Can you believe we're already four games into the NFL season? It still feels like we're trying to figure out which teams have a real shot at competing for a Super Bowl. But today, I'm here to identify the players and coaches who have been at the top of their game in 2026. It's time for my annual quarter-season awards, where I hand out hardware for the best performances from Weeks 1 through 4.
Keep in mind that these are my picks -- who I believe deserves each award through four games -- as opposed to my prediction for who will ultimately win each award at the end of the year ... two entirely different things. I'm basing my picks on data and what I've seen on film. I also have some slightly different rules and beliefs that I use in my picks than the end-of-season electorate does. I'll mention them as we go through each award.
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One broader one is that availability matters. Players who aren't playing aren't helping their teams. At the end of the season, missing anything more than a couple of games really hurts a player's chances of winning an award unless they've completely dominated the competition. Shrunk down to a four-game sample, missing even one half of football is enough to seriously poke holes in a player's résumé. There are a handful of stars, with Baltimore receiver Zay Flowers as the most prominent case, where simply being unavailable for some part of the first four weeks is holding an otherwise impressive start back.
Let's go award by award, from Defensive Rookie of the Year to MVP. I'll look back at these eight awards after Week 9 when I put together my midseason award rankings to see who held onto their crown and who fell off quicker than expected.
Jump to an award:
DROY | OROY | Coach of the Year
Comeback Player of the Year
Protector of the Year
DPOY | OPOY | MVP
Defensive Rookie of the Year
We've seen plenty of defensive rookies getting regular snaps this season. Through four weeks, 24 rookies have suited up for at least 50% of their teams' defensive snaps, up from 22 players in 2025, 13 in 2024 and 16 in 2023. Titans linebacker Anthony Hill Jr. and Bears safety Dillon Thieneman have been on the field for every one of their teams' snaps this season, a relatively rare feat for a rookie at any position.
No one has really separated from the pack yet. The best rookie defender I've seen on a per-snap basis has been Chiefs cornerback Mansoor Delane, who finished his first drive as a pro with an interception of Bo Nix. Unfortunately, Delane suffered a shoulder injury and missed all but three snaps of the first two weeks of the season. He has been an excellent two-way defender from the very first drive of the year and should climb back into contention if he can stay on the field.
Others might be able to carve out larger roles after proving themselves early in the season. It's going to be tough for the Cowboys to take Jaishawn Barham off the field after what he has done against the run over the past two weeks. Gabe Jacas has flashed as a pass rusher and disruptor in the backfield for the Patriots. Sonny Styles has one of the most physically impressive plays of the season on his tape, with the Commanders linebacker trucking Saquon Barkley in pass protection and running through the star back for a sack in Week 1. They'll each have a shot at working their way into the top three in the weeks to come.
3. Jacob Rodriguez, LB, Miami Dolphins
Given how many rookies the Dolphins are lining up on a weekly basis, it's probably inevitable that at least one of their young players was going to make it into the top three here. Rodriguez has had his issues handling play-action this season, but he has been an impact defender against the run. The second-round pick has made tackles on nearly 24% of designed runs against the Dolphins, the 12th-best rate among players with 150 defensive snaps or more this season.
And while making tackles doesn't mean much if they're 10 or more yards downfield, 4.6% of Rodriguez's tackles have produced stuffs for no gain or a loss -- including three for loss on Kenneth Walker III when the Dolphins played the Chiefs in Week 3. In you haven't noticed, defenses haven't exactly had much success tackling Walker anywhere this season, let alone behind the line.
2. Hezekiah Masses, CB, Las Vegas Raiders
While most of the talk about the Raiders 3-1 start has understandably been about the offense, Masses has been a bright spot for Vegas in what has long been a problem spot at cornerback. The fifth-round pick started the season as the understudy to Darien Porter on the outside, but when Porter suffered a foot injury late in the Week 1 win over the Dolphins, Masses took over the job and has made it his own. Porter has played just three defensive snaps over the past two weeks since returning to the lineup.
