Taking stock of the key storylines of the week around the NFL before flipping the page to Week 6.
Five weeks into the NFL season and only three teams remain undefeated.
The San Francisco 49ers, the Kansas City Chiefs and the Minnesota Vikings.
Who will be the last unbeaten still standing?
It’s starting to feel like this just may be the 49ers year.
That’s not because their disproportionate injury luck has changed — Deebo Samuel joins the crowded company of the team’s wounded receivers this week, already ruled out with a hamstring injury while Mike Evans continues to manage his injured ribs while now also dealing with “Achilles soreness.”
But everything else seems to be breaking the Niners’ way so far.
It started with the Los Angeles Rams’ ill-conceived travel plans to Australia for the teams’ season-opener in Melbourne, as San Francisco walloped the jet-lagged preseason Super Bowl favorites, 27-7.
After easy wins over the Miami Dolphins and Arizona Cardinals, the 49ers were looking pretty sluggish themselves in Week 4 vs. the Denver Broncos, tied at 3-3 late in the third quarter when more good fortune found them. Denver’s Marvin Mims fumbled a punt return to give San Francisco the ball at the Broncos’ 28, setting up a short touchdown drive that swung the momentum as the 49ers scored touchdowns on three straight possessions on the way to a 24-14 win.
And then last week on the road vs. the reigning Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks where seemingly everything fell into place for the Niners in a 32-29 win.
Seahawks QB Sam Darnold threw an interception on his first pass of the game, gift-wrapping it to Renardo Green at the Seattle 18 to set up a quick touchdown drive.
San Francisco did surrender a muffed punt leading to a Seahawks touchdown, but Seattle would more than return the favor again.
The 49ers had done almost nothing offensively all game and were down 10-7 in the second quarter when Fred Warner forced a fumble from Seattle RB Emanuel Wilson to give the visitors possession 11 yards from the end zone as they’d score on the next play.
Then Seattle’s other RB George Holani fumbled in the end zone, which Gracen Halton recovered for a 49ers touchdown and 21-13 lead.
Three Seattle turnovers setting up three San Francisco touchdowns that required all of 29 offensive yards by the 49ers — could it get any easier in what should have been one of the toughest matchups of the season for the Niners?
How about another Darnold interception (Green again) to start the second half and gift the 49ers a field goal?
Even a subsequent interception and fumble by San Francisco in that third quarter couldn’t give the game away as Seattle’s vaunted defense suddenly fell apart at just the right time for the 49ers to have their longest drives of the game back-to-back for a touchdown, field goal and ultimately the W.
So yes, this season is starting to feel kismet for San Francisco, which has already won three of the hardest games on its schedule heading into a Monday Night matchup with a Washington Commanders team coming apart at the seams.
The path from there isn’t necessarily gilded for the Niners, but it’s full of favorable matchups or toss-up games at worst (at Atlanta, bye, vs. Las Vegas, at Dallas, vs. Minnesota) until the rematch with the Seahawks in Santa Clara on Nov. 29.
Meanwhile, the 4-0 Chiefs, fresh off a bye, play a desperate Chargers team Sunday and then have tough road games at Seattle and Denver the next two weeks.
And the 5-0 Vikings keep winning despite having the 27th-ranked offense in the NFL, but that isn’t a sustainable formula. And after hosting the Colts this week, Minnesota has a gauntlet stretch with the Lions on the road, the Bills, the Packers on the road and the 49ers.
Everything is tenuous in the NFL, so this narrative could flip at any point, but if we had to guess who would be the last remaining unbeaten team in the league this year, the Niners are our pick.
But that’s not purely because of fortuitous fate so far or favorable scheduling ahead — the 49ers are really just that damn good.
They rank third in scoring at 30.8 points per game, ninth in total offense (365.0 YPG), sixth defensively (297.2 YPG allowed) and third in scoring defense (18.6 PPG).
Quarterback Brock Purdy is having the best season of his career — 1,196 passing yards, 13 TDs and 2 INTs — and finally fully getting his due as one of the best in the game.
Evans, when healthy and available, has been a game-changer for Purdy and that offense with 24 catches for 326 yards and 3 TDs despite playing through injury. Christian McCaffrey is still one of the league’s top running backs, with 286 rushing yards and 5 TDs on 4.7 yards per carry and 137 receiving yards. And Warner is one of the most impactful linebackers in football with his return from injury this year transforming that unit.
