Week 5 Care/Don’t Care: Secondary Cowboys show out in big win over Steelers — and in fantasy football

5 things I care about

Cowboys got something from their ancillary offensive players

Dak Prescott got dragged down into the muck and mire where all Steelers games unfailingly travel. The usually steady quarterback committed three turnovers and took inopportune sacks. His connection with CeeDee Lamb was, at best, hit or miss. An excellent toe-tap catch along the sideline on his first catch felt like a different lifetime ago by the time we got to a miscommunication that resulted in an interception, and the subsequent sideline discussion:

With their two newly minted franchise players not offering up their best ball, Dallas got something that’s been painfully missing through the first month of the season: contributions from the ancillary offensive players.

With Brandin Cooks placed on IR, the Cowboys were forced to give more opportunities to third-year wideout, Jalen Tolbert. Given the way Cooks was playing in the first month and how Tolbert responded on Sunday night, this may have been a coup for Dallas. Tolbert led the team in receiving yards, snaring seven passes for 87 yards and the game-winning touchdown on 10 targets. He was an impact player from the early moments of this game. The fact that he sealed the deal at the end when he stepped up as the lead receiver while dealing with an injury from the prior play felt too poetic.

Tolbert has flashed as a vertical receiver in the first few games and did it consistently on Sunday against a good secondary. The Cowboys have been desperately missing a vertical X-receiver who can win on curl and comeback routes since Michael Gallup tore his ACL several years ago. It’s early but Tolbert may end up being an answer. He’s merely 6% rostered in Yahoo leagues and I’d be stunned if he didn’t have a role in Dallas going forward.

I don’t know if Jake Ferguson can be considered an ancillary player at this stage — he’s too good — but it’s worth noting he was the second-most impactful receiver. He showed the yards-after-catch skills that make him an ideal underneath option for Dak Prescott in this offense. He’s been one of the few right answers at the tight end position this season.

Perhaps the most impactful emergence was that of Rico Dowdle at running back. Dowdle had quietly been taking over the backfield from Ezekiel Elliott. Week 5’s win over the Steelers should make it an official breakout. Dowdle led the team by a wide margin with 20 carries and caught both of his targets for 27 yards and a score. His only lowlight was a near-disaster fumble at the end but otherwise, Dowdle was efficient, got what was blocked and added yards at the end of his runs. He may not have the most explosiveness out of the backfield but Dowdle is a steady presence who can keep the offense on schedule.

The Cowboys offense looked like one of the most top-heavy units in the NFL heading into the season with major questions beyond Lamb and in the backfield. It’s one game but Week 5’s win over the Steelers showed there is some interesting young talent to mine in this unit.

If guys like Tolbert and Dowdle can push past “interesting” and establish themselves as plus assets on a consistent basis, that raises the ceiling projection on an offense that’s too often been stuck in neutral through five games.

Brian Thomas Jr.

This week, someone asked me my opinion on whether Brian Thomas Jr., despite being the fourth man drafted, could end up being the best wide receiver from the 2024 NFL Draft. I’m generally skeptical of that being possible, not because of anything to do with Thomas but because I have so much respect for Marvin Harrison Jr., Malik Nabers and Rome Odunze.

Then, you watch Thomas play in Week 5 and I’m a little tempted to change my answer.

Thomas is an incredible player. It went a little under-discussed that he truly is a freakshow athlete at 6-foot-3 and 209 pounds with a 4.33 40-yard dash. We’ve seen that field-flipping speed when he gets loose in the secondary. However, what’s more impressive is that he’s been a far more polished receiver than I ever could have anticipated.

Thomas ran a stripped-down route tree at LSU. He showed he could win in other ways but it was fair to expect an adjustment period in his rookie season.

Thomas is beating the expectations. He’s been a full-field threat who has done more on in-breaking routes in the NFL than he did last year at LSU. He’s been the ideal target for Trevor Lawrence, who wants to push the ball down the field but hasn’t had a receiver of this archetype at any point during his Jaguars tenure.

Some of the way Thomas is scoring fantasy points is unsustainable, given his touchdown rate, and yes, every perimeter wide receiver crushes the Indianapolis Colts defense. All that said, Thomas is the guy for Jacksonville. He’s been their most explosive player by a healthy gap and it’s no shock they just had their best offensive day with Thomas as the focal point.

Thomas is already pacing to be one of the best wide receiver picks in fantasy football this season. If he gets more concentration of the targets in the Jaguars offense, a promotion that he’s earned, he can really get rolling and continue to make the case that he’s a true No. 1 wideout.