Masses is tied for the NFL lead with three interceptions, which might overstate his impact. One of those picks was an almost comical example of a Chargers drop by David Njoku, while the other was a wounded duck that came off the hands of Tyler Shough as he was hit mid-release. Those interceptions count, though, and Masses has six passes defensed across 20 targets this season, per NFL Next Gen Stats. He has allowed about 40 receiving yards per game as the nearest defender in coverage and has held his own as a tackler.
Masses probably isn't going to finish the season averaging close to a pick per game, but he looks like he belongs on the field as a starting-caliber CB, which isn't exactly commonplace for even highly touted rookies.
1. Arvell Reese, LB/Edge, New York Giants
Reese is a very scary player. He has been on the field for over 99% of the defensive snaps for the Giants, opening the year in what has primarily been an off-ball linebacker role while leading the league in solo tackles (27). With Brian Burns suffering a season-ending torn ACL, though, the Giants moved Reese onto the line of scrimmage more often against the Cardinals in Week 4, with their first-round pick playing more than 46% of his defensive snaps as an edge defender, up from 34% over the first three weeks.
The operative phrase with Reese is going to be "stuffing the stat sheet," and we're already getting there. Against the Cardinals, Reese recorded his third tackle for loss of the season, batted down a pass and caught an interception off a deflection at the line of scrimmage. Another Reese pressure on a blitz from the second level hit Jacoby Brissett as he threw and produced a pick by Greg Newsome II on an underthrown ball. Reese isn't the Micah Parsons-esque pass rusher Giants fans might have hoped they were landing when he fell to the fifth pick of this year's draft, but New York probably doesn't beat Arizona on Sunday without him being the best player on the field.
Offensive Rookie of the Year
Many of the high-profile offensive draftees from 2026 haven't had a chance to really show what they can do. Raiders quarterback Fernando Mendoza hasn't played a single regular-season snap. Cardinals running back Jeremiyah Love, recovering from a high ankle sprain, has been on the field for only 50% of the offensive snaps in Arizona and told his own coaches that other backs were in better shape to help the team against the Giants last week. Saints receiver Jordyn Tyson is on injured reserve with a hamstring issue. Those are three of the top four picks on the offensive side from this year's draft, and they've collectively played 131 snaps.
The other player in that big four might be about to make his move. Receiver Carnell Tate got off to a slow start as part of a struggling Titans offense, but the No. 4 pick is coming off his best game as a pro, with nine catches for 145 yards against the Ravens, albeit with two fumbles. Tate probably should have had at least one touchdown against the Giants the week before if not for some inaccurate throwing by Cam Ward. He just misses out on the top three here.
3. Kenyon Sadiq, TE, New York Jets
Sadiq has been exactly the sort of Swiss Army knife the Jets were hoping when they selected the super athletic tight end with the 16th pick of this year's draft. He ended his first drive as a pro with a touchdown on a jet sweep in the opening day win over the Titans, outrunning former Jets edge Jermaine Johnson II to the pylon. And he was unguardable at times against the Lions, racking up seven catches for 105 yards and a touchdown on a leaping grab up the seam, although Detroit has a way of making a lot of players look that way.
Moving around the formation, Sadiq is averaging 2.1 yards per route run this season, which is fifth among all tight ends in 2026. We've already seen a real vertical threat to his game, something that even successful tight ends can struggle to bring to the table during their careers. There is plenty to like here on what has quietly been a very competent Jets offense.
2. Kahlil Benson, OT, Kansas City Chiefs
Where did this come from? Pushed into the starting lineup by Josh Simmons' back injury, Benson has stepped in at left tackle and looked like a seasoned pro. The undrafted free agent has been left on an island at the sixth-highest rate of any left tackle in the NFL and more than held his own, allowing one sack through four games. Getting this from a player who spent his entire college career on the right side of the line is stunning from Andy Reid and offensive line coach Andy Heck.
Benson was always expected to be a better run blocker than pass blocker, and he has made an immediate impact there, ranking eighth among all tackles in run block win rate. Simmons was a first-round pick for a reason and is likely to end up back at left tackle when he's healthy enough to play, but Benson has earned a spot in the starting lineup with his play this season. He has been a revelation.
