We are a third of the way through the NFL’s regular season and the gap between the haves and the have nots is starting to emerge.
With preseason being a little bit less intense than it once was, the good teams can afford to use the first month to play their way into game shape before really hitting their stride as they get closer to the playoffs.
And for teams like Detroit, instead of trying to figure out whether or not they are good, we are now working out how just good they are.
After another 15 games in Week 6 we’ve got our recap of the action from the National Football League below.
1 – Survive and advance
One problem with being the benchmark team of the last five years, the reigning Super Bowl champions and one of the upper echelon teams in 2023, is you get graded on a pretty steep curve.
It’s impossible to say any 5-1 team is “bad” but by their high standards, the Chiefs have been largely average this season and at times flat out poor.
In a way they are a victim of their own success having set such a high bar but when you have the runs on the board, you do get the benefit of the doubt.
The phrase “survive and advance” is more commonly associated with the NCAA basketball tournaments where you just have to win and style points don’t matter, but it is applicable here.
There’s a reason Patrick Mahomes has never played a non-Super Bowl playoff game away from Arrowhead Stadium and it’s because they have learned to win without hitting top gear.
That was incredibly evident in their win over Denver on Friday (AEDT) as there were a number of incredibly ugly plays from the at times alien-like Patrick Mahomes.
If someone can explain his thought process on this throw that would be great because I have no idea what he was hoping would happen…
Of course if you are a Chiefs fan you will still enjoy the fact this team is on its way towards a likely top seed in the AFC and a great chance at a fourth Super Bowl berth in five seasons.
By the time November and December rolls around the Chiefs are going to be hitting the switch and playing their best but for now, things might be a bit more frustrating to watch than the impartial observer would like.
2 – Denver is stuck at QB
Russell Wilson is on a deal that pays him almost a quarter of a billion US dollars and the Denver Broncos cannot afford to cut ties with him.
Sean Payton clearly doesn’t trust him to run his offence and even with the supposed wizard running the show, things don’t look like they are getting any better for the beleaguered Broncos.
Defensively the Broncos are doing all they can to keep their team in it, at least across the prime time contests but they are getting absolutely no help from Wilson and company.
It’s pretty clear across the board that the Broncos and Wilson are a bad fit but there are no real outs short of the player deciding to pack it in and retire.
Right now he is under contract through to the end of the 2028 season and when Denver wants to cut ties just depends on how much they are willing to pay to not have him on the team.
His cap hit is a very affordable $22m while cutting him would move it to $107m, next year the cap hit grows to $35.4m and the dead money sits at $85m.
Maybe they could get rid of Wilson and take the hit in 2025, it’s the first time it would be cheaper to not have him on the roster with a $55.4m cap hit and $49.6m in dead money.
Denver even brought in Jarrett Sitdham who showed he wasn’t completely useless with the Raiders last year to back up Wilson and it’s impossible to shake the feeling that if everything else was equal, Payton would be starting the younger option.
3 – Perfect no more
Those celebrations you heard when Zac Wilson took the final kneeldown were the remnants of the 1972 Miami Dolphins popping champagne as they remained the lone unbeaten team in NFL history.
Winning a Super Bowl is hard enough, let alone doing it without losing a single game and the last two unbeatens went down today.
Both the 49ers and Eagles could have been accused of taking their respective opponents lightly with the Browns missing Deshaun Watson and the Jets being the Jets.
San Francisco lost their cool even before kickoff with this pregame scuffle despite a complete lack of rivalry between the two teams.
Cleveland was missing their big money quarterback (again) and you would have thought the 49ers were going to roll.
However San Francisco couldn’t build on a solid start, lost Christian McCaffrey and Deebo Samuel to injuries and wound up falling behind late.
Rookie kicker Jake Moody had a chance to win it, but
It could have been worse though… or not.
Then in New Jersey, Jalen Hurts had a nightmare afternoon, throwing three picks to an undermanned Jets secondary.
Turnovers plagued the Eagles all afternoon and the frustration built with the last interception the most critical.
That set up what could have been the game winning field goal but the Eagles smartly let the Jets score to give themselves a chance to win the game.
But there would be no late miracle from Hurts this time, the Jets held on.
4 – Buffalo survives its own stupidity
The marquee game on Monday was not one for the ages with the Bills playing an awful game and still finding a way to just escape with a win.
It was evident from the first quarter, but an early turnover really set the tone for how the game would play out.
Josh Allen was well off the pace for most of the game, with the Giants defence having his number as plays like this helped the Bills to a grand total of zero first half points.
There were questionable decisions all through the game but the Bills were massively aided by the Giants making just as many, if not more dumb decisions like this one on the final play of the first half.
In the second half, Allen made a couple of big throws to get the Bills back into the lead (twice) including this one to Quintin Morris who nobody outside of a few very dedicated Bills fans would have heard of before he caught the ball.
Allen is the modern day Brett Favre, capable of the utterly ridiculous and the brazenly stupid moves several times per game (and also without the lawsuits hanging over Favre’s head).
Whether he is able to minimise those mistakes in January and get the Bills to the Super Bowl is another matter, but this served as a stark reminder of his wide range of performances.
And in the case of the Bills this week, sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good.
5 – 20 points was enough
It was hardly a banner week for offences across the NFL with all bar one of the losing teams scoring 20 points or less through to Sunday Night Football.
Some winning teams couldn’t even muster 20 points.
The one losing team that did score over 20 was the Panthers who got doubled up by Miami anyway.
Usually there would be one or two shootouts on a Monday morning but in this instance, it was the defences dominating.
Despite the NFL doing its best to legislate defence out of the game, there is still a spot for defence to play a role in 2023.
The best way to disrupt an offence is to get into the backfield and few players are as good as Myles Garrett from Cleveland.
Thankfully we can still get some big hits in these games and Jabrill Peppers from the Patriots had one of the best ones of the weekend to force this pick.
While the rules have reached a point where teams can make a few mistakes and still find ways to produce enough scoring drives to win, if a defence can hold an opponent under 20 points, it gives the offence margin for error.