More important than going unbeaten, though, is maintaining control in the NFC West — the NFL’s best division — and the 49ers now have a two-game lead on the Seahawks and three-game lead on the Rams with head-to-head wins over each.
Coach Kyle Shanahan has gotten San Francisco to four NFC championship games and two Super Bowls in his first nine seasons and now looks positioned to have a strong shot at reaching at least one of those destinations — if not both — again.
Let’s take stock of some other winners (and losers) from around the NFL this past week …
More NFL Week 5 Winners
Purdy Impressive
First, one more note on Purdy.
The San Francisco Standard revealed this week that Purdy is on the precipice of 1,500 career passing attempts, which will qualify him for the all-time rankings for various stats.
And he’s going to enter some of those lists at No. 1 all-time in NFL history. Not bad for a former Mr. Irrelevant!
Drake Maye Is Back
We may never get a full explanation for what became of Patriots quarterback Drake Maye the first three weeks of the season when he averaged just 195 passing yards per game with 1 TD and 6 INTs.
Great players have bad games and even bad stretches, but that Maye didn’t look anything like the one who nearly won MVP last season (4,394 passing yards, 31 TDs, 8 INTs, 450 rushing yards and 4 TDs) or the one that has reappeared the last two weeks.
Whatever was afflicting Maye, the Patriots seem to have cured it.
After throwing for 269 yards, 3 TDs and 1 INT with 54 rushing yards to beat the Bills in Week 4, Maye was even better last Sunday in a 45-17 win over the Raiders while completing 26 of 34 passes for 374 yards, 4 TDs and 0 INTs with a rushing TD.
Just like that, the Patriots are 3-2 and could be getting star WR A.J. Brown back in the very near future.
Brown was eligible to come off injured reserve this week after missing four games with a significant ankle injury, but it remains uncertain if he’ll suit up Sunday vs. the Jets.
Soon enough, though, Maye will have his top target back so the time to buy low on Maye and Patriots stock has already passed.
Jaylen Warren’s Belated Breakout
The Pittsburgh Steelers found Jaylen Warren as an undrafted free agent in 2022, and even if he never topped last season his NFL story would have been considered an overwhelming success.
From little-known Snow College to Utah State to Oklahoma State to undrafted free agent with no guarantees to a solid NFL career.
Warren wasn’t ever a top 10 running back over his first four seasons in Pittsburgh, but he had his moments and proved he belonged. Last season, he set career-highs with 211 carries for 958 yards and 6 TDs (plus 310 receiving yards).
Solid but not spectacular.
Except, it seems now that Warren isn’t done raising the bar for himself as a football player.
Many running backs are on their way out of the league in Year 5, but Warren is instead delivering a belated breakout.
He’s up to 410 rushing yards on 5.9 yards per carry — well above his career average, which now stands at 4.9 — and also leads the team in receiving with 19 catches for 230 yards.
Warren is third in the NFL in combined rushing/receiving yards at 640 through five games — trailing only the Lions’ Jahmyr Gibbs (747) and the Falcons’ Bijan Robinson (732).
And he’s been at his best since taking on a bigger workload when fellow RB Rico Dowdle went down with a foot injury in Week 2. In three games since then, Warren has …
– 127 rushing yards and 49 receiving yards vs. the Bengals
– 93 rushing yards and 33 receiving yards vs. the Browns
– 101 rushing yards and a TD and 87 receiving yards with a TD vs. the Colts
Dowdle is nearing a return, but the Steelers will need to reconsider their plans for the tandem (Warren got just 21 carries over the first two games while splitting duties).
Because Warren hasn’t just been solid in 2026 — he has indeed been spectacular.
Texans Take Off, No. 2 Pick Thriving and Tyler Huntley
Alliterative speed round time …
The Houston Texans have their first win — a dominant 26-3 shellacking of the winless Titans while allowing 187 yards and forcing 2 turnovers. They’re looking to become just the second team in NFL history to start 0-4 and make the playoffs (only done by the 1992 Chargers).
But not so fast …
The terrible Titans can make any opponent look good. The Texans now have to fly to London to take on the 4-1 Jaguars this week. That will be the true gauge as to whether Houston and head coach DeMeco Ryans (who took over defensive play-calling last week) found some meaningful solutions and truly fixed their once-vaunted defense.