1. Denzel Boston, WR, Cleveland Browns
Boston announced his presence in Week 1 with a 46-yard catch on a post route in garbage time, running past Jags cornerback Montaric Brown for his first pro touchdown. Boston has continued to make plays downfield, with catches of 28, 55 and 60 yards over his first four games. He and Zay Flowers are the only two NFL wide receivers with three catches of 45 yards or more through the first four weeks of the 2026 season.
In a league where teams are desperate for deep threats, Boston ranks fourth in air yards per target (16.9) while bringing in nearly 60% of the passes thrown in his direction. He's already enough of a downfield burner to give opposing defenses serious pause, and Boston has been one of the biggest reasons the Browns have been surprisingly effective on offense this season.
Coach of the Year
While Coach of the Year almost always goes to the guy who oversees a bad team making the biggest leap in any given season, I try to be a little more holistic in how I approach this award. I want to consider longtime coaches who are doing great work, even if they came into the season with high expectations and don't normally garner real consideration for this honor.
I also lean toward rewarding coaches who are running teams that excel on their preferred side of the ball. With the 4-0 Vikings, for example, Brian Flores would be an easy pick for Coordinator of the Year if we were handing out that award. Kevin O'Connell is a coach with an offensive background, though, and the Vikings are 27th in EPA per play on offense. I'm not saying O'Connell has done a bad job, but can we really say he's the Coach of the Year through four weeks when his offense has been one of the worst in the league?
3. Kyle Shanahan, San Francisco 49ers
Who needs wide receivers? With everyone from Mike Evans to De'Zhaun Stribling to Christian Kirk sidelined for some or all of the first four games, Shanahan has pieced together a wildly impressive start to the season. The competition hasn't necessarily been the stiffest if you treat the Rams in Australia as jet-lagged tourists, but the 49ers lead the league in most offensive categories.
With ever-changing options at receiver, Shanahan has built the passing attack around a big four of Evans, George Kittle, Christian McCaffrey and Deebo Samuel Sr., who have 85 of San Francisco's 110 targets this season. He has done a great job of keeping pressure off Brock Purdy, who hasn't been sacked. The Niners are using motion at the second-highest rate in the league (75.4%), which is throwing off defenses and creating easy completions for Purdy. The Niners are also using more motion with Kittle and Kyle Juszczyk to create favorable blocking angles in their run game, although Juszczyk is the latest 49ers player to go down with an injury.
It feels like Shanahan is at the peak of his powers as a game planner and offensive architect.
2. Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears
Outside of the game against the Vikings, where Flores produced a masterclass to shut down Johnson's offense, there has been no second-year hangover for the wunderkind coach. Johnson has won games with three different quarterbacks through the first month of the season, in part because the Bears have been able to lean heavily into the run. They are running the ball at the fourth-highest rate of any offense, with a 47.6% designed rush rate, and they rank ninth in EPA per play on those carries over the first month.
The game plan Johnson installed to beat the Eagles and their Vic Fangio defense with Case Keenum under center was a thing of beauty, with heavy doses of play-action and quick passes to attack zone coverage and neutralize the Eagles' pass rush. Watching the offense with Tyson Bagent and Keenum under center really clarifies just how much Johnson's scheme raises the floor for inexperienced quarterbacks. And watching Chicago pick apart the Panthers with a near-perfect day from Caleb Williams in Week 1 reminds us how high the ceiling can be with a high-end playmaker under center. The loss to the Vikings is the only blemish on Johnson's record.
1. Klint Kubiak, Las Vegas Raiders
Yes, after writing about how I don't typically want to highlight the coach who takes over a bad team and makes it better, I'm ... picking the coach who has taken over an awful team and made it relevant in a matter of weeks. Degree of difficulty should at least be part of the discussion, of course, and Kubiak was taking over an offense that looked hopeless for most of last season. He also didn't have Brock Bowers, the team's top pass catcher, for the first two weeks.
