NFL: Five Week 5 Thoughts

 Another week, another set of awesome games. This Sunday was the longest NFL Sunday in history starting at 9am EST with the Vikings vs Jets in London and not finishing until around 1am EST with the Sunday Night Football game being delayed. This of course resulted in an extremely grumpy hedge fund analyst on Monday morning, worth it. Ok I've got some thoughts lets get into it!

The Commanders are Contenders

It's official now. This take would be insane if made at the start of the season, but everything we've seen from Jayden Daniels so far has been electric. As a side note, something interesting I saw this week is that Jayden Daniels practices using VR technology. He runs simulations with a VR headset on running real plays in the Commanders' playbook. Daniels has said that it allows him to get exponentially more reps in without the tax on his body. Who knows if this is really the secret sauce but whatever Daniels is doing, it's working.  Anyway, the Commanders are the number 1 offense in points and number 4 offense in yards this season. Their defense has been just average ranking 20th in points and 14th in yards, but with that high powered offense it hasn't needed to be more than that. With the 49ers, Eagles and Packers all getting out to slower than expected starts, the NFC is as open as ever. While it is still early, Jayden Daniels might just be the best QB in the conference, he certainly has been so far. Having the best QB instantly launches you into contender status, something the Commanders fans should be thrilled about for years to come. 

While this is all exciting, I should note that the Commanders have faced a relatively soft schedule so far beating the Giants, Bengals, Cardinals and Browns. The Commanders will have a massive prove it game against the Ravens on Sunday, one that I will be desperately avoiding Thanksgiving obligations to sneakily watch. 

Kyler Magic

There's going to be a lot of chatter about the reigning NFC champion 49ers this week after dropping a very winnable game against the Cardinals. The 49ers offense hasn't had the same zip, a lot of that can be placed on Christian McCaffrey not playing a single snap yet. This is one of those losses though that you just throw out and move on to next week. Late in the 4th quarter, the 49ers held a 2 point lead and got the Cardinals into a 4th and medium near mid field. Kylar dropped back to pass and was immediately hit with pressure, I thought for sure he was going to be sacked. Murray ran backwards about 10 yards and tossed up a heave high in the air that somehow managed to be caught by Marvin Harrison Jr. for a Cardinals first down. This drive eventually led to Arizona kicking the go ahead field goal and the game was later sealed by a Brock Purdy interception.  

Yeah the 49ers had a 10 point lead going into the 4th and yes they made mistakes that could be ironed out, but this one was just unlucky. Run that same 4th and medium play 100 times and I bet the 9ers get the stop 95 of them. That's the way the NFL goes, any given Sunday the ball can bounce your way! 

Bengals Bungle

I feel like the Bengals have a unique skill for finding ways to lose football games. This was another one where Joe Burrow was amazing, 392 yards on 30/39 with 5 TDs wins you almost any football game in league history, but not if you're the Bengals. The entire game was thrilling with insane offensive performances from both teams, but it really came down to some key moments in OT. Late in OT Lamar Jackson fumbled the snap to be recovered by the Bengals near FG range, a gift wrapped win for Cinci. The Bengals opt to play conservative running 3 straight run plays to run some clock and set up the FG. They ended up having to attempt a 50+ yard FG which missed, giving the Ravens new life. Derrick Henry busts off a big run to set up an easy FG for the best kicker of my lifetime Justin Tucker and the Bengals are now 1-4. 

It is shameful how they've built such a terrible defense in Cincinnati considering all of the weapons they have on offense and the quality of play they're getting from their QB. As I said for the Commanders, having a great QB should instantly launch you into contender status, but the Bengals rank 31st in points allowed and 26th in yards allowed, just awful defense. Still though, if you like offense, even though the Bengals will probably lose, you're probably going to get an exciting game out of it. 

Quick Spike

The Thursday night game always feels like a lifetime ago when I write these on Tuesday, it was a thriller though. Both Baker Mayfield and Kirk Cousins came out of the gates on fire ending the first half with the Buccaneers up 24-17 on the Falcons. The fireworks continued in the second half with both offenses rolling behind their respective leaders. With about 5 minutes to go, the Buccaneers kicked a go-ahead FG to make the game 30-27. Plenty of time for Kirk Cousins to do what he does best, lead a comeback drive. This drive was, however, cut short. Kirk threw an interception with a little over 2 minutes to go and the Buccaneers on the verge of FG range. For most teams this is it, not for Atlanta. The Falcons managed to get a sack, and penalties to push the Buccaneers out of FG range. They used all of their timeouts but were going to get the ball back with a minute 20 seconds to go. After a couple of short completions, the Falcons snapped the ball with about 15 seconds on the clock. Kirk completed a big pass up the middle to get them into FG range, but an in bounds pass with that little time I thought for sure the clock would wind down and the game would end. I then saw the quickest spike I've ever seen with every player running to the line before you could blink to JUST barely get the spike off with a second to go. The Falcons tied the game with a FG and eventually won in OT. 

Kirk Cousins is just clutch. The shot at the end of the game of him dancing with the fans in the stands is legendary, I feel like it is impossible to not like that guy. 

King Henry

Yeah, Derrick Henry has completely erased the "washed" allegations after 5 weeks. In 5 games the NFL's leading ball carrier is Derrick Henry with 572 rushing yards so far. In 5 games the NFL's leader in rushing TDs is Derrick Henry with 6 so far. Henry has been as good as he looked in his prime with the Titans and it has launched a completely new dynamic to the Ravens offense. Now Henry is 30 so it is yet to be seen if he can keep this up all season, but as of today he is averaging a scoring 6 yards per carry. It helps him a lot that the 8th leading rusher in terms of yards is his QB Lamar Jackson. The Ravens have multiple legit threats on the ground, overplay one of them and the other will burn you. 

My saving grace as a Steelers fan is that Lamar classically doesn't show up in the playoffs, hopefully this rings true again (please!!!)

Week 5 in the books! The NFL never fails to be entertaining and this week was no different. My Steelers are reeling a little bit as Baltimore starts to look like themselves again, but I think good days are ahead! Raptors article tomorrow I am super hyped!