We’re through Sunday of Week 6, and we’re here with The MMQB Takeaways. As we’ve been doing all season, we’ll publish the takeaways Sunday and update them live through Monday morning. So come back again if not all 10 are here yet …
Detroit Lions
The Detroit Lions are what we thought they were—the same team they have been going back to the middle of the 2022 season. And it showed, again, after the Dallas Cowboys got themselves off to a promising start Sunday afternoon at AT&T Stadium.
Dak Prescott and the Dallas offense kicked off the game with a nine-play, 54-yard march that stalled out in the red zone and resulted in a 34-yard field goal from Brandon Aubrey. That made it 3–0, and also marked the last time the Cowboys would hold a lead.
From there, Detroit absolutely smothered the Cowboys, scoring on all five of its first-half possessions, while holding Dallas out of the end zone for the game’s first 30 minutes. It was 27–6 at halftime and 47–9 in the end. And it all started the same way the Lions have finished off so many of their other opponents, with a steady stream of David Montgomery and, perhaps, the NFL’s best offensive line.
That approach closed out the Los Angeles Rams in Week 1, and set the tone in the Lions’ Week 4 win over the Seattle Seahawks. Against Dallas, it was there when Detroit had to respond to that opening salvo, with three Montgomery carries for 28 yards sandwiching a 42-yard dart from Jared Goff to Denver Broncos castoff Tim Patrick, including a physical 16-yard scoring run.
“The opportunity presents itself—and if that means that I’m in when the opportunity presents itself, I know I need to be ready for it,” Montgomery told me postgame. “For me being able to understand and do that, that’s the only thing that matters.”
What mattered this time around was that, by halftime, Montgomery had 58 of the Lions’ 92 rushing yards, and Detroit was well on its way to 4–1.
The rest was breezy, for sure, and certainly a sign of where the visitors to Texas are now. But that doesn’t mean the game was without fireworks for an appreciative audience that needed some on a relatively dull Sunday.
Maybe the best example? How offensive coordinator Ben Johnson called the second half. There was the hook-and-ladder to right tackle Penei Sewell. The play-action pass to left tackle Taylor Decker. The “route,” if you want to call it that, run by swing tackle Dan Skipper. All of those came with the game in hand, each as a sort of reward to vital parts of an offensive line that’s long been among the NFL’s best.
"It’s fun,” Montgomery says. “When you watch football on Sundays, you want to see that kind of fun stuff. The plays we do already are pretty fun, and Ben gets pretty creative in what he decides to do [beyond the more conventional stuff].”
The plays to Sewell, Decker and Skipper didn’t work.
But almost everything else in Dallas did—with one very difficult exception. Indeed, the cost of the trip to Texas, which wound up being Aidan Hutchinson’s season, was heavy. Hutchinson’s leg snapped when his shin whipped around teammate Alim McNeill’s leg on a pass rush, sending the Lions’ star to the ground in pain, and his teammates onto the field to try to console their beloved captain.
“He’s the heartbeat of this team,” Montgomery says. “You can feel the energy coursing through the way he talks and how he carries himself. That’s a big blow, but we’re taking this personal because we know that it means a lot to Aidan.”
The good news is the Lions have a chance to lift Hutchinson’s spirits over the next few months, the same way they’ve lifted up their region the past couple of years.
We already knew, before the season started, that Dan Campbell and Brad Holmes had put together something sustainable. What we’re learning now is that the ceiling on this particular group of players, even without Hutchinson, may be higher than most realized. And next week, they’ll have another chance to show it with a trip to Minnesota to play the unbeaten Vikings on tap.
Montgomery, with a new two-year extension to stay in Detroit now signed, didn’t want to make too big a deal of next week just yet. Mostly because, at this point, being in games like that one isn’t new to him, or anyone else in his locker room.
“It’s just handling our business,” he says. “We know what we’re capable of. If we all connect on all cylinders and we’re playing the way that we play, we’ll be hard to beat.”
Which the Cowboys found out the hard way.