What Kubiak has done to immediately rejuvenate the Raiders' offense has been incredible. With a subpar offensive line on paper, Kubiak's scheme -- with its zone run game and heavy play-action rate -- has mitigated the individual weaknesses of the linemen the Raiders are lining up on a weekly basis. DJ Glaze, a liability in pass protection last year, suddenly looks like a high-end right tackle. Kirk Cousins, benched in Atlanta for chunks of the past two seasons, is 13th in the NFL in Total QBR through two weeks. Receivers such as Tre Tucker and Michael Mayer suddenly look like the players the Raiders have been hoping they would become. And Bowers has been an all-over-the-field playmaker since returning to the lineup, with Kubiak finding mismatches and space for his star tight end in key spots in each of the past two games.
About the only thing Kubiak hasn't done is fix the run game, where the Raiders rank 28th in EPA per play and 28th in yards per carry on designed rush attempts. If that does coalesce as the year goes along, the Raiders could be fielding an offense without many weaknesses. And of course, Vegas is doing all of this without their No. 1 pick as Fernando Mendoza waits in the wings for his opportunity to start.
The Raiders are in the most difficult stretch of their season, having just lost to the Chiefs and with games against the Patriots, Bills, Rams, 49ers, Seahawks and Broncos ahead over the next two months. Beating the Chiefs would have been a feather in Kubiak's cap, especially after the first-year coach said that the team was going to win to the television broadcast during halftime, but he clearly has Raiders fans believing that something has changed. If he can keep the Raiders in the playoff hunt during this brutal stretch of opponents, the 39-year-old isn't going to fall too far in these rankings.
Comeback Player of the Year
I'll honor the league's stated preference to treat this award as one that favors players who are coming back from an injury or illness as opposed to simply getting away from bad coaching or a scheme that doesn't fit their skill set.
3. George Kittle, TE, San Francisco 49ers
Healthy tight ends typically lose a fair amount of their steam as they approach their mid-30s. Kittle, somehow, is coming off a torn Achilles he suffered in the postseason and hasn't skipped a beat. In addition to his typical mauling work in the run game, Kittle leads all tight ends in averaging 3.3 yards per route run and has four touchdowns in four games, including a 56-yard score to put the game away against the Broncos last week.
2. Fred Warner, LB, San Francisco 49ers
Oh, and then there's Warner, who has come back from a dislocated and fractured ankle and looks every bit as rangy and impactful over the middle of the field as any linebacker in the NFL. The 49ers are a completely different defense with their star linebacker on the field, with Warner's ability to read and defend route distributions over the middle remaining world-class. He's also making more than 19% of the run tackles for the 49ers when he's on the field, the fifth-best rate in the league among starting linebackers.
1. Patrick Mahomes, QB, Kansas City Chiefs
I'm guessing you're probably not surprised about this one. I'll talk more about Mahomes when we get to the MVP conversation (spoiler: he's not quite in the top three there), but after a rough first half as a passer to open the season against the Broncos, Mahomes has returned from a torn ACL and looked, frankly, better than the guy we saw over the past few years. The addition of Kenneth Walker III has gone a long way, but Mahomes has been more accurate as a deep passer while retaining his ability to throw off platform like nobody else in football.
Protector of the Year
It's difficult for linemen to really separate from the pack through four weeks, given that the most obvious difference between a great lineman and a disappointing one might be only two or three snaps in pass protection per game. The best linemen stay on the field and establish themselves over the course of an entire season, so this is the award I have the least confidence in through four games.
3. Amarius Mims, OT, Cincinnati Bengals
After taking a major step forward a year ago, the Bengals right tackle has leveled up again and emerged as arguably the best pass-protecting right tackle in the league. The Bengals have a quarterback in Joe Burrow who wants to get five eligibles out into pass routes, and when they do help a tackle, it's usually Orlando Brown Jr. Mims has been one-on-one against pass rushers at the third-highest rate in the league this season, and he has excelled in a pass-happy offense, allowing just a half-sack and two quick pressures on 169 pass-rush snaps. He's also 12th in run block win rate, suggesting that the 2024 first-round pick is holding his own as a run blocker, too.
