Every week this NFL season, we will break down the highs and lows—and everything in between—from the most recent slate of pro football. This week, Caleb Williams threw four picks but the Bears won, Jordan Love and the Packers made a statement in front of a disappointed Tom Brady, Patrick Mahomes survived an injury scare, and more. Welcome to Winners and Losers.
Loser: Caleb Williams’s Pristine MVP Campaign
In every telling of the story of Odysseus, it is clear from the very beginning that he is more talented, cunning, and poised than his peers. He had a keen understanding of when it was time to follow orders, and when it was time to trust his instincts and take chances others couldn’t conceive of. But the problem with a hero like Odysseus is that the need to prove his talents and guile will eventually come back to bite him.
Which brings us to Caleb Williams. Midway through the second quarter of Sunday night’s game between the Buccaneers and Bears, Williams wouldn’t be satisfied with meticulously working the ball down the field and into the end zone anymore. With a 14-3 lead, the Bears QB was clearly feeling himself and just had to show how strong his arm really was in an attempt to take full control of the game. He fired an unnecessarily aggressive throw into obvious double-coverage, was picked off by Bucs safety Tykee Smith, and thus began the football gods’ punishment for Williams’s hubris.
Prior to that interception, Williams had gone more than 150 straight dropbacks this season without throwing the ball to the opposing team (his last one being in Chicago’s sloppy 9-3 loss to the Vikings in Week 2). For weeks since returning from a hamstring injury he’s been dialed in, beating every one of Chicago’s opponents with his smart decisions and accurate throws from within the pocket, and he wasn’t panicking even when defenses found ways to pressure him. But because of his penchant to be daring, eventually his refusal to concede a sack or to turn down a high-risk throw would lead to a multi-turnover game. By the time Cairo Santos’s field goal sealed the 27-24 win for Chicago, Williams had racked up four interceptions. It was the fifth multi-interception game of his career, including the playoffs, but the first of this season.
But this isn’t how you’d imagine a four-interception game would go for Williams. It’s not like he doubled down on making needlessly ambitious throws all game. This game falls more in the vein of “the video game is cheating to keep things close,” with two attempted throwaways getting picked off before halftime. In both of those instances, interior pressure forced Williams to fade away in the pocket, and he floated both throws like fly balls into the outstretched hands of Buccaneer defenders.
By the time we got to his fourth pick (off a deflected pass that ricocheted right to Bucs linebacker Alex Anzalone), it felt clear to me that this was some kind of Odyssean trial for Williams, that he was paying some kind of karmic price for his second-quarter heat check. Lucky for Williams and the Bears, Bucs quarterback Baker Mayfield helped put points on the board for Chicago with a pick-six that was somehow worse than any throw Williams made on Sunday.
That defensive score put enough distance between the Bears and Bucs to keep Chicago from totally blowing this game, and Williams finally pulled himself together on Chicago’s final drive, finding tight end Colston Loveland for a 38-yard gain to set up the walk-off field goal.
Salvaging this win is a major relief for the Bears, but a game like this will linger in people’s minds down the stretch of the season—especially when it comes to shaping MVP narratives for Williams and his peers. Chicago won in spite of Williams’s sloppiness, managing to establish themselves as one of the league’s elite teams and force the “Caleb Williams for MVP” hype train to take a break, at least for a week. –Diante Lee
Winner: The Unguardable Packers
Matt LaFleur has often used the run game as a jab to set up haymakers—the deep passes down the field. But injuries along the offensive line have rendered the running game mostly ineffective and made methodical drives really difficult for Green Bay this season. So LaFleur has stopped trying to set up the knockout punch, and as a result, quarterback Jordan Love is just relentlessly swinging for it at all times.
If Love isn’t connecting with Matthew Golden and Christian Watson on those deep throws, the Packers offense looks clunky and disjointed, as it did in a 20-17 loss to the Lions two weeks ago.