Dallas Cowboys
While we’re there, it’s worth examining a fascinating situation in Dallas. Jerry Jones’s coach, Mike McCarthy, is in a contract year. The Dallas owner just shelled out nearly $100 million per year in new deals to Dak Prescott and CeeDee Lamb. And on his 82nd birthday, the Cowboys just suffered their worst home loss in Jones’s 36 seasons in charge.
That’s right. The sadsack 1989 Cowboys never lost this bad. Neither did the Dave Campo Cowboys, or the Cowboys when Wade Phillips and Jason Garrett were nearing the ends of their runs. Again, that 47–9 score, one that could’ve been worse, is historic.
It’s also part of a troubling trend of trainwreck starts for the home team at Jerry World. The Cowboys fell behind 34–10 in last season’s playoff loss to the Green Bay Packers, and dropped into holes of 35–13 (against the New Orleans Saints) and 28–6 (against the Baltimore Ravens) earlier this year. So that’s four straight home games that have careened off the rails almost immediately after kickoff.
What gives? Well, clearly, if there was a quick fix, McCarthy would’ve performed it by now.
Instead, he and the rest of his staff, and the Joneses too, are looking for answers. Because it’s the Cowboys, the scrutiny on all of that is intense. But it’s also what McCarthy and everyone else there signed up for in going to work for America’s Team.
So would one answer be to fire McCarthy now, rather than giving him the rest of the year? I’ll take Jones at his word on that—and he said Sunday such a firing is not on the table.
Yes, Jones did do that once before, in mid-2010, by canning Phillips and going to Garrett. But that was, more or less, to give Garrett a dry run as head coach after Jones had groomed him to become the guy, going all the way back to Garrett’s time as a player. Under McCarthy now, there is no equivalent to Garrett, in a guy who could be the next guy. So, really, you’d be hard pressed to claim you’re serving the present or future in doing that.
And as for there being a change on the defensive side of the ball, where DC Mike Zimmer’s unit has struggled, I think the long-standing relationship between Zimmer and the Joneses, which dates back to the 1990s, carries the day. Jerry was integral in getting Zimmer back to run the defense after the departure of Dan Quinn, and one thing I know is Jerry doesn’t want to be wrong.
Which brings you back to the status quo. The Cowboys can look at health, and build legit hope into the return of guys such as Micah Parsons and DeMarcus Lawrence. They can chalk up some of Zimmer’s struggles, fairly, to the DC reacclimating to the NFL.
I think they’ll probably end up doing all of that. But after the bye, Dallas has the 49ers, Falcons, Eagles and Texans and, just looking at that, this season could get away from the Cowboys faster than they think.
Philadelphia Eagles
The Philadelphia Eagles are a perfect example of why it’s really hard to know much yet … about anyone. Sunday represented the first time Philly’s offense has played as envisioned since the opener in Brazil. A.J. Brown’s been out since then, and DeVonta Smith missed the Tampa Bay game in Week 4 after carrying a heavy load in Weeks 2 and 3 with Brown down. Saquon Barkley’s shouldered a big one during his first month as an Eagle, too.
Until Sunday, you could only imagine what a full version of Philly’s offense would look like. And we didn’t even get that for more than a series—tight end Dallas Goedert was hurt on the third play and left tackle Jordan Mailata was carted off in the fourth quarter.
So, yes, amid the Fire Sirianni chants at Lincoln Financial Field, it was a bit of a relief for the Eagles to gut out a 20–16 win over the Cleveland Browns. The reality for Philly is that the past month has been about survival.
And the Eagles have survived, balancing out a last-minute collapse against the Atlanta Falcons and a blowout loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers with wins against the Green Bay Packers, New Orleans Saints and now a Browns team that’s adrift in a tide of really shaky quarterback play.
“It’s just all about getting into rhythm—we’re struggling with that right now,” DeVonta Smith told me over the phone after the game. “That’s a big focus right now. We know we have to be better in that aspect, and we have to keep chipping away at it every day.”
And that was the story of Sunday for the home team. Jalen Hurts was 2-of-7 for 19 yards and a 39.6 passer rating in the first quarter. The run game never got going. And the defense held its own, but against an offense that hasn’t done much against anyone all season.
