Solak's Week 4 column is out, and the trailer already gives away four of the seven things. One of them isn't a take. It's a finding.
ESPN published "Seven things Solak thinks entering NFL Week 4" on Tuesday, and the teaser names the loudest items: Brock Bowers will go off under Klint Kubiak, the Rams need another pass catcher, Steelers-Browns will be fun, and Lamar Jackson for MVP.
Three of the four are consensus. Lamar-for-MVP in late September is what you write when the reigning winner is upright and the team is winning. Nobody argues the other side, which is exactly why it isn't a contrarian item or even a hard one. Any Week 4 MVP list is a projection built from last year's ballot plus four games. Steelers-Browns "will be fun" exists because six things isn't a round number.
The Rams item is the interesting one, because "needs another pass catcher" isn't a prediction. It's a diagnosis. A team four weeks into a season being publicly told it has a hole at receiver is a front-office problem dressed up as a matchup note, and it says more about Los Angeles than any Week 4 scoreboard will.
Which leaves Bowers, and here the timeline matters. Las Vegas listed him questionable for Week 3 with a knee injury. He didn't practice that Friday, and Kubiak, his head coach, said the DNP was part of the team's plan for managing the injury. That's the frame underneath "Bowers will go off," and it's a load-management frame, not a breakout frame. Kubiak wants 12 personnel, two tight ends on the field, Bowers as the movable piece who blocks in-line and releases into the seam. That is a heavy snap diet for a tight end whose knee is already being managed in September.
The upside is real. So is the chance the deployment gets throttled by a training room rather than a coordinator.
My verdict: Bowers under Kubiak is the highest-ceiling item on Solak's seven, and it's also the one most likely to be undone by something no coordinator can scheme around. Watch the practice report, not the highlight.
