32 things we learned from Week 5 of the 2024 NFL season:
0: The number of undefeated teams after the Jacksonville Jaguars thrillingly defeated the, dare I say it, undermanned Indianapolis Colts, 37-34.
1: Number of wins in Jags QB Trevor Lawrence’s last 10 starts. Sunday’s win ended his personal nine-game stall. The team started the 2023 season with an 8-3 record. It’s a great way for Lawrence to celebrate his 25th birthday.
2: Number of plays that Colts WR Alec Pierce covered at least 45 yards on Sunday. He had 134 receiving yards and 1 TD in three hookups with backup QB Joe Flacco.
3: In Sunday’s win, Jacksonville DE Travon Walker set a career high with a sack. The 2022 No. 1 draft pick continues to steadily improve and is expected to reach a career-high 17 sacks in 2024.
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4(-0): The Minnesota Vikings beat the New York Jets 23-17 on Sunday in London, setting their best record in an International Series game.
5(-0): Amazing mark for the Vikes, best in the league. The reigning champion Kansas City Chiefs could match that if they defeat the New Orleans Saints on Monday night.
6: Number of times Jets QB Aaron Rodgers has thrown three interceptions in a game. That included a pick-six and a trio on his last pitch, serving in Sunday’s loss.
6(0,000+): Regular season career passing yards โ 60,148 to be exact โ tallied by Rodgers, the ninth NFL quarterback to reach this plateau.
7: Don’t look now, but at this moment Rodgers had the second-best quarter in New York City, behind Daniel Jones (257 yards, 2 passes), who engineered an upset of the Seahawks in Seattle. It might be back. Giants’ prodigy WR Malik Nabors is out (concussion).
7a: Jones had just one turnover in his last four games, and his Giants (2-3) matched the Jets despite the teams having vastly different expectations.
7b: By the way, since 1990, teams that started the season 2-3 have had about a 77.5% chance of missing the playoffs, but with the expanded postseason field, the margin of error may be even larger.
8: Number of consecutive regular season games in which Los Angeles Rams running back Kyren Williams scored a touchdown. This is currently the longest record in the league.
9: Bills QB Josh Allen’s completions (30 attempts) in Sunday’s 23-20 loss to the Houston Texans and former Buffalo WR1 Stefon Diggs. Allen went 0-for-3 on the Bills’ disappointing final possession. The ball remained at their own 3-yard line, forcing a punt, which helped set up Houston’s winning 59-yard field goal on the final play of the game. Allen was unable to complete more than one pass to a teammate (lead receiver Khalil Shakir was sidelined with an ankle injury) and completed just 30% of his passes in his seven-year career. It was the worst.
9a: Total TD passes between Lamar Jackson of the Baltimore Ravens and Joe Burrow of the Cincinnati Bengals in Sunday’s game โ Baltimore’s 41-38 overtime victory at Cincinnati.
10: Number of catches by Bengals WR Ja’Marr Chase who covered 41 and 70 yards and scored a touchdown. His 193 receiving yards are a league high in a game up to this point in the season.
11: However, the Bengals likely missed out on their long-awaited second victory after P. Ryan Rehkow broke his hold on a field goal attempt in overtime. His five punts averaged nearly 51 yards, and four of them ended up inside Baltimore’s 20-yard line, which was really disappointing.
12: Baltimore has rushed for at least 100 yards in 38 consecutive games, the third-longest streak in league history behind the Pittsburgh Steelers from 1974-77 and the Ravens from 2018-21, both of whom This has been achieved 43 times in a row.
12a: Baltimore’s Jackson and Derrick Henry combined for 935 rushing yards, the most by a quarterback-running back combo through five games in league history.
12b: As for Henry, he will soon get a ticket to Canton. On Sunday, he became the fifth player in league history to have at least 10,000 rushing yards and 100 TDs in his first 125 NFL games. Three of the other four are all Hall of Famers: Jim Brown, Emmitt Smith and LaDainian Tomlinson — and Adrian Peterson is likely to follow.
13: TJ Watt, the only Steelers pass rusher to win three official NFL sack titles, recorded his 100th career sack Sunday night in just his 109th game. Only Hall of Famer Reggie White achieved that century benchmark in fewer games (96).
14: Washington Commanders rookie QB Jaden Daniels completed 14 of 25 on Sunday against the Cleveland Browns after connecting on at least 70% of his passes in his first four NFL starts. % in the previous two cases, where he returned to the ground a little (and over 85 throws). Still, Daniels’ league-leading 77.1% percentage this season ranks second behind Drew Brees (77.9%) in 2018 for most accurate starts to the season through five games.
15: According to NFL Media, the Commander-in-Chief, who has won four straight, became the first team since the AFL-NFL merger in 1970 to average 30 points in five games with a starting rookie QB.