2. Quinn Meinerz, G, Denver Broncos
The All-Pro guard continues to be one of the most impactful run blockers in all of football. He's also a reliable pass blocker in an offense that needs all the help in front of the erratic Bo Nix that it can get. Meinerz has allowed zero quick pressures or sacks this season, one of just a handful of offensive linemen who can say that they've kept their quarterback completely clean.
1. Trent Williams, OT, San Francisco 49ers
Complete and utter dominance. Williams, like every other member of the San Francisco offensive line, has not allowed a sack this season. The future Hall of Famer has allowed just one quick pressure despite being on an island on 87.6% of his pass-protection opportunities, the highest rate of any lineman. The only blemish you can hang on Williams is that he left the 36-30 win over the Cardinals with an injury and missed 22 snaps. Given that he's the best tackle in football at age 38, I'm willing to give him some benefit of the doubt.
Defensive Player of the Year
This is always my most difficult award to gauge, and it's even tougher when everything is compressed into a sample of four weeks. Players such as Aidan Hutchinson, Talanoa Hufanga and T.J. Watt have been game winners for their respective teams. Dexter Lawrence II has been a massive difference-maker for the new-look Bengals defense. And Kyle Hamilton might be my favorite player to watch in the league right now; he has been absolutely devastating as a threat near the line of scrimmage for the Ravens, although he had some issues with penalties against the Titans last week.
To be honest, though, there was a pretty clear top three once I took a broader look at my options. They're all edge rushers, which isn't always the case, but they're three very different sorts of players in entirely different defensive schemes. They're each playing at a high level, and your preference might just come down to which impact metric you value the most.
3. Dallas Turner, Edge, Minnesota Vikings
Turner has essentially become the defensive equivalent of evaluating a running back such as Arian Foster in a Shanahan-style offense 15 years ago. There's no arguing with the impact. Turner leads all defenders in pressures (29) and quick pressures (13). His 5.5 sacks are second best in the NFL. He has been the most productive player on the league's best defense.
And yet, watching those 29 pressures, it's only realistic to point out that he's being placed in advantageous situations by Brian Flores on the vast majority of his snaps. Turner has a league-high seven unblocked pressures this season, a product of offenses either botching their pass-protection calls or being hot to one side of the line. Many of his pressures, including the sack that sealed the win over the Bears in Week 2, have been blowing through tight ends or other wing players as opposed to offensive tackles.
My count on closer inspection was 16 of 29 pressures that were either unblocked (nine), against a tight end (six) or against a running back (one). And five of his 12 pressures against tackles were secondary pressures, where Turner didn't win against the tackle, but pressure from other places led the quarterback into a blocked Turner. On the other hand, Turner absolutely obliterated Packers left tackle Jordan Morgan in Week 1 and gave Dolphins right tackle Austin Jackson real problems last week.
Turner has been chipped or double-teamed on only 9.6% of his reps, which is the lowest rate in the NFL for any edge rusher with at least 50 pass-rush reps this season, per Next Gen Stats. Players such as Hutchinson (28.2%) and Watt (29.7%) are chipped or double-teamed about three times as often as Turner, let alone how often an elite end such as Myles Garrett was a year ago (43%).
At the end of the day, though, all Turner can do is beat the guy in front of him (or go after the quarterback if nobody's blocking him at all). The 2024 first-round pick is doing that as often as anybody else in football and creating pressures far more often than he did in the same defensive scheme in 2025. Nobody in the NFL is more of a threat to put together a four-sack game during any given week than Turner.
2. Greg Rousseau, Edge, Buffalo Bills
Here's a good old-fashioned breakout. Moving further out wide and working out of a two-point stance far more often under Jim Leonhard this season, Rousseau has taken a massive leap forward as a pass rusher. He leads the NFL in sacks (six), tackles for loss (eight) and forced fumbles (three) through four games.
Rousseau has flashed that sort of production before, as the 2021 first-round pick has made splash plays to help the Bills win games in years past. He has been a consistently impactful edge rusher. But he has typically underperformed his hit and hurry totals. Edge rushers usually convert about 45% of their quarterback knockdowns into sacks, but over his first five years in the league, Rousseau's 32 sacks were about eight below what his hit totals would suggest.
