Winners and Losers: NFL Week 5
WINNER: Birthday Boy Trevor and the Winning Jags
At long last, the Jacksonville Jaguars are in the win column.
Nine-straight starts with a loss combined with the NFL’s worst record led to desperation time for the Jags, and what better opponent to face to end their misery than the Indianapolis Colts?
This week marked the 10-consecutive home win for the Jaguars over their AFC South rival, a losing streak continued by the massive injury load the Colts bear, plus some Trevor Lawrence magic.
The Colts were without starting quarterback Anthony Richardson, running back Johnathan Taylor, and center Ryan Kelly - plus in the second half, they lost right guard Will Fries to a broken leg.
Jags QB Lawrence flourished on his 25th birthday, tossing for 371 yards and two touchdowns, more than 150 passing yards than his second-highest total this season.
Jacksonville still needs to fix major issues, allowing the Colts to score 24 in the fourth quarter without all those offensive stars listed above among those problems, but a win is indeed a win.
Doug Pederson lives to fight another day, seemingly another couple of losses away from being out of a job.
LOSER: Robert Saleh
Speaking of jobless... New York Jets head coach Robert Saleh reportedly walked right into and out of work today in East Rutherford, escorted out of the building by security after his firing by owner Woody Johnson.
The Jets were a tepid 20-36 under Saleh, punctuated by a late failed comeback in London this weekend against the still-unbeaten Minnesota Vikings.
Last season, New York had the buyable excuse of Aaron Rodgers’ season-ending injury in Week 1, but now, the blame had to go somewhere else.
The Jets started the game down 0-17, climbing out of the hole to bring the game back to one score to enter the fourth quarter, and then again to a three-point game after a late Garrett Wilson touchdown.
This failed to be enough, as Rodgers threw a late interception to ice the game for Minnesota.
New York’s 2-3 start mirrors last season; their only wins now in 2024 are against the Tennessee Titans (1-3) and New England Patriots (1-4).
To make matters even tougher for the Jets, they now return home to face in-division rivals Buffalo in a massive Monday Night Football battle, one New York can ill afford to drop.
WINNER: The Cardiac Cowboys
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Four simple words: How ‘bout them Cowboys?
The Dallas Cowboys marched into Pittsburgh and somehow, some way knocked off the Steelers 20-17 after just a 25% chance to win with 30 seconds to go.
The ‘Boys found a way to win after a 90+ minute delay forced the ending of this Sunday Night Football game into the wee hours of Monday morning; Dak Prescott is now the only quarterback to throw an interception in two separate days in the same game and still win.
Prescott was not without major faults in this game too, as he threw two interceptions and lost a fumble, but engineered a brilliant 70-yard, 15-play drive that resulted in a go-ahead touchdown pass to Justin Tolbert.
Dallas’ rushing attack is as much an attack as throwing a stuffed animal at a brick wall, but that night they defied expectations against the usually staunch Steelers. Rico Dowdle ran for 87 yards, a season-high.
Perhaps the most impressive part of the win was where it puts the Cowboys, as they’re now 3-2 with consecutive wins.
Dallas returns to Arlington for a date with Detroit, their bye week, then soar west to spar with San Francisco to wrap up October.
The Cowboys need to be at least .500 after that, as another stretch at Atlanta, Philadelphia, Houston and at Washington lies ahead.
Any win them ‘Boys can get is colossal.
LOSER: The Cleveland Browns (again, for a lot of reasons)
Haven’t Cleveland fans suffered enough?
Considering the Guardians lay 27 outs away from a one-win postseason run, the Cavaliers have one playoff series win in the last six years, and now the Browns.
The Cleveland Browns are seldom known for winning, but after this week, it may be time to talk about rock bottom.
The Washington Commanders remain the hottest team in the league with an electric offense conducted by rookie sensation Jayden Daniels, but they’ve usually failed on defense. Add to that, Daniels threw a goal-line interception, a very unusual mistake in his young career.
