Welcome back to the Four Verts column, which will hit on one of the most disappointing teams in the NFL and two of its very worst in a minute. But first, one of the season’s most pleasant surprises.
Drake Maye should be a leading MVP candidate
In Year 2, Drake Maye has ascended. He had an incredibly promising rookie year in a dismal situation and has leveled up to a space where he is already one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL. After slogging through a tough season that saw an organizational facelift for the Patriots, Maye has been the driving force behind their 5-2 start. He’s been arguably the most efficient quarterback in the league and has already shown an ability to operate at a high level as the Patriots try to continue to build around him.
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According to TruMedia, Maye is second in the league in expected points added per dropback (0.29) among all quarterbacks with at least 50 dropbacks. He boasts the league’s highest success rate (53.8%) and is the league leader in overall expected points added on dropbacks (69.1).
Maye has been at his best as a true attacker of defenses this season. On throws that go at least 1 yard past the first-down marker, Maye has the highest completion percentage in the league at a whopping 71.4% — for reference, the league average on these throws is 51.6%. He is on a different level as a playmaker for an offense that is still rebuilding from a personnel standpoint.
Considering where New England was last season, Maye should perhaps be in the driver’s seat for this year’s MVP award. Despite the public infatuation with Baker Mayfield, Maye has blown him out of the water in terms of down-to-down consistency — a difference that should be accentuated given who Mayfield is throwing to and who Maye is throwing to. This is an Atlas-level effort through seven weeks that paints the picture of a wide open future for Maye and the Patriots as he continues to play at an elite level.
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It’s tough to tell where the Patriots’ season will go from here, but as they reach the midway point, Maye clearly has developed into the franchise quarterback New England wanted in the 2024 draft with seemingly unlimited upside if he’s this good this fast.
MVP Maye. Say it with me. The kid deserves the praise and potentially hardware for where he’s taken the Patriots this season.
Houston has a serious problem
Houston is in a horrific spot right now. Coming off another brutal offensive performance in its loss at the Seattle Seahawks on Monday night, it’s clear the Texans need another big shakeup to fix their problems. But those issues can’t be fixed until after the season.
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The hard truth of the matter is that the Texans have put together an offense that is neither talented enough nor orchestrated well enough to compete for a playoff spot. Despite having an elite defense, the Texans sit at 2-4 because the entirety of their offense is just that bad. C.J. Stroud has regressed due to the chaos around him and new offensive coordinator Nick Caley is giving the team nothing in terms of game day edge.
At times Caley’s play-calling has been an active detriment. Far too often against the Seahawks, the Texans tried to run in disadvantageous situations in critical moments. At some point, there needs to be an adaptation to the many weaknesses the Texans have. Trying to become a power, bullyball run team isn’t going to happen with the offensive line they’ve assembled. There isn’t much that can be done with a unit in this poor of shape, but they chose these guys. Most of their offensive line was acquired at the start of free agency or in the NFL Draft.
Just two years ago this team had one of the most exciting offenses in the league and it felt like Stroud was on the immediate cusp of superstardom, but the Texans have taken a steep nosedive the past two seasons. In most statistics, they’ve been a bottom-five offense over that time, which is unacceptable given how this regime started out.
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This season is lost, but with Stroud and a promising group of wide receivers, there is room for a quick turnaround in 2026 if they hit on enough pieces in the offseason. Whether or not they’re capable of getting it right seems more dubious by the week.
Raiders barely played a football game
The title of this subhead is not a joke. The Raiders’ 31-0 loss at the hands of the Chiefs showed that their horrific season somehow can fall into a deeper ditch, barely participating in a game against their longtime hated rival. In a season full of disappointments, the offense’s inability to even stay on the field in this game was another sign that Pete Carroll and Chip Kelly may be gone after one season — and probably should be.
Las Vegas ran 30 plays against KC. Thirty. Not in a game of Madden with three-minute quarters. Over the course of a real-life NFL game. Thirty plays for 95 yards is all the Raiders could muster. They had two first downs, and one of them was via penalty. They failed to get a first down on 70% of their drives, averaging 9.5 yards per. For comparison, Kansas City averaged 48.2 yards per drive. The Raiders barely even had the ball in this game. Their offense left the field as quickly as it got there.
This game got so pathetic that the Chiefs essentially mercy-ruled the Raiders. With 2:36 left in the game, before the two-minute warning, the Chiefs knelt the ball. It is mathematically impossible to end the game with kneels without a time stoppage in this scenario. They knelt it three times in a row before punting the ball back to the Raiders for the final play.
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That is disgraceful. In a year when it felt like the Raiders had a chance to take real strides, they are still the same old Raiders, maybe even worse. There is no defense to having a showing this poor. Barring a striking turnaround, no one in this regime should come back for 2026. It seemed almost impossible for this team to take a step back from where it was last year when Antonio Pierce was trolling Davante Adams on Instagram, but the Raiders really have done that. They can’t do anything right on offense and their defense isn’t good enough to cover. Smells like another rebuild for the Raiders coming in short order.
Tua Tagovailoa’s contract is a complicated piece of the Dolphins’ future
One thing is incredibly clear about the NFL this year: This era of the Dolphins could not possibly be more over. They had some fun, record-setting seasons under Mike McDaniel at the start of his run, but this thing has gotten stale to a degree that can’t be recovered from. After their latest loss, a 31-6 pummeling at the hands of the CLEVELAND BROWNS, there is nowhere for this Dolphins season to go. There will be firings, trades, organizational changes and the large question of what to do with a quarterback who clearly is not talented enough to take them to the next level.
The truth of the matter is that Tagovailoa very well may be the Dolphins’ starter next season, as unconscionable as that sounds right now. According to Spotrac, he has a $99 million dead cap charge for 2026 which will make it difficult to move him immediately. Miami could split the charges over two seasons, but even a dead cap fee of over $40 million is a significant damper on the ability to build a competitive team. Unless the Dolphins are fine eating 2026 and starting over clean in 2027, that seems like an unlikely route.
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While Tagovailoa might find himself as the Dolphins’ starter next year, it’s hard to believe he will suddenly be good enough to lead a resurgence. Even when the Dolphins’ offense was at its best, it still relied on Tagovailoa getting the ball out of his hands as fast as possible to a host of speedy playmakers. He was never the driving force of the scheme and as the surroundings have continued to fall apart, he continues to get more exposed. The Dolphins need a new quarterback and should have had the wherewithal to know how much lifting Tagovailoa was doing (or not doing) for that offense.
It’s difficult to come back from a week of public mishaps and then follow it up with a whimpering 100-yard, three-interception performance against another NFL bottom-feeder, but if Tagovailoa wants any chance to rebound from here he needs to improve drastically. To be fair to him, the Dolphins have utterly failed to put together a competent offensive line in front of him, which exacerbates the lack of playmaking in tough spots.
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For the cultural health of the team, the Dolphins have to move on from this era. They’ve fallen too far and this regime has had too many years to get over the hump and build upon the foundation that Brian Flores left before he was fired. They’re much closer to where they were when they hired Flores than where they are now, which is nothing more than a catastrophic failure by team ownership and its front office. The bottom of the NFL seems particularly weak this year and the Dolphins are a firm piece of that.
Next year, try getting some offensive linemen and a few cornerbacks. Somehow everyone saw this coming except the Dolphins.