It's Week 5, and offense is back! The defenses have been getting most of the love in the early portion of the 2024 NFL season, but the scoring sprouted back up again this week.
The Falcons and Buccaneers got seemingly everyone's fantasy football week off to a great start with a 36-30 overtime thriller on Thursday night. Then Sunday's early window saw the Bears, Commanders, Colts and Jaguars score in the 30s, leading up to the Ravens' 41-38 overtime victory over the Bengals. Quarterbacks were winging the ball all over the place, and teams were lighting up the scoreboards again.
We've got nothing at all against defense here, but it's no overreaction to say it's a ton of fun watching Joe Burrow and Lamar Jackson slug out a classic AFC North rivalry game. Let's start this week's overreactions -- where we judge a few potential takeaways as legitimate or irrational -- in Cincinnati, where a bad hold on an overtime field goal attempt might have sunk the Bengals' season.
Jump to:
Bengals to miss the playoffs?
Vikings to win the NFC?
Jets need to trade for Adams?
Browns need to change QBs?
Niners missed their window?
The Bengals are going to miss the playoffs
This game was complete mayhem from start to finish ... but especially at the finish. Joe Burrow looked like a man on a mission all day, throwing five touchdown passes. He was 30-of-39 for 392 yards and played like a guy who knew his team's season was on the line.
But he threw an interception late in regulation when all the Bengals had to do was run out the clock, and the Ravens tied it on a 54-yard Justin Tucker field goal. Baltimore got the ball first in overtime, but Lamar Jackson fumbled a snap, and the Bengals got in range for a 53-yard Evan McPherson field goal attempt. The ball slipped out of the holder's hands, and McPherson missed. Then Derrick Henry ran the ball down inside the 10-yard line on the next play, and Tucker kicked the game winner from 24 yards to seal the Ravens' third straight win and drop the Bengals to 1-4.
Burrow became the first player to lose a game with 375-plus passing yards and five or more touchdown passes since Patrick Mahomes against the Rams in 2018, according to ESPN Research. And overall, it's the eighth such loss by a player in the Super Bowl era (since 1966).
Verdict: NOT AN OVERREACTION
Burrow and the Bengals have overcome slow starts in the past, but 1-4 is a rough place to be with the Steelers at 3-1 entering Sunday night's game and the Ravens up to 3-2. This was a backs-against-the-wall home division game, and they absolutely should (and could) have won it. People want to say the schedule looks soft, and I get that, but the Bengals have already lost to the Patriots and Commanders (who clearly aren't the pushovers we expected them to be when that schedule came out).
The big problem is that the Bengals' defense -- which was so critical to their Super Bowl run in the 2021 season, which suddenly feels like a long time ago -- hasn't been able to stop anybody. They can win their next two games against the Giants and Browns, and it'll look like they're on the road back. But based on what we've seen of this team, we can't assume they'll even win those games. And even if they do, the opportunity that slipped through the Bengals' fingers Sunday is going to be a tough one to overcome -- emotionally and mathematically.
The Vikings are going to win the NFC
The Vikings packed their defense for their trip to London. They intercepted Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers three times; edge rusher Andrew Van Ginkel returned one for a touchdown, and cornerback Stephon Gilmore had another that sealed the game in the final minute. As they did a week earlier in Green Bay, the Vikings built a big lead and almost frittered it away -- but held on. And heading into their bye week, they are 5-0 -- the lone NFC undefeated team.
Perhaps the surprise story of the season so far, Minnesota has rebuilt quarterback Sam Darnold's game and is frustrating opposing offenses with Brian Flores' disguised pressures. Darnold might be the early MVP front-runner, and Kevin O'Connell is building a strong case for Coach of the Year. An NFC North that looked in the preseason like a two-team race between the Lions and Packers has a surprise leader through five weeks, and the Vikings have looked like the best team in the NFL on both sides of the ball.
Verdict: OVERREACTION
The good news about the Vikings' 5-0 start is that 71 of the 85 teams that have started 5-0 in the Super Bowl era have gone on to make the playoffs. The bad news is that the last team that didn't was ... the 2016 Vikings, who crashed to an 8-8 record after a 5-0 start. So, Vikings fans know all too well not to party just yet. We'll know more in two weeks after Minnesota has played the Lions, but this team already banked a huge division road win against the Packers. The Vikings absolutely, positively can win the NFC.
Their out-of-division schedule isn't overly terrifying, and if they get playoff home games, they're going to be very tough in their very loud building with that defense. It's just still too soon, and the NFC North is still too tough, to say something like this with certainty, especially with Darnold having looked a bit more turnover-prone the past couple of games. Let's let this one cook a while longer while everyone's enjoying it.
The Jets need to trade for Davante Adams ASAP
Rodgers did play the Jets back into the game against the Vikings, and he was playing hurt for much of the contest -- but overall, he had a rough one Sunday. The Jets seemed to be forcing the ball to Garrett Wilson, who had 13 catches on a ridiculous 22 targets, perhaps in an effort to strengthen that connection. Per ESPN Research, that tied for the third-most targets in a game by any player since 2006. But there were also a couple of glaring and costly instances when Rodgers and Mike Williams weren't on the same page.