No, Cleveland did not use that to their advantage.
The Browns instead used that pick to put together a three-play, four-yard drive. Punt.
The only touchdown scored was with 7:02 remaining in the game, the Commanders already leading by three scores with the Browns seven points added.
Worst of all, quarterback Deshaun Watson’s body language looked both mentally and physically exhausted.
Cleveland drops to 1-4, their worst start since the infamous 0-17 season in 2017.
WINNER: The Denver Broncos Defense
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History proves the Las Vegas Raiders just beat the Denver Broncos, no matter what.
Winning eight straight games against a divisional rival is no small feat, and that’s exactly what the Raiders did, unbeaten since their move out of Oakland.
All that came crashing down through the swift hands and feet of Pat Surtain II and the stout Denver defense that smothered Vegas after allowing a 10-0 first-quarter start.
The Broncos finished the day holding the Raiders to 215 passing yards but gave up 115 rushing yards (4.6 per carry) on an oddly productive day from the Zamir White-less Silver and Black. Those numbers are slightly skewed, as the Raiders only managed five of those 115 at halftime.
Despite that one positive, Gardner Minshew and Aiden O’Connell threw three picks and were sacked three times, a disastrous combination.
One of those interceptions was a nasty 100-yard pick-6 by Surtain II, one of his two picks on the day.
The Denver offense had fewer passing and rushing yards, plus lower rushing yards per carry, and suffered three sacks, too.
But turnovers? That number was a clean zero.
LOSER: (most of) The NFC West
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It was an unkind weekend to the bulk of the NFC West, as Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles all lost at home; the Arizona Cardinals were the lone winner on the weekend over SF.
The worst offender here is far and away the Seattle Seahawks against the New York Giants, grabbing a first-quarter 7-0 lead but quickly relinquishing it just six minutes into the second quarter, and would not take it back until triple zeros.
Seattle did have a chance to recover and send the game into overtime with a fantastic Geno Smith-led drive, but a Jason Myers blocked field goal returned for a touchdown by Bryce Ford-Wheaton sealed up the loss for the 12th Man.
The wildest part of the win was how the Giants were without star rookie wide receiver Malik Nabers, and starting running back Devin Singletary, plus had quarterback Daniel Jones starting and ready to go, all bad omens.
Amazingly, Jones defied expectations and played lights-out football, throwing 23/34 passing, 257 yards and two touchdowns, no picks.
The Seahawks fall to 3-2 with plenty of defensive players banged up, losing defensive tackle Byron Murphy II, linebacker Uchenna Nwosu, and cornerback Riq Woolen for this week’s game against San Francisco.
Speaking of the 49ers, they earned the most heartbreaking loss of the three, as they fell 24-23 to the Cardinals after blowing a 13-point halftime lead.
This doesn’t seem that bad on paper but then look at the second-half 49er drives.
Interception (11 yards), downs (43 yards), fumble (61 yards), interception (15 yards). That’s compared to Arizona: punt (1 yard), field goal (1 yard), touchdown (73 yards), field goal (75 yards), end of game.
So not only did the Cardinals not go on any wild tear, but the 49ers gave them just about every opportunity possible to come back and win it.
This is the second divisional loss for San Francisco when they blow a double-digit lead in the fourth quarter, that last loss: the Los Angeles Rams.
That leads us right to those Rams, losers yet again to drop to an abysmal 1-4, but like the opposite of the Seahawks, it’s their offense that’s injury-riddled.
LA went into the halftime break up three, even just after giving up a 48-yard field goal to end the half.
The Green Bay Packers would not slow down as two Jordan Love touchdown passes to Tucker Kraft gave the Pack an 11-point lead going into the fourth quarter, and they would hang on.
The Rams enter the bye week with their worst record since the 2014 season, also the last time the franchise finished last in the NFC West.
For a reminder of how long ago that season was, the Rams’ second selection in that NFL Draft was now-retired Aaron Donald.
Uh oh.