Kenneth Walker for OPOY?

Weeks three, four and five are when the NFL gets serious. That was Rich's opening thought on the Week 4 edition of Overreaction Monday: 0-2 teams become 0-3, 0-3 teams become 0-4, and the teams that crawl back to .500 save their seasons. "It just feels like the stakes get higher every year right around when September turns to October," he said. Chris Brockman brought the takes. Rich ruled on them.

Chris led with the only performance he cared about: "Drake Maye is back and the Patriots will be leading the AFC East when A.J. Brown returns." Rich agreed with the first half. Maye looked like the kid who beat the Bills in Buffalo last year, winning "with his legs, with his arms, and with his brain," even if he had problems protecting the ball again. Then everyone around him started making plays: Romeo Doubs with a one-handed touchdown grab, and Efton Chism with the one-handed catch "heard around the world and certainly in New England." The difference from last year, Rich said, is that nobody saw New England coming then, and this year the quarterback was coming off a near-MVP season. The AFC East claim? "I think that's an overreaction. Let's see him do it a couple games in a row." Rich also noted there is no clear-cut best team in the league, with the 49ers losing pieces like the Black Knight in Monty Python and insisting "it's just a flesh wound."

Next came the Chiefs at 4-0 and the take of the day: "Kenneth Walker is going to be offensive player of the year and threaten 2,000 yards rushing." The pace, by the show's math, is 2,265 yards. Rich went back to the two questions everyone asked when Walker arrived in Kansas City: "Is Andy Reid really going to use him?" and what would the offense look like if he did? Why spend that money on a running back who won MVP of the Super Bowl and not use him? "They're using him," Rich said. The question was whether Patrick Mahomes would have his first 1,000-yard rusher since Kareem Hunt's rookie season, "damn near 10 years ago," and Walker almost has 1,000 already, at the bye.

Walker has 537 yards, 126 more than James Cook, last year's rushing leader who sits second. Derrick Henry is about 170 yards back and Jonathan Taylor about 190, so Walker "could be chilling on his bye week and still be leading the league in rushing coming off of it." Rich's verdict was clear: "This is not in any way, shape, or form an overreaction." With Mahomes' arm still demanding respect and Travis Kelce looking as good as ever, the run game is not going away. Rich even added a twist. If Walker reaches 2,200, he might not win Offensive Player of the Year at all, because voters would put him on their MVP ballots and "go elsewhere for OPOY." Chris wondered if letting Walker walk will cost Seattle a repeat, though Rich pointed out that Emanuel Wilson and Rashid Shaheed, the player Seattle paid instead, both scored against the Chargers.

Those Chargers are 0-4, and Chris's take was that if they finish fourth in the AFC West, Justin Herbert needs a change of scenery for 2027. Jim Harbaugh called Herbert's outing one of the gutsiest performances he has seen by a quarterback, and when asked whether Mike McDaniel is on the hot seat, Harbaugh said, "No, no, no. His job's safe." What surprises Rich most is that Herbert still is not being protected. He still thinks Harbaugh made the right move in hiring McDaniel. And if Herbert ever did hit the market, with Minnesota and Pittsburgh floated as fits, Rich figures he "will fetch what a top-of-the-line quarterback in his prime would fetch." His ruling, at 0-4, was still overreaction.

In New Jersey, Chris declared that "the Jameis experience is full go" and the Giants are the team to beat in the NFC East. Rich bought the first part, since J.J. McCarthy can't just show up and be thrown out there in the middle of all this. The second part, not yet. His team in that division is still Dallas, on one condition: the Cowboys trim the points they allow by "just a haircut, just a trim," or, as he put it, "a cost of living decrease."

Chris argued that quarterback play will keep the undefeated Vikings from winning the NFC North. Rich flipped it. "I don't think QB play is going to keep the Vikings from winning the division. The QB play might keep the Vikings from winning a playoff game." Kyler Murray has been checking it down, but Justin Jefferson, Jordan Addison, Aaron Jones and a revitalized T.J. Hockenson are there, and the defense can carry them. When Chris called the Vikings' Week 2 win in Chicago bogus because of the wind, rain and Caleb Williams leaving the game, Rich reminded him the tiebreakers will not care. "The Vikings should win the division with that defense, 1,000 percent."

Bryce Young leads the NFL in passing yards through four weeks, and Chris called him a top-eight quarterback. Rich told the story he promised to tell as often as possible. In Munich, the NFL Network crew met Young and Dave Canales at a time when nobody wanted to talk about his benching. Rich called it a "sabbatical," and Young said, "Sabbatical? I kind of like that." Young did not return because the coaches had seen enough, but because Andy Dalton was in a car wreck, and he absorbed even that without getting bitter. Canales said he knew things would turn when the team's personalities off the field started showing up on it. The third-down throw on the run to Tetairoa McMillan with the game on the line was "one of the best connections we've seen all year." Rich wants consistency before saying top eight, but he called Young the quarterback of the future in Carolina and would buy his stock over C.J. Stroud's, mainly because Canales is an offensive-minded head coach "who's not going anywhere."

Chris's take on the Cowboys, that outside of "GOTI" they are not legit NFC contenders, got a flat "That's untrue." Rich sees a winnable schedule starting with a Thursday night game against a winless Bucs team with a rookie backup starting, and a defense with Quinnen Williams, Kenny Clark, Caleb Downs, Rashan Gary and now Joey Porter Jr. "We just got to get them coordinated," he said. Overreaction.

The Rams, Chris argued, will finish no better than third in the NFC West. Rich, whom Chris and the comment section consider a passionate Rams fan, pushed back: "They're too damn talented." Even without a fully healthy roster they are 2-2, and the schedule ahead has winnable games. "They're marathoning. They're not sprinting," Rich said, because they want to be healthy in January.

Then the Jaguars, whom Chris called the most complete team in the league. "I can't argue with it," Rich said. They lack a lineup of must-start fantasy players outside Trevor Lawrence, but "collectively those parts are a wagon," and they went into Cincinnati and snatched it. It was also, as the show noted, the first time Lawrence has ever beaten Joe Burrow. Not an overreaction.

The post of the week came from John Wilson, who predicted the Chargers and Texans would both pick in the top five and neither would win five games. Rich would not go there. "I just can't sit here in Week 4 and throw two teams in the top five dungeon right now." But the hypothetical top five the crew built, with quarterback-set teams like Houston and the Chargers picking near the top of a quarterback-hungry draft, made for good food for thought. As Rich put it, they talked themselves into it.