So the offense needed to come alive late, and it happened—simply through the Eagles getting the sorts of looks they expected to see and exploiting the resulting matchups.
The first one came with the game tied at 13 and about eight minutes left. The Eagles saw man coverage and ran Smith on a crossing route with a natural pick built into it. Browns corner Greg Newsome II couldn’t navigate the traffic the pattern presented, and it was off to the races for Smith, who took the slant down the sideline for a 45-yard touchdown.
“We knew it was man, so we ran a little mesh concept,” Smith says. “It was a good man beater.”
The second came right after the two-minute warning. With the Eagles leading 20–16, and at their own 48, Hurts got Brown one-on-one against Newsome, and took his shot. Forty yards later, Philly was knocking out three kneeldowns to put the game away.
“Just winning his one-on-one,” Smith says. “We have all our trust in him.”
The good news is the Eagles have a lot of guys they can trust to win that way. The trick will be getting them back together again. I don’t know exactly when it’ll happen. But without that for most of this year, they’re sitting at 3–2, just a half game out of first in the NFC East and, as such, with all of their goals in front of them. I did ask Smith afterward, then, whether he thought the Eagles turned a corner at the end of the Browns game.
“Yes,” he says.
We’ll see, hopefully soon, whether he’s right.
Houston Texans
I’m more sure of what the Houston Texans are. It’s not because they beat the New England Patriots on Sunday—anyone could do that. It’s how it happened.
C.J. Stroud was efficient, yes. But he wasn’t spectacular in Foxborough. Stroud threw for just 192 yards on 20-of-31 passing. Three of those throws were for touchdowns and another was picked, so while he played well, this isn’t likely one we’d see featured much on his own personal 2024 highlight reel a couple of months down the line.
Yet, the Texans still had enough to muster a 41–21 win on the road, which counts for something, even if the opponent from New England was, uh, a little inferior.
“It’s complementary football,” second-year edge Will Anderson Jr. said over the phone. “I just think we have to be sound in all three phases, special teams, offense and defense. The beginning of the season and up until this point it was like offense has a good game or defense has a good game. We want to play complementary football. We want all phases to be on one, and everybody doing something to help us win, not just one side of the ball.
“We have weapons on each side of the ball to help us do that. That’s the vision going into this season.”
That generally means taking turns filling up the stat sheet. And very clearly on Sunday, Anderson’s number came up—the third pick from 2023 posted three sacks, and tipped a ball at the line that turned into an interception. Even better, on each of the plays, there was a little something different at work.
The first was the result of a stab move (“It’s something we’ve been working on all season, and worked on all training camp”) that Anderson executed on Patriots tackle Demontrey Jacobs. The second was a bull rush on New England’s Zach Thomas, a backup thrust into the left tackle spot (“Tackles see me, and they say he’s not that big, so I like to go speed-to-power sometimes”). The third came with Thomas sliding out to pick up Anderson, who’d already sped past him (“The tackle had stepped down a little bit and shortened the edge for me, so I popped back outside after I beat the chipper”).
All three showcased why he was picked so high in the first place and also where the vision was for him and Danielle Hunter to turn the heat up on offenses—whether those are posting sack numbers or not, the pressure they put on everyone they play against is obvious.
“Last year, I got a sack the first game of the season, and then I didn’t get another sack until Week 8 or 9,” Anderson says. “Going into this [season], I was like, Man, we just got to keep chopping. If you don’t get a sack this game, keep getting one percent better. Just have a consistency. Keep your mood uplifted, keep it positive and don’t get down on yourself. Things like that happen. I think we did a really good job of staying together as a group.
“We just got to keep going. We’re winning our rushes. We’re getting to the quarterback. We just got to get them on the ground and take the ball. I think that’s what everybody did.”
And on Sunday, that translated to the offense, too, where Stroud was just as willing to subjugate his own personal goals for the good of the team. Behind Joe Mixon and Dameon Pierce, the Texans’ run game churned out the same number of yards, 192, as Stroud threw for.
It was good enough to get the Texans to 5–1, one of just three teams—the unbeaten Kansas City Chiefs and Minnesota Vikings being the others—to have five wins through six weeks.
