NFL Predictions Week 4: Mark Sanchez and 3 QBs Guaranteed to Struggle

This week, a number of quarterbacks are heading their teams into difficult matchups. Three of them—New York Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez, the Broncos' Kyle Orton and Kansas City's Matt Cassel—are going to have a more difficult time than the rest of the 32 starters in the league.

The reasons for this vary. Sanchez has the displeasure of traveling to Baltimore to take on the Ravens and their top-five defense that is notoriously brutal on opposing quarterbacks.

Orton is struggling to maintain consistency, let alone score points and connect with his targets, and faces the Green Bay Packers. And Cassel is the least-productive quarterback in the league, and regardless of opponent, is liable to come up short.

The Ravens have earned a reputation as one of the hardest-hitting defenses of the past decade, and they appear (through three games) to not have softened their attack. Sanchez, a quarterback not known for his high rate of completion nor an impressive number of average yards per attempt (55.4 percent and 5.8 yards, respectively), will be under significant pressure tonight and his receivers will likely be tightly covered.

While the Baltimore secondary isn't as overwhelming as their linebackers (save for safety Ed Reed), Sanchez will have trouble both getting the ball out of his hands in time and evading serious pressure, making for a difficult night.

Orton is in a similar scenario this afternoon, when his team takes on the defending Super Bowl champion Packers at Lambeau. The Packers also boast a bruising linebacker corps guaranteed to bring the pressure, and Orton is highly susceptible to it.

Through three games, Orton has thrown five touchdowns while losing two balls to fumbles and throwing three interceptions—not an impressive line. His completion percentage is just 57.3, due in part to his erratic performance and a number of injuries to his receiving corps.

The Packers struggle against the pass only in the secondary. This season, they've allowed a great number of yards and points, though much of that is skewed by shootouts in Weeks 1 and 2 that saw the team take on Drew Brees' Saints and Cam Newton's Panthers.

This week, against Orton and the Broncos, we will likely see the Packers defense to which we've become accustomed, with pressure on the quarterback up front and heavy coverage of receivers in the field.

Cassel and the winless Chiefs host the also 0-3 Minnesota Vikings today. While very little about the Vikings' defense has been particularly impressive, Cassel has been the worst quarterback in the league—a fact that will surely benefit Minnesota today.

The Vikings sit in the middle of the pack against both the pass and the run, but Cassel sits plainly at the bottom in every statistical category a quarterback can be measured (aside from the Jaguars' Luke McCown, who has been benched).

According to Football Outsiders, of Cassel's 408 total passing yards this season, only 126 of them have been effective yards, which, if lower than total yards, means a quarterback played worse than his other statistics would otherwise indicate. The fact that Cassel's are so preposterously low means that he's clearly done more to hurt his team than help it.

Beyond that, Cassel is hamstrung by an offense that can't get on the same page this season. He has three touchdowns to five interceptions but has thrown only 87 passes, and their average drive goes for just 19.11 yards.

These are the stats of a quarterback destined to struggle no matter the opponent, and as such, Cassel will have one of the most difficult days in the league. It is far more conceivable that the Chiefs will end the day 0-4 than the Vikings will, and Cassel's performance will be one major reason for it.