Meanwhile, Houston traded for wide receiver Marvin Harrison Jr. this week, sending 2027 second- and seventh-round picks to the Arizona Cardinals for Harrison (the No. 4 overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft) and a 2027 sixth-round selection.
The Texans will look to revive the former top prospect who had just 5 catches on 12 targets for 85 yards and a TD in four games this season.
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Speaking of high draft selections, the New York Jets have to feel validated by the early returns from No. 2 overall pick David Bailey.
The edge rusher out of Texas Tech had 3 sacks last Sunday in a 17-12 win over the Browns and now has 5 sacks through his first 5 games, which is tied for third in the league.
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The Baltimore Ravens have one of the NFL’s rarest assets — a backup quarterback they trust to win games and also not leave for a juicy free agent deal in the offseason.
At this point, seven years into his NFL career, Tyler Huntley is what he is. He’s not going to be in line for a Malik Willis-like free agent contract to go be a starter somewhere. He’s spent all but one of his NFL seasons with the Ravens, now in his third stint with the team, and there’s really no need for either party to end that partnership at this point unless finances become a sticking point for whatever reason.
Huntley is a perfectly mediocre 8-9 in 17 NFL starts with 15 career passing TDs and 10 INTs.
But he’s just good enough to steer the ship for a week or two when called upon. He went 2-0 as a starter last season in place of Lamar Jackson (actually opening the year third on the depth chart before replacing struggling backup Cooper Rush and taking over the No. 2 job) and played one of the better games of his career last Sunday night in place of Jackson.
Huntley completed 24 of 32 passes for 201 yards, 2 TDs and 0 INTs while adding a rushing TD to lead a late rally to force overtime, where Baltimore then went on to 30-23 win in Atlanta.
It’s unclear if Jackson will return from his ankle injury this week or if Huntley will get another start this week at Cleveland.
Aaron Glenn’s Gift To Twitter
Aaron Glenn hasn’t delivered much to the Jets yet while going 5-17 so far as head coach, but he’s given plenty to social media with meme-able moments like this one from last week.
NFL Week 5 Losers
Dan Quinn’s Legacy
Enough words have been spewed on the debacle at the end of the Washington Commanders-New York Giants game last week where Washington dawdled in prime field goal territory for most of the final minute of overtime before running an unnecessary play in which QB Jayden Daniels was tackled with almost no time left and no timeouts to stop the clock.
We don’t need to get any further into it.
It’s a totally inexcusable breakdown in communication or strategy, etc., and that’s all there is to say about it. But here’s head coach Dan Quinn trying to explain how it happened.
More interesting for our purposes here at this point is what it means for Quinn’s NFL legacy.
To this point, unfortunately for Quinn, he was going to be most remembered as the coach who oversaw the biggest Super Bowl collapse in history when his Falcons blew a 28-3 second-half lead to the Patriots to lose Super Bowl LI 34-28 in overtime.
Quinn’s Falcons tenure was never the same after that game as he won just one more playoff game in Atlanta and was fired three and a half seasons later after an 0-5 start in 2020.
But Quinn had a chance to try to change that narrative with a second chance in Washington, and it looked like he just might pull it off after leading the Commanders to a surprising NFC championship game appearance in his first season in 2024.
Instead, on the heels of a forgettable 2025 season marred by Daniels’ mounting injuries, fans and analysts wondered if Quinn would be fired Monday after the overtime debacle.
That didn’t happen, but it doesn’t mean Quinn’s job security wasn’t permanently damaged by that moment unless he reels off a string of wins and leads Washington out of this early hole at 1-3-1.
If he doesn’t save his job this season, though, Quinn is now going to be remembered as the coach who oversaw the biggest Super Bowl collapse in history (so far) and the coach who wore out his welcome in Washington in the surreal moment as those final seconds ticked off the clock in overtime in Week 5.
Eagles Season From H***
Last year, it was Quinn’s Commanders who had the season from H*** where everything went wrong.
This year, there are a few strong contenders for that title, but the Eagles are making an especially compelling case.
Consider …
Philadelphia lost standout left guard Landon Dickerson indefinitely to a knee injury in Week 1. It had veteran star left tackle Lane Johnson abruptly retire last week just four games into the season. The Eagles then traded their starting center Cam Jurgens to the Ravens, mostly completing the dismantling of one of the best offensive lines in football and one of the biggest reasons the Eagles won the Super Bowl two years ago.