It also happened on a day when the team didn’t have Nico Collins (Tank Dell and Stefon Diggs combined for 13 catches in his absence), and Joe Mixon was just returning from a high ankle sprain suffered in Week 2. Which is to say the Texans were good Sunday, but certainly capable of continuing to get better. And maybe starting to manifest what Stroud and Anderson, drafted one slot apart from each other, promised upon becoming teammates.
“Me and C.J., we talk a lot about this,” Anderson says. “One of the biggest things we wanted to do was come in and change this culture. We’ve been sticking together and, along with the help of other guys, we’ve been trying to change the culture. We know how special both of us can be, and how guys feed off us and how our energy is contagious. We just want to keep leading the right way and keep setting a good example for the team of what we want this team to be. I think the guys have been responding right. It just takes everybody.”
And by the numbers alone, everybody is what Texans’ opponents are getting. On this Sunday, it was more Anderson than the Patriots might’ve bargained for.
San Francisco 49ers
The San Francisco 49ers are going to be just fine. Thursday’s 36–24 win over the Seattle Seahawks gave us two good examples of why.
One: The 49ers’ red zone struggles (they scored just one touchdown in six trips against the Arizona Cardinals in Week 5 and it was an issue the week before against the Los Angeles Rams, too) bled into the Seattle game. The Niners’ only touchdown of the first half was scored from 76 yards out. Two other drives before halftime stalled in the red zone, and another was stopped on the fringe of it, all of which resulted in nine points rather than 21. Then, in the second half, the Niners punched it in on all three of their journeys into the red zone, with Brock Purdy and George Kittle connecting twice, and Kyle Juszczyk taking one in at the end.
Another: The Niners were sitting on the doorstep of blowing a double-digit fourth-quarter lead to a division opponent for the third time this year. They were up 23–10 on Arizona in the third quarter in Week 5, and 21–7 on the Rams in Week 3, and lost both. Sure enough, in Seattle, they built a 23–3 lead in the third quarter, only to head into the fourth locked in a one-possession game, at 23–17, with the Seahawks getting the ball back. Instead of buckling this time, the defense got a stop, and picked off Geno Smith, then the offense scored on a short field and responded again with a touchdown after Seattle got the deficit to 29–24.
Both of these things show the ability of a veteran team to address the issues it has without letting them metastasize. Taking a 2–3 record into Week 6 was part of no one’s plan. But even on a short week, the Niners had one to address what was wrong.
And along the way, they’ve ridden out the absences of Trent Williams and Brandon Aiyuk this summer; and Deebo Samuel, George Kittle, Christian McCaffrey, Javon Hargrave, Talanoa Hufanga and Dre Greenlaw for all or part of the early fall. It’s meant more responsibility on other guys, and a couple of losses they probably wouldn’t have taken otherwise.
But it’s also given us all another window through which to see Brock Purdy, who’s made more off-schedule plays and moved the chains more often with his legs than he did through his first two years—which has painted a nice picture of what the Niners might need him to be after he gets a big second contract, and also what he might be on bigger stages this year.
So all in all, again, this hasn’t been a great start to the season. But I do think the Niners have grown through it, and there’s hope that they’ll get back McCaffrey—who’s determined to play this year and didn’t have any setbacks or flare ups through his first week of ramping up after his trip to Germany—in November. And maybe, with a little injury luck, all of that will add up to a team that’s a little more battle-tested and ready for the mettle of the league in January and February.
New York Jets
In an interesting way, what Robert Saleh was able to accomplish in New York gives the Jets a chance to turn things around. And I think the switch in offensive play-caller this week against the Buffalo Bills on Monday night provides a good window into what I mean by that.
Offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett actually had to be demoted not once, but twice last week. Saleh made the decision to give pass-game coordinator Todd Downing play-calling duties, and strip Hackett of them, Monday. After Saleh was fired Tuesday, new interim coach Jeff Ulbrich told Hackett and Downing that he didn’t want to make any snap decisions, and was going to give the idea of switching play-callers some time to marinate. Soon, thereafter, he affirmed Saleh’s call from Monday.
