Quarterbacks are human, coaches matter, and referees suck. It’s easy to forget such wild realities when an AI Photoslopped picture of Michael Cera's head on Justin Herbert's body is on X and in all of your group chats. Or when new coaches replacing decades-long coaches try to quickly move on like life will be better without them. In this week’s Take-O-Meter, the fourth installment of my newfound labor of love, I’ll try to pull your head out of the internet’s slop trough before you get too full on copied memes and insincere laughing emoji. If you’re an existing Meter Reader, blessed be the fruit. If you’re new, welcome to the show.
Remember: The scale goes from 1 to 11 (the higher the number, the more I support the take), because Rob Reiner’s Spinal Tap means something to me. This amp (Take-O-Meter) goes to 11 because all other amps go to 10. You might be thinking: “But does it change anything?” Yes, everything. “OK … but wouldn’t an amp that goes to 10 and an amp that goes to 11 both still be only as loud as they could be?” Yes, of course. That’s the point. That’s why it goes to 11.
The Eagles will never recover from losing Jeff Stoutland.
Do you know Jeff Stoutland? He coached offensive linemen for three decades, including 13 seasons in the NFL with the Philadelphia Eagles (2013-25). Stoutland has rings from the 2018 Philly Special Super Bowl and the 2025 blowout Bowl win over the Chiefs. He’s as highly regarded as any OL coach ever because he’s proved that he can maintain a high floor for the entire unit with well-coached fundamentals and run design concepts fit to his personnel. Stout, of course, got to work with the best of the best, such as future Hall of Famers Jason Kelce and Lane Johnson. But some of Stoutland’s most impressive efforts have been turning giant, athletic balls of clay into legit starters. Former first-rounder Mekhi Becton (6-foot-7, 357) was another New York Jets bust before Stout had him playing the best football of his life at guard in 2024, and Jordan Mailata was an Australia-born seventh-rounder before Stoutland helped turn him into one of the best tackles in the game. And where is Stoutland, one of the league’s best to ever do it, now? He’s teaching folks like you and me basic offensive line fundamentals with short-form vertical videos on Instagram.
Stout stepped down from his post with the Eagles soon after last season because he was reportedly frustrated—maybe more frustrated than the entire city of Philadelphia—that head coach Nick Sirianni and new offensive play caller Kevin Patullo had hijacked the offense without his involvement. The Sirianni-Patullo show was bad enough for Sirianni to fire Patullo after the season, but Stoutland left on his own and probably isn’t ever coming back. Neither is Kelce, and now Johnson isn’t, either. The 36-year-old, a stalwart right tackle for the franchise since he was drafted fourth in 2013, started the first three games of the year before sitting out Week 4 because of undisclosed personal reasons. Then he announced on Tuesday that he’s retiring. Plus, the Eagles announced Wednesday that they’d traded center Cam Jurgens, who has been starting at guard while Landon Dickerson was on the injured reserve, to the Ravens for a second-round pick and some change. Jurgens was playing out of position at guard, and Baltimore desperately needed center help after losing Tyler Linderbaum in free agency and suffering multiple injuries at the position. The Philly starting five against the Jacksonville Jaguars this week could be Mailata at LT, 5-foot-11 290-pounder Willie Lampkin at left guard, backup Drew Kendall still filling in at center, 2023 third-round pick Tyler Steen still at right guard, and rookie third-rounder Markel Bell, who is 6-foot-9 and 346 pounds, starting in place of Johnson at right tackle. That’s worse than chickenshit. Stout isn’t there to turn it into chicken salad, and Sirianni, GM Howie Roseman, new offensive coordinator Sean Mannion, hell, not even Big Dom can turn it into anything else.
Stoutland was a problem solver and talent maker. Without Stout, Sirianni’s new crew is creating problems and running out of talent. The roster has undergone major talent drop-offs at edge, wide receiver, and (obviously) the offensive line. Five of Philadelphia’s top eight players in defensive snaps played in the 2025 Super Bowl are off the team. Six of its top eight guys in snaps on offense are either gone (A.J. Brown, Johnson, Becton, Jurgens) or missing time with injuries (Dickerson, Saquon Barkley). This isn’t the same Eagles team that won the Supe two years ago. It’s almost nothing like it at all, besides Sirianni; Big Dom; DC Vic Fangio, who’s trying to keep the talent-deprived defense alive; and, of course, the oft-memed Super Bowl MVP QB Jalen Hurts.
