before the Eagles registered a single first down. Tampa scored touchdowns on drives of 10 plays and 79 yards, and five plays and 80 yards. They scored another off a Philly muffed punt, then went on a 12-play, 77-yard drive to kick a field goal, controlling the game in just about every way possible.

And when the Eagles made it a little too close for comfort, David himself closed Philly out, sacking and stripping Jalen Hurts on a blitz, and heeding the words of his linebackers coach, Larry Foote.

“If you know my coach, you would know that he’d known about those things, taking advantage of our opportunities,” David says. “I was able to do that and make a big play for our football team that was needed. And we didn’t look back from it.”

Mayfield, for his part, like he has for the past year-plus, gave the Bucs exactly the kind of performance they needed, throwing for 237 yards, two scores and a 107.8 rating in the first half alone, before paying homage to Brady in postgame.

“All we ask is for Baker to be Baker,” David says. “Be the great football player that he is, be the great teammate that he is, and everything will take care of itself. I never try to ask him to be more than what he is. Tom is Tom, but Baker is Baker.”

And Baker, in so many ways, has been the perfect chip-on-the-shoulder successor to Tom.

But, again, there’s no denying what Brady left behind. David reminded Brady of it when he saw the seven-time champ’s smiling face looking at him coming down the tunnel Sunday morning.

“He had a huge impact on us,” David says. “He changed the organization, with the way he leads, the way he gets everybody going, the way he tried to get everybody going and playing up to their level. And just me watching him, watching the way he worked, with all the success he had, he just worked like he was a rookie every time. And that was just incredible for me to see. And I try to adopt that mentality.”

David and a few Bucs have done a really good job of that. Which is probably why they’re still playing in so many big games, with another one coming Thursday night in Atlanta.

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Cousins and the Falcons have been on both sides of nail-biters this season. / Brett Davis-Imagn Images

Atlanta Falcons

Speaking of the Falcons, they’re getting a lot of time on task when it comes to late-game situations. Two weeks ago, there was the dramatic comeback win over the Eagles. Last week, a heart-breaking loss to the Kansas City Chiefs. This time around, things again came down to the final seconds—and swung back around in the weirdest way.

Atlanta’s 26–24 win over the hated New Orleans Saints came via a pass interference penalty (that gave them their only first down of the final 10 minutes), a 58-yard field goal, and zero touchdowns from Kirk Cousins and the offense. There was a 47-yard pick-six from a linebacker, Troy Andersen, making his 10th career start. There was a special teamer, KhaDarel Hodge, diving on a muffed point in the end zone for another touchdown.

It was a strange one. But for the Falcons, it was a win, and one that gets them to .500.

“Yeah, man, I don’t think I’ve ever had a game like that, where we didn’t score a touchdown on offense,” Falcons quarterback Kirk Cousins said, from the game-winning locker room. “You have a defensive touchdown, you have [a] special teams touchdown and you score 26 points. I guess it’s just pro football. You just never know how it’s going to happen—any given Sunday. The scores around the league always tend to surprise me, but that’s the way this league works. Anybody can beat anybody, and I’m just glad we found a way today.

“But it certainly was a complimentary way to win.”

So that’s the part of Sunday that’s encouraging, and maybe sustainable, for a franchise that hasn’t been to the playoffs since the year after the Super Bowl LI collapse.

Hodge’s recovery of the muffed punt happened in the end zone, because the offense churned out a couple of first downs to start the game and kicked from the Saints’ 46. The Andersen pick was a result of pressure from Matthew Judon. And ultimately, the game-winning points came in large part because the offense had Younghoe Koo as its kicker, meaning it didn’t need to go very far to get in his range.

Now, as to how comfortable he was with Koo’s range when he got the ball with a minute left at his own 30, Cousins says, “I’ve always felt like I’ve lost some games in those moments where you get down to the 15-yard line and then we missed the kick. So I’ve never felt like any yard line is good enough.”

But much as Cousins might’ve tried to block it out, he did have the luxury Koo gave him not to, and that wound up being necessary.

First came the aforementioned DPI call. On the second play of the possession, a second-and-10 from the 30, Cousins fired a shot downfield at veteran Darnell Mooney. He underthrew it a bit., though he swears that wasn’t the intention. Either way, it worked out, with Mooney coming back to the ball and getting run into by Paulson Adebo, who drew his third pass interference flag of the night (Adebo also had a first-quarter pick).

