A lot of stuff happened in Week 5, but we’ve come away with questions that we absolutely need answered.
We made it to the quarter pole of the NFL season, but we still don’t really have a good idea of what the hell is going on.
Good teams seem to be good, but the margin for error and the gap between tiers is extremely slim. Only five teams remain unbeaten, and two of them play each other on Tuesday (yes, Tuesday, welcome to the COVID season).
It seems like the Packers, Seahawks, and Steelers are worthy of their undefeated status, but they’ve all gotten to this point by beating teams with a combined record of 10-32-1. Meanwhile, the Chiefs, Bucs, and Patriots all lost their most recent games despite seemingly being better than those teams on paper.
So before we turn the page and look ahead to next week’s games, let’s marinate on some very important questions we have after what we saw in Week 5.
1. What happens in the wake of Dak Prescott’s injury?
There’s no easy answer to this one.
Dak Prescott’s injury contains so many layers that it’s going to take months to sort out, and involves everything from on-field ramifications to financial decisions to the human element at the heart of the entire matter.
First and foremost, Prescott’s recovery is the most important thing. There are few players in the league as widely liked and respected as Dak, and these past few months have endeared him in ways we couldn’t have imagined. From losing his mother to the suicide of his brother, to his honesty and openness about his struggles with depression, Dak’s year has been a series of incredible and challenging moments.
That’s why the tie-straightening by capital-F Football Reporters eager to snivel about his contract situation was as gross as what we saw on the field. What happens with Dak’s contract is no doubt a significant layer to all of this, but it’s not an immediate thing. Dak hadn’t even been carted off the field or wiped away his tears before Football-Is-A-Business dweebs were just doing their jobs in reporting what a shame it is that he refused to sign for less than what he felt he was worth and therefore was playing on the franchise tag.
It’s far too early for that conversation, but what the future holds is both a short-term and long-term question. Immediately, the Cowboys are 2-3 and hand the reigns over to Andy Dalton. He was able to lead Dallas to a victory on Sunday and is now firmly in the Nick Foles role of being a guy who is clearly not the permanent answer but could mess around and win a Super Bowl.
Dallas giving Dak the contract he was going to get despite his injury would be a story so good we almost don’t deserve it. While it seems too good to actually happen, Jerry Jones is loyal to a fault (See: Jason Garrett’s entire tenure) which could accidentally lead him to do one of the most admirable things an NFL owner has ever done. Imagine Jerry giving Dak the contract he was going to get, thus investing in his future and the future of the Cowboys while also showing that he believes in Dak as a leader and a human being as he comes back from this injury.
Sure it’d be fun to talk about rumors of Dak signing with the Bears, or being the guy who succeeds Tom Brady in Tampa Bay or Philip Rivers in Indianapolis. Yes, the universe where the Cowboys using Dak’s injury against him and he signs with the Eagles and exact revenge twice a year on Jerry but none of those are as awesome as the idea of this horrible thing that happened to Dak not affecting his future.
That’s what we’re all hoping for. Here’s to optimism.
2. Have the Bears finally figured out their quarterback situation?
Yes and no.
The short term answer seems to be yes. Nick Foles is exactly what Mitchell Trubisky is not in every single important way. Not only is he able to keep a level head and a steady hand in order to lead multiple comebacks, but he’s got the stones to call out Matt Nagy when he feels like he made a bad decision.
That came after Nagy switched personnel and slowed no-huddle momentum that Foles had built which had put the Bucs defense on its heels in the redzone. Does Trubisky do that? Is Trubisky even in that situation to begin with?
Foles also gives the Bears defense a blustery bravado that it locked away when Trubisky was under center. No longer is there angst about defensive efforts being erased by bad quarterback play, and the result is what we saw on Thursday night.
But the future is not Foles.
The question is two-fold: What is the Bears ceiling with Foles and is the floor too high to land a franchise quarterback of the future?