After looking great in that Week 3 Thursday night game against the Patriots, the Jets' Rodgers-centric offense hasn't been in sync the past couple of weeks. Rodgers has a 48.5 QBR and a 61.0% completion rate -- both of which rank in the bottom half of the league. Meanwhile, it seems like Adams, who has missed the past two weeks with a hamstring injury, has played his final game with the Raiders. And people around the league expect trade talks to heat up this week or the next, with the Jets as the front-runners to land him.
Verdict: NOT AN OVERREACTION
I was resistant to this idea for a while because it doesn't seem like wide receiver is the Jets' most pressing need. But I've come around on it. While it might not be the soundest team-building strategy in football history to just turn the whole operation over to a 40-year-old quarterback, that's what the Jets have done. It's pretty important to make Rodgers happy and supply him with everything he needs to have success.
His connection with Adams when they played together in Green Bay was as seamless and reliable as any QB-WR tandem in the NFL. Adams -- who has 209 receiving yards over three games this season -- wouldn't have to learn the offense, and Rodgers wouldn't have to worry about his best receivers not seeing the game the way he does.
Sure, the Jets paid Williams. Sure, Wilson is supposed to be their No. 1. And sure, Breece Hall and Braelon Allen are important mouths to feed in the run game. But none of this works without Rodgers, and there's a strong case to be made that Rodgers works best when he has Davante Adams. He's available. They should get him.
Jameis Winston should be the Browns' starting quarterback next week
The Browns got hammered by the breathtaking play of Jayden Daniels and the Commanders on Sunday to fall to 1-4 on the season. Quarterback Deshaun Watson was awful ... again. He completed 15 of 28 passes for 125 yards and took seven sacks. His offensive line has been banged up all season, but he's not the only one in the league who can say that, and few entrenched starting quarterbacks have played worse. His 20.8 QBR is at the bottom of the NFL, and he has five TD passes over five games.
Over the past week, I heard a lot of people say Week 4 was Watson's best game as a Brown, so I went back and looked at it. He had a QBR of 36.5 in that 20-16 loss to the Raiders. To be fair, that is his highest single-game QBR of the season. But that's not the caliber of compliment it might sound like.
Verdict: NOT AN OVERREACTION
I absolutely do not believe the Browns will bench Watson. In fact, coach Kevin Stefanski already said after the team's loss Sunday, "We're not changing quarterbacks." But the case that they should bench him is getting stronger by the week.
You can make excuses, sure. Watson has been pressured at the third-highest rate of any quarterback in the league this season. The Browns' defense hasn't been the same as it was last year, which is contributing to unfavorable game scripts. And the Browns are still playing without injured running back Nick Chubb. But they made a lot of changes this offseason to try to put Watson in a better position to succeed. They brought in a new offensive coordinator in Ken Dorsey. They changed the offensive scheme to one they believed would benefit Watson. And they traded for receiver Jerry Jeudy.
Given the price the Browns paid to acquire and sign Watson, you can understand why they'd be doing everything they possibly can to make this work. But it's not working. Since Watson got to Cleveland, he has not shown an ability to elevate his play beyond his circumstances or to elevate his teammates. He does not seem to be improving.
Look, Winston might not make a difference. But sometimes a change like this -- particularly when everyone knows how much the team has invested in the quarterback -- can get people's attention and spark something. I'm not sure what the Browns think is going to happen if they do nothing. After all, they have scored under 20 points in all five games this season, their longest streak to start a season since 1999 (7).
The 49ers' Super Bowl window is already closed
Something is just not right in San Francisco right now, and it goes beyond the absence of running back Christian McCaffrey. The 49ers had a 23-10 lead at home on the Cardinals on Sunday and lost 24-23. The defense couldn't stop Kyler Murray when it counted. The offense couldn't put any points on the board in the second half against a beatable Arizona defense. The 49ers had first-and-goal from Arizona's 8-yard line with a three-point lead and a little more than six minutes to go, and Jordan Mason's fumble gave the ball back to Murray to start the go-ahead field goal drive. Even after that field goal, the Niners had 1:37 left on the clock, but Brock Purdy threw an interception to seal the loss.
It's the second time in three weeks that the Niners let a fourth-quarter lead slip away against a division opponent. They're 2-3 for the season, tied with those Cardinals for second place in the NFC West and one game behind the Seahawks. They have a quick turnaround this week for a Thursday night game in Seattle that won't be easy, and they have their Super Bowl rematch against the Chiefs the week after that.
Verdict: OVERREACTION
As surprisingly poorly as the season has gone, the 49ers need only to beat the Seahawks this week to move into a tie for first place in their division. McCaffrey likely does come back at some point this season, and the offense obviously works better with him on the field. San Francisco has suffered a rash of key injuries, and yes, we've seen it lose promising seasons to health issues in the recent past. But the Rams and Seahawks are both very beaten up at this point, as well, and San Francisco's playoff pedigree indicates that of all the teams in this division, it is the likeliest to right the ship.
It might be different if the 5-0 Vikings were in the 49ers' division, but they aren't. Everybody knows the window for this 49ers roster is nearing its end, given the age and contract situations of some of the key players and the pending big-money extension for Purdy. But it's not closed yet. It's way too early for that.