Winners and losers week 5 of the NFL season
We return to the winners and losers column this week after a quick hiatus as I wrote a lengthy piece that more or less explained that the more you learn and know about football, the more wrong you’ll end being. A few teams that I wrote lengthy obituaries about would wind up winning while a team I had championed as a dark horse contender would go on to lose to a winless football team. All of that is featured this week and in a month’s time, I think I’ll revisit that power rankings piece and see just how well everything I wrote holds up. For now, let’s dive into the winners and losers from a high scoring week 5 of football
Winners: NFC BEAST
Dallas
Only another sad sack loss by the Commies saved this from being a full NFC BEAST clean sweep as two teams who face each other in week 6, had impressive, albeit shaky victories. Dallas faced a rival only topped in the modern era by Aaron Rodgers and the Eagles as undefeated QB Cooper Rush marched into So-Fi stadium to play Sean Mcvay and Co who’ve owned Dallas since taking over play calling duties. But things have been ugly for the Rams this season. The offensive line has more holes in it than Deshaun Watson’s alibi’s which has stopped them from running the ball as well as protecting Stafford. That was no different this week as on the opening drive, Stafford was strip sacked by Dorrance Armstrong while Demarcus Lawrence returned it to the house for 6. On the ensuing possession, the Rams punt was blocked and another 3 points were tacked onto the board opening up a 9-0 lead for Dallas. To the Rams credit, they’d bounce back as Trevon Diggs got burned numerous times this game, one for 54 yards against TuTu Atwell. It was a first half that encapsulated everything that’s gone right and wrong for the Rams this season. Aaron Donald would continue to be one of, if not the best player on the defensive end while Kupp ran rampant against Diggs and whoever else he matched up against. Yet for all the star power, Los Angeles would be on the end of a 16-10 half-time deficit thanks to the terrific run blocking by the Dallas offensive line, paving the way for a 57-yard Pollard score. It was a half in which Cooper Rush had thrown for a Justin Fields esque 49 yards.
The third quarter would prove to be more of the same as Dallas ran the ball for almost 7 minutes and Cooper Rush would accumulate almost half of his total passing yardage for the game in a single drive (albeit for a net result of just 3 points). With little occurring to start the 4th quarter, Dallas would notch another FG, pushing the lead out to 22-10. Still, there was hope for the Rams, marching down the field and having the ball at the Dallas 25. But facing a third and 13 while escaping a couple of unblocked rushers, Stafford would throw a jump ball that sailed over double coverage and into the waiting arms of Dallas safety Malik Hooker. On the final drive of the game, Micah Parsons laid his own claim for being the best defensive player in football as he strip sacked Stafford for the second time (5th total) and ending the game. It was an ugly affair all around as Dallas continues to win off the back of it’s elite pass rush while playing conservative, run heavy football. Cooper Rush had his worst game of the season, being unable to complete much of anything besides a slick jump ball throw to the returning Gallup. He ended up with just 102 passings yards which didn’t matter as Dallas outran the Rams 163 yards to 38. Only three Dallas receivers would end up with a catch in what has to be one of the more perplexing box scores of the season. It’s a low point in the Rams season though this is also what the Dallas defence has done to every team it’s played, including the Brady led Bucs in week one. The only difference between that game and this victory is the emergence of a team identity. Play safe, mistake free football, rely on the defence for good field position and turnovers while scoring 20-23 points a game. It’s likely not a formula that will spell success for them against the Eagles this week but until Dak comes back, it’s good enough to maintain a winning record.