Chicago is in a very tricky spot, as they need to either be good enough to win a Super Bowl or bad enough to land a top quarterback in next year’s draft. It seems they’re neither of those things; while the present seems much better than it was, the future is as murky with Foles as it was with Trubisky.
3. Who did it better: Khalil Mack or Aaron Donald?
Back in Week 3, Aaron Donald tossed a 6-foot-5 240-pound grown-ass human being like he was tossing a towel into a hamper.
This past Thursday, Khalil Mack rag-dolled a 340-pound offensive lineman with an action movie move that would make Arnold Schwarzenegger blushed
4. Is Houston the best Head Coach opening?
Dan Quinn was fired after the Falcons dropped to 0-5, which means there are two official head coach openings in the NFL: Atlanta and Houston.
Of those two jobs, o head coaching candidate should have either at the top of his list — especially not Houston, as strange and unfortunate as that may seem.
In a vacuum, coaching the New York Jets is not better than Deshaun Watson, but consider everything else that comes with both jobs and it’s not a particularly hard decision.
While the Texans have Watson, what they do not have is draft picks, salary cap flexibility, or many ways to get better and compete in the AFC. Houston’s window is closed, and putting their eggs in Bill O’Brien’s basket produced exactly the result you’d expect it to.
Meanwhile, the Jets don’t have any wins but they do have a general manager who knows what he’s doing and wants to win, cap space to get players to achieve that goal, and potentially the No. 1 pick with which to draft a franchise superstar quarterback.
New York has the second-most cap space in the league this season and will have $74 million in 2021. Add to that they’ll probably draft Trevor Lawrence and be able to flip Sam Darnold to someone like the Steelers for a second-round pick and all of a sudden coaching the Jets seems really awesome.
There has been and will be a lot of chatter about where Eric Bieniemy will take his talents this offseason when he finally gets a head coach job. But as easy as it will be to argue Bieniemy imprinting his Patrick Mahomes teachings onto Watson in Houston, his best bet would be the best job on the futures market — which is in the worst place to be in the NFL right now.
5. What exactly were the Jaguars thinking here?
Maybe it was performance art or a commentary on the current state of U.S. affairs because it certainly wasn’t football.
6. What happens to Dwayne Haskins and Sam Darnold?
It used to be that an NFL franchise was tethered to the quarterback it selected with a top draft pick for as long as it took to realize that it wasn’t working. The concept of moving on from a busted draft pick hasn’t changed, but the timeline of acceptability in admitting your mistake has been accelerated.
The Arizona Cardinals pioneered that acceleration, breaking the seal and making it okay to bail on a top draft pick when they jettisoned Josh Rosen after his rookie season. The Cardinals drafted Rosen 10th overall the year prior but traded him to make way for Kyler Murray a season later.
Acceleration doesn’t get any more aggressive than that.
Smart teams do what needs to be done in order to avoid scuttling their future at the expense of optics and tradition. Sam Darnold and Dwayne Haskins are both first round picks drafted within the last three years who, largely because of the Cardinals trailblazing, could be on new teams in 2021.
Haskins is on the bench due to performance and reportedly not taking his job seriously. Jason La Canfora reported that Haskins is likely to be traded as soon as this month’s trade deadline which would mean he spent only one full season with Washington before they moved on.
Darnold is two years removed from being the No. 3 overall pick in the draft, and already the Jets have their eyes on Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence to be the guy they thought Darnold could be. Right now Darnold is on the bench because of injury but it could easily be for poor performance thus far this season.
Neither Darnold nor Haskins are ready to start, as Haskins is too raw and Darnold needs to wring out the Adam Gase poison he’s been soaking in for the last two years. Both need to sit behind veteran quarterbacks and learn before trying their hand at starting again.
For Darnold, the Pittsburgh Steelers seem like a logical option. Ben Roethlisberger is going to retire soon and going from Gase to Mike Tomlin would do wonders for Darnold in every imaginable way. It would also solve the Steelers problem of what to do post-Big Ben, as they’d have fallen right into replacing him with a Top-3 draft pick without actually needing that selection to make it happen.