Hurts is still a roller-coaster good QB, not a consistent week-to-week game manager with a reliable floor. He isn’t one of today’s greats at the position because he’s so up and down, but he can’t be lazily labeled a bad QB because he still has bright flashes (even though they’re as rare as ever in the new Sirianni-Mannion offense). Hurts has played at (if not better than) Patrick Mahomes’s level twice in two Super Bowls—the top of the coaster, obviously. But right now, the Hurts coaster is at an all-time low in the worst situation of his seven-year NFL career. That’s not a get-out-of-meme-jail-free card for Hurts, though, and it’s no excuse for the (widely known) limitations to his game, such as his shortcomings when throwing over the middle or against pressure. It also doesn’t help that Hurts just doesn’t have the same dynamic running ability that gave him a bigger edge earlier in his career; he’s no longer a dangerous designed rusher beyond the tush push—which has also seen better days—because he just doesn’t have the juice anymore. But, again, Sirianni and Mannion must have known all of this stuff about Hurts like the rest of the football-watching world has for years now. THEY KNEW, AND THEY LET IT HAPPEN.
Barring a major turnaround on both sides of the ball, heads are going to roll in Philly: This is the worst coaching-talent combination it's had since at least COVID. Stoutland’s departure in February, most likely because of his annoyance with Sirianni, could be the first major domino leading to the head coach’s firing before next season. I still stand where I did last week when I wrote that the Eagles need to #CleanOutTheNest—fire Sirianni and his staff, and move on from Hurts—but I want to dig my heels in even more and argue that they should keep the Jurgens-led fire sale going all the way up to the trade deadline and give Roseman everything possible to reset the entire team. I’ll save those keyboard strokes for when things (most likely) get a lot scarier for the Eagles closer to Halloween.
The nerds missed on Justin Herbert.
The internet is rooting for Los Angeles Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert to fail because he’s done nothing with everything (on paper), and the nerds think he’s a good player. He’s a 6-foot-6 dreamboat engaged to most straight men’s celebrity crush right now, and the picture-perfect Herbert–Madison Beer couple made sure everyone knows it in the worst way: by running the Travis Kelce–Taylor Swift playbook two years too late. Herbert isn’t just tall and hot, either. He’s as physically gifted as any of the quarterbacks head coach Jim Harbaugh counts in his head when he’s trying to go to sleep at night. Harbaugh has said there isn’t one gene in Herbert’s body that he wouldn’t trade for, that he will eventually be known as the greatest quarterback to ever play the game, and that he needs to get Herbert to the Hall of Fame. Herbert’s rare combination of size, athleticism, and arm talent, along with his robotic (complimentary) processing and accuracy when protected in the pocket, are driving reasons why the nerds (and probably even Harbaugh) still believe he’s one of the league’s top QBs. But The Ringer’s own Diante Lee has given nerds permission to drop whatever swords they’re still thanklessly defending Herbert with this season after the Chargers pathetically dropped to 0-4 last week. I’m not dropping mine, though, because, like Lee said, nothing is redeemable about this Chargers offense right now. And [takes off hoodie to reveal Kratos’s chain swords from the God of War franchise] that’s not Herbert’s fault.
Los Angeles can’t block or catch or run the football. Both starting tackles (Rashawn Slater and Joe Alt) are hurt again, and the interior offensive line is just as bad as last year’s, if not worse. Their best pass catcher is Ladd McConkey—in the truest sense, in that he can use his hands to consistently catch the football, unlike the rest of the Bolts—but he’s been a shell of himself since cracking his ribs in the first game of the season. McConkey had zero catches on two targets and 14 routes against the Seahawks on Sunday. Worse than a lack of talent at any position or any of the injuries, though, is that new OC Mike McDaniel is going to force Chargers leadership into a—metaphorical, of course—f---, marry, kill dilemma with him, Harbaugh, and Herbert because this trio just ain’t it.
The good news is Herbert is still a no-brainer marriage proposal (for me, Kratos, at least) in this scenario despite any game he’s played this year or in any January before because the 28-year-old football robot is at the peak of his powers (athletically) and has previously (if anyone can recall beyond the last month) played QB at an elite level in the NFL. I have concerns about him melting down in clutch moments like everyone else, but what you’ve seen this past month isn’t Herbert. He stinks right now partly because his situation hasn’t been this bad since Anthony Lynn was at the helm in his rookie season, when he got Lynn’s approval to start only after QB Tyrod Taylor was stabbed by the Bolts medical staff in the week leading up to a game. No one has stabbed anybody yet (as far as I know), so things aren’t Lynn levels of bad. But Herbert simply isn’t more valuable than the multiple first-round picks the team would likely get if he were traded to (what will almost by default be) a better situation than the roaring dumpster fire he’s in now. So let’s just agree to say “I do” at the altar with Herbert after reacknowledging that the common vows are “in sickness and in health” and that he is in a truly sickening offense.