Jayden Daniels passes a test

Everyone pointed out heading into this week that Jayden Daniels was about to go against a much tougher defense in Cleveland than he dealt with in his previous two dynamic games. His completion percentage (56%) came down and he only threw one touchdown to one pick, but overall, he passed this first test with flying colors.

Jim Schwartz and the Browns defense tried to throw Daniels some curveballs. According to Next Gen Stats, Daniels faced the blitz on 52.9% of his dropbacks in Week 5, his highest rate in a game this season. He comported himself well on those plays, taking just two sacks. Even more impressive, Daniels averaged 12.5 yards per attempt when blitzed.

Early in the season, many of the answers in this offense to additional pressure was to dump the ball off in the short areas. Attacking downfield has suddenly become the basis of the passing game, no matter what the defensive looks are up front. Daniel also scrambled nine times in this game but threw on three of those plays, completing all three passes for 88 yards.

Two of the biggest critiques of Daniels’ game as a prospect were his high pressure-to-sack rate, and that he took off scrambling too early. Some of that, especially the latter, has crept up early in his rookie season, but neither looked like a problem for Daniels in this Week 5 win against a stout Browns defense. That’s an incredibly encouraging development for the rookie passer.

Daniels will face more tests as he continues to climb the ranks of NFL quarterbacks. For now, we learned in Week 5 that the Commanders offense has answers for its quarterback against pressure and in the downfield passing game, and that the player himself just continues to get better. Right now, Daniels looks like a matchup-proof start in fantasy and more than capable of carrying a heavy burden as Washington’s franchise quarterback.

The Texans’ ceiling is lower than we hoped, for now

Houston was not at full strength in Week 5. It showed in what ended up being a win but another shaky outing for their offense.

Joe Mixon missed his third straight game and we know that, at this point, his presence makes a difference for the Texans’ running game. Even if Mixon isn’t an elite back, he’s a significant improvement over Houston’s backup options currently on the field. This team’s lack of early down success can be directly attributed to the lack of a consistent run game. Mixon alone may not be enough to solve their rushing issues but it’s beyond clear this group of backs isn’t good enough to function in their traditional zone scheme.

Even more devastating, Nico Collins left the game early in the first half with a hamstring injury. Prior to his absence, Collins had taken his two targets for 78 yards and a touchdown. He was on his way to another massive game before heading into the locker room. Without Collins on the field, the passing game felt something closer to ordinary.

It felt like that because that’s what it is without Collins.

As excited as we were about Houston’s receiver room in the preseason, we’ve seen that Collins is far and away the group’s alpha through five games. No passing offense loses a player like that and just keeps on rolling. Stefon Diggs is still a good player, but he’s settled into a complementary underneath and slot-heavy role. At this stage, he won’t consistently affect the game at all three levels like he used to. The man who should be their second-best deep threat is Tank Dell but he’s just not the player he was as a rookie at the moment. Dell is coming off a serious injury from late last year and missed last week with a chest issue. At some point, he can get back to being that high-impact wideout, but the film shows he’s not that guy right now.

Some underlying issues within the offense also need to be addressed, but getting their WR1 and RB1 back in the mix will fix many of the ills. Until that happens, we may need to lower the ceiling for the Texans offense. Don’t lose hope that we see it at some point in the future but for now, more realism is needed when analyzing this team on a weekly basis. Nonetheless, it’s great that they continue to win while playing slightly below expectations.

Lamar Jackson takes the wheel from Derrick Henry

The Ravens had been barrelling over the competition the last two weeks. The Lamar Jackson-Derrick Henry backfield was proving to be every bit the dynamic force we were sold it as. As the team rolled over Dallas and Buffalo, the passing game took a backseat. Going against a Cincinnati defense that was near the bottom of the league at stopping the run, it seemed to make all the sense in the world that Baltimore would saddle up Henry for another major workload.

That’s not how things played out, as Joe Burrow and co. threw all over a Ravens secondary that’s had its issues this season. The offense needed Lamar Jackson to take the wheel back from Henry — and he responded with an excellent performance.

The Ravens ranked dead last in neutral pass rate in Weeks 3 and 4 but threw 42 passes in their overtime win in Week 5. Per Next Gen Stats, Jackson completed 10 of his 15 passes in the intermediate area and 8 of 11 passes against man coverage for 97 yards and three touchdowns, his most in a game in his career.

Too often in the early portion of the year, the Ravens’ passing game felt constricted. They were overdosing on screens, running back targets and underneath looks. Their Week 5 passing performance was a stark contrast to that sort of approach.