16: Daniels joins Joe Ferguson (1973 Bills) and Dak Prescott (2016 Dallas Cowboys) as the only rookie QBs in the merger to start the season with a 4-1 record.
17: Speaking of rookie QBs, Caleb Williams of the Chicago Bears has improved his passer rating in every game since Week 2, posting a season-best 126.2 in Sunday’s 36-10 loss to the Carolina Panthers. did.
18: Bears โ Bears! โ Currently on an eight-game winning streak at Soldier Field, the leagueโs longest home heater.
19th: Bo Nix and the Denver Broncos also defeated the Las Vegas Raiders on Sunday, and the three current starting rookie quarterbacks in the league are a combined 6-0 over the past two weeks and since Week 3. They have 8 wins and 1 loss.
19a: After Sunday’s heartbreaking home loss to the Miami Dolphins, one wonders how long the New England Patriots plan to keep rookie Drake Maye out of the lineup.
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20.92: Broncos CB Patrick Surtain II’s top speed in miles per hour on Sunday. He became the first defender to top 20 mph with a pick-six in 2024. In his case, he covered 100 yards.
21.27: Maximum speed in miles per hour for Arizona Cardinals’ Kyler Murray’s 50-yard TD run on Sunday, according to NGS. This is the fastest record by a quarterback in the NGS era (since 2016).
22.15: Jags rookie WR Brian Thomas Jr.’s top speed in miles per hour according to NGS during his 85-yard TD reception in Sunday’s win. No Jags player has run faster this season or in the past eight years.
23: Is it okay to push Xavier McKinney of the Green Bay Packers into the All-Pro category? He picked off a pass and recovered a fumble in Sunday’s game against the Los Angeles Rams. McKinney has generated at least one takeaway in all five games this season and at least one in six total. His INT streak now stands at six consecutive games, including his last game with the Giants in 2023.
24th: San Francisco 49ers WR Brandon Aiyuk had eight catches and 147 yards on Sunday, nearly doubling his total yards (167) through four games and returning to his personal record after an extended offseason absence. It seems like the preseason is over. Still, it wasn’t enough to give the Niners a victory.
25: In the Cardinals’ win, Chad Ryland hit three field goals, including a game-winning 35-yard shot with 97 seconds left. Both Arizona and San Francisco are without their regular kickers, with the Cardinals’ Matt Prater suffering a knee injury and the 49ers’ Jake Moody injured making a tackle on Sunday.
25a: The Cards also could have had the benefit of a loaded field, with temperatures nearing 100 degrees in the 49ers’ Silicon Valley home.
26th: Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson was sacked on seventh down by the Commanders on Sunday, the most in the league. Watson has been sacked 18 times in the past three games, including a career-low eight in Week 3.
27: The Bills-Texans game was the only team in the Week 5 bracket with a winning record.
27a: It is partly due to this equal reality. 20 of the league’s 32 teams are within .500 per game.
28: But it would be nice to have a juicy bite to enjoy on a 15-and-a-half-hour football day from London to storm-delayed Pittsburgh.
29th: Seahawks Rayshawn Jenkins returns a fumble 102 yards for a TD against the Giants. Combined with Surtain’s pick-six, it was the first week in more than a century of league history that the team had two defensive touchdowns of 100 yards or more.
30th: Former league MVP Matt Ryan joined the Atlanta Falcons’ Ring of Honor on Thursday night, but QB Kirk Cousins โโpassed for 509 yards in a 36-30 OT win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. and watched him break his own single-game team record.
30a: Cousins โโbecame the first player in the Super Bowl era (since 1966) to throw for 250 yards before and after halftime in the same game.
31st: Elsewhere, former NFL pass rushers Jared Allen and Osi Umenyiola become the first inductees into the NFL London Ring of Honor. It doesn’t seem like the highest hurdle to clear, but it’s still cool.
32: Lots of notes about uniforms this week. Let’s start with the Falcons. The Falcons should obviously get back to their old form, which is pretty impressive at 2-0 this season (1-2 otherwise).
32a: The Bengals wore four different tiger stripe pants in five games…but went 0-2 with the new orange pants. That might be a sign, folks.
32b: The Broncos honored — and in our eyes — their first Super Bowl team, the 1977 Orange Crush, with a successful win on Sunday. Again, it’s safe to switch permanently in this case.
32c: The Texans debuted one of their two new 2024 reserves in a win on Sunday. Ok, but it’s also highly praised by Houstonians who have been waiting over 20 years for a little variation (and have been waiting for other variations to hit the field)…
32d: And we end where the Jaguars started. The Jaguars are apparently old enough to officially go retro, and their results speak for themselves.
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(This story has been updated to add new video.)
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