This is a true Year From Hell sparked by major differences between Harbaugh and McDaniel, bad roster construction, and injuries. These things happen all the time, like when Harbaugh last clashed with new leadership and was forced out of San Francisco after a disappointing 8-8 season in 2014 (coming off three straight NFC title game appearances, mind you). But Jed York—yes, that Jed York—was one of the owners of the 49ers then, and I don’t think the Chargers will copy any of his mistakes even if their owner, Dean Spanos, is on whatever’s left of the fan base’s shit list for (a lot more expensive) bad decisions. They should, however, put an end to the McDaniel experiment before thinking another second because he’s already fucked them hard enough.
The nerds missed on Bills DC Jim Leonhard.
A version of this take was left on a previous Take-O-Meter’s cutting-room floor, an important wasteland I keep tucked at the ends of these Google Docs underneath a screenshot of Jack Nicholson carrying an ax in The Shining, because some of my nerd friends scared me into keeping this take under wraps one week too long. But I can’t let nerds, of all people, bully me into burying my ideas, right? Jim Leonhard, a prince that nerds promised would deliver the goods in celebrated defensive mastermind Sean McDermott’s stead, is the new hotshot calling Buffalo’s defense. Leonhard was calling some fun stuff that showed up on the nerd radar when he was Wisconsin’s defensive coordinator over four years ago, and now he’s four games into his first year as an NFL defensive play caller. So far, Leonhard’s unit has allowed more real and expected points added per drive than McDermott's Buffalo defenses ever did through the first four weeks of the season. That’s not good. Buffalo has the Rams and Raiders on the road before its Week 8 bye. If Leonhard’s defense looks anything like it has in the first month of the season, the numbers could get a lot uglier. I’d argue that the nerds should drop their swords defending Leonhard. Nothing redeemable is happening right now.
Bryce Young is an MVP candidate.
Fans and teammates are as biased toward their quarterback as a parent is toward any “art” their kid makes before they go to high school. That’s not to say I don’t think Carolina Panthers quarterback Bryce Young can’t grow up to be an artist. It’s perspective for the fans in Charlotte who chanted “MVP” for Young after a dynamite performance in a blowout win over the once feared Lions on Sunday night, and for B.Y.’s teammates who chanted the same three letters when he entered the locker room after the game smiling ear to ear like a kid in a candy store.
Young is currently tied for 11th (!) in MVP odds with running back Jahmyr Gibbs—and one spot behind another RB, Bijan Robinson. An RB hasn’t won MVP since Adrian Peterson did 14 years ago, and until today’s passing league becomes yesterday’s, no RB will probably win one again. That is how much the market doesn’t believe Young is an MVP, which is probably a more unbiased and closer-to-correct take than what his fans and teammates are shouting. Young is a great comeback story that Panthers and non-Panthers should celebrate. But Carolina has also played only meh-to-bad defenses in the Bears, Falcons, Browns, and Lions, and a lot of Young’s stellar play should be credited to new offensive play caller Brad Idzik and breakout superstar wideout Tetairoa McMillan both overperforming preseason expectations.
Young’s relationship with head coach Dave Canales, who was hired in 2024 after Young’s ugly rookie season with Frank Reich, reached rock bottom when Canales benched him for veteran Andy Dalton just two games into Young’s second year in the league. Young played again under Canales just five weeks later because Dalton got into a car accident (real story), and even though Young knew he was playing only because of a random off-field event, he led the team to the 2025 NFC South title. And now the Panthers, because Young is thriving in his new relationship with Idzik and putting up the best numbers of his career, are leading the division again in 2026.
Now, that doesn’t mean everyone needs to chant “MVP” when Young plays well, because we don’t need a new aggressive take on every quarterback in the league every week. We don’t. But if you want to discuss facts, Young is playing the best football of his life in what looks like one of the best situations of his career BEFORE his two tackles are even healthy. The Sweet Carolina cocktail is hitting OK. It maybe needs a little more of this (Taylor Moton and Ikem Ekwonu) or that (Jalen Coker), and it’s not the best drink you’ve ever had. But it should make you loose enough to at least party along with Young and maybe even cheer on one of the league’s most worn-out punching bags of the 2020s as they drag themselves off the mat with an unsuspecting hero (Young) standing, smiling at 5-foot-10 and 200 pounds. You don’t have to say Young is an MVP, but keep his name out of your mouth if you’re not going to put some goddamn respect on the smallest QB in league history making a big comeback.