The most impressive part was Jackson activated a variety of different receivers in the effort. Rashod Bateman made impressive grabs along the sideline, Zay Flowers hauled in downfield looks and all three tight ends — shield your eyes, the final few Mark Andrews managers out there — got involved in different packages.

The Bengals defense isn’t a good unit at any level, so that caveat should be applied when analyzing this performance. However, there is talent in this passing game, and that shined through for the first time this season.

5 things I don’t care about

The Steelers offense

There have been fleeting moments during the early chapter of the 2024 season where the Steelers offense has been intriguing. Some of what they do with the tight ends is fascinating and Justin Fields has briefly flashed some of the mobility that makes him a dynamic option behind center.

Yet, Week 5 was a reminder that the overall picture of Pittsburgh’s offense is a limited one. This team just doesn’t have much steam.

It starts with a running game that was meant to be the identity of the team but has been utterly toothless through five games. With Cordarrelle Patterson and Jaylen Warren out, Najee Harris dominated the running back touches. It amounted to merely a whisper, 14 carries for 42 yards. Harris has been under 4.0 yards per carry in every game this year.

The passing game took on a greater burden in Week 4 when the Steelers were attempting to come back against the Colts but that momentum didn’t stretch into this game. Fields had his moments in Week 5 but overall, couldn’t mount consistent drives through the air. It’s extra troubling that this effort came against a Cowboys defense that has been devastated by injuries in their pass rush group and is missing multiple defensive backs.

I’ve been pretty bewildered by the amount of coverage Russell Wilson has gotten the last five weeks while he’s been out with a calf injury. While Sunday night made it clear Fields leaves a lot on the table, I can’t imagine Wilson being a better option, especially while the running game can’t carry its weight.

Most troubling of all was the lack of George Pickens’ involvement. The Steelers wideout was rotating on and off the field as the WR3, despite the lack of proven players around him at receiver.

That one is inexplicable. The only possible variable that would make sense is if Pickens is in some sort of doghouse situation with the coaching staff. Given some of the flare-ups we’ve seen with Pickens in his first two seasons, that isn’t out of the question. Otherwise, it makes no sense to minimize this player especially because I think he’s played some of the best football of his career to start this season. This is a situation to monitor, especially as wide receiver trade whispers permeate throughout the NFL.

The Steelers offense is just lifeless right now. That’s a familiar story. We shouldn’t be shocked either. Fields and Wilson are big names but they aren’t uniquely good solutions for a team that is trying to dig itself out of the massive hole left behind by the Kenny Pickett flame-out draft pick. You don’t just turn around from a miss like that and throw out a high-flying offense.

The 2024 Steelers don’t look like they’re about to be an exception.

Jordan Love’s volatility

Will Levis didn’t play this week because the Titans are on bye but somehow, he still caught strays on social media. His name came up more than once, when Jordan Love threw a mind-bending interception from his own end zone:

There’s no question that Love is capable of some maddening moments. He tries to write checks that he’ll need to max the account out to cash when more economical options are available. Love may need to dial back that willingness to blow his budget when the moment doesn’t call for it.

That said, it’s hard to really want to pull the reins in on Love because, unlike someone like Levis, he absolutely has the arm talent to cash those checks:

It’s so much easier to dial back the aggressiveness than to get a timid passer to let their hair down. The Packers have wisely decided that it’s worth living with that volatility because, for the most part, the reward outweighs the cost.

Whenever we try to split a season into clean halves, we almost always make mistakes. Most people wanted to believe that because the second half of Love’s season was the most recent result, he’d always been the completely dialed-in, largely mistake-free version of himself. That is not how the sport works. The full picture matters, and clean half-season splits are usually just coincidences driven by circumstances.

Love is every bit the gunslinger who gives the other team a few shots at the ball as he is the dynamic passer who mowed through the league in the back half of 2023. That’s totally fine. He can be and is a top-10 quarterback while operating like that. You live with the hair-on-fire moments because, while a turnover is brutal, a hole shot down the field to your superstar receiver in Jayden Reed can be the reason you take an early lead and never give it away.

The Packers offense won’t be a squeaky surgical unit with Love under center but the ceiling remains outrageously high.

The Broncos offense

Bet you didn’t think I’d have something to say about a generally non-competitive AFC West matchup between Denver and Las Vegas.

I feel the need to talk about the Broncos in this section because I’m not sure how many times I’m going to mention them in this article all season.

