Kyle Monangai, Alim McNeill, and Banana the Corgi are the NFC’s Week 4 Secret Superstars

Joe Nicholson-Imagn Images | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect Superstars may lead the discussion when it comes to success in the NFL, but more often than not, it’s the guys you barely know who will make the plays needed when they’re needed. Such players can be underrated for all kinds of reasons. Perhaps they’re playing in a smaller market, and the media isn’t appropriately trumpeting their exploits. Maybe they’re hidden in a depth chart behind bigger names who may not be doing as much. Or, it’s always possible that a wayward coach hasn’t quite figured out that one guy needs elevation to bring better results to the team. Whatever the reason, we at SB Nation always like to bring the underrated names to you with the offseason Hidden Gems and in-season Secret Superstars series. You can also catch up on the AFC and NFC Secret Superstars for the 2026 season right here. Here are our NFC Secret Superstars for Week 4 of the 2026 regular season. And if you haven’t yet, download the new SB Nation app, so you can better read our stuff and join the conversation wherever you are! Kyle Monangai, RB, Chicago Bears One thing you have to love about Chicago Bears head coach and offensive shot-caller Ben Johnson is that the man will win on that side of the ball in just about any way possible. Johnson’s passing game concepts are justifiably highly regarded, but going back to his time as the Detroit Lions’ offensive coordinator from 2022-2024, Johnson has also put some great run concepts on the field. This approach really showed up in Chicago’s 23-12 win over the New York Jets on Sunday. With Tyson Bagent as his quarterback, Johnson wanted to keep the ball as much as possible, which led to a decidedly old-school approach. The Bears ran the ball 54 times for 232 yards and two touchdowns. Those 54 attempts tied for the fifth-most by one team in a single game in the new millennium. The Bears had more first downs (34) than the Jets had offensive plays (32), and the time of possession — 42:45 to 17:15 in the Bears’ favor — told you all you needed to know about Johnson’s strategy. “It’s one of those things, as a play caller, you just kind of get in the flow of what do you think’s going to help us move the ball,” Johnson said postgame. “I’m always hungry and hunting big plays, explosive plays. Sometimes they’re there, sometimes they’re not. But I didn’t feel a whole lot of negative plays today, which was kind of indicative of us being able to possess the ball. I don’t know if we had the ‘super explosives’ like we would have wanted, either. But I know there weren’t a whole lot of third downs, or at least third and longs that I had to dial up there. It was just interesting how that all played out.” Key among Johnson’s prime movers was Kyle Monangai, the second-year seventh-round man from Rutgers who has been a Secret Superstar before — back in Week 1, as a matter of fact — but I had to get him back in here after his game against the Jets. The 5’9”, 209-pound Monangai ran the ball 30 times for 146 yards and two touchdowns. He had an EPA per rush of +0.12, a rushing success rate of 46.7%, and he had just one negative run on those 30 attempts. “He ran hard, yeah, he ran really hard,” Johnson said of his primary back. “He found some creases and turned on the gas. I thought I saw one really, really good stiff arm there as well. When you see a guy running like that, you want to feed him as the play caller. And I do think it elevates all of those guys out there and gives them a spark as well — the guys blocking for him. And it was good to see. We needed that.” The @ChicagoBears put the entire offense in Kyle Monangai's hands on Sunday, and he responded brilliantly. This is how you choke a defense out. pic.twitter.com/mPIZjebAdE — Doug Farrar ✍ (@NFL_DougFarrar) October 5, 2026 No matter how Monangai did it, he did it well. He had 11 attempts with man blocking for 53 yards and one touchdown, and 19 attempts with zone blocking for 93 yards and another score. Monangai has already proven the ability to be a rotational star, but in this game, he was the bell cow back, and he handled that responsibility like a champ. Alim McNeill, DL, Detroit Lions If you’ve watched the Detroit Lions’ defense this season, you don’t need me to tell you that it’s been a real big problem. These Lions are desperately scrambling to put a secondary on the field every week, and that’s a primary reason that only the Dallas Cowboys have a worse Defensive DVOA. All head coach Dan Campbell and defensive coordinator Kelvin Sheppard can do is sigh their way through it, as these Lions don’t have the linebackers to play zone the right way, and they don’t have the defensive backs to play man the right way. Sadly, there isn’t really a third kind of defense that