Losses by Eagles, 49ers leave uncertainty
Here are the top 32 things we learned from Week 6 of the 2023 National Football League season: 0. The number of undefeated teams remaining in 2023, the Philadelphia Eagles and San Francisco 49ers both suffering stunning upsets Sunday. It’s obviously very early in the season, but boy does this field feel wide, wide open.
1. Are the Niners still the NFL’s top squad? Power rankings won’t be revealed until Tuesday morning, and the depleted NFC West leaders went down in Cleveland, their 15-game regular-season winning streak snapped. But they barely lost to the Browns, who entered Sunday with the league’s top-ranked defense, despite RB Christian McCaffrey, WR Deebo Samuel and LT Trent Williams all getting banged up.
1a. San Francisco QB Brock Purdy played poorly (12-for-27, 125 yards, TD, INT) while suffering his first loss in 11 regular-season starts. His only other professional defeat occurred in the 2022 NFC title game, when he missed most of the contest with an injured throwing elbow.
1b. The 49ers’ 17 points were their fewest since a 13-0 win against the New Orleans Saints on November 27, the last game QB Jimmy Garoppolo started and finished for San Francisco.
1c. Before leaving with an oblique injury, McCaffrey did score a touchdown in his 15th consecutive game (including playoffs), tying him for the second-longest streak in league history. He needs to extend his run another two games to catch Baltimore Colts legend Lenny Moore.
2. The Niners have scored on the opening possession of all six of their games this season.
2a. McCaffrey’s TD on Sunday marked the first time the Browns defense had surrendered points to an opponent on its first possession this season.
3. And maybe SF is 6-0 if deadeye free agent Robbie Gould is attempting that go-ahead 41-yard field goal in the final seconds rather than rookie Jake Moody, who pushed it right. You wonder if going with Moody, one of five kickers since 2000 selected in the draft’s first three rounds, will be a miscalculation given Gould made nearly 88% of his field goals in six seasons with the 49ers and has never missed a kick in the playoffs.
3a. But guessing those fans in Cleveland took extra delight in watching Moody, who hails from the University of Michigan, misfire.
4. In an often unwatchable game, the 49ers and Browns combined for 25 penalties, which added up to 224 yards’ worth of infractions.
5. Are the Eagles the NFL’s best team? Again, power rankings won’t be revealed until Tuesday morning, and Philadelphia’s first-ever loss to the Jets felt a touch fluky on a day when the reigning NFC champs turned the ball over four times against a defense that didn’t even have All-Pro CB Sauce Gardner (concussion).
5a. Philly QB Jalen Hurts matched a career-high with three INTs.
6. It was the Jets’ first win over the Eagles after losing the first 12 matchups between the franchises.
7. Brothers Quinnen (INT) and Quincy Williams (fumble recovery) each took the ball away for the spectacular NYJ D.
8. Are the Detroit Lions the NFL’s best team? We mentioned power rankings won’t be out until Tuesday? But they’re 5-1, too – their best record to start a season since 2011 – after thumping the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 20-6. Few teams have the balance on both sides of the ball that Detroit does.
9. Are the Miami Dolphins now the NFL’s best team? Another reminder that power rankings won’t be revealed until Tuesday morning… and it’s hard to foresee the Fins taking over the top spot two weeks after a four-touchdown loss at Buffalo. But maybe the question that needs to be asked is this: Are we witnessing the best offense in league history?
9a. Miami finished with 424 yards in Sunday’s win, amazingly nearly 100 shy of its league-best average entering Week 6. The Dolphins needed 8 more to join the 2000 “Greatest Show on Turf” St. Louis Rams as the only teams with 3,000 yards of offense through six games.
9b. Yet Miami became the first team during the Super Bowl era (since 1966) with both 15 rushing and receiving TDs after six games.
9c. With 163 receiving yards Sunday, Dolphins WR Tyreek Hill now has a league-best 814 – most ever through six games during the Super Bowl era.
9d. Hill has expressed his desire to become the first man with 2,000 receiving yards in one season. He’s currently on pace to finish with 2,306.
9e. And – seriously – let’s not discount Miami RB Raheem Mostert as a very dark horse for the league’s MVP award. Sunday, he became the sixth player since the 1970 AFL-NFL merger with at least 11 touchdowns through six games. He’s been overshadowed to this point by injured rookie De’Von Achane but now has a real opportunity to distinguish himself. Mostert finished with 132 total yards and three TDs on Sunday.
9f. But it wasn’t all bouquets for the Dolphins, who suffered the ignominy of punting on their opening drive for the first time this season...
10. Miami routed the Carolina Panthers 42-21, meaning the NFL still has one winless outfit.
11. Rounding out the quintet of 5-1 teams? How about the reigning Super
Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs – and maybe they’re atop the power rankings … even if it feels like they’ve been doing a bit of sleepwalking early in the season? Or is it star gazing amid their All-Pro tight end’s new plus-one?