For starters, on that offensive side of the ball, I’ll admit I don’t love that unit. Some of what Sean Payton’s rolling out there doesn’t necessarily light my fire from a schematic standpoint in the modern NFL and they don’t have many needle-moving players surrounding rookie quarterback, Bo Nix. Their passing tree is as long as a phonebook —to steal a Scott Pianowski special — as Nix completed passes to 11 different players in Week 5. Running back Javonte Williams led the team with six targets. It’s an odd unit to figure out and likely won’t have a high ceiling at any point this season.

With all that said, none of the ambivalence I just offered extends to the defense, which is one of the most enjoyable units to watch this season.

Vance Joseph throws a ton at quarterbacks from a pass-rush perspective. Denver blitzes like crazy up front and plays physical coverage like a unit that has implicit trust in its secondary.

And they should — that unit is unbelievable.

We all know Patrick Surtain II is an All-Pro player. He snagged two interceptions, including a pick-six against the Raiders, but that’s not usually his calling card. He’s one of the last of a dying breed as a man-coverage specialist corner who tracks No. 1 wideouts around the field. We saw on Sunday that when a team doesn’t have a No. 1, he can be more of a ballhawk and disruptor.

Surtain’s not the only player they have on the back-end either, as No. 2 corner Riley Moss has enjoyed a breakout second season.

The Broncos have been a top-five defense this season. They’ve put bad offenses into the meat grinder and given strong units real trouble. That group is good enough to keep the Broncos competitive while the offense gets Nix settled. We saw him enjoy an efficient outing against the Raiders in positive game script and those moments won’t be hard to come by with this defense in tow.

Davante Adams preferring the Jets

By all accounts, Davante Adams’ most preferred destination is the New York Jets. We know he wants to go there because Aaron Rodgers is the quarterback. That’s where it stops making sense for all parties involved.

From Adams’ perspective, if your goal is to get a Super Bowl before the end of your career, I can’t imagine why the Jets look like an appealing destination. A team that was pitched as being a quarterback away, it’s safe to say that was a gross overstatement of where this team stands five games into the 2024 season.

You see Allen Lazard dropping passes in high-leverage moments or the extra coverage on Garrett Wilson and realize there’s no question that Adams would make the Jets offense better. However, are they a Davante Adams addition away from salvation?

No way.

The Jets walk into every game at a disadvantage because Nathaniel Hackett is the offensive coordinator. The offensive design looks more like something out of the mid-2010s than anything like a flourishing, modern coaching tree.

Then, on top of that, once the games get started, the Jets bury themselves under a cascade of what should be little mistakes. Drops shouldn’t sink your offense. Missed assignments on the offensive line shouldn’t spell doom. Receivers being a little off their routes shouldn’t be the end of the world. Even rigidity from your quarterback shouldn’t be what destroys your day. And yet, when you do all of it every game repeatedly while facing good defenses, it becomes impossible to function.

It’s too early to say it’s over for the Jets or that they can’t right the ship offensively when the matchups get easier. But it’s not too early to recognize that simply dropping Davante Adams into the product we watched Sunday morning in London is not enough to get this team close to its ceiling. So much more needs to be corrected beyond the talent at outside receiver.

Until we see those fixes, expect everyone on this offense to underperform expectations.

The Bills offensive results in Weeks 1-3

The Bills offense in the first few weeks of the season showed a well-organized unit with a great running game captained by one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL. That’s more than enough to thrash the Cardinals, what we know now is a bad Dolphins team and the Jaguars.

The last two weeks against quality AFC contenders with good players in the secondary — the story looks quite different.

The Texans have two quality outside corners in Derek Stingley Jr. and rookie Kamari Lassiter. Outside of a 49-yard catch-and-run touchdown from Keon Coleman — which was a great play and you can’t take it away from him — the Bills got absolutely nothing from their outside receivers in Week 5. It really dawned on me how tough this situation is when Mack Hollins wasn’t where Josh Allen anticipated him to be on a third-down route and, the very next play, Hollins is the gunner on the punt. The Bills just don’t have enough separation ability from those perimeter players right now. Allen completed just 1 of 15 passes of 10-plus air yards on Sunday, the lowest completion percentage on such passes (6.7%) in Allen’s career, per Next Gen Stats.

Not having Khalil Shakir on the field made a huge difference for this Bills offense. Shakir has been a chain-mover and is by far the best separator on the team. He’s their slot receiver, so that does not explain the issues on the perimeter the last two weeks. That is just the reality of their offense right now.

The Bills get the Jets and the Titans the next two weeks. While those teams have had issues on offense, both defenses have been excellent. We could see these issues continue to creep up against teams with good players on the back end who can challenge these wide receivers. That brings down the ceiling of the entire unit, even Josh Allen’s weekly stats.