This one cost the Saints 30 yards, and moved Atlanta to the New Orleans 40, from where Koo would line up for the game-winning kick after three straight Cousins incompletions.

“I’m going to always try to be smart in those situations with no timeouts,” Cousins says. “I have to avoid sacks. The ball has to be completed where we get out of bounds. So you’re kind of limited in what you can do. But I’m going to try to get every yard we can and not make it come down to the difficult kick. But in this case, that’s what happened. And our special teams kick unit and Younghoe bailed us out.”

On this night, it was enough to get the Falcons to 2–2, with that clash with the Bucs looming.

But Cousins knows it might not be enough Thursday night, or going forward. So while he, Bijan Robinson, Kyle Pitts and Drake London are still feeling each other out, and need more experience playing together, they won’t have forever to get it together. “I don’t like to lean into that too much because I think at the end of the day, you don’t have time,” he says. “We got to go do it.” And that applies, really, all the way across the board.

So where the Falcons seem to have new swagger with first-year coach Raheem Morris, Cousins knows that can be fleeting too, even for a coach who brings the right kind of energy.

“That hasn’t changed, and I think guys appreciate that, enjoy that,” Cousins says. “But we’ve talked about, as players, that the best way to ensure that we have that kind of culture is to win. And so, losing or winning trumps character traits your people have. If you’re winning, even a miserable environment is fun. And if you’re losing, even the most fun environment is miserable.”

And that, of course, is regardless of how those results may come.

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Cincinnati Bengals

Experience counts for the Cincinnati Bengals. No one draws up an 0–3 start. But the Bengals knew, coming out of a gut-wrenching Monday night loss to the Washington Commanders, that the sky wasn’t falling. And if they needed a reminder of why, Zac Taylor gave it to them.

“I’ve really, unfortunately, been here many times,” Taylor said, as the team arrived at the airport in Charlotte. “And I told these guys, coming out of Week 4 last year, there was a 27–3 loss at Tennessee, [which] put us at 1–3 and everybody doubted us. And we were able to pull ourselves up and stretch some wins together and get right back in the thick of it. So unfortunately, I’m able to draw on where this team has been in the past and say we’ve shown we’re able to pull out of this.”

The accompanying message to the players this week: It takes one game to get it started.

Cincinnati got that one Sunday by wearing down, and knocking out, a game-but-lacking Carolina Panthers team 34–24. Joe Burrow had a triple-digit passer rating, the Bengals rushed for 141 yards, Ja’Marr Chase had a 63-yard touchdown, and Cincinnati looked like Cincinnati again. The opponent wasn’t a powerhouse. But the Bengals had to start somewhere, and so Bank of America Stadium happened to serve as that venue.

That said, Taylor’s crew has been dealing with a lot more than just the losses. Burrow was coming back from wrist surgery this offseason. Chase, Tee Higgins and Trey Hendrickson had contract disputes that bled into the summer (or, in Chase’s case, all the way through the summer). It cost all three practice time, and those around them time to work as a group.

Taylor, though, sees how the Bengals have come out of it as evidence of where they became the team that went to consecutive AFC title games and a Super Bowl in the first place.

“I can’t point to that as the reason we’ve lost any of those games. And I couldn’t be happier with how those three guys are handling themselves right now,” Taylor says. “Honestly, you wouldn’t even know that they had those situations going on because they’ve just kind of gone all in with the team. …

“We’ve got guys that deserve to be paid and want to be paid. But we also got guys that want to win a Super Bowl. I can’t speak for them, but I do know that they know, Hey, if I show up and I work, we got a chance to do some special things. That’s kind of the attitude I see from those guys.”

In the short term, that did show up. The Week 2 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs, on a questionable pass interference flag, was a gut punch. Last week’s loss to the Washington Commanders at home might’ve been worse. So collecting themselves on the road, and the Bengals did, took some character.

And whereas there was some bad luck the past couple of weeks, the Bengals took matters into their hands on Sunday.

“We got to make our own breaks,” Taylor says. “We’ve had opportunities to make the plays that the other teams have made that have beaten us. And so for us, there was no way we got a lucky break. No, we got to make our own.”