12. Every team in the AFC North has at least three wins, the only division that can make such a claim.
13. The New England Patriots scored their first touchdown in 12 quarters – the equivalent of three games, obviously – so minor sign of life offensively.
13a. But make no mistake, the Pats are dead in the water – now 1-5 for the first time under Bill Belichick, their head coach since 2000.
13b. Several ex-Pats had a hand in New England’s demise, including QBs Jimmy Garoppolo and Brian Hoyer and WR Jakobi Meyers, who scored the Las Vegas Raiders’ only TD in a 21-17 triumph.
13c. Sunday’s loss left Belichick stuck on 299 regular-season victories... and 0-3 against longtime New England offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels, now HC of the Silver and Black.
14. The victory was the 500th all time in the regular season for the peripatetic Raiders.
15. If it seems like CBS’s top announcing team, Jim Nantz and Tony Romo, were in the penalty box having to call the Patriots-Raiders game in Las Vegas... well, pretty much. But they needed to be in that penalty box to get a feel for it. Sunday was their first opportunity to do a game at Sin City’s Allegiant Stadium -- and most likely their last, as well, before they’ll definitely return to call Super Bowl 58 in February. Important reps for them in an otherwise unimportant game.
16. Indianapolis got mopped by the Jaguars 37-20 on Sunday – meaning the Colts still haven’t won their annual trip to Jacksonville since 2014, when Andrew Luck was their quarterback.
17. Colts QB2 Gardner Minshew II has now been on both sides of that equation, but surely didn’t enjoy the Indy side of it after the former Jag turned the ball over four times (3 INTs, fumble) Sunday.
18. Creamsicle – lovely as ever.
19. Houston Texans QB C.J. Stroud continues to make progress in what could be a spirited race for Offensive Rookie of the Year honors in 2023. Yes, Stroud threw his first NFL interception Sunday but, more important, he posted two more TD passes as his team survived the New Orleans Saints 20-13. The Texans (3-3) are at least .500 through six games for the first time since 2019.
19a. Stroud’s first 191 passes without an interception are the longest pick-free stretch in league history to start a career.
20. The Minnesota Vikings have beaten the NFC North-rival Chicago Bears five straight times, winning Sunday’s “battle” of teams that began the day 1-4.
21. The Vikes were helped by issuing Bears rookie QB2 Tyson Bagent his “welcome to the NFL” moment on his first drive after replacing injured starter Justin Fields. Undrafted out of Division II Shephard University, Bagent was strip-sacked by Josh Metellus, and Minnesota’s Jordan Hicks returned the fumble 42 yards for a touchdown. Decisive play in the Vikings’ 19-13 victory.
22. A blocked extra point in London prevented Baltimore Ravens K Justin Tucker (6 field goals) from achieving a new career high for points in one game. Tucker had 18 of the victorious Ravens’ 24 points.
23. Opposing Tucker on Sunday, Tennessee Titans K Nick Folk tied the record of the Baltimore sniper with his 70th consecutive field goal inside 40 yards.
24. The age of Cincinnati Bengals WR Andrei Iosivas, whose birthday was Sunday. The rookie out of Princeton celebrated by scoring his first NFL touchdown, a 3-yard pass from QB Joe Burrow, in Cincy’s 17-13 squeaker past the Seattle Seahawks.
25. In relief of injured Titans starter Ryan Tannehill, Tennessee QB2 Malik Willis was sacked four times in nine dropbacks.
26. Kansas City Chiefs DT Chris Jones has a sack in eight consecutive games – three games shy of matching his own franchise record.
27. The Chiefs’ 16-game winning streak against the Denver Broncos is tied for the third longest in league history by one team over another. A win at Denver in Week 8 would allow Kansas City to match the second-longest such run of domination.28. The Dolphins’ 20-game run over the Buffalo Bills in the 1970s is the longest rule by one opponent over another.
29. Broncos QB Russell Wilson was sacked for the 500th time in his career in Thursday night’s loss. Only Aaron Rodgers (531) has been taken down more among active quarterbacks than Wilson (501), who has been a starter four fewer seasons than the four-time MVP.
30. Speaking of sacks, Washington Commanders QB Sam Howell has been dumped 34 times this season, putting him on pace to suffer a record 96 at that rate.
31. Yet Howell (3 TD passes) was on the winning side Sunday after Atlanta Falcons counterpart Desmond Ridder served up three second-half interceptions. It was the second time in three games Ridder had three turnovers, a showing sure to rekindle suggestions that Atlanta should insert ex-Commander Taylor Heinicke into the lineup.
31a. The defeat was the first Ridder experienced on his home field since he was in high school, a streak that encompassed 31 consecutive home wins between the University of Cincinnati and Atlanta.
32. Congrats to Falcons DL Calais Campbell, who’s always kept it 100 during his estimable 16-year career. Sunday, the 2019 Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year award winner collected his 100th career sack, just the fifth player currently on an active roster to reach that threshold.
(USA Today/TNS)