It has been a strange week of NFL football. A lot of upsets, first and foremost. The Seahawks, Falcons, Saints, and Niners were all favorites. All lost.
San Francisco is no longer undefeated despite facing a Browns team without Deshaun Watson and Nick Chubb. The Texans are back to .500 despite C.J. Stroud's most uneven performance to date. Desmond Ridder broke 300 yards again, but the Falcons' offense fell victim to three mindless interceptions.
The big standouts were the Miami Dolphins (42-21 over the Panthers) and the Jacksonville Jaguars (37-20 over the Colts). A great day on balance for the state of Florida, in fact. Blame it on London, blame it on luck, but the Jags are 4-2. The Dolphins are still in first place in the AFC East at 5-1.
There's much to get through. Let's hammer out the winners and the less fortunate losers from Week 6 of the NFL season.
Winner: Browns' defense
Myles Garrett and the AFC's top defensive unit received a significant boost to their resume on Sunday with a defeat of the previously undefeated 49ers. There are obvious caveats — Christian McCaffrey and Deebo Samuel both left the game with injuries — but a win is a win and the Browns have the distinct honor of handing the infallible Brock Purdy his first NFL loss in the regular season.
Cleveland won this game despite injuries to Deshaun Watson and Nick Chubb. Veteran fill-in P.J. Walker didn't exactly thrive in the pocket, but he did just enough (with the help of Jerome Ford and Amari Cooper) to lead the Browns to victory at home. It's not easy to beat teams with 19 points in the NFL, but it's a luxury Cleveland has with its dominant front seven.
Loser: Injury reports
Samuel and McCaffrey left the Niners' game early. The Titans lost Ryan Tannehill to an ankle injury. The Bears lost Justin Fields to a hand injury. There is no avoiding injuries in the NFL, but this has been a particularly difficult week for high-profile setbacks. It started with Anthony Richardson's IR placement and the subsequent news of potentially season-ending surgery.
Winner: Jamin Davis
The Commanders have weathered a few extremely uneven performances to emerge back at .500 after a 24-16 win over the Falcons. The game ended on Jamin Davis' first career INT, in his third NFL season. It was the perfect capstone to a game defined by Washington's ability to force Desmond Ridder into back-breaking errors.
Ridder tossed three picks and the Commanders walked away winners despite the Falcons positioning themselves for a game-tying score on multiple occasions down the stretch. Perhaps this is too much credit to the Commanders' shaky defense (Atlanta's offense is chronically awful), but the Commanders held fast under pressure in a must-win game.
Loser: Brock Purdy and Jake Moody
Brock Purdy entered Sunday's game undefeated in completed, healthy games. No longer. Without the help of Samuel and McCaffrey, the second-year star and burgeoning MVP candidate looked helplessly mortal. Maybe he's not the most 'valuable' member of the Niners' offense after all.
Jake Moody entered the game 9-for-9 on field goals this season. He missed twice Sunday, including the game-winning attempt from 41 yards out.
Moody is a rookie. Purdy has 11 regular season starts to his name. They're young, it happens. But, for the first time in a while, the Niners were not the most balanced and dominant force on the football field.
Winner: Raheem Mostert and Tyreek Hill
The Dolphins' offense is back in full swing. The IR placement of De'Von Achane was a bummer, but it opens up lead-back duties to veteran Raheem Mostert, who is off to a ridiculous start this season. He added 132 yards from scrimmage (115 on the ground, 17 through the air) and three touchdowns. Mostert leads the NFL with nine rushing touchdowns on the season and he has two receiving TDs now, too.
Tyreek Hill continued his magical season with six receptions for 163 yards and a touchdown. Tua Tagovailoa and the Dolphins' offense are firing on all cylinders, but there isn't a more potent one-two connection in the NFL than Tua and Hill. Tagovailoa knows how to find Hill in advantageous positions; the speedy wideout, with an unmatched blend of open-field athleticism and physicality, knows how to deliver after the catch.
Miami started the game in a surprising 0-14 hole against the zero-win Panthers, but Mike McDaniel's squad silenced all doubters with a swift and explosive 35-0 run. That's the best offense in the NFL right now.
Loser: Gardner Minshew II
The Colts will probably miss Anthony Richardson for the remainder of the season, which leaves the franchise with two options: let Gardner Mishew manage what he can for the rest of the season, or seek a trade.
Minshew has the reputation of a quality backup after quality stops in Jacksonville and Philadelphia. He entered Sunday's game with a career TD:INT ratio of 46:15, but he tossed three interceptions (to only one touchdown) in the Colts' embarrassing 37-20 loss to the Jags.
There are silver linings — he still managed a respectable 329 yards through the air and established a fruitful connection with Michael Pittman Jr. — but Minshew has to play far less reckless football if the Colts' offense wants any chance at surviving the Richardson injury.
Jacksonville just took a sizable lead in the AFC South.
Winner: Sam Hubbard, Bengals' defense
The Bengals' offense has been a hot mess all season, but the defense stepped up in a big way to deliver victorious results against the Seahawks in Week 6. Sam Hubbard posted a career-high seven tackles and made the game-sealing hit on Geno Smith in the game's waning moments — a crushing blow.
With Hubbard, Trey Hendrickson, Logan Wilson, and others dominating in the trenches, the Bengals also intercepted the red-hot Geno Smith twice — with credit going to Cam Taylor-Britt and Mike Hilton.
Smith ended his night with 323 yards, zero touchdowns, and two INTs while taking four sacks in the Seattle loss.
Loser: Desmond Ridder
We're back.
Desmond Ridder put together another promising stat line on the surface — 28-of-47 passes for 307 yards and two touchdowns. He connected with Drake London nine times for 125 yards, by far the best game of the season for the second-year wideout. Kyle Pitts and Jonnu Smith both caught TDs at tight end. Eight different players registered receptions. It was a balanced, mostly efficient night... except for the mistakes.
Ridder lost his first home game since high school. He was 26-0 at home at Cincinnati and 5-0 at home with the Falcons. No more. It was only a matter of time, but the Commanders aren't a particularly great team. Washington tried their best to give this game away to Atlanta, but Ridder tossed three costly INTs — two in Washington territory late in the fourth quarter.
He doesn't have elite physical tools. The appeal of Ridder was centered on the ideal of his stable, veteran-like poise. That simply is not evident in his play week-to-week. The Falcons have a lot of figuring out to do, starting with Ridder's future as the team's QB.
