The great Chris Berman used to call it the black-and-blue division, but in Week 6, the NFC North teams did some serious scoring.
Sunday opened with Caleb Williams and the Bears hanging 35 points on the Jaguars in London to improve to 4-2. In the early window, the Packers thumped a penalty-addled Cardinals team 34-13 to also move to 4-2. The late window saw the Lions embarrass the Cowboys 47-9 -- we'll get to Dallas in a moment -- to improve to 4-1. And through it all, the 5-0 Vikings sat home and enjoyed their bye week.
Ever since the NFL expanded the postseason to include seven teams from each conference, it has been possible for one division to send all four of its teams to the playoffs. It has yet to happen. The AFC North's four teams all finished last season with winning records, but the 9-8 Bengals did not qualify for the playoffs. This year's NFC North looked loaded in the offseason. There was a lot of discussion about whether Williams could lead the Bears to the playoffs in his rookie year. Those who doubted would point out how good the Lions and Packers were on paper. But I don't know very many people who saw the Vikings coming.
Now here we are, six weeks in, and every team in the NFC North is at least two games over .500. And because this is Week 6 overreactions -- where we judge a few potential takeaways as legitimate or irrational -- no, it is absolutely not too early to ask whether we might get to see some history made.
Jump to:
Four NFC North teams in the playoffs?
Cowboys missed their Super Bowl window?
Texans first to clinch division?
Patriots should have started Maye sooner?
Biggest game of Jets' season on Monday?
All four NFC North teams will reach the playoffs this season
This would require each of the other three NFC divisions to send only one team to the playoffs, so let's take stock there.
Nobody in the NFC West is over .500. The 49ers were in the Super Bowl last season, and if they can ever get healthy, they'll be dangerous. But who else scares you there?
In the NFC South, the Falcons and the perennially overlooked Buccaneers are both 4-2, two games clear of the Saints and three ahead of the Panthers.
And in the always-wild NFC East, the Commanders remain in first place at 4-2 after losing to Baltimore on Sunday, while the Eagles are 3-2 but still don't look all the way right. The Cowboys are 3-3 and licking their wounds as they head into their bye week. And the Giants, as I write this, are playing the Sunday night game.
Verdict: OVERREACTION
And it's not because I think any of these other divisions is a lock to put two teams in the playoffs. It's because there is a lot that still hasn't happened in the NFC North.
Through six weeks, there has been only one intradivision game in the North: Minnesota's two-point Week 4 victory over the Packers in Green Bay. That means these teams are all going to be playing each other a lot over the second half of the season. The Bears don't play a division opponent until Week 11. I wasn't a stats major or anything, but I'm pretty sure that when two teams play each other, only one can win. That means there are plenty of losses still to come for the teams in the NFC North, simply at the hands of each other.
It's fair to believe at this point that all four of these teams are good enough to make the playoffs. But who's to say how they'll look a month from now, or two months from now? What does Aidan Hutchinson's broken tibia mean for the Lions' defense? Is Vikings quarterback Sam Darnold really going to play like this all year, and if not, what does that mean for the Vikings? Bears QB Caleb Williams is still a rookie, so anything can happen in Chicago. And do we trust the Packers' defense at this point?
I'm all for seeing history. It'd be cool to see it happen, and I don't doubt that it could happen. But it's a little soon to assume anything, even as good as all four teams look at the moment.
The Cowboys' Super Bowl window is closed
We all more or less agreed going into the weekend that this was a bad matchup for the Cowboys. The Lions were coming off a bye and were healthy. The Cowboys were not remotely healthy. Dallas hasn't even been competitive in a home game this season after going undefeated at home in the 2023 regular season. And the Lions believed their game against the Cowboys late last season was stolen from them on an officiating mistake and seemed interested in revenge. It looked bad.
But man ... there's a difference between "bad matchup" and "thoroughly humiliating for everyone who has ever been remotely connected to the organization." And this was much more the latter. The Cowboys actually got on the board first, scoring a field goal on their opening drive and leading 3-0. But that was their high point of the day, by far. Detroit led 7-3 after the first quarter, 27-6 at halftime and 37-9 after the third quarter, at which point Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott was done for the day having completed 17 of 33 passes for 178 yards and two interceptions. The Lions nearly doubled up the Cowboys in yardage, 492 yards to 251. Dallas committed five turnovers; Detroit had none.
Counting their playoff loss to the Packers last season, the Cowboys have now been outscored 167-85 in their past four home games. They're the first team to give up 40 or more points at home three times in a four-game span since the 1981 Colts. Remember the 1981 Colts? Yeah, I didn't think so. This all took place on owner Jerry Jones' birthday and ahead of the Cowboys' bye week. The bye comes at a good time so they can get some guys healthy but also means they have to sit on this for two weeks before jumping back into a schedule that reads: at San Francisco, at Atlanta, vs. Eagles, vs. Texans, at Washington over the ensuing five weeks. The best news might be that only two of those games are at home, where the 2024 Cowboys are without exaggeration one of the worst teams of all time.
Verdict: OVERREACTION
As bad as it has been -- and Sunday has to be a low point -- the Cowboys aren't 0-6. They're 3-3, just one game out of first place in their division. They could still make the playoffs this season! And even if they don't, they just signed Prescott and top wide receiver CeeDee Lamb to long-term contracts. They've been a good drafting team. They've been competitive pretty much every year of Prescott's career, and there's no reason to think they won't find a way to be better in 2025. Maybe they'll even have a running game by then.
You can hammer the Cowboys as hard as you want for the way they performed Sunday. They deserve it. But Sunday was as bad as it's going to be for a while, I promise. Jones will keep that window open as long as he possibly can.
