Some teams are struggling who you wouldn't expect to be struggling. Kansas City, the Rams, the Chargers. The Falcons maybe, although that's not quite as big a surprise. In 60 minutes of football last night two of the game's best wideouts, guys you pretty much have to start most weeks, combined to catch 3 passes. I don't have any lessons here, beyond there's not much automatic these days.
Bucs vs. Panthers: Ugly performance from Jameis Winston. You hoped his last ugly performance was the last one, but nope. On the bright side, still another big game for Chris Godwin and good for Mike Evans. But rushing touchdowns from two members of the three-back committee, useless for most. Bucs defense stuffed Christian McCaffrey on the ground so he had a big receiving day and scored twice, good numbers from Samuel and Moore too. Benched Samuel in a flex spot for Joe Mixon, regrettable. Panthers D probably won some matchups this week.
Eagles at Vikings: Matchups and Kirk Cousins agree. Nice game against the Giants, more of the same against an Eagles defense that really struggles against the pass. Huge game for Stefon Diggs (congrats if you bought low) and Adam Thielen against that defense. Other takeaway was nice to see big receiving production from Miles Sanders with Philly's other options unavailable. Tough to win in Minnesota but you got good numbers from most players you should have been starting.
Washington at Dolphins: Terry McLaurin, every week start. Guy is the best player on Washington by a wide margin. Scored 2 TDs and that was enough. Miami benched Josh Rosen (yeah OK) for Ryan Fitzpatrick and almost pulled out the win, but their two-point conversion try was dropped by Kenyan Drake and I tend to doubt he'd have got in anyway. A touchdown run for Kalen Ballage who barely played. Hundred yard game for AP, a touchdown would have been nice, oh well.
Texans at Kansas City: Tyreek Hill returns and catches a couple of touchdowns, that's why you start the special players. One was a ridiculous throw into double-coverage. But Kansas City's defense is really bad right now; Houston probably should have scored 2-3 more TDs. Will Fuller failed to make a couple of plays he could/should have made. But all's well that ends well for Houston. Deshaun Watson with the rushing touchdowns. Don't these teams realize they're handing the AFC to the Patriots? Oh well. Start players against Kansas City. Gutsy late call to pass up a 45-ish yard field goal to go up 10, instead going for a 4th and 3 to keep the ball out of Mahomes' hands (successful). Wise choice against this defense.
Saints at Jaguars: Saints defense has some ability, and I think I underestimated it/overestimated Gardner Minshew, but hey the guy had been playing great. Quiet outing for him here, decent all-around day for Leonard Fournette, the only Jaguars highlight. Saints hit a big play to Jared Cook late and get the win. Not great games from Alvin Kamara and Michael Thomas, but OK. DJ Chark disappointed, he's going to have a target on his back in this offense (and the Saints have Lattimore in coverage).
Seahawks at Browns: Wild game where the Browns got a big early lead, but it's not enough against MVP candidate Russell Wilson. Big game for Nick Chubb, erratic game again for Baker Mayfield (3 picks), apparently dealing with a sore hip. Jaron Brown caught both of Wilson's touchdowns, that was a negative, but nice receiving numbers otherwise. Except for Will Dissly, sidelined early due to an Achilles injury, which is never good.
Bengals at Ravens: Great game for Lamar Jackson. He ran the ball for basically Baltimore's entire offense. Passing game did nothing, but it didn't have to. Joe Mixon got stuffed all day; struggling behind a bad line I guess it's time to concede that a featured workload isn't everything in an offense as bad as this one. Ravens D found an offense more its speed than in other recent weeks. I know I gave someone a bad recommendation on Tyler Boyd. Apologies. Some Sunday night pregame show speculation about how long Lamar would stay healthy running this often. I'm in the "not for long" camp.
49ers at Rams: Last year the Niners defense couldn't do anything right. Couldn't stop offenses, couldn't get takeaways, terrible. Now they're playing lights out, and did it on the road against a good Rams offense this week. I'm convinced. San Francisco is 5-0. Malcolm Brown was OK early on but not enough and got stuffed at the goal line at one point. Darrell Henderson sprinkled in but had a costly lost fumble on a pitch deep in his own end. Guess we know why he's not playing too much to this point. Cooper Kupp and Jared Goff killed lineups today.
Falcons at Cardinals: Typical Falcons game. Atlanta falls way behind. Slings its way back into it with huge numbers from Index favorites Matt Ryan and Austin Hooper. Loses in excruciating fashion, this time on a missed extra point by Matt Bryant. Tough one. Big game also for Devonta Freeman, Kyler Murray, David Johnson (not too banged up). Reassuring when games predicted to be high-scoring slugfests actually are and not 17-14 duds.
Cowboys at Jets: Watched a whole lot of this one this afternoon. Nice game for Sam Darnold, with a pretty touchdown bomb to Robby Anderson. Dallas struggled on offense for most of the day (losing Amari Cooper to a quad injury), but was in it late and might have won but for a touchdown to Jason Witten erased on a pick play that caused some debate (though I'm not sure Tony Romo's an impartial observer). The Cowboys drive that nearly tied it was marred by roughly 8 flags in the space of 10 plays. I don't even think I'm exaggerating, it was brutal. Dallas almost recovered the onside kick after a missed 2-pointer, would have been a very Jets way to lose.
Titans at Broncos: Do we need to talk about this one. Not much to see here. Marcus Mariota benched. Did he beat Jameis Winston by a day, a week or what? Things haven't worked out so great for either. Denver defense finally putting things together? Helped by facing the Titans, but they did a nice job on the Chargers, too. Denver could be 4-2 but for a pair of last-second field goals, just saying.
Steelers at Chargers: Brutal game for the Chargers, maybe taken out of the game by the sizable presence of Steelers fans in their home stadium. Also their line is missing its two best players, affecting Philip Rivers, the ground game, everything. Steelers could pretty much just run and throw to James Conner and sit back and watch. Conner left with a quad injury, so the bye comes at a good time. Big game for Hunter Henry, but hard not to think it negatively affected Keenan Allen (who's been off more than on for a couple of weeks now). Steelers D rebounding as someone predicted in my Saturday column, good call.
Monday, Monday: Facing multiple Lions in multiple leagues, so it's a week where Green Bay's strong defensive performance to this point will determine a few wins and losses for my teams. Green Bay won't have Davante Adams, so very curious as to whether one of the other wideouts will step up, or perhaps Jimmy Graham -- team can't run Aaron Jones every play. Should be good game. Packers 27, Lions 24.