Philly
If you’re not an NFC East fan then this week isn’t for you as we dive into the second of the three division winners. I’m not going to a deep recap for this game like I normally do as the win itself was actually rather uninspired. It all started fine for Phiily as a strong opening drive saw Hurts pick apart the Cardinals defence with AJ Brown before rushing in for a score. The lead even got bigger as they scored another TD to open it up to 14-0. But Philly’s inconsistency would rear it’s ugly head here as Arizona fought back to a 14-10 deficit. After a several long but scoreless drives in the third, the game would spark back to life in the 4th as the Cardinals levelled the game at 17. Philly’s run game would chew the play clock and give the Eagles a 3 point lead with a minute and a half left. Kyler Muarry would march the Cardinals back down the field though a bizarre spike on third and one forced them to kick a 43 yard FG with 23 seconds left. It would go wide right and Philly would walk away with the victory. None of this is to say the Eagles got lucky. You make your own luck in football. This game did mark a bit of an ongoing issue for Philly however as they continue to let teams back into games instead of stomping on throats like elite teams typically do. KC and the Bills for instance are teams with real, legitimate playoff experience and will often pummel teams once they’ve surmounted a large lead. Of course, both those teams would have rough moments this year and have to rally back for victories. But we’ve seen enough from those teams to not question their title contender legitimacy. While Philly does have a couple of those wins, it’s hard to ignore the incompetency of the teams they played against in the blowout wins. Kirk played an awful game against them as his favourite target was Darius Slay. While Wentz and the Commies were… well, you know.
So why are they in the winner’s column? Because they won the game obviously. It wasn’t impressive and it certainly raises some more concerns but you also can’t ignore that they’re the only undefeated team left in football with a breezy schedule the rest of the way. This squad has the ability to win every which way as well, be it with a strong defence or a dual threat attack. Like I said in my power rankings piece last week, this isn’t your typical undefeated squad. They aren’t fraudulent nor are they juggernauts. They’re something in-between but so long as they keep beating teams they’re supposed to, you can’t keep them out of the winners column.
Giants
NFC BEAST BABYYYYYYY. Who on earth would’ve ever thought there’d be three NFC East teams in the winners column, let alone at a combined record of 13-2 through five weeks. We finally hit the trifecta with the New York Giants. Entering the game against Green Bay, there was a lot of scepticism about this Giants team. A lot of “the worst 4-1 team we’ve seen in a while” chatter. It wasn’t undeserved either as they won their first two games by a combined four points and had only beaten the Titans and Panthers. In week 3, they lost convincingly to Dallas before surviving against the Bears without a healthy QB. Going against GB in London, with Daniel Jones on a bad ankle, it seemed incredibly obvious that the fraudulent nature of this squad would be revealed with that porous Giants run defence getting exploited to death by Aaron Jones and AJ Dillion. The start of the game wasn’t that far off that prediction as the Giants had back-to-back 3 and outs while the Packers built a 10-0 lead. What was surprising about the opening stanza was the method of attack from GB, moving the ball almost entirely through the air. That would be the story of the first half with Jones and dillion combining for just 52 yards on the ground while Rodgers would rack up 142 yards passing. Another unexpected wrinkle was the Giants ability to move the move the ball despite missing four starting WR’s and Jones being limited in his mobility. Danny Dimes would only be sacked once in the first half (negated by a defensive hold) and had a lot of success throwing against a pretty sturdy Packer secondary. A lengthy 7-minute drive was their only possession of the 2nd quarter which featured a diverse array of play calling that’s become somewhat of a trademark with new head coach Brian Daboll and was capped with a TE end around rushing score, bringing the game to a competitive 20-10 halftime score. The third featured two lengthy drives, one by each team that saw the Giants settling for a FG after a penalty stall the drive while the Packers still opted for a pass heavy attack instead of contesting the Giants D-line.