A lot of coaches in Hackett’s spot would have just said, Go ahead and fire me. But Hackett didn’t, and my sense is that who Ulbrich and Downing are is a major reason why, as is the makeup of the locker room that those guys are now leading.
Hackett and Downing have become very close over the past couple of years. The way it’s worked since the two arrived in early 2023, both guys have come up with ideas and concepts for the game plan each week, they’d go through them together, and then Hackett would pare the menu down to something manageable for the players. They also split up the situational stuff (red zone, third down, etc.).
A great majority of that planning will remain the same, with the difference now being that Downing will be the one paring down the ideas and calling plays on game day. And, again, that’s doable because of the rapport that Hackett and Downing have with each other, and the relationships those guys have with Ulbrich. Part of Hackett’s motivation for staying was actually that he didn’t want to leave Ulbirch high and dry.
All of it, as I see it, is a credit to the job Saleh did fixing the culture of a place that had become pretty toxic. Obviously, his record put him in the crosshairs of owner Woody Johnson, and that’s fair. Also, Woody’s brother, Christopher, hired Saleh while Woody was serving as ambassador to the United Kingdom, and Woody and Saleh never had much of a relationship, even after Woody returned to the States, which was a factor.
But Saleh’s relationships in the building remain strong. He told me Wednesday that he still believes in the locker room he built, and that he thinks Ulbrich will get those players to the playoffs. That ethos of his still lives with the Jets, for sure. It was shown again in Ulbrich’s first message to the team—he told the guys they have to “lock arms” now, and that it’s “us against the world.”
So if the Jets look better than you expect they might Monday night—amid such a chaotic situation—you’ll at least know one reason why.
Ravens-Commanders
Both quarterbacks in the Baltimore Ravens–Washington Commanders game did the job. The stat lines really tell the story. Lamar Jackson threw for 323 yards, a touchdown, a pick and a 114.7 passer rating. Jayden Daniels went for 269 yards, two touchdowns, no picks and a 110.3 passer rating.
Daniels had five receivers with at least four catches. Jackson, who proclaimed his unit a “pick-your-poison,” had four guys with multiple catches (he threw the ball nine fewer times than his DMV counterpart did). They both ran it effectively. And afterward, talking to CBS’s Tracy Wolfson, Jackson said he told Daniels, “I need that jersey! But yeah, he’s definitely a great player, just his [sixth] game in the league, rookie year, the sky’s the limit for him.”
We know what Jackson, the two-time MVP, is at this point, seven years into his career.
We’re still learning about Daniels.
But every week seems to affirm things. This week, it was keeping pace with a premier opponent, in helping the Commanders rally to keep up after falling behind 10–3, 17–10, and 27–13, and throwing it well in must-throw situations (he was very efficient in the fourth quarter Sunday), when the defense can play coverage and have its rushers pin their ears back. Next week, it’ll be something else.
But all the things Dan Quinn has said about him—last week, when we texted about it, the Commanders’ coach cited Daniels’s work ethic, feel for the quarterback position, ability to get in and out of checks, and ability to stay normal/cool in the face of fame—keep coming true. So it feels like we’re just on the front end of something pretty cool.
Getting to put Daniels next to Jackson really just confirmed it.
Jim Harbaugh
The Jim Harbaugh situation will stand as one of the most memorable ones from the Week 6 slate. Not much of the country got to see the Los Angeles Chargers–Denver Broncos game on TV—it was most of Southern California, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Idaho … and you get the picture.
But because Harbaugh is Harbaugh, and this health thing was borderline unprecedented for the spot in which it happened, the news blew up as the 4 p.m. ET window opened Sunday.
Then, I suspect, a lot of people got caught up in other games, so we can catch you up here on Harbaugh’s condition. He told reporters afterward that he has an atrial flutter, which is a type of arrhythmia that causes the heart to beat fast. Before the game Sunday, he left the sideline, first going to the medical tent, then the locker room to get checked out, handing the reins to defensive coordinator Jesse Minter in the interim.
He got cleared to return relatively quickly—the first quarter wasn’t over yet—and led the Chargers to a 23–16 win, one that put Harbaugh’s team all alone in second place in the AFC West. And it helped, too, that he’d been through this before, in 2012 with the Niners.
