A couple of quarterbacks taken first overall in their respective drafts are struggling right now. A couple of quarterbacks taken after the first round, on the other hand, are looking like wise investments.
With the 2016 NFL season reaching the quarter pole, several quarterbacks rose and fell on Sunday.
Rising: Matt Ryan
Matt Ryan has been rising all season, and that continued Sunday.
Ryan threw for a franchise-record 503 yards with four touchdowns and one interception in a 48-33 win over the Panthers in Atlanta.
Matt Ryan’s 503 yards tied for 17th best in NFL history.
— Joe Person (@josephperson) October 2, 2016
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The Panthers (1-3) entered the game allowing 183 passing yards per game, fifth-best in the NFL.
Julio Jones was Ryan’s main beneficiary, accounting for 300 of Ryan’s passing yards on 12 catches with a touchdown. Nine different Falcons caught passes.
Atlanta’s biggest lead was 34-10 early in the fourth quarter. The Panthers stormed back and narrowed the margin to 34-26 with 3:58 remaining, but Ryan coolly threw a 75-yard touchdown pass to Jones 13 seconds later. The Falcons (3-1) sealed the win with a pick-six.
Ryan led the Falcons on touchdown drives of 99 and 98 yards. This was Ryan’s fifth four-touchdown game of his career. He has 11 touchdown passes and two interceptions this season. He entered the game with a 119.0 passer rating and turned in a 142.0 mark on Sunday.
Falling: Matthew Stafford
All that buzz generated by Matthew Stafford’s late-season surge in 2015 has pretty much worn off after Stafford threw two interceptions in Sunday’s 17-14 loss at Chicago.
The Lions quarterback threw 19 touchdown passes and two interceptions in the second half of last season. On Sunday, he threw two picks against a Bears defense that intercepted just one pass in the first three weeks of the season.
And those interceptions were killers. Both came late in each half with the Lions deep in Bears territory.
The Lions trailed 7-3 and were at the Chicago 22 with 16 seconds left in the first half. Stafford threw a pass to Golden Tate, who appeared to be running the wrong route. Jacoby Glenn intercepted the pass.
Detroit trailed 17-6 and got to the Bears’ 23 with 4:10 left in the game when Deiondre’ Hall intercepted Stafford. Andre Roberts’ 85-yard punt return, not anything Stafford did, made the score 17-14. But the Lions couldn’t recover the onside kick.
Stafford completed 23 of 36 passes for 213 yards, his lowest total since he threw for 188 in a Week 5 loss to Arizona last year. He threw two interceptions for the first time since a loss to the Chiefs in Week 8 last year in London. Those were playoff-caliber defenses. This year’s Bears? Not so much.
The Bears (1-3) picked up their first win and the Lions (1-3) lost their third straight game.
Rising: Dak Prescott
A Coke-Pepsi debate is developing between rookie quarterbacks Dak Prescott and Carson Wentz.
Since the Eagles were on a bye, Wentz was out-of-sight, out-of-mind and Prescott moved ahead of him in the race to break Tom Brady’s record for passes thrown without an interception to start a career.
Prescott has thrown his first 131 passes without an interception. Brady’s record is 162. More importantly, Prescott showed the poise of a veteran Sunday in the Cowboys’ 24-17 win over the 49ers. He erased a 14-0 deficit, the biggest he’s faced in his career, by halftime.
Despite not having Dez Bryant as his disposal, Prescott put together an eight-play, 66-yard touchdown drive to get the Cowboys (3-1) on the board, throwing a 20-yard touchdown pass to Terrance Williams. With just a minute and a half to work with on the Cowboys’ next possession, Prescott completed eight of 10 passes and tied the game on a 4-yard TD pass to Brice Butler with 12 seconds left in the half.
The 49ers regained the lead with a field goal to start the second half. Then the Cowboys took the lead for good on Ezekiel Elliott’s 1-yard touchdown run with a minute left in the third quarter. Elliott dominated that 10-play, 78-yard drive, but Prescott completed all three of his passes for 33 yards, including one on third down.
Prescott completed 23 of 32 passes for 245 yards and made it just a little bit harder for Tony Romo to get his job back.
Falling: Jameis Winston
Just three weeks ago, Jameis Winston threw four touchdown passes in a 31-24 Week 1 win at Atlanta. It looked like Winston was about to make a second-year leap.
Now, Winston has eight interceptions and the Buccaneers are 1-3.
Winston completed just 17 of 35 passes with no touchdowns and two interceptions in Sunday’s 27-7 home loss to the Broncos. Winston’s first pass of the game was intercepted by Aqib Talib and it led to a 7-0 Denver lead less than two minutes into the game.
The Bucs answered with a 13-play, 75-yard drive to tie the game. Winston finished it off with a 7-yard run. If only Winston had made the same commitment to running the ball into the end zone on the final play last week against the Rams, the Bucs might be 2-2.