But it was the 4th quarter where things got wild and whacky. Saquon Barkley was ruled questionable to return but it really didn’t seem to matter as the Giants peppered GB with motion, got Danny dimes (hobbled ankle and all), to scramble around and marched down the Packers throats to tie the game. A quick GB 3 and out later and the Giants got the ball back and did what they had done since the start of the 2nd quarter, marching down the field after an explosive play by Barkley. After just 3 and a half minutes of game time, the Giants had punched it in for another score and had the lead for the first time all game, scoring on 5 straight possessions and outscoring GB 17-0 in the 2nd half. But this is the Packers. This is the dragon, the man who we’ve seen annihilate fans hopes and dreams just when you think your safe. Of course, he was going to drive down the field and score. Maybe even get a 2pt conversion and retake the lead. It really did seem like that’s what was going to happen, getting the ball down to the Giants 14 at the 2 minute warning. But then things started to fall off the wagon. First it was Aaron Jones running into his own lineman on 2nd and 4. Then it was a near INT off by a deflected pass. Finally, on 4th down, the pass rush got there once again and Lazard didn’t even have time to fully run his route as another Rodgers pass got deflected and fell harmlessly to the ground. Just like that, the game was over and one of the more surprising upsets this season had been pulled off. It may seem a little unnecessary to go into such detail on the final drive. But it’s a perplexing loss for GB and a marvellous win for the Giants as no matter how many times you watch it, the game still doesn’t make really make any sense. All credit to Brian Daboll and the Giants though. They were 8-point underdogs despite possessing the same record and had every reason in the world to lose this game. In London, QB hurt, WR’s hurt, Saquon banged up, facing Aaron Rodgers. But no, none of that would be a cop out and instead, the Giants have stayed in the brutal NFC East race that has the potential to feature 3 different playoff teams. It doesn’t get any easier for them next week as they play the Ravens but only one other team outside of their division possess the same record they have currently, meaning there’s breathing room, even if they stumble.
Loser: Green Bay
This is a quick one given the game was discussed at length above but it’s still worth placing the Packers firmly in the losers column this week. They lost a game they could have and should have won given all the injuries to the Giants. Hell, even when healthy, you’d have expected them to win. Instead, we saw an incredibly talented defence underperform while the offence moved away from its identity and lost themselves within this game. Rodgers doesn’t have the receiving talent to make this team a pass heavy threat. But the defence does have the talent to be a good to great defence which makes it all the more bizarre that they lost the way they did. They’ve got a week 6 matchup against the Jets who may have the firepower to upset this team which is a sentence I never thought I’d utter even a week ago. It isn’t time to hit the panic button on this team yet but if they lose next week, you’ll start seeing a lot of cheese heads worrying.
Winner: Tight Ends
The final winner this week is TE’s. This will be a short one but man oh man, what a week for Travis Kelce and Taysom Hill. Both players couldn’t be more different. Kelce is your prototypical elite tier TE, capable of being a great receiver who has earned the respect of being double and triple teamed across the field. The one place he wasn’t double or triple covered was in the red zone. Which was a rather big mistake by Vegas as Kelce went nuclear. 4 TD’s and a whopping 25 yards off 7 catches. Despite that, Kelce wasn’t the only “TE” to have 4 TD’s in week 5.
Taysom is…. Not your prototypical TE. He’s arguably not a TE at all. But he’s had a hell of a week notching 4 TD’s with 3 of them being rushing and one through the air. You read that correct, Taysom Hill actually completed a pass and for a score no less. His performance isn’t replicable on a week to week basis but it is remarkable what a unique player he is in this league. He posses little in the way of passing ability and he isn’t much of a receiver. But the fact he’s semi competent at both combined with being a large, imposing runner has made him into a legitimate red zone threat when utilised properly.
Losers
Denver/ Human Existence
Every week seems like its another roast for this Russell Wilson led Denver team. Week 5 was the low point of the season in a game so damn ugly, it’s really not worth diving into at length. To cover the basics of it, there was three field goals at halftime with Denver possessing a commanding 6-3 lead. By the end of the fourth quarter, Indy had valiantly rallied back to tie the game and send it into OT where they’d hold on to win the game. The game had 76,000 miserable fans in attendance, didn’t feature a single touchdown, had 11 three and outs, both QB’s threw two INT’s, Ryan was sacked 6 times and Wilson 4. It was truly one of the worst football games I’ve ever witnessed and yet as it went on, it took this wonderous and magical quality to it. Like a movie that’s so terrible it becomes “good”, that’s what it felt like watching this game. I could picture Russell Wilson screaming “YOUR TEARING ME APART SUTTON…. Oh hi Stephen Gilmore”. You couldn’t help but watch as both starting QB’s made mistake after mistake after mistake. Matt Ryan was dreadful once again in this game as he continues to hold the ball for far too long despite a wounded offensive line. I shit you not when I say that Ryan has fumbled the ball twice in each of his last 3 games. He’s fumbled at least once every single game and has 11 fumbles over 5 weeks. Were this not a game that had Wilson, we’d have all been reading his obituary from football this week as he commits the worst play of his entire career.