would help. In the Lions’ 32-26 Sunday night loss to the Carolina Panthers, Bryce Young riddled that defense with basic RPO stuff, and nobody seemed to know how to stop it. The one guy who was a stopper to the extent the Lions would like was defensive tackle Alim McNeill. The 6’2”, 315-pound McNeill had a sack, seven total pressures, a tackle for loss in the run game, and generally speaking, wherever he was on the line, the offensive lineman (or linemen) on the other side of the ball was not going to have a good rep. The @Lions' defense may be a disaster this season, but don't blame Alim McNeill for that. Dude was blowing up the @Panthers' O-line from everywhere. pic.twitter.com/bJ4xh2b94h — Doug Farrar ✍ (@NFL_DougFarrar) October 5, 2026 All this one week after his two-sack, seven-pressure performance against the New York Jets. In that game, Sheppard had McNeill take a shot as a stand-up rusher, to positive effect. At this point, @Lions defensive coordinator Kelvin Sheppard will try just about anything — including using Alim McNeill as a stand-up rusher. (Can McNeill also play cornerback?) pic.twitter.com/mlNrMPI6yI — Doug Farrar ✍ (@NFL_DougFarrar) October 6, 2026 “Just find[ing] different ways to get creative [and] generate a rush is all we’re doing right now,” Sheppard said last week of that strategy. “Finding guys, making sure we can put them in optimal position. You start to move around 54 [McNeill], 97 [Aidan Hutchinson] makes a couple people wary. You look at the first two weeks, especially in the Buffalo game, Josh Allen’s like, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa.’ And he’s checking to max protection when [he doesn’t] even have to and things like that. Trying to dictate [and] force the offenses to believe we’re doing certain things and sell[ing] different things. It’s kind of a mixture of that, and to get our premium rush players in one-on-one rush situations.” Well, when very few things work, it’s a good time to empty the whole damned playbook. Especially with a guy in Alim McNeill, who is holding the standard when few others are able. Banana, Corgi Race Champion, Seattle Seahawks There are times when an unexpected athletic performance, combined with a particularly sassy style, goes viral for all the right reasons. This was the case at the half of the Seattle Seahawks’ 30-23 Sunday win over the Los Angeles Chargers. That’s because the Seahawks held corgi races at halftime (these should happen everywhere more often, as my esteemed colleague James Dator pointed out), and a five-year-old corgi named Banana stunted on every other corgi in the race. To the extent that, after discounting a slight early start by the dog in the middle lane, Banana was able to look back at her unfortunate competitors in Usain Bolt fashion, telling those other corgis that this was NOT going to be their day. From a sheer tools/technique perspective, the way Banana was able to run with such speed up the seam, and then take the post route over the ostensible defender, was the way you want to run a post pattern. Even Jaxon Smith-Njigba could learn a thing or two about separation here. Then, the backward look, and an overjoyed bounce into the end zone. Pure art. Put the league on notice. Halftime MVP: BANANA 🐾 https://t.co/bTIl6nfVol pic.twitter.com/ioCs9OhVE0 — Seattle Seahawks (@Seahawks) October 4, 2026 As you might expect, this was not Banana’s first rodeo. As Sofia Schwarzwalder of the Seattle Times reports, Banana has won these races before, and represented her favorite team in the Pro Bowl, the NFC Championship game, and during Super Bowl week. Banana has been destroying the competition long before her viral moment Sunday. Here's my story from Super Bowl week where Banana and owner Anne Pham competed at the Pro Bowl in San Francisco.#Seahawks@fox13seattle https://t.co/moi5qGqVau pic.twitter.com/qE3soanBCt — Ethan McReynolds (@EthanMcTV) October 6, 2026 Anne Pham, Banana’s human, said that she started racing Banana in 2023 at Emerald Downs, the thoroughbred racetrack outside of Seattle. Banana unexpectedly won her heat, and a star was born. Banana has also thrown out the first pitch at a Seattle Mariners game, and she’s kind of a big deal on both TikTok and Instagram. “I grew up always wanting a dog,” Pham said. “I had in my iPhone notes that I would get a dog, specifically a corgi, and I would name it Banana. She was always in the future plans.” As Banana’s performance coach, Pham doesn’t have to do a lot of refinement work with such a natural athlete; the primary strategy in Sunday’s race was to have Banana’s favorite stuffed banana at the finish line. Clearly, it worked like a charm. Pham and Banana, who recently moved from Seattle to New York City and flew back for this game, have inspired greatness in each other. Long may it continue.

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