by Mia Fowler & Matt Okada
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Week 4 brought fans the first-ever regular season game in Dublin, the first tie game of the season and perhaps the biggest plays we’ve seen in a single week so far. Below we’ll look at some of the top plays from Week 4 as if we are in the film room. Enter All-22, an exclusive NFL Pro feature that allows its subscribers to watch film like the pros do. Sign up for NFL+ Premium to gain access.
What is All-22?
As the name suggests, All-22 is a wide-angle film view that allows you to see all 22 players on the field at one time. This is the film view that coaches, scouts and players use to study or review film. Because it reveals how every player is positioned during a play, it’s the most comprehensive perspective for evaluating players, schemes and game strategy. It reaches beyond what is visible on a standard broadcast.
NFL+ Premium: Top All-22 plays of Week 4
I would be hard pressed to find a more brilliantly executed play than this one right here. The Dallas offensive line does a decent job at holding off a talented Green Bay pass rush, though the right tackle eventually gets beat, forcing Dak Prescott to scramble to his right side. Just as the Green Bay defensive tackle zeroes in on Prescott in space, he sees Jalen Tolbert one-on-one in the corner of the end zone and, frankly, just hucks the ball in that general vicinity. Tolbert, who had just finished running a 45-yard go route to the corner, turns back once he sees the ball coming (reminiscent of a basketball player running lines), and meets the ball around the 5-yard line, making one of the most impressive catches in recent memory.
It isn’t hard to highlight the significance of this play from an NFL Pro perspective: According to Next Gen Stats, it was the least likely completion of the last nine years, at a miniscule 7.2% probability. Just to get the pass off, Prescott had to buy 5.55 seconds, scrambling for 17.4 yards and hitting 12.7 miles per hour at the time of release (just before being hit himself). Meanwhile, Tolbert covered 51.5 yards of distance before making the catch, which he snagged 0.2 yards from the sideline per the tracking data (with his toes roughly 0.2 inches from the sideline per the eye test).
This was one of several brilliant throws Prescott made in this game and on the season, accounting for just 1.36 of the 30.96 fantasy points he scored on Sunday night. Even without CeeDee Lamb, he proved he can be a fantasy force (against a very good defense). He might be a top-tier QB1 more weeks than not, and his top healthy pass-catchers — currently George Pickens and Jake Ferguson — are essentially must-starts.
Ashton Jeanty does 99% of the work on this play. The offensive line helped him very little, which has been par for the course at this point in the season, so he’s forced to dodge two tackles right out of the gate. After breaking free, Jeanty finds some real estate down the left sideline, at which point it becomes less football and more foot race, which lucky for him, is his bread and butter. You will see the Chicago free safety catch Jeanty at around the 25-yard line. You might expect that to be the end of the play — only it’s not. In a cross between a jump, a hop and a hurdle, Jeanty gets out of the tackle and glides into the end zone as if he’s done it 100 times before.
This play was a tale of two tales. The first tale is the tragedy of the Raiders offensive line. Approximately 2.4 seconds after the snap, Jeanty was faced with a mess at the line of scrimmage, contact at -0.2 yards and just three expected rush yards on the play. The second tale, however, is the epic of Ashton Jeanty’s talent. With one cut, multiple missed tackles forced and a top speed of 20.09 miles per hour, Jeanty instead logged 61 rushing yards over expectation on his way to the end zone.
This was Jeanty’s biggest play of Week 4 — worth 12.4 fantasy points on its own — but take it out completely, and he still scored 21.1 the rest of the day. It was an incredible (and relieving) breakout for the sixth-overall pick, who has been muffled by his poor offensive line and inconsistent offense to start the year. Notably, he ended up with -16 rush yards over expectation on his other 20 carries, so all is not solved, but the Jeanty panic button can be shelved for at least another week or two.