But Ryan wasn’t the only washed up QB playing in this game. Because for as bad as Ryan has been, Indy can at least claim they acquired him at a cheap price. The same can’t be said for Denver as I’m going to once again post what they paid for Wilson this offseason as it gets more and more hilarious by the week: “Denver gave up the farm to acquire Wilson, trading Drew Lock, Noah Fant, Shelby Harris, two first round picks (2022 and 2023),two second-round picks (2022 and 2023) and a 2022 fifth-round selection for Wilson and a 2022 fourth-round pick”. In addition to the trade haul, they gave Wilson a 5 year, 242.5-million-dollar extension with a 50 million dollar signing bonus and 124 million guaranteed. For that investment, Wilson gave them as dazzling 0 TD and 2 INT performance where he missed a wide open KJ Hamler on a designed rub route and instead stared down Courtland Sutton as Denver lost the game in OT on 4th and one. On the season, Wilson has completed 59.4% of his passes, averaging 250 YPG while throwing 4 TD’s, 3 INT’s and has been sacked 16 times. To put that into perspective, Wilson is 14th this season in passing yards, losing out to Seattle QB Geno Smith among others. His completion percentage is only higher than Joe Flacco, Zach Wilson, Marcus Mariota, Justin Fields and Baker Mayfield amongst starting QB’s. He’s thrown the same amount of TD’s as Cooper Rush, Mayfield, Winston, Mariotta and Fields. He’s thrown for less TD’s than Flacco, Brissett, Mills, Ryan, Wentz and Geno. The only QB’s who’ve been sacked more than him are Fields, Wentz, Ryan, Stafford and Burrow. Denver is 31st in points scored this season and 30th on third down percentage. All of this is to say that the Wilson experiment in Denver could quite literally not be going any worse. Maybe that’s a positive. After all, Rusty has nowhere to go but up right? Well one would hope so because the man has endured more roasting the past week that he has his entire career combined up to this point. If it doesn’t get any better, don’t be surprised if Wilson “shoulder injury” suddenly gets worse as he suddenly starts to miss games and perhaps prays for a soft reset in 2023.
Refs
Next up on the chopping block is the refs. This will be another quick one as I got a little carried away in the burial of Wilson but who can blame me. Of course, when talking about the refs, I’m talking about two plays in particular. The first being Grady Jarett roughing the passer call and the second being a would be strip sack by Chris Jones that turned into a roughing the passer call. Both instances although different are more or less the same in that they’re calls designed to protect the QB. In Jarrett’s case he was…. Whipping Brady too forcefully in his attempt I guess? I honestly have no explanation for this one beyond it being a terrible call. Whereas the Chris Jones penalty I could at least see the whole bodyweight argument even if that’s a nonsensical argument as well. What is Jones supposed to do in his case. He’s rushing from Carr’s blindside so he’s always going to be initiating contact on Carr’s back. Even throughout the tackle process, he would end up bracing himself on the ground, using his hand to take some of the weight off of Carr and not completely crush him with his full weight (something I’d argue he shouldn’t even need to do in the first place). We all understand this is a QB driven league. The whole bodyweight rule came in after Rodgers broke his collarbone on a blindside hit. But this is a contact sport. On some level QB’s are going to get hurt unless you make it flag football and have DE’s rip the QB’s tags instead (although never count out a rule where your flagged for ripping a QB’s tags too forcefully). I don’t believe this is an overreaction to the whole Tua “concussion-gate” as neither play featured anyone wobbling or even going to the blue medical tent. It’s simply a case of over protecting the marquee position in football. But you can no longer go for QB’s knees nor their heads (I agree with both of these to be fair). A body shot is all that’s allowed now and even that’s being legislated against. So where does the NFL go from here? Making roughing the passer a reviewable call will achieve nothing as we saw a couple seasons ago with the pass interference rule. Refs simply don’t want to be second guessed and will ignore the change just like they did last time. Even if they didn’t, you’re making a subjective ruling reviewable and we’ve seen just how well that’s gone for the “process of a catch” in wake of the Dez Bryant play. There isn’t a simple answer to fixing this beyond better reffing and a more consistent definition on what is and what isn’t roughing the passer. For instance, in that same game, Mahomes got slung to the ground much in the same way Brady was by Garett. Only no flag was thrown. Consistency is the only measure of improvement we can hope for moving forward as nothing over the past 5 or so years should lead us to believe a rule change will actually improve things for the better.