Idzik, T-Mac, Canales, new off-ball linebacker Devin Lloyd, and, hell, even Sir Purr all deserve a September’s worth of respect, at least, but Young needs apologies for the internet abuse he’s faced every day of his career—especially after that one Mina Kimes picture. What’s changed? B.Y.’s relationship with Idzik looks as good as (if not better than) Young’s relationship ever was with Canales before or after he benched him, and Idzik’s offense is an evolved, more aggressive version of Canales’s that should put him in the top tier for head coaching interviews in January, possibly after Carolina’s second straight NFC South crown.
Joe Burrow needs to throw more to win more.
I’m disappointed that Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow, when asked whether he felt the Bengals offense is balanced enough after a home loss to the Jaguars last week, said that he needs to throw more to win. Mind you, Cincy had just an 18 percent designed run rate in the Jacksonville loss and is running the ball on early downs at the lowest rate in the league. Burrow explained that he knows “we’re great at” passing and that it’s what he does best. But do we know whether the Bengals have a great passing offense without Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins, who both got injured against Jacksonville? Burrow has had just 54 total dropbacks, including the playoffs, with neither Chase nor Higgins on the field since Cincy drafted Chase in 2021. And is what’s best for Burrow actually what’s best for the Bengals offense?
Burrow wants to hit chunk plays with in-breakers over the middle and go balls to his big receivers down the sideline out of the shotgun all the time. He’s also fine taking sacks and eager to move past no-excuses interceptions like the two he threw against the Jags. He’s been that way since his natty run at LSU with Chase and Justin Jefferson in 2019. But the NFL has evolved in 2026 to replace wide receivers with tight ends and fullbacks (again) and to run more under center (again). It’s happening again because everything is cyclical. It’s working again because defenses zagged with two-high concepts and lighter front-seven personnel to stop the pass after Sean McVay changed the NFL eight-ish years ago by running 11 personnel and shotgun almost exclusively. Now McVay is forcing the league to follow him once more and match his freak with more heavy personnel and under-center play-action. But even though head coach Zac Taylor and Burrow emphasized over the offseason that they wanted to redesign the offense to stay in vogue with this trend, the Bengals rank dead last in under-center percentage and 28th in under-center success rate after four weeks. Burrow wants to never run the football so he can just throw more to his guys out of shotgun, and Taylor has to balance that yearslong desire with the need to modernize his offense. And Burrow’s and Taylor’s jobs will get much harder if Chase (concussion) and Higgins (abductor) miss any more time; both are considered day-to-day going into Week 5. A tiger will have to change his stripes—either Burrow changes his play style or Taylor takes complete control—for the Bengals to be a legit Super Bowl contender, and I don’t think tigers, definitely not owner Mike Brown’s Bengals, usually do.
The Packers are cursed.
No, the Packers aren’t cursed. They’re just poorly coached and hit hard by injuries, so even stupid supernatural excuses are on the menu, it seems. Josh Jacobs isn’t playing because he’s still on the commissioner’s exempt list following his arrest on two misdemeanor charges related to a domestic dispute in the summer. Micah Parsons (ACL), Edgerrin Cooper (Achilles), Jayden Reed (neck), and Zach Bako-Bewele (knee) are on the IR because everyone gets hurt. The NFL is the only American sport where teams (usually) play only once a week because everyone gets hurt. Jordan Love, Christian Watson, Xavier McKinney, and Lukas Van Ness aren’t hurt because every team is lucky in some places and unlucky in others. But even luck is just preparation crashing into (usually unexpected) opportunity, and head coach Matt LaFleur’s Packers have looked anything but prepared in every game they’ve played, including their sad, narrow win over an undrafted free agent rookie quarterback starting in Tampa on Sunday.
The Packers can’t block because of all the injuries, sure. I guess I can give MLF and Packers fans that. But when LaFleur’s answer to how the Packers can accomplish what they set out to accomplish this season without a new injured starter (Cooper) is “I don’t know, Pete,” then, uh, I don’t know if Green Bay is prepared for current injuries or future ones bound to happen. The Packers suck because their good players are hurt and their coach doesn’t know what to do about it. Oh, and they can’t stop dropping the ball, fumbling the ball, and committing penalties. What’s the curse, exactly? Is MLF the curse? Is that the joke? That the Packers already regret the LaFleur extension before it even kicks in because he thinks the best teacher is the bench when the best teacher actually needs to be him? OK, I guess I am laughing a little.
The Broncos’ elite defense isn’t coming back.