Star running back Saquon Barkley didn’t play last week with a hamstring injury, his backup Tank Bigsby had already gone on injured reserve earlier in the week and third-stringer Will Shipley sustained a partial tear of his plantar fascia during the game last Sunday.
Barkley may not be back this week, meaning Dameon Pierce (signed just last week) could be the starting RB. Ditto top receiver DeVonta Smith, who hasn’t played since Week 3 due to a hamstring injury. And quarterback Jalen Hurts is now out for at least this week with a “superficial blood clot.”
Oh, and the Eagles lost 19-17 to the Jaguars in London last week despite taking the lead with 8 seconds remaining — giving up a 53-yard kickoff return to Ameer Abdullah with just enough time left for a Cam Little 57-yard field goal.
The Eagles are 2-3 and increasingly looking like they’re heading for some sort of substantial reset after this season.
Arizona Cardinals
We’ve taken Arizona Cardinals general Monti Ossenfort to task many a time this year already for generally doing a thoroughly underwhelming job and seeming to lack any real plan.
We didn’t like the hiring of Mike LaFleur, whose only NFL credentials were as offensive coordinator for the Rams while head coach Sean McVay called the plays on game days.
We especially didn’t like the decision to retain the defensive coordinator, Nick Rallis, who oversaw one of the worst units in the league last year.
And we also didn’t like the logic of a bad team investing a top draft pick in a running back.
It wasn’t a knock on Jeremiyah Love — it was simply reality that the Cardinals had so many other needs before they could enjoy the luxury of paying top draft capital for the easiest position to fill on the field.
So how is it all going for Arizona?
Let’s check in …
The Cardinals are 1-4 with four straight losses, including a 45-21 blowout defeat to the Lions last week.
Rallis is overseeing what has been an even worse defense — ranked 26th in yards allowed (363.4/game) and dead-last in scoring defense (32.4 PPG).
Love is averaging 3.7 YPC with 245 rushing yards and 1 TD (plus 36 receiving yards and a TD).
And the team just traded away its 2024 first round pick WR Marvin Harrison Jr. to the Texans — so much for offensive guru LaFleur salvaging the former No. 4 overall pick. Or the offense in general.
The Cardinals will be in contention for another high draft pick this year while getting no tangible benefit from misguidedly making a rookie RB one of the highest-paid players at the position, still have no franchise QB for the future and now also need to restock at WR while rebuilding the entire defense.
Oh, Monti …
Los Angeles Chargers
There’s not much more to say here other than the Chargers are 0-5, which is an incredible and abrupt fall after back-to-back 11-win seasons and playoff appearances.
Last week they blew a 7-point fourth quarter lead to the Broncos by allowing 13 unanswered points in the final 9 minutes to lose 23-17 while Justin Herbert threw for just 121 yards, 1 TD and 1 INT and took 5 more sacks behind a decimated offensive line.
Stop us if you’ve heard that one before …
It doesn’t seem like coach Jim Harbaugh has any answers either.
Shough’s Saints
The Saints bandwagon was sure filling up in the offseason all based on a late four-game winning streak last year against bad or tanking teams.
Well, reality has arrived for New Orleans after a 1-4 start and back-to-back humbling losses — 45-24 to the Falcons and 23-13 last week to the Vikings in which the Saints managed just 142 yards.
Tyler Shough, who had a wave of hype behind him entering the season and through the first three weeks as he ranked among the NFL’s passing leaders, threw for just 96 yards and 2 interceptions last Sunday.
And the pressure is now clearly on second-year coach Kellen Moore to figure it all out quickly after a public call-out from team owner Gayle Benson.
Time’s Up For Tua Tagovailoa And The Thiccer Kicker
Might this be the last pass Tua Tagovailoa ever throws in the NFL?
Probably not, but his career reset and redemption season in Atlanta couldn’t be going worse. After struggling mightily in the preseason but still winning the starting job because Michael Penix Jr. wasn’t physically ready yet, Tagovailoa went down with an injury Week 1 to miss his opportunity to start.
Then he came off the bench in relief of an injured Penix last week and needed only 3 pass attempts to throw the game-ending interception in overtime in a crushing loss to the Ravens.
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Harrison Mevis, who has embraced the nickname “The Thiccer Kicker,” got released by the Rams after having his 48-yard potential game-winning field goal blocked in overtime as he went 0-2 on field goals overall in the loss to the Bills.
Mevis was just 5 of 9 on field goals this season after going 12/13 last regular season and 6/6 in the playoffs.