The Texans will be the first team to clinch their division
Houston is 5-1, which is a half-game behind the idle Chiefs for the best record in the AFC. But Sunday was also the first time this season that the Texans won by more than a touchdown. They were playing without top wide receiver Nico Collins (hamstring) but were thrilled to welcome running back Joe Mixon back from an ankle injury. Mixon had 132 total yards on 13 carries and two catches, scoring one touchdown as a runner and another as a receiver.
Taking advantage of four turnovers -- including three by Patriots quarterback Drake Maye in his first career start -- the Texans led throughout and took care of business against an outmanned New England team. It was the first time in eight all-time visits to Foxborough that the Texans beat the Patriots, which underlines just how much has changed about these two franchises over the past few years.
Verdict: NOT AN OVERREACTION
The Texans have a two-game lead over the Colts in the AFC South, and they already have a head-to-head victory over them in their pocket. The other two teams in the division are the 1-4 Titans (who lost to the Colts on Sunday) and the 1-5 Jaguars, who have to be the most disappointing team in the entire league so far this season. Could the Colts push the Texans? Of course, if they can get Anthony Richardson back healthy and inject a little life and creativity into their offense. But that's a big "if," and you'd much rather be where Houston is at this point.
It's possible the Texans have never had a team this good -- like, in franchise history. The 41 points they scored Sunday matches the most they've ever scored in a road game, and the only other time they started a season 5-1 was 2012, when they set a franchise record with 12 wins. Houston has bigger goals in mind than the AFC South. It's trying to do in C.J. Stroud's second season what the Bengals did in Joe Burrow's second season: get to the Super Bowl. And Houston is the only team in that AFC South division that looks serious enough to do get there.
The Texans still haven't played their best, and once they do, their division rivals won't be able to hang with them.
The Patriots should have started Drake Maye even sooner
There was much hand-wringing last week, after Patriots coach Jerod Mayo announced that the rookie Maye would take over for Jacoby Brissett in Week 6. Big mistake, we were told. Can't throw him out there with those receivers and behind that offensive line. He's not ready. They'll ruin him. Yada yada yada.
Well, ignoring the fact that Mayo has to coach the other 52 guys on the team and the offense was totally ineffective with Brissett at the helm, let's look at how things went specifically for Maye in his starting debut. He completed 20 of 33 passes (61%) for 243 yards and three touchdowns. Per ESPN Research, he became the second Patriots QB to record at least three TD passes in their first career start, joining Tom Yewcic (three in 1962, when the Patriots were in the AFL). Maye also threw two interceptions, lost a fumble and took four sacks.
So it was a little bit of everything. But Maye seemed to come out of it without becoming a broken man, and he showed enough to make you think he'll certainly start next week against the Jaguars in London, where fellow rookie Caleb Williams just took them apart.
Verdict: NOT AN OVERREACTION
I get the concerns. No one wants to see a young quarterback ruined because he played before he was ready or before the environment around him was set up for him to succeed. But it's kind of like having kids. If you wait until you're ready, you'll never have them. Very few quarterbacks -- rookie or otherwise -- find themselves in ideal situations.
The concern with a rookie passer, especially one with as relatively little starting experience as Maye, is that he can be exposed to too much negativity, to the point it compounds and wrecks his confidence. But the way the Patriots' offense was playing under Brissett, the opportunity exists for Maye to actually inject some much-needed positivity. And even though the Patriots lost Sunday and things were far from perfect, there were enough exciting and encouraging moments to give his fans and teammates a little bit of hope that things might get better in the future. Who's to say a young quarterback can't build on that as much as he could fall apart from the negativity?
Maye was the third pick in the 2024 draft. If he's going to crumble under tough circumstances, then he's not the guy the Patriots thought he was when they made the pick. To paraphrase Bob Watson in the 1977 classic "The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training," let the kid play!
The most important game of the Jets' season is Monday night
It has been a week in Florham Park. The Jets got back early Monday from London, where Aaron Rodgers had thrown three interceptions in a 23-17 loss to the Vikings. On Tuesday, they fired coach Robert Saleh, sending shockwaves through the building. They promoted defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich to head coach, and one of the first things Ulbrich did after getting the job was strip offensive coordinator and close Rodgers friend Nathaniel Hackett of playcalling responsibilities and give them to quarterbacks coach Todd Downing.
Rodgers and everyone else talked all week about accountability and the need for change. It has all led up to a "Monday Night Football" home game against the Bills (8:15 p.m. ET, ESPN/ABC). If the Jets win it, they'll be tied for first place in the AFC East. Yes, even after all that.
Verdict: NOT AN OVERREACTION
It's not even about whether the Jets win Monday; it's about how they look. Do we see the same problems we've seen in basically all but one game this season? Is the offense static? Is the run game uncreative and unproductive? Does Rodgers' lack of mobility make him a sitting duck in the pocket? Are there way too many penalties? If the Jets look like the Jets of Weeks 1-5, then we'll be justified in saying the Saleh firing was irrelevant and the problems run deeper. If they look like a team that just had a major wake-up call and is determined to fix its problems, then there's reason to hope that Rodgers & Co. can turn this around.
There's a lot at stake here. If the season goes south, Saleh likely isn't going to be the last one fired, and people in the Jets' building know it. Whether Rodgers comes back next season depends to a large extent on the way this season ends up.
All eyes will be on the Jets in this game, and it's a chance for them to show the football-watching public that they're a serious organization. The absolutely last thing anyone there wants to be hearing the rest of this week is that sad catchphrase, "Same old Jets."