NFL Week 5 reactions and overreactions

Talking some football.

The Pittsburgh Steelers had a bye week in Week 4 but I am still going to find a way to start off with a take semi-related to them.

1. Every year there is a Steelers game early in the season against a team that everybody thinks they should easily roll over, only to watch them struggle with it or perhaps even lose it. Granted, none of their games are ever easy, and they do have a tendency to lose games you want them to win, but that’s life in the NFL. But my point here is that in some of those cases the early-season team that gives them unexpected trouble actually turns out to be a really good football team. A year ago it was Denver. Two years ago it was Houston. This season it might be both Seattle and New England.

The Seahawks are only 3-2, and they are coming off a tough loss to Tampa Bay on Sunday, but that was one of the games of the year and they are two last-second scores away from being 5-0. They’re good. They’re really good. Their underlying and advanced metrics are off the charts.

It’s a similar story in New England where the Patriots (also 3-2) are coming off an absolutely GIGANTIC win on the road in Buffalo. Drake Maye looks like a player, and there was nothing flukey about that win against the Bills. They shut down that offense and outplayed them. Now they are about to enter a three-game stretch against New Orleans, Tennessee and Cleveland that could put them at 6-2 going into November.

They’re not an AFC contender by any means, but they might be able to position themselves for a playoff spot. They could be a problem.

2. I don’t know if trading for Joe Flacco is going to do anything for the Cincinnati Bengals (my guess is no), but my goodness that team had to do something. The Jake Browning experience is just not sustainable. He has already thrown eight interceptions in three-and-a-half games, and for his career has already thrown 15 in only 367 attempts. That’s over 4 percent of his passes resulting in a turnover. You can not win that way. As I have been saying for two weeks now the Bengals problems run deeper than just a Joe Burrow injury and a bad backup quarterback, but the bad quarterback is not helping things.

3. While I was watching the Kansas City-Jacksonville Monday night game I was texting my brother and we both had a very similar thought in trying to understand if either one of those teams is actually any good. And I honestly don’t know. It was a fantastic game with an utterly stupid ending (that Trevor Lawrence touchdown was simply a glorious accident), but I’m not sure what to think of either team as a whole;

On one hand, I’ve seen this shit from Kansas City before. They sandbag you for six or seven weeks looking like they have finally run out of steam, and then you look up in January and they are in the AFC Championship game. And I know I have said this two years in a row, but something truly does look off with them this season. Maybe it is the absence of the two wide receivers. Maybe it is something more. But they are losing games they used to win.

I am a little intrigued by Jacksonville, especially after this win. If you had told me before the season they would be 4-1 and have wins over Houston, San Francisco and Kansas City I wouldn’t have believed you. That’s an impressive run. But it’s also true that I don’t know how good Houston actually is, while San Francisco and Kansas City weren’t quite 100 percent in their games. But it’s also true that good teams should win those games and take advantage of vulnerable opponents. They have. And the AFC South is there for the taking.

Let’s talk about some more football including whether or not you should give up on Baltimore, how in the hell players keep dropping the ball before the end zone, and more.