As a football fanatic, you won’t hear me complain too much about getting more meaningful football. However, one thing I do miss about the 16-game regular season is the clarity of knowing where we are in the season.
After four games, we knew a quarter of the season was complete throughout the league and the days between Week 8 and Week 9 marked the midway point in the season. Now, some of the season indicators just creep up on you. You probably didn’t realize it, but we are past the first quarter of the season. For teams with an early bye week, the second quarter of the season just got underway. For teams with a late bye week, the midway mark of the season is just a couple of weeks away.
Regardless, there has now been enough ball played around the league that we don’t have to qualify every opinion by noting the small sample. That doesn’t mean there aren’t situations where we still want to see more develop — looking at you, Indianapolis Colts — but we can start forming some firm conclusions.
A couple of weeks ago, we held our own feet to the fire and admitted to things we were totally wrong about in the early goings of the season. Today, we’re going to entertain the opposite end of the spectrum. There were some things we were quite confident about coming into the season, and they’ve played out pretty much exactly as we expected, if not to a more flagrant degree. That’s where we begin this week’s What’s Trending in the NFL
Bonus five: Truths we already knew before the season began
5. Russell Wilson won’t last long as New York Giants’ starter: The clock on Wilson started ticking when the Giants traded back into the first round of the NFL Draft and selected Jaxson Dart at No. 25. The ticks got louder when Wilson couldn’t even get a firm vote of confidence as the starter following the team’s 21-6 Week 1 loss to the Washington Commanders. Nowadays, first-round quarterbacks don’t often have the luxury of sitting back on the depth chart and learning for a year or two. The Giants came into the season with a head coach on the hot seat. Turning to Dart was always going to be Brian Daboll’s final lifeline, and you can see how desperately he’s relying on that, rules be damned.
4. Dallas Cowboys’ defense will be bad: Wilson’s early-season trajectory does a great job of illustrating just how miserable the Cowboys’ defense is this year. Wilson’s offense couldn’t score a touchdown in Week 1, then got into the end zone just once in Week 3, with a performance by Wilson that got him benched. In between that was a game against the Cowboys, in which Wilson came 2 yards shy of his career-high in passing yards and dropped 37 points on the scoreboard.
The Cowboys defense had key departures (Micah Parsons, DeMarcus Lawrence and Jourdan Lewis), were also looking at some key injury situations with Trevon Diggs, DaRon Bland, DeMarvion Overshown and are on their third defensive coordinator in the past three seasons. It was destined to be rough on that side of the ball, but most people still probably didn’t think it’d be as bad as it’s actually been.
3. New York Jets will be bad: Remember that glimmer of optimism when Aaron Rodgers arrived? Or when he was returning from injury? This offseason had none of that. The NFL’s lone winless team remaining is also the team that is riding the longest playoff drought across all major North American sports. The Jets’ misery is at a point where it’s just sad and they’re coming off a week in which you, the reader, literally had more passing yards than the team did over the course of an entire football game. Saddling the Brits with that game this past weekend can’t be great for international relations. That’s right, the Jets’ ineptitude isn’t just a detriment to the team’s fans, but perhaps our entire country.
2. It’s Joe Burrow or nothing for the Cincinnati Bengals: We already knew this, especially if you watched a lick of Bengals football in 2024, but the Bengals are among the NFL’s laughing stock without No. 9. To demonstrate just how dire things are in Cincinnati, the Bengals had to go to the Cleveland Browns in an effort to improve their quarterback situation. Just make sure you understand the level of desperation one must reach to stoop that low.
1. Circus in Cleveland: In case you lost track along the way, the Browns traded for Kenny Pickett, then signed Joe Flacco, then drafted Dillon Gabriel, then drafted Shedeur Sanders, then traded away Pickett, then named Flacco the team’s starter, then benched Flacco, then traded Flacco away in the division. Now, all they have to work with is a third-round quarterback who many believed was a reach where he was drafted, a fifth-round quarterback who is the most polarizing backup in the NFL, all while saddled with arguably the worst quarterback contract in NFL history. Seriously, who could have seen this coming?
Not ranked: Brian Callahan is the first coach fired — Before the season, oddsmakers generally had the Tennessee Titans’ Brian Callahan in the top 10 as a favorite to be the first coach fired but he wasn’t at the top of many lists before Week 1. He was only entering his second season and his first with his No. 1 overall pick quarterback. Then, Callahan exposed himself in Week 1, not knowing some very basic NFL rules. Cam Ward showed little progress, Callahan passed on play-calling duties and his snippy exchanges with the media became commonplace. All of that led to Callahan surging past Daboll and Mike McDaniel to become the first head coach to lose his job this season.
Brian Callahan lasted just 23 games as the Titans head coach. (Stephen R. Sylvanie / Imagn Images)
Road to Santa Clara
The five teams with the best chance at winning the Super Bowl.