Haskins is more of a wild card and may need a pitstop before he finds his team of the future. Imagine Haskins backing up Patrick Mahomes and learning how to fit into the NFL from Andy Reid. That’s the type of pedigree that will go a long way in helping Haskins not only find a team to lead but acquire the tools he needs to make sure he’s good at it when the opportunity arrives.
7. Is Ryan Fitzpatrick a Hall of Famer?
There’s an actual debate to be had here, even if it seems ridiculous on the surface.
Ryan Fitzpatrick will never be mistaken for Joe Montana, but some of the grooves he gets in rival that of the all-time greats. While he’s never been a Top 5 quarterback in his career, he’s the G.O.A.T. of making the most of a situation and balling out while having a fun time doing it.
He did his tricks again this week, pulling off a stunning road upset of the San Francisco 49ers, all the while wowing us with the type of FitzMagic we’ve grown to enjoy over the course of his career.
No one has made a career out of playing with house money quite like Fitzpatrick, and there’s something to be said about that. The Hall of Fame should be as much about the story of the game as it is about numbers, and Fitzy’s tale is one of the best we’ve been told.
Speaking of numbers, Fitzpatrick had those once again on Sunday. He finished the Dolphins 26-point blowout win with 350 yards passing and three touchdowns. At one point he was Miami’s leading rusher and his QBR of 99.1 is the best single-game performance by any quarterback this season.
Nick Foles went on a run not unlike the many that Fitzy has, but because his run was timed right he won a Super Bowl MVP. There’s a universe that exists where that’s FitzMagic’s story and how sweet would that be?
8. Were you also super stressed watching Alex Smith return?
Alex Smith took his first snap on Sunday since his gruesome leg injury back in 2018. It’s more than just the two years time between snaps, it’s the fact that not only were we unsure if he’d ever walk again but Smith nearly lost his leg due to the injury he suffered and resulting medical complications.
So when he returned, and his family was cheering him on, it was a powerful moment.
Then the anxiety kicked in. We either saw the original injury or saw the documentary about his recovery — or both. So we knew what Smith’s leg had been through and it was impossible to not get super stressed out about its fragility when he scrambled for the first time or when Aaron Donald put all 284-pounds of himself onto Smith’s back.
Smith was perfectly fine, and we all breathed a sigh of relief as it became more and more apparent that everything would be okay.
Even Donald gave Smith’s keg his seal of approval:
9. Can we appreciate the Colts defense?
Entering Week 5, average combined scoring was the highest it has been in a quarter-century with over 51 points-per-game being scored.
Simply put, we are in a year of unprecedented scoring in the NFL but the Colts defense hasn’t yet gotten the memo.
Sunday’s loss to the Browns was a setback, but even after allowing 32-points the Colts defense still ranks first in the NFL in average points allowed per game. Matt Eberflus’ unit has allowed a meager 16.2 points per game, which compared to the sky-high league average and the pace with which offenses score points this season, is an absolutely baffling statistic.
10. How big of a deal is the Chiefs loss to the Raiders?
Not at all, unless you consider awaking a sleeping giant a big deal.
Kansas City has yet to shift out of first gear this season, which didn’t stop the team from ranking in the Top 10 in points per game, points per play, and total yards per game. Kansas City has scored the ninth-most points this season yet it still feels like they haven’t totally settled in.
Sunday’s loss to the Raiders was more of a speed bump than anything else. The Chiefs played sloppily, the offense was surprisingly stagnant, and they missed plays on both sides of the ball. Those are errors that can be fixed, and above all else they still have a guy who can do this:
It already didn’t take much to motivate Mahomes to want to destroy the rest of the league and this felt less like an upset that causes concern about the Chiefs about and more like the Raiders kicked the hornet’s nest.