Four opening drives, four different answers to the same question: what a coach does with a possession that decides nothing and everything. Week 7's early window settled first-quarter arguments in Tampa, Atlanta, Minneapolis and Miami. The loudest came from the winless club.
Baker Mayfield returned for Tampa Bay and the Buccaneers' first drive ended in the end zone for a 7-0 lead over Carolina. The touchdown is the headline. The interesting part is the sequencing: an opening script built around a quarterback who hadn't been on the field produced points immediately, which tells you Tampa Bay spent the week planning around Mayfield rather than around damage control. My read is that the Buccaneers stay aggressive on early downs from here, and Carolina's defense is the first unit that has to prove it can hold up against it. What would make me wrong is a Tampa Bay offense that goes conservative the moment it sees a real pass rush.
Kyle Shanahan kept the San Francisco offense on the field for fourth-and-goal from the 1 in Atlanta, and Christian McCaffrey leapt into the end zone to give the 49ers the lead. Going for it there is correct by every win-probability model worth reading, and Shanahan is one of the few coaches who behaves as though he's read them. The downstream effect gets ignored: McCaffrey as the goal-line finisher means San Francisco's short-yardage touchdowns belong to him and not to a fullback dive or a quarterback sneak. That is a role change worth more than any single carry between the twenties.
Minnesota opened at home with a big kickoff return, failed on fourth down, and watched Jonathan Taylor put the Colts up 7-0. The sequencing is the story. A return unit that hands the offense a short field and gets nothing back is the cheapest way to lose an early possession, and Indianapolis answered with the most reliable thing it has. Taylor finishing drives is the Colts' entire identity on offense, and I expect them to keep handing it to him in close rather than asking the passing game to solve the red zone. Minnesota's fourth-down aggressiveness isn't the mistake. Treating a gifted possession as a chance to get cute is.
Miami entered Week 7 at 0-5 and had not held a lead at any point across those five losses. The Dolphins finally took one in their sixth game, against the Jets. Be honest about what that is: a very low bar, cleared. Never leading once in five games is a game-plan problem before it's a talent problem, because bad rosters stumble into early field goals and good ones don't go wire-to-wire from behind every week. The Jets are the correct opponent to fix that against, which is exactly what should worry Miami. Winning this proves less than winning almost anywhere else on the schedule would, and I'd like to see the Dolphins hold a lead against a defense that isn't in the same draft-position conversation.
Sixteen executives and coaches voted on the top five MVP contenders through six weeks, with Brock Purdy and Josh Allen among the names and a non-quarterback floated as a possibility. A non-QB is not winning this. The award has calcified into a quarterback-efficiency contest with a team-success multiplier, and the people who spend their weeks grading protection schemes still default to the position that touches the ball on every snap. The useful signal is Purdy's presence on the ballot at all. The league's own decision-makers are measurably less dismissive of him than the shouting segments are, and that gap is the story of the poll.
Here's my verdict, and I'll own it: aggression is only a strategy when it's consistent. Shanahan's fourth-and-goal call and Minnesota's fourth-down failure are the same decision with different box scores, and only one of those coaches will get second-guessed for it Monday. The clubs that keep going for it will be right more often than the ones that don't, and Miami's first lead of 2026 doesn't change that math for anybody.