Eric Eager, the Panthers’ vice president of football analytics and a close friend (and former PFF colleague) of mine, once told me at the height of the PFF-led “running backs don’t matter” era that teams need to run the ball like we need sleep. You can’t get any work done if you can’t sleep. You can’t do anything impressive if you can’t sleep. You need to be able to sleep easily, quickly, reliably, and comfortably in order to function at all. I think the metaphor works well and applies even better to stopping the run on defense. If you can’t stop the run, it’s like you can’t sleep. And if you can’t sleep, you’re going to suck.
The Denver Broncos can’t stop the run. As the league transitions to more heavy personnel groups and more run plays, the once elite Broncos defense can’t stop the run. By EPA per rush, Denver had the best run defense in 2024 and the third-best run defense in 2025. Through Week 4 this year, they rank 29th in the same metric. And that doesn’t even mention the week-to-week Patrick Surtain injury or 49ers LB Dre Greenlaw clowning Sean Payton after last week’s game or the Davis Webb–Bo Nix debacle unfolding on offense every week. The Broncos defense can’t sleep, and the quarterback and coach are getting laughed at left and right. If there is a silver lining, it’s that their schedule should only get easier after they started with the Chiefs, Jags, Rams, and 49ers, but I’m going to need to see it to believe it. It’s a “Christian Bale in The Machinist” hallucination until then.
The Texans’ elite defense isn’t coming back.
Shocker, I still have faith in DeMeco Ryans, edge Will Anderson Jr., cornerback Derek Stingley Jr., and the rest of the Texans’ star-studded defense. Houston has had awful, awful outings against the Bills and Cowboys—two of the best offenses in football led by, respectively, the current market leader in MVP odds (Josh Allen) and the player tied for sixth on that list (Dak Prescott). It’s had borderline good games against the Bengals and Colts. The offense looked like how it’s looked for most of the Nick Caley–C.J. Stroud era in their only road game of the season thus far (Indy), so they lost that winnable division game, and they lost a vintage Wild, Wild West shoot-out against the Cowboys. Anderson is the best defensive player in football. They have the best corner after PS2 and other great defensive backs (Kamari Lassiter, Calen Bullock, Jalen Pitre). Ryans has clearly missed on both his OC hires and still isn’t perfect with timeouts or fourth-down decisions, but he’s still a great defensive mind in charge of arguably the most talented defense in the game. Ryans relinquished play calling duties to DC Matt Burke around Week 4 last year and is taking back the responsibility after four games this year. The snip-snap in strategy isn’t ideal, but Ryans is taking more control of the defense because once again—after starting last year 1-3 and now 2026 0-4—something needs to change.
Mic up good refs and relegate bad ones.
Warren Sharp got a little X famous this week for a deep, deep dive into how many penalties have been called and how critical those penalties have been through four weeks. The skinny is that NFL refs have called more penalties in more important moments in the first four weeks of this season than in the first four weeks of any other season in over a decade. This coincides with two different referees getting suspended after Week 4: Jeff Seeman was suspended two games for saying the f-word when talking to Cardinals TE Trey McBride, and Adrian Hill was suspended one game for getting a little hot and bothered after Vikings LB Eric Wilson got shoved into him and knocked the zebra over. Also, anecdotally, the refs are on my screens too much. I don’t care if they really are convinced they’re “talking to America” every time they drop that stupid yellow fabric out of their pocket—I still hate seeing them and hearing them as much as I am right now. My gut says this is just the stars finally aligning for real ref reform in a sport with an immensely confusing, constantly changing rule book because refs have sucked for a while now. Refs have always sucked.
Not all of them, of course. But refs, in general, suck because they disrupt the game with bullshit hand signals and rehearsed, bland lines when they’re eventually ready to tell us something we have no choice but to accept. They don’t suck because they’re human (right and wrong); they suck because they come off as if they think they can’t miss, their word is final even if broadcast refs or the league itself disagrees with a call, and there are only small, irrelevant repercussion structures in place to effectively discipline—if not, ideally, improve—the cheeky pricks. (I see you, Seeman.) Game suspensions aren’t going to teach referees anything they don’t already know; they just got caught at a time when everyone is getting really tired of their act. So, here’s the take: Mic up all the good refs for every minute of every game, and relegate bad refs—bad because they’re punching down or bad because they’re not consistently calling the game by the rules—to the UFL, XFL, college football, or Europe. Hell, tell them to go do their day jobs; historically, many of them have been lawyers. The league, very loudly now, has the worst attorneys, and something needs to change before a bunch of nobodies convinced they’re somebodies because they’re technically officials turn the literal coolest thing ever into something that effing sucks actually.