Talib again intercepted Winston early in the second quarter, and two plays later the Broncos (4-0) had a 14-7 lead and they never looked back.
It didn’t help that Winston was sacked five times, but a quarter of the way through this season, he’s thrown more than half of the 15 interceptions he threw in his rookie campaign.
Rising: Tyrod Taylor
In the 21st century, two things New Englanders have always been able to count on in the fall are the leaves changing colors and the Patriots beating the Bills.
Going into Sunday’s game, the Patriots were 28-3 in their last 31 meetings against the Bills. It was hard to see that changing considering the Patriots’ ability to win without Tom Brady and the absence of Bills receivers Sammy Watkins and Greg Salas.
It was also hard to see Tyrod Taylor as a legitimate starting quarterback before last season, but that’s what he looked like in the Bills’ 16-0 win over the Patriots Sunday.
Taylor never allowed the Patriots (3-1) to take control of the game. The Bills (2-2) scored on each of their first three drives and led 13-0 midway through the second quarter.
Tyrod Taylor at halftime 17-22 passing for 165 yds & a TD. Passer rating of 112.9. #Bills
— Chris Brown (@ChrisBrownBills) October 2, 2016
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Taylor completed 27 of 39 passes for 246 yards with a touchdown and no interceptions, bringing Rex Ryan his first regular-season road victory over Bill Belichick in eight tries.
This was also the Bills’ first meaningful win at New England since 2000. They won at Foxborough in 2014, but the Patriots already had clinched the top seed in the playoffs before that game.
The Patriots get Brady back next week. The Bills? They have their starting quarterback for the foreseeable future.
Falling: Joe Flacco
Joe Flacco wasn’t terrible Sunday. He completed 32 of 52 passes with a touchdown and no interceptions. He was sacked twice and hit six times partly because the Ravens were without injured left tackle Ronnie Stanley.
A quarterback with a Super Bowl ring like Flacco, however, has to overcome those kinds of obstacles against a team that came into the game allowing 340 passing yards per game, the most in the league.
Flacco led the Ravens back from a 14-3 deficit, pulling them to within 21-19 with a 52-yard touchdown pass to Steve Smith Sr. with 6:27 left in the game. He also led the go-ahead drive that ended with Terrance West’s 3-yard touchdown run with 3:36 left.
The Raiders took a 28-27 lead with 2:12 left. The Ravens had plenty of time for the game-winning field goal and were in good position with a first down at midfield with a minute left. But the drive petered out when Flacco threw four straight incomplete passes.
The Ravens (3-1) suffered their first loss and Flacco didn’t come any closer to being an elite quarterback.
Rising: Derek Carr
Entering Week 4, Derek Carr had faced the Saints, Falcons and Titans. None of those teams are known for their defense.
The Ravens, on the other hand, are allowing 176 passing yards per game, second-best in the NFL. Carr’s 199 yards Sunday in Baltimore don’t exactly jump off the page, but his four touchdown passes sure do. Michael Crabtree caught the winning TD pass, his third of the game, with 2:12 left in the Raiders’ 28-27 victory.
The Raiders had fallen behind for the first time when Terrance West ran for a 3-yard touchdown with 3:41 left. Carr responded by leading the Raiders on a six-play, 66-yard drive to cap a 25-for-35, interception-free performance and his second fourth-quarter comeback of the season.
Derek Carr has 6 game-winning drives since the start of last season, most in NFL.
He entered today in a tie with Joe Flacco and Matt Ryan. pic.twitter.com/Ce8jaV73yB
— NFL on ESPN (@ESPNNFL) October 2, 2016
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All three Raiders wins have come on the road. Carr didn’t seem affected by two cross-country trips in two weeks.
The Ravens (3-1) suffered their first loss. The Raiders (3-1) are off to their best start since 2002, the last year they made the playoffs and the Super Bowl.
Falling: Ryan Tannehill
It’s not like Ryan Tannehill has a whole lot of room to fall. He’s the NFL’s poster boy for mediocrity.
His numbers Thursday night in Cincinnati were unimpressive. He completed 15 of 25 passes for 189 yards with a touchdown and an interception in the Dolphins’ 22-7 loss.
Those numbers actually were flattering. Thanks largely to a 74-yard touchdown pass to Kenny Stills that gave the Dolphins a 7-3 lead, more than half of Tannehill’s passing yards came either in the first six minutes of the game or the last eight-and-a-half minutes. That means that for a stretch of more than three quarters Tannehill threw for just 49 yards.
Tannehill’s interception also came late in the fourth quarter and squashed any comeback hopes the Dolphins might have had. On first down from the Bengals’ 39, Chris Lewis-Harris picked him off with five minutes left.
The Dolphins never finished better than 8-8 in Tannehill’s first four years. A 1-3 start this year is no way to change that.
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