Getting more of an opportunity to speed rush and bend around tackles, Rousseau might have just picked up that last little step he needed to get to quarterbacks before they deliver the football. Most of his pressures have come from speed rushes around tackles, where his length and high-end athleticism plays up. He helped seal the win over the Texans in Week 1 with a strip sack of C.J. Stroud on a three-man rush, Rousseau's second of the afternoon.
1. Will Anderson Jr., Edge, Houston Texans
Anderson might be the best player in football right now, full stop. With all due respect to guys such as Jeffery Simmons and Maxx Crosby, now that Myles Garrett is sidelined, Anderson is the most unblockable defender in the league.
There's nobody who matches Anderson's speed, power and balance. Even though he's listed at 243 pounds, his bull rush and ability to go straight through offensive linemen and drive them back into the quarterback is a sight to see. He straight-up bullied Orlando Brown Jr., who outweighs the Texans star by more than 100 pounds, when they matched up in Week 2. He's entirely capable of just going around tackles and beating them to their spots. And you get remarkable plays where it looks like Anderson is almost crawling to Daniel Jones and still has the ability to stay upright and strip the Colts quarterback.
Anderson is being chipped or doubled just under 30% of the time, more than Turner or Rousseau (25.4%). He has four sacks and nine quick pressures through four games, and when Anderson's on the field, he has the third-highest percentage of his team's pressures in the league, trailing only Miami's Chop Robinson (who might be back after a frustrating 2025 season) and Chase Young (who has emerged as an elite edge rusher in his own right).
On top of all that, Anderson is second among all edge rushers in run stop win rate, posting a 37% RSWR this season. (Rousseau is 29th, while Turner is 32nd.) Anderson has three run stop disruptions -- plays where his penetration immediately blows up the path of a run concept -- which is second among edge rushers. The Texans' defense hasn't been great this year, but Anderson certainly has lived up to his already high standards.
Offensive Player of the Year
Since quarterbacks invariably end up leading the MVP race, it makes no sense for them to somehow be the Most Valuable Player without also being the Offensive Player of the Year. As such, I limit this award to non-quarterbacks to avoid identical lists (while reserving the right to nominate a non-QB for MVP if they're having a transcendent season).
I found myself with six candidates for three spots here. One has to be excluded because he simply hasn't played enough. Elite wide receiver seasons typically come in at about three yards per route run, which makes it even more ridiculous that Baltimore's Zay Flowers is averaging 6.4 yards per route this season, a figure that rises further to 7.8 yards per route run when Lamar Jackson has been throwing him the football. Flowers missed half of Week 1 and all of Week 2, and he played only a limited percentage of the snaps in Week 3, so he just hasn't been on the field frequently enough to compete here.
Jahmyr Gibbs has endured his heaviest workload as a pro as the lead back for the Lions. He has still been productive and leads the NFL with seven touchdowns, but Gibbs hasn't been quite as efficient as the other top backs or even up his own usual standards. The Lions star is averaging 4.4 yards per attempt, down nearly a full yard from his first three seasons in the league. In a season where two backs are off to otherworldly starts, Gibbs falls short in terms of his carry-by-carry impact.
That left me with two wide receivers for one spot in the top three, where I landed on ...
3. Jaxon Smith-Njigba, WR, Seattle Seahawks
I had JSN just ahead of Dallas' CeeDee Lamb, even though the latter leads the NFL in receiving yards (498) through four games. Smith-Njigba's 481 yards rank third behind Lamb and Chris Olave (491), but that's also a product of opportunity. Olave has run 174 routes this season by virtue of often playing from behind in a fast-paced offense. Lamb is in at 137 routes through four games. Smith-Njigba, though, has had the opportunity to run only 111 routes, or about 28 per game. Olave has essentially gotten two extra games worth of chances to catch the football.
JSN's averaging 4.3 yards per route run through four games, which is somehow an upgrade on the 3.7 YPRR he averaged during his Offensive Player of the Year campaign in 2025. He has done that with two weeks of Drew Lock at quarterback, where Smith-Njigba's work played a huge role in helping the Seahawks beat the Patriots and Cardinals. His six receiving touchdowns also lead all NFL players through four games, with Smith-Njigba somehow finding ways to get open against defenses that have to know he's getting the football.