“2–0 with an arrhythmia,” he joked.
It was funny at that point, because it was over.
But it was a good reminder for all of us to get ourselves checked out regularly. And also a reminder of how far the Chargers have come in a short amount of time.
Pittsburgh Steelers
Mike Tomlin should end the quarterback competition and keep Justin Fields in there as the starter. The truth is the Russell Wilson saga has dragged on long enough. Fields has had the support of that building for a long time. The baseline for Fields, most in Pittsburgh believe, is higher than it is for Wilson. There’s also a lot more upside with Fields.
You saw all of it Sunday against the Las Vegas Raiders.
Fields’s passer rating (75.9) and passing yardage (145) were shaky. Yet, he ran in a touchdown on a fourth-and-1 from the Raiders’ 3, and then another on the first play after the Steelers picked off Aidan O’Connell to, more or less, end Vegas’s comeback hopes. The Steelers rushed for nearly 200 yards, churned out 18 first downs and, while it didn’t always look pretty, controlled the tone and tenor of the game with a new starting QB on the other side.
Putting Wilson in at this point would just be to prove to yourself he doesn’t have any of his magic of the mid-2010s left, something that’s already seemed to show itself both in the end in Seattle and over his two years in Denver. Yes, in that case, you essentially give yourself two cracks at getting the quarterback position right. But you’d also risk dropping games in a year when you can’t really afford to.
This also, either way, isn’t about the next 10 years. It’s about the next couple of months.
But in either of those cases, the choice would be the same. It’d be Fields. And a lot of people who work in that building, given some truth serum, would agree with me on that.
We’ll see whether Tomlin gets there, too.
Quick-hitters
Week 6 is almost done. And we’ve got quick-hitters to wrap it up with. Coming at you …. now …
• I don’t believe the Raiders are holding onto Davante Adams. I think the push is to get that word out there to make teams interested believe they won’t make a trade without getting a second-round pick. Now, I’m not saying they’ll give him away. They want value. But I’m not sure they’d pass on a third-rounder right now.
• While we’re there, NFL owners will vote Tom Brady through as a minority owner of the Raiders this week. We’ll have more on that in the coming days, but it’s going to be interesting, at least in the short term, seeing a prominent broadcaster in that spot.
• Another voting matter on the agenda is the plan to award Super Bowl LXII to Atlanta, which is why the meetings are there. Assuming that gets rubber stamped, the next four Super Bowls will be in New Orleans, Santa Clara, Inglewood and Atlanta.
• The Atlanta Falcons broke through by running the ball Sunday, with Tyler Allgeier and Bijan Robinson keying an attack that ground out 198 yards. Add that to how Kirk Cousins has played and, if the defense gets a little better, the Falcons could be dangerous (and they kind of already are).
• It was just against the New York Giants, but the Cincinnati Bengals’ defense played by far its best game of the year Sunday, good enough that you could see the team get to 5–4 for a November TNF showdown with the Ravens. Cincinnati is now 2–4 and has the Browns, Eagles and Raiders between now and then. The offense, of course, has been playing well for a while.
• A lot of people look really dumb for saying certain things about Caleb Williams in September. Lesson: Never, for better or worse, make sweeping judgments about a rookie quarterback based on his first month playing.
• The Jaguars and Patriots meet at Wembley Stadium on Sunday, with two wins between them. It’s hard to imagine if Jacksonville drops to 1–6 that the team wouldn’t make some level of change somewhere on the staff.
• I don’t know how the Browns move forward with Deshaun Watson. The problem now could become how his play is hindering the ability of his teammates to win, excel individually and, in turn, find jobs and get paid.
• Sure enough, another 38 carries for Jim Harbaugh’s Chargers on Sunday.
• Matt LaFleur’s done an incredible job in Green Bay. And Joe Flacco’s done an incredible job in Indianapolis. (Just so those two get the credit they deserve).
• The Buccaneers had quite a week—we’ll have a lot more on that in The MMQB lead Monday morning.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Week 6 NFL Takeaways: Lions Are Smothering Teams and Having Fun.
