A little over a month ago, Jameis Winston watching a New York Giants game from the sideline would have been a non-story. In Week 6, it was a defining reality of the team’s disheartening 34-27 loss to the New Orleans Saints. That is how far the Giants have fallen since their exciting season-opening win. Everything is still in front of them, and they might just have found their starting quarterback for the rest of the year in J.J. McCarthy, but there is no other way to define Sunday’s defeat as a step backward.
Meanwhile, another team that has spent the majority of this decade at the bottom of its division is on the rise. The Cleveland Browns won their fourth game of the year this week and now hold tiebreakers over two of their rivals as they stand atop the AFC North. Preseason expectations? Forget about them. Deshaun Watson has the Browns cooking.
The dichotomy between winners and losers is always stark in the NFL, and Week 6 in particular displayed just how wide the chasm can be. Below are those who came out on top and those who were not nearly as fortunate during Sunday’s action.
Loser: Giants
The situation in the Meadowlands is not a complete disaster, given that the Giants still lead the NFC East, but Sunday’s loss hurts. There is no such thing as a “must-win” game in Week 6, but what the Giants just experienced was a defeat in a contest that held a lot of hope for New York. The opportunity to pull further ahead in a downtrodden division while playing a Saints team on a three-game losing streak escaped them. That result could haunt them down the line.
Not only had New Orleans gone a month between victories, but it also trotted out a quarterback in Tyler Shough who has broken bones in his non-throwing hand. The New York defense watched the injured signal-caller throw for three touchdowns and rack up 34 points. And on the other side of the ball, perhaps John Harbaugh should not have relegated Cam Skattebo to the sideline, because giving him only six snaps and holding him without a touch did not help the Giants’ offense. He struggled with fumbles in Weeks 1-5, yes, but he remains one of the team’s top weapons and was noticeably absent while the unit around him floundered.
It was a pleasant surprise to see McCarthy enter the game for the Giants and amass 243 passing yards and a touchdown in the fourth quarter alone, but now New York faces questions about whether to trust McCarthy as a starter moving forward or whether to continue with the “Jameis Winston experience.” In other words, Harbaugh is stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Winner: Browns’ AFC North position
The last time the Browns held at least a share of first place in the AFC North this deep into a season was more than a decade ago in 2014. A team that entered the year projected to be in the mix for the No. 1 overall draft pick leads its division a month and a half into the campaign. First-year coach Todd Monken deserves heaps of credit for orchestrating a 4-2 start and putting his squad at the forefront of the most competitive divisional race in the NFL.
AFC North standings
Cleveland has the same record as the Steelers and Ravens, but it now holds the tiebreaker over both rivals thanks to the Week 6 triumph over Baltimore. Its defense was excellent from the second quarter onward, holding the Ravens off the board after a 10-point first period and opening the door for its offense to squeak out a win. Watson’s shockingly clutch performances just keep on coming, and this time, he set up a game-winning 37-yard field goal off the foot of Andre Szmyt as time expired.
Loser: Rams
The Los Angeles Rams, by way of tiebreakers, are the last-place team in the NFC West through Week 6. That is a sentence so difficult to fathom, considering their offseason successes, that it almost does not feel real. Anyone who has watched them play over the season’s first month and a half understands why they hold a 2-4 record: They have looked nothing like the superstar-laden squad they are on paper. But that does not make it any easier to digest just how stunning a failure these first six weeks have been.
The bewildering 18-16 loss the Rams sustained at home against the Arizona Cardinals was the biggest upset of the season to date. Cardinals kicker Chad Ryland walked it off with a 43-yard field goal to push the NFL’s most disappointing team to the bottom of their division.
Maybe Myles Garrett will fix this team when he recovers from his knee surgery, but the Rams feel more than one player away. Matthew Stafford has not been anywhere near as sharp as he was in his MVP season last year. Puka Nacua’s absence hurt the offense in the first two games, the defense continues to allow far more points than anticipated and three different players have attempted a field goal or extra point in the last two games. This is a mess.
Winner: Patrick Mahomes
Tom Brady has company in the history books — there is now a tie for the fastest quarterback to reach 100 career wins. It took Patrick Mahomes only 131 games to cross the century mark, which matches the volume of contests Brady required to reach that threshold. Joe Montana was the third-fastest at 139 games.
Mahomes secured win No. 100 against the Los Angeles Chargers and did so in convincing fashion. His defense did the heavy lifting as the Kansas City Chiefs stifled Justin Herbert and the opposing offense in a 22-6 smothering, but he held up his end of the bargain, too, with an efficient effort through the air: 23-for-30 for 272 yards. Kenneth Walker III aided Mahomes with another remarkable performance in the ground game with 128 rushing yards and a pair of touchdowns.
Loser: Eagles
It might be tanking season in Philadelphia. Jalen Hurts is on injured reserve as he recovers from a blood clot in his leg. The offensive line is in shambles. The running back unit is a shell of its former self due to a plethora of injuries. Nolan Smith suffered a concussion on Sunday. The Eagles slipped to 2-4 on the year with a 25-14 loss to the Carolina Panthers. There is hardly anything for fans to cling to as a source of optimism that this season will turn around.
The Panthers sacked Tanner McKee on the first play from scrimmage, and that set the tone for a game that was always just out of the Eagles’ reach. McKee was serviceable in his third career start, but hardly anything more than that. He will need to be more efficient if Philadelphia is to stay above water during Hurts’ absence, but that might not be the point anymore. The arguments for this franchise to tear everything down and look to the future are as strong as ever.
