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What Happened in the NFL? Week Five Recap

More injuries and upsets in week five in the NFL. Here are five storylines to keep an eye on looking forward to week six.

Music City Mauling

On a rare edition of Tuesday night football, the Buffalo Bills traveled to take on the Tennessee Titans and were met by Derrick Henry’s ferocious stiff arm.

The Bills played their most undisciplined game of the year racking up ten penalties and three turnovers. The Titans, on the other hand, were there to capitalize on all of them leading to a 42-16 beatdown on national television.

Buffalo quarterback Josh Allen reverted to his old self recording a quarterback rating of 69.4 and a season low completion percentage of 63.4%. While the third year from Wyoming had gained a ton of early MVP chatter, this game has certainly ended that thought.

“I felt like Sue Bird in the clutch.”

New week, same old late game heroics from Russell Wilson. His late touchdown to D.K. Metcalf lifted the Seattle Seahawks over the Minnesota Vikings 27-26. While the Seahawks stormed back in the second half, their 13-0 halftime deficit still leaves a lot of questions about this team.

As they move forward, Wilson will not always be able to pull the rabbit out of his hat and lead the team to a win. Once again the defence looked porous giving up 449 total yards, 200 of which came on the ground, and let Kirk Cousins control the clock keeping Wilson off the field.

This combination never mixes well late in the season and Wilson will have to top some of his heroics in order to make a deep playoff run.

Viva Las Vegas

Down go the Kansas City Chiefs! While the week five victory will not mean much in the long run, the Las Vegas Raiders gained a ton of confidence as they took down their division rivals 40-32 at Arrowhead Stadium.

While Raiders’ quarterback Derek Carr had his critics entering the season, his 347 yards and three touchdowns was on par with Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs’ high powered offence. Two of his touchdowns came on plays of 59 and 72 yards, which is not too bad for someone known for not taking shots deep. 

As for the Chiefs, the formula to beat them has been laid out for teams to replicate. The question now becomes, can anyone replicate it? The combination of dominating time of possession and generating a pass rush with four players worked for Vegas and almost worked for the Chargers in Justin Herbert’s first career start. If you can do those two things, you sit back and pray number 15 in red misses a couple passes.

Hobbled but Hopeful

Despite the 30-27 loss in overtime to the New Orleans Saints, the Los Angeles Chargers are excited to see the future of their team. In his Monday night football debut, rookie Justin Herbert was the best quarterback in the game as he threw for 264 yards and four touchdowns while missing three offensive lineman and Keenan Allen going down after one quarter.

The Chargers announced before the game that Herbert would be the starter for the rest of the season and now will look to work on closing out games. With Michael Badgley hitting the upright on the Chargers’ winning drive, Herbert’s chance to seal his first career win slipped away.

Now onto their bye week, the Chargers have two weeks to get healthy and load up for the second half of the season where they can look to grow their young star even more.

Heartbreak in Dallas

The Cowboys outlasted the New York Giants in a 37-34 win to move to 2-3, but unfortunately they paid the ultimate price. Starting quarterback Dak Prescott was lost for the season as he suffered a fractured ankle as he tried to roll out to his left.

After Prescott left the game, Andy Dalton came in to lead the Cowboys to a comeback win against their division rivals, but Dallas will not be the same without their signal caller. While the Cowboys now have one of the most injured teams after losing both left tackle Tyron Smith and now Dak Prescott, they will have to play their top football in order to win the worst division in football.

Dom’t forget to check out last weeks storylines to see other storylines to keep an eye on.