What In The Name of Josh McCown Has Gotten Into Andy Dalton?

At the beginning of the fourth quarter on Sunday, the Seattle Seahawks led the Cincinnati Bengals 24-7. The most respected defense in the NFL had stymied Andy Dalton after an opening score, rallying to force five punts and two turnovers. Along with most football writers, I began to box the game up as another example of Dalton's woefulness—the janky anchor holding a talented team back from being a true Super Bowl contender.

But then the deficit began to shrink. The columns calling Dalton a fraud backspaced in our heads. Eventually, Dalton led the Bengals to a 27-24 overtime win against the Seahawks.

The Bengals are on a tear, and Dalton is on fire. Through the first quarter of the season, only Tom Brady had more DYAR and a higher DVOA than Dalton. After throwing for 331 yards and two scores against a good Seattle defense, Dalton probably remains right on Brady's heels. (Football Outsiders updates their statistics on Tuesday.) But because this is so out of character, and so wildly out of line with Dalton's track record, it feels like the entire NFL is waiting for Dalton to fall on his face again.

The truth is that Dalton didn't do anything especially great on the last three drives of regulation and overtime. I'd love to tell you that he shrank the deficit in a sexy way, but it didn't work that way. Dalton checked his way down the field three times. The Seattle defense was content to let Dalton nibble them to death in the flat with curl routes and slants. The Seahawks weren't in a prevent defense, but they definitely played it vanilla. And the bland Seattle offense didn't do much to keep the Bengals offense off the field.

Definition of overthinking. Bevell on how the Seahawks use Jimmy Graham — Cian Fahey (@Cianaf)October 10, 2015

Dalton made only one tough throw in the three final drives against the Seahawks. Let's look at said throw:

After the play, announcer Joe Buck said, "what a catch by Tyler Eifert!" Note he did not say, "what a throw by Andy Dalton!"

This fits right into our preconceived notions about Dalton: he doesn't throw a great deep ball. And yet, through his first four games, Dalton had more DYAR on deep balls than any quarterback in the NFL—by more than 100. Critics say Dalton will panic under pressure and take lots of sacks. The four sacks he took against Seattle pushed his season total to… six.

Even some of the things that you'd think would feed a great Dalton season just aren't in evidence. Is he a product of the system, or getitng staked to leads and feeding on easy throws from there? Cincinnati is 5-0, but they've had only had one blowout win, in Week 1 against Oakland. Other than that, Cincy has asked Dalton to throw and win in tight games. The average game script—that is, the average lead Dalton had in those other three games—was 6.6 points. Factor in Sunday's game and you're probably going to see Cincy with a seasonal average of about +5 points after this week. Dalton is winning close games.

I'm not going to tell you that Dalton has blossomed into the best quarterback in the NFL. I don't think the tape bears that out. Our sample is 160 throws. Even Josh McCown had a phenomenal season in less than 250 attempts. And McCown is, statistically, one of the worst quarterbacks in modern NFL history.

We've also seen Dalton string together great games like this before. Dalton had a 23.3 percent DVOA through his first five games in 2014, before declining to his usual mediocre standard.

But with every passing week, it's hard to ignore the idea that the Bengals just may have built a talented enough core around Dalton to hide his flaws. The Bengals—with a healthy Geno Atkins—have a top-10 defense through four weeks, and one that can get after the quarterback. Eifert and Marvin Jones have returned from injury to give the Bengals a terrific skill-position corps. The offensive line can hold their own with any in the league.

I don't believe that what Andy Dalton is doing is repeatable. But I do think, with the talent around him, that the Bengals can be serious Super Bowl contenders. This recent stretch of play shows their upside and puts them next to Denver in the non-Patriots AFC contender pool.

There will always be doubt about Dalton until he does something in the playoffs. And even once he does that, the meme that he's not clutch will stick around for a while. (It happened to Tony Romo.) The question the Bengals and Dalton need to answer is, "How do we replicate this play later in the season?"

We've got three months until playoff time. The toughest thing for a team built like Cincinnati is surviving the pace of the season. A great quarterback can erase problem areas for a team. It's why Peyton Manning never needed an offensive line late in his Colts days. But Cincinnati needs every table leg to be standing come January. That's a legitimate problem in a league where the game's inherent attrition constantly churns starters on to injured reserve.

A team needs a difference-maker at the most important position when they're hosting a playoff game and the fourth-string edge rusher, who has been forced into starting, isn't getting any pressure. We'll find out what Dalton is made of when A.J. Green is playing through an injury and needs the ball right on his fingertips.

What Dalton has done so far is commendable. He has legitimately played better than his past performance would have suggested was possible. This is, at least in part, because the Bengals have built a perfect box for him. I hope Cincinnati makes it to the end unscathed. It's great for football when different teams are in contention. The Bengals are a consistent success story that goes overlooked because of jokes about Dalton, Marvin Lewis, and owner Mike Brown's cheapness.

But in the NFL, the only perfect box is one that hasn't been dinged up yet.