2. Kenneth Walker III, RB, Kansas City Chiefs
1. Bijan Robinson, RB, Atlanta Falcons
The race between the top two running backs is even closer. Have fun picking between Walker and Robinson. Both backs have 99 touches this season. Walker has produced 621 yards from scrimmage and six touchdowns. Robinson has 614 yards from scrimmage and five scores. We're talking about fractional differences here between two RBs who are dominating opposing defenses through four games.
Advanced metrics don't see a big difference, either. Robinson and Walker average 0.15 EPA per touch. Robinson has been slightly more consistent, with 53.5% of his touches producing successful snaps in terms of staying on schedule to Walker's 50.5% ... but Walker has created more big plays. Robinson has fumbled this season, which is also a point in Walker's favor, given that he hasn't. Yet Robinson has been better in short-yardage situations.
I essentially see this as a tie, which makes me lean toward Robinson for offensive infrastructure reasons. Playing with Cooper Rush and Michael Penix Jr. at quarterback is more difficult than having the threat of Patrick Mahomes under center, which has made life easier for Walker. And 27% of Walker's rushing yards have come before being contacted by a defender, a figure that's nearly three times Robinson's rate. Walker's getting far more than what's blocked, but it's also fair to point out that some of those big plays have come through absolutely massive holes at the line of scrimmage.
I wouldn't fault anyone who prefers Walker, but I think Robinson has had to do a little more to create his 2026 season on his own.
MVP
And that brings us to the main event. Anderson, Robinson and Walker are all playing well enough to earn meaningful MVP consideration for me, but we've also been blessed with some excellent quarterback play to open the season. I think the non-quarterbacks would settle in somewhere between No. 6 and No. 10 if I were putting together a longer ballot.
That means I have quarterbacks ranked one through five on a list that doesn't include two of the preseason favorites. Lamar Jackson has been brilliant at his best, but he was inconsistent in the loss to the Saints and was sidelined for the second half of last week's win over the Titans with an ankle injury. And while Josh Allen was off to a white-hot start with his performance against the Texans, the Bills star has thrown three interceptions and fumbled twice on strip sacks over the first month of the season. Of course, he was also lucky to get away with a dropped interception on the snap before the winning touchdown against Houston in the opener.
Carolina's Bryce Young is one of the honorable mentions. The fourth-year pro has seemingly evolved into a big-game hunter with Tetairoa McMillan and Jalen Coker on the outside this season, as Young is averaging nearly 19 yards per deep pass attempt. He leads the league in passing yards through four weeks, although that's also a product of passing volume; Young's 162 pass attempts are tied for second in the NFL.
A few small factors hold Young out of the top three. One is consistency. Young has produced successful dropbacks just under 44% this season, which is below league average. Every other passer on this list is over 49%. He has also done less with his legs than the other QBs on this list, having rushed just four times in four games. And I suspect we'll look at the Bears, Falcons, Browns and Lions -- his opponents so far -- as four of the least-imposing secondaries in football by the end of the season. (However, Young will have a chance to prove himself against stiffer competition in the Eagles and Broncos in the weeks to come.) Even with those qualifiers, he appears to have taken an exciting step forward.
And then I had Mahomes fourth. It has been incredible to see the Chiefs quarterback look anything like his former self after tearing an ACL late during the 2025 season. Mahomes quickly established that he wasn't going to have any reservations about running the ball, scrambling for a touchdown early in the Week 1 blowout win over the Broncos. And after a rough start in that game as a passer, he has since looked a lot like the Mahomes we remember. If anything, he has been even better as a deep passer. Mahomes was averaging 12 yards per deep attempt between 2022 and 2025 while posting a minus-5.5 completion percentage over expectation (CPOE). Some of those issues were drops, but Mahomes also missed his fair share of deep throws. He's 7-of-14 for 285 yards with a plus-14% CPOE this season.