Lions and Jags
I’m combining these two into one given the lengthy refs post despite really not wanting to dive too deeply into it. Both squads walked into their respective games with a lot to be optimistic about. The jags were playing the winless Texans while the Lions were playing a banged Pats squad. Yet the two teams would combine for a total of 6 points and lose in embarrassing fashion. To be fair to the Jags, they dominated most of the game, almost doubling the Texans in total yards. But their offence would stall time after time after time and settled for two FG’s in the first half. It would only get worse though as Lawerence would throw an inexplicable red zone INT to rookie CB standout Derek Stingley. Even still, the Jags would have a couple more chances to put up points in the 4th quarter but were unable to do so. The win would extend the Texans winning streak over the Jags to 9 straight as the AFC South continue to play the football version of scissor, paper, rock. It’s an inexplicable loss for the Jags as even just a week ago, they almost rallied to tie against the Eagles in a game they had no business being in. This is the same squad that pummelled both the Colts and Chargers in back to back weeks before the aforementioned Eagles game. Like Green Bay on this list, they’re the better team “on paper” but have been unable to produce consistent results.
Speaking of inconsistency, let’s move onto the Lions. A week ago I had this team ranked one spot above the Patriots in the power rankings. The rationale being that although their defence is abysmal, that offence has been so dynamic even with key stars missing time. That couldn’t have been further from the truth in week 5 however as they got demolished by a third string rookie QB in his first official start. Much like the Jags, Detroit would have some success moving the ball but would be hamstrung by the mistakes. First it was a red zone INT by Goff (sound familiar?) then it was a fumble that gave NE a cushy 16-0 halftime lead. But large halftime deficits aren’t unfamiliar to this Lions squad. They rallied against Seattle in the 4th to make it competitive and were getting buried by the Eagles until they weren’t. So the game still appeared to be far from over. But over it was as NE dominated the ball in the third as Goff would miss critical pass after critical pass on third and fourth downs and NE rumbled their way to an easy 29-0 shutout of the number one scoring offence in the NFL. It’s an alarming loss for head coach Dan Campbell as whispers of him being on the hot seat start to spread entering the bye week. This may not be a capable, playoff achieving squad. But to walk away with just a single victory in 5 weeks while starting a fairly difficult stretch of the schedule in November may have this Lions squad eliminated form the playoffs before we even hit January. It’s hard not to love Campbell but we’re reaching a stage where wins need to start rolling in or Detroit should start looking elsewhere.
That’ll do it from me for another week. There’s no real excuse as to why I pumped this one out late. I just felt so incredibly unmotivated to write this week and put it off for as long as humanely possible. That’s not excuse but just the honest truth. I hope by pumping this piece out despite that, I’ll get some rhythm and consistency under my belt but I can’t promise that. For whatever reason, this one didn’t come easy but if your reading this, I hope you enjoyed it and I’ll see you next week.