5. New England Patriots: Just as you were getting used to the flailing Patriots in the post-Tom Brady era, here comes Drake Maye. Though it’s still too soon for a coronation, the Patriots’ quarterback appears to have figured out some things. The Patriots have won three consecutive games, including a 23-20 win over the Buffalo Bills, and sit atop the AFC East. Looking ahead, only three of the final 11 opponents on the Patriots’ schedule currently have a winning record.
4. Kansas City Chiefs: The 0-2 start was startling, though context is important. Both were one-possession losses against teams that are currently 4-2, and then the third loss was by three points on the road in which Patrick Mahomes threw an interception that was returned 99 yards for a touchdown. Kansas City was trying to navigate without Xavier Worthy for a chunk of the early season and now, coming off a 30-17 win over the Detroit Lions, Mahomes looks on top of his game and Rashee Rice is about to return from suspension. Turns out, the demise of the dynasty may have been exaggerated.
3. Tampa Bay Buccaneers: A big part of having the Buccaneers here is that their injuries are not permanent, because with the current roster, it’d be hard to see a deep playoff run. However, Mike Evans, Chris Godwin, Emeka Egbuka and Bucky Irving are all expected to return at some point and Baker Mayfield is arguably the top MVP candidate right now. This is a team that’s very comfortable playing close games, which is commonplace in the postseason.
2. Buffalo Bills: I’ve been as high on the Bills as anybody this season but this is a safe space, so I’ll ask the question: Where is Buffalo’s quality win this season? The Bills’ defense allowed 40 points in Week 1 and got bailed out with a miracle comeback by the offense, all against a Baltimore Ravens team that isn’t what we thought it was. Then, there’s wins against the Jets, Miami Dolphins and New Orleans Saints, followed by losses to the Patriots and Atlanta Falcons. Joe Brady has apparently strangely decided James Cook is not integral to the success of the offense. I’m not panicking yet, but I’ll be watching closely when they take on the Chiefs in a couple of weeks, and then the Buccaneers a couple of weeks after that.
1. Detroit Lions: The final score has been a funny thing in Detroit’s two losses this season. Their 27-13 loss to the Green Bay Packers in Week 1 was not as close as the scoreboard would indicate, and the 30-17 loss to the Chiefs on Sunday was not as lopsided as the score made it look. A combination of it being a desperate Chiefs team at home led by Mahomes at top form with a plethora of injuries on the Lions’ defense, uncharacteristic miscues — such as a fourth-down Amon-Ra St. Brown drop — spelled doom for the Lions on Sunday but they’re still right there atop the NFC as the class of the conference.
Not ranked: Pittsburgh Steelers — Do we need to start thinking about the Steelers as a real threat in the AFC? Two of the teams in the division are led by Browns quarterbacks and the third is 1-5. The Ravens should be better when Lamar Jackson returns soon but they’re 1-5 while the Steelers are 4-1, and it would be naïve to think the Ravens were on a winning track even when Jackson was in the lineup. The Steelers don’t have a formidable path to a division title, and then it’s Rodgers playing playoff football. They can benefit from an active trade deadline but even in their current form, things are getting interesting.
Aaron Rodgers’ Steelers have pretty firm control over an AFC North featuring two 1-5 teams (including Dillon Gabriel’s Browns) and a 2-4 Bengals team missing Joe Burrow. (Charles LeClaire / Imagn Images)
Bottom five
The five teams with the best chance to land the No. 1 pick in the 2026 NFL Draft.
5. New Orleans Saints: The Saints did get back on track with a loss to the Patriots after beating the Giants but there is cause for concern when it comes to the Saints getting the top draft pick, as they have one of the easier schedules remaining.
4. Cleveland Browns: With Tyler Huntley getting in the game for the Ravens on Sunday and the Steelers on a bye week, every AFC North team that played featured Browns quarterbacks from this offseason getting extended snaps. Gabriel and Huntley combined to throw zero touchdowns, while Flacco threw two in the Bengals’ loss. No wonder Mike Tomlin is perturbed about facing Flacco on Thursday.
3. Miami Dolphins: Their biggest win this season was playing a close game against the Bills, yet still losing. Now, the coach has the hottest seat in the league and the quarterback thinks he’s leading by inadvertently calling out his own leadership skills. It’s a full-on dumpster fire in South Florida.
2. Tennessee Titans: Credit the Titans for putting Callahan out of his misery. Just to rub it in their face, the Patriots come into town this week with a young quarterback who is developing well under head coach Mike Vrabel.
1. New York Jets: I’m not sure what was more amusing, the Jets finishing a game in 2025 with negative-10 net passing yards or their head coach in the wake of that performance bristling at the validity of a question about a change at starting quarterback.
Not ranked: New York Giants — The Giants have a rookie quarterback who will take the fans on a weekly roller coaster and a bowling ball for a running back who will punish defenders and then rip off his own shirt for the cameras. The Giants may not be very good this year — though the NFC East is looking pretty mediocre so far — but they should be fun.