Week 5 was a good one for statement wins, but none was bigger or louder than the New England Patriots' gutsy 23-20 effort over the Buffalo Bills.
Shout it from the Sunday Night Football stage: The Patriots are back — back in prime time, back in the win column against a familiar foe, and back to relevance. It wasn’t just that they took down the Bills in Buffalo to deliver the league’s last undefeated team its first loss of the season. It’s how they did it — with a clutch defensive performance that won the turnover battle against Josh Allen & Co. 3-1, a complete game from quarterback Drake Maye to put the Patriots in position to win, an elite showing by ex-Bill Stefon Diggs, and one perfectly placed kick right down the middle to take the lead with 15 seconds to go.
Along the way, we learned a few things about this New England team:
Drake Maye has arrived. There were a few doubts heading into Sunday’s matchup, and none after it. Maye was poised, efficient, and perfect in the fourth quarter, unfazed by the hostile environment.
The Vrabel-led Patriots come as advertised. They’re a defence-first team with a quarterback that can put them in position to win.
Stefon Diggs is still a No. 1 WR. With 10 catches for 146 yards, he was a man on a mission against his former squad. He’s also the first Patriots receiver to record back-to-back games with 100-plus yards since Julian Edelman in 2019.
The foundation is in place. More wins should follow. The Bills are still on top of the division, but could they have company soon?
Here’s what else we learned on a busy Sunday of football, including another statement victory against another now-formerly undefeated squad.
Broncos send a message with comeback win over Eagles
For the first time in 2025, the Philadelphia Eagles lost a football game. The reigning Super Bowl champs started their run-it-back bid with a perfect September record before falling to the Denver Broncos 21-17 on Sunday.
Philly’s loss followed a script that’s become kind of familiar early on in this season: The offence builds up a healthy lead, and then clams up in the fourth quarter. One week after being blanked in the fourth quarter against the Buccaneers — but surviving by the skin of their teeth — Philly was outscored 18-0 in the final frame against Denver as the Broncos stole the win. The NFC’s last remaining undefeated team now has a digit in the loss column.
The Broncos, who started a little slow this season with a 1-2 record, dismantled the Joe Burrow-less Bengals last Monday but had yet to defeat a quality opponent. (They beat Tennessee in Week 1, then lost back-to-back close matchups against the Colts and Chargers by a combined four points.) Toppling the Eagles sends a message that the 3-2 Broncos are hitting their stride and can take down the best. Did they get a few calls? Definitely. But the Broncos earned this one on both sides of the ball — while the defence shut out Hurts & Co., Bo Nix threw for 127 yards and a touchdown in the fourth quarter to claim the win that felt both literal and moral in fashion. Upcoming dates against the Jets in Week 6 and the Giants in Week 7 should see them climb the standings quickly.
Cardiac Bucs strike again
If your NFL fandom is spent riding bandwagons, consider hopping on the Buccaneers’ — they’re already piling up the wins, and regardless of how the season ultimately unfolds, you know it’ll be a fun ride. Tampa Bay has developed a reputation for last-minute victories, and Sunday’s thriller against Seattle followed that template and ended with a walk-off field goal from Chase McLaughlin to seal the 38-35 victory. That’s four wins on the season for the Buccaneers now, with all four coming in the final minutes — or final seconds.
Baker Mayfield has taken his game to another level, and was elite on Sunday: 29 of 33, 379 yards, two touchdowns, no fumbles, no INTs, and just one sack taken. With the victory, Tampa Bay now sits third in the NFC, with some big challenges ahead — Mayfield & Co. host the second-place 49ers next Sunday, followed by a date in Detroit. Plenty more fun to come, surely.
Jets stand alone as NFL’s last remaining winless team
Aaron Glenn has stated multiple times that his squad is not “the same old Jets.”
And maybe he’s right. Maybe these aren’t actually the same old Jets. Maybe they’re worse. That’s a troubling thought, considering the train wreck that unfolded last season. The head-scratcher of it all is the defence — one that is high on talent, and yet woefully low on results under a head coach whose entire resume is built on being a defensive specialist.
Under Glenn’s guidance, the winless Jets have yet to record a single takeaway — that’s an NFL record, and one no one saw coming. Add up their handful of losses, and they’ve been outscored by a combined 45 points. Sunday’s 37-22 loss to Dallas came less than a week after Glenn yelled at his roster so loudly it could be heard through the locker-room walls. Clearly, after posting their worst defensive performance yet (and waiting until garbage time to score more than a field goal) his message didn’t resonate. What now?
With dominant bounce-back win, Colts show they’ve got it all
If last week’s loss to the Los Angeles Rams suggested there might be a few weaknesses in the Colts’ game, Sunday’s dominant 40-6 victory over the Raiders made it clear this club is stronger than ever. Yeah, it was against Vegas — a club whose struggles have been mighty this season so far — but the way Indianapolis was playing, it was almost like it didn’t matter who their opponent was: They were going all-in to get back in the win column.
Daniel Jones was back to playing INT-free football, finishing the game with 20 completions on 29 attempts for 212 yards and two touchdowns. The run game was dominant, led by Jonathan Taylor posting a hat trick of TDs. The offensive line kept Jones on his feet, while the defence sacked Raiders quarterback Geno Smith four times, picked him off twice, and held Vegas’ offence to just two field goals.
Raiders have a glaring INT problem
When the Raiders acquired Geno Smith from the Seahawks last spring, reuniting him with another ex-Seahawk in Pete Carroll, it felt like the club had solved — at least for a few years — its QB problem. Last season wasn’t pretty, with a rotating cast behind centre, and it turns out this year might be even uglier.