I have him just short of the top three. There are still some restrictor plates on this offense, as nearly 36% of Mahomes' throws have been at or behind the line of scrimmage, the second-highest rate in the league. And he also started the game against the Broncos 8-of-18 for 62 yards in the first half before turning things around after halftime, which essentially represents one-eighth of his season. The quarterbacks ahead of Mahomes have been a little more consistent.
3. Dak Prescott, QB, Dallas Cowboys
Prescott's leading what might be the best offense in the NFL. The Cowboys pace all teams in points scored per possession (3.4). That number approaches five points per possession in the fourth quarter, where Prescott has led six touchdown drives and two more that ended with field goals over 10 total fourth-quarter drives in the first four games. That includes a tying drive against the Ravens and a winning one over the Texans late in the fourth quarter in the past two weeks alone, producing big plays when the Cowboys needed them most.
Prescott isn't taking sacks, with a sub-4% sack rate, and he has turned the ball over only once all season. The only issue is that this has been somewhat of a "checkdowns and deep shots" offense. While Prescott has hit Lamb and George Pickens for big plays, he's averaging only 7.1 yards per attempt and 6.6 yards per dropback, with the latter figure ranking 15th in the league this season. He has drawn six pass interference calls for 96 yards on opposing defenders, both of which are NFL highs (and would boost those numbers up a bit if we counted them).
Regardless, the two passers ahead of him have been materially more productive on a per-snap basis.
2. Trevor Lawrence, QB, Jacksonville Jaguars
The 2021 first pick has continued to deliver on a hot stretch we saw from him at the end of the 2025 season. While that run was built upon a 15-1 touchdown-to-interception ratio, I would argue that Lawrence has been more effective as a passer this season. His completion percentage is up from 63.0 during that six-game stretch to end 2025 to 69.2 in 2026 while keeping his yards per attempt over 8.0 per throw. Lawrence also has the lowest off-target rate of any quarterback at 8.1%, a major leap from 15.5% during that run to the finish in 2025.
Lawrence suffered perennially from significant drop rates on an annual basis, which made me wonder whether there might be an issue with his ball placement, given that it was happening across a wide range of receivers. At 3.8% this season, though, his drop rate is just above the league average, which has helped keep his numbers high.
There aren't any real holes to poke in Lawrence's performance this season. The only issue is that there's one quarterback who has just been on a completely different level from the rest of the league through four games.
1. Brock Purdy, QB, San Francisco 49ers
Through four games, there's Purdy and then there's everybody else. There are virtually no negative plays in his game outside of one interception in the Week 1 win over the Rams. He hasn't thrown an interception since then. He hasn't fumbled. And he became the first QB to throw at least 50 passes over the first quarter of a season without taking a sack since Peyton Manning did it in 2004.
Avoiding negative plays would in itself give Purdy an incredibly high floor, but the fifth-year pro has also had the highest ceiling of any quarterback this season. He leads the league in most passing categories, and it isn't really close:
Purdy's 89.7 Total QBR is the best in the NFL and the fifth best produced by any quarterback over the first four weeks of a season since 2007. Three of the four quarterbacks ahead of him (Tom Brady in 2007, Peyton Manning in 2013 and Aaron Rodgers in 2020) won league MVP.
Purdy is averaging 9.2 yards per dropback. The only QB within a yard of that average is Lamar Jackson.
Just under 61% of Purdy's pass dropbacks have produced a successful play by EPA. The only other quarterback over 51% is Jackson, who is a shade under 57%. Purdy has the best success rate through four weeks of any quarterback in the Next Gen Stats era, just topping Patrick Mahomes' start to the 2021 season.
The average Purdy dropback is generating 0.53 EPA. Again, through four games, nobody else in the NFL is close, with this representing the best EPA per dropback for any QB through four games over the past decade. The seasons directly below Purdy include Rodgers in 2020; Mahomes in 2021, 2019 and 2018; and Matt Ryan during his MVP campaign in 2016.
Purdy's blessed to have great playmakers at multiple spots in the lineup and a wizard of an offensive architect in Kyle Shanahan, but he's doing this with a revolving door at wide receiver and a run game that's 16th in the league in EPA per designed rush attempt. He's setting the pace for the rest of the league through four weeks.