Winners: Marvin Harrison Jr., C.J. Stroud and the Texans
A couple of things went poorly for the Texans during their trip to London, but neither cost them the game. They overcame an untimely C.J. Stroud interception and another head-scratchingly porous showing from their defense to notch a 34-31 win over the Jaguars in Jacksonville’s home away from home. Ka’imi Fairbairn booted a game-sealing field goal at the horn to give Houston its second-consecutive win and move the squad one step closer to becoming just the second team in NFL history to reach the playoffs on the heels of an 0-4 start.
Stroud was fantastic outside of that fourth-quarter turnover. He continues to show immense growth after falling under the microscope for a disappointing 2025 season, and he completed 24 of 34 passes for 312 yards and a season-high three touchdowns on the Jaguars. The interception was only his first of the year, and he did not take a sack. This is as comfortable as Stroud has looked running the Houston offense since he won the NFC Offensive Rookie of the Year award three seasons ago.
The biggest winner on the Texans’ side in Week 6, however, might have been Marvin Harrison Jr. It would have been understandable if he was silent less than a week after being traded from the Arizona Cardinals, because learning a playbook on such short notice and doing so while traveling overseas is a significant task. Instead, he caught three passes on four targets for his best game of the campaign. The numbers were still modest, but this is a solid starting point for him as he works to rekindle his career in a new situation. His chemistry with Stroud, which dates back to their Ohio State days, was clear. As it regrows, it could help Harrison turn into the star he was expected to be.
Winner: Josh Allen’s highlight reel
The greatest players in football have a special gift: They often show fans something they have never seen before. Josh Allen tends to do that on a regular basis. He did it again in the Buffalo Bills‘ 33-30 win over the Las Vegas Raiders. On the same throw in which he tied Jim Kelly for the most touchdown passes in Bills history, Allen recorded one of the most eye-popping highlights of the year.
The scramble and underhanded flick to Keon Coleman gave the Bills a 10-point buffer, which came in handy since the Raiders rattled off 17 points in the fourth quarter. Allen finished the day with 255 passing yards and two touchdowns.
Loser: Mike McCarthy’s timeout management (and his foot)
To be clear, the Steelers won and are right where they want to be in a tie atop the AFC North, so Mike McCarthy has done plenty well in his first year as Pittsburgh’s coach. True at the same time, however, is that Sunday was one he would largely like to forget. And it would have been even worse if not for the team pulling off its biggest fourth-quarter comeback in 34 years.
The Steelers might have won the game in regulation if McCarthy had held onto his second timeout. Tampa Bay was rushing its special teams unit onto the field in the closing seconds, needing to convert a 53-yard field goal to force overtime. The kick would have come in a battle against the clock — with the game ball in play rather than a kicking ball — had McCarthy not asked for a stoppage. His timeout allowed the Buccaneers to set everything up, and they converted to force the extra period. There is no guarantee they would have missed if the Steelers had let the clock play out, but it would have been a much tougher attempt.
McCarthy also had the unpleasant experience of spending the entire halftime break in the sideline medical tent. He said after the game that he had his foot stepped on, which explains the limp he displayed as he walked into the tent at the end of the second quarter.
A win is a win, but it was an adventure for McCarthy to get there.
Winner: Travis Hunter
There is an extremely short list of NFL players since the 1970 merger to record a touchdown and an interception in the same game. Travis Hunter now resides on that list. He shined on offense and defense in the Jaguars’ international defeat to the Texans, so even though it came in a losing effort, this is precisely what was promised when he arrived in the league as a unicorn two-way talent.
Players with INT and TD in same game (since merger)
- Roy Green, Cardinals, 1981
- Brian Dawkins, Eagles, 2002
- Travis Hunter, Jaguars, 2026
Prior to the season, the Jaguars committed to deploying Hunter primarily at cornerback with a limited number of snaps at wide receiver, and they have executed that plan. His offensive opportunities have been — and likely will continue to be — few and far between. But Sunday’s three-tackle, four-catch game resembled the unfathomable production he posted in college and exemplified what is possible if coach Liam Coen expands his snap count.
Winner: Titans
Win No. 1 is in the books; the Tennessee Titans will not go 0-17. They built their first second-half lead since Week 2 and, unlike last time, actually closed it out for a 26-20 victory over the Indianapolis Colts. Two touchdowns and two field goals in the fourth quarter helped them erase what was a 13-0 halftime deficit, and no play was bigger than the punt block Oluwafemi Oladejo returned to the end zone for a go-ahead touchdown. Joey Slye’s field goals in the final two minutes and three seconds were the difference.
Maybe this is the win that breaks the seal and helps Robert Saleh salvage Year 1 of his tenure. The offense is still subpar, and Cam Ward had another clunker of a game, so it is still more realistic that Tennessee scuffles its way to the finish line. But confidence goes a long way.
Loser: Zachariah Branch’s ball security
Rule No. 1 as a punt and kick returner is to hold onto the ball. Zachariah Branch failed to follow that rule in the Atlanta Falcons‘ 31-23 loss to the Chicago Bears. The rookie muffed a punt and fumbled during a kickoff return, and the Bears recovered both loose balls to help them build an overwhelming 31-7 lead.
Atlanta nearly bailed Branch out with a ferocious comeback effort. The Bears pulled their starters early in the fourth quarter, which opened the door for Atlanta to score a pair of touchdowns and threaten to tie the game. It still came up a touchdown and 2-point conversion short, though.