Through five games, Smith has thrown nine interceptions, leading the league in the category. The Raiders are once again at the bottom of the AFC West — though, thanks to the Chiefs’ season-opening struggles, the Chargers’ back-to-back defeats, and the Broncos’ pair of losses, there’s no runaway leader in the early goings. There is still at least a little bit of hope in that regard.
Is Kenny Pickett the answer? The No. 2 guy on Vegas’ depth chart doesn’t exactly have the most flattering career stats when it comes to INTs — in 30 appearances across three seasons, he’s thrown 14 interceptions, which is one shy of his TD total. Carroll is receiving some criticism for not putting Pickett into Sunday’s game. Will he turn to the backup next week in an effort to spark a little change? Surely, it can’t be worse than a 40-6 loss.
No fireworks for Browns, but Gabriel’s first start offers spark
Browns rookie quarterback Dillon Gabriel didn’t get the win across the pond against the Minnesota Vikings in his first career NFL start, but he did offer up something different — and after a month of uninspiring offence, including a combined 2-to-6 touchdown-to-interception ratio with veteran Joe Flacco at the helm, “different” has got to at least feel like a moral victory.
As the game’s 21-17 final score indicates, this wasn’t an offensive showdown. As Gabriel’s completion count (he was 19 of 33 for 190 yards) suggests, he didn’t light up Minnesota’s defence. But Gabriel did tally two touchdowns and posted a clean sheet — no turnovers! — and showed some strong chemistry with his weapons as he spread the ball out to eight different receivers.
With a rock-solid defence and a reliable run game, the Browns won’t need Gabriel to be a game-breaker. He wasn’t asked to do too much in his debut, thanks in large part to a breakout performance by fellow rookie Quinshon Judkins. Judkins had 23 carries for 110 yards, and while he didn’t cash in a score, he was instrumental on both of Cleveland’s scoring drives and helped his fellow first-year quarterback settle in.
Is there any hope for the down-and-out Ravens?
Considering C.J. Stroud just racked up 244 yards and four touchdowns with a mere four incompletions and zero INTs for a massive 44-10 win over the Baltimore Ravens, we should probably spend at least a few sentences praising Houston’s revived offence. A performance like this one almost makes you forget just how lifeless this unit looked to start the season.
But it’s hard to look at this 34-point margin and not fixate on the Ravens’ side of things. We knew it wouldn’t be pretty — the defence has already been demolished by the injury bug this year, with the list of starters sidelined almost hitting double digits. But when Lamar Jackson was ruled out due to a calf injury sustained last week? Well, that felt like the final straw.
Yes, it’s still early. And no, we don’t actually have a timeline for Jackson’s return — though, Week 8 — next week’s date against the Rams is followed by a Week 7 bye that can’t come soon enough — would likely be the betting favourite. Considering Baltimore’s 1-4 record already, and add another L that’s almost guaranteed if Jackson can’t suit up against L.A., Baltimore’s season could already be over by then.
Cardinals gift Ward his first career NFL win
At the risk of failing to give Cam Ward due credit for pulling off a wild fourth-quarter comeback to earn the first win of his NFL career — because he did earn it — the No. 1 overall pick had a little help from his foes to record win No. 1.
It was almost like the football gods watched Ward’s impassioned, frustrated post-game press conference after Week 4’s dismal loss and decided to intervene — that’s how unbelievable the events of this fourth quarter against the Cardinals were.
It started early in the frame, when Cardinals running back Emari Demercado showed everyone he wasn’t paying attention to the don’t-celebrate-early lesson Colts receiver Adonai Mitchell taught his peers last week against the Rams… because instead of completing an incredible 71-yard run for the TD, with L’Jarius Snead hot on his tail, Demercado held out the ball just before he crossed the goal line, with Snead knocking it loose to negate the score and give Tennessee the ball instead.
The Titans went on the score 16 unanswered points (football gods hate early celebrations), with Ward throwing for 196 yards in the fourth quarter and executing a game-winning drive that was as clutch as they come. The final drive was pretty, but the final TD was not. Ward’s pass was tipped, picked, kicked, bounced around, and finally pounced upon by a Titan in the endzone for what might just be the ugliest score of the season. Even Joey Slye’s game-winning field goal to deliver the walk-off win was just barely inside the uprights.
A win is a win, though, and Tennessee’s first of the year was certainly memorable.
Daniels’ return brings spark back to Washington
After Marcus Mariota kept the team afloat with a 1-1 record in Jayden Daniels’ two-week injury absence, the return of the QB1 brought a return of the Commanders’ dynamic brand of offensive football.
With Daniels back the helm, Washington instantly looks like a contender again. Daniels, who missed time with a knee sprain, was back to his big-yardage ways with a 231-yard outing through the air. He averaged 8.9 yards per throw against one of the league’s stingiest defences, connecting with Deebo Samuel on a passing TD, and ran the ball eight times. Running back Jacory Croskey-Merritt took the bulk of run plays, racking up 111 yards and two TDs on the ground in a game that was all Commanders after the first quarter. Washington’s defence shut out L.A. after the Chargers kicked off the game with a 10-0 lead at the end of the first frame.
Daniels’ return to the field didn’t just bring a spark to the Commanders’ lineup, it sent a message that this team intends to build on last year’s success and contend again — as long as Daniels can stay healthy.
1:19