They did Sunday.

If they can do it again next Sunday against the Baltimore Ravens, it shouldn’t come as a big surprise to anyone, because the Bengals, as Taylor said, have very much been here before.

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Dallas Cowboys

The Dallas Cowboys’ hope now: that their September was an extended preseason. This dynamic, the one where teams are still working out kinks through the month, has existed for about 14 years, going back to the introduction of 2011 CBA that put stringent rules on contact and practice time through the spring and summer. It’s generally hit teams going through coaching changes, or roster turnover, harder.

So it has been for these Cowboys. Mike Zimmer’s scheme, which called for more reading and reacting from players along the defensive front, was a departure from Dan Quinn’s aggressive system. The team’s depth, too, was impacted with players such as Dorance Armstrong and Dante Fowler Jr. departing. Making things even more challenging was that the Cowboys really didn’t play anyone in the preseason, and it all seemed to come apart through the first two weeks of the regular season.

In Week 2’s mess against New Orleans, it was a fundamentals issue, with guys misaligned and not playing their gaps properly. In Week 3, per the coaches, a first-half implosion against the Baltimore Ravens was more about guys flat-out leaving their responsibilities to make plays.

That led to Zimmer and his staff hammering home the idea of playing team defense on a short week. Evidently, the message got through. In the 20–15 win over the New York Giants on Thursday night, the plays the coaches saw where half the guys were lined up right and half weren’t were gone. More guys earned playing time, which allowed the team to rotate, too, which helped.

The results …

• That leaky run defense allowed just 26 yards on 24 carries (1.1 yards per).

• The big play wasn’t a problem—the Cowboys had the downfield stuff (outside of one ankle-breaking Malik Nabers route) covered.  They allowed two plays of 20 yards or more all night.

• The young guys settled in. Former first-round defensive tackle Mazi Smith played one of his best games as a pro. Second-year linebacker DeMarvion Overshown—who was hurt for most of his rookie year, and whom the staff feels has All-Pro potential—shined. And guys such as Micah Parsons and Eric Kendricks were steadier.

Of course, now, with Parsons and DeMarcus Lawrence banged up, the challenge will only heighten for Zimmer’s crew. But, again, the hope is they’re out of the woods on playing in the new scheme.

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New York Giants

I suggest starting to look at Daniel Jones as a bridge quarterback. There was a scene in Hard Knocks where Giants GM Joe Schoen said to Bears GM Ryan Poles, with the two together at the Clemson-Georgia game over Labor Day Weekend, “It’s gotta be nice to not be looking at the …” Poles interrupted, “Quarterbacks?” Schoen responded, “Yeah.”

That’s the reality of the Giants’ situation. The Jones contract’s final fully guaranteed dollar will be paid at the end of this season. He hasn’t played to a $40 million-per-year level, and it’s hard to see that happening between now and the end of the year, based on the info we have.

That said, Jones is a good player, and has gradually gotten better the past few weeks. He’s breaking in three new offensive linemen, has head coach Brian Daboll’s back in the quarterback room daily and as his play-caller, is working with a new No. 1 receiver in Nabers and is just 10 months off ACL surgery. That’s a lot of change for one guy in a short amount of time.

It wasn’t good in Week 1. But slowly, his chemistry with his teammates, his comfort with his knee, and his rhythm with the new setup has come. His second touchdown pass to Nabers in Week 3 was one where he had good feet, good eyes, and made a good decision with Myles Garrett barreling down on him. As the staff looked at it, the comment made in the room was that it was a throw he wouldn’t have made against the Minnesota Vikings in the opener. Those coaches feel, in fact, like his past three games have been his best since his 2022 breakthrough season.

Similarly, he played well against Dallas. He just couldn’t carry the team when it needed him to, was a tick off on a couple of shots and was victimized by some inconsistency from promising young slot Wan’dale Robinson. He finished 29-of-40 for 281 yards and a pick (on a Hail Mary). The Giants kicked five field goals in the loss, and that’s certainly a problem.

But if we look at Jones like he’s the bridge quarterback, it’s fine.

And we should look at it that way, because if you listen to what the Giants have said, and look at how they’ve operated (trying to trade up for Drake Maye), that’s just what he is.