But if that loss was Green Bay’s offensive floor, Sunday’s performance against New England showed us the ceiling and served as a reminder of why Green Bay can have the most fun and aesthetically pleasing offense in the NFL. Love is a maestro conducting his symphony, and he’s not even bothering to build to the crescendo anymore.
LaFleur let Love cook in Foxborough. And in the 45-27 demolition of New England, Watson and Golden thoroughly torched Patriots star cornerback Christian Gonzalez.
It was the second time this season that Love completed at least six passes of at least 20 air yards, and he totaled 235 of his 372 passing yards against New England on those deep launches.
Love showcased every type of throw in his bag on Sunday. He lobbed a slightly underthrown lollipop that drew a defensive pass interference penalty—but was still caught by Watson. He threw a laser beam that traveled 43 yards in the air on a frozen rope, also to Watson. He hit each of his top receivers on deep crossing routes near the sideline. He used his eyes to manipulate the Patriots defense in the red zone before flipping a simple pass to a wide-open Golden in the middle of the end zone. That throw made the score 14-0 before New England had a first down! And when one first-quarter play broke down, Love used his legs to scramble for a 13-yard touchdown.
Green Bay spent most of 2025 spreading the ball around to an absurd degree. The departures of Dontayvion Wicks and Romeo Doubs in the offseason, plus an injury to Jayden Reed, put the remaining skill-position players into more defined roles. It also meant that Golden had to step into a major role following a quiet rookie season. Through nine weeks, both Watson and Golden rank in the top 16 in yards per route run leaguewide.
Now Love has forced his way into the MVP conversation with a highlight tape that will be shared for years to come.
It would be easy to say this style of offense is unsustainable for Green Bay and won’t translate as the weather gets colder. But when you pair the separation ability of these two receivers with the courage and talent of their gunslinging quarterback, the Packers’ passing offense looks almost unguardable. —Anthony Dabbundo
Loser: The Inconsistent Patriots
The Patriots were looking at their game against the Packers on Sunday as a measuring stick. A chance to show they were serious contenders against a tough opponent, with a national broadcast spotlight on them, and with Tom Brady, Rob Gronkowski, and a collection of other New England greats on hand.
They came up quite short in a 45-27 loss that was their worst of the season. By the third quarter, Brady, calling his first game in Foxborough, was doing his best from the Fox booth to not sound like a disappointed Little League dad about a team that was outplayed badly in all three phases of the game.
Among the biggest issues was quarterback Drake Maye, who caught the interception bug again, throwing three picks in the first half. He’s now tied with Justin Herbert for the league lead in interceptions, at 11. And New England is tied with the Colts for last in the NFL in turnover differential, at –11.
If we’ve learned anything about this Patriots team through nine weeks, it’s that they’re inconsistent. They nearly played themselves out of contention in the first month of the season and then recovered, and had nearly worked their way back into the league’s upper echelon before Sunday. They’re capable of high highs, but also of some very low lows.
It’s possible they’ll find some more stability in the second half of the season, though their next game isn’t an ideal scenario for a team looking to settle itself—a trip to Germany to face the surging Lions, with an injury list that just keeps growing. Cornerback Carlton Davis III, center Ben Brown, left tackle Will Campbell, special teamer Brenden Schooler, and running back Rhamondre Stevenson were all banged up on Sunday. And top receiver A.J. Brown remains out. It doesn’t get much easier—after the Lions game they’ll have games against the Bills, Vikings, and Chiefs in December. —Nora Princiotti
Winner: Tough Patrick Mahomes
Every week, I keep a running mental list of things that make me ask, “How the hell does anyone play this sport?” Top of that list this week is the awkward and seemingly painful way Patrick Mahomes’s elbow torqued on a hit by Jets edge rusher David Bailey with less than a minute to go before halftime. An elbow joint is not supposed to bend that way.
I was shielding my eyes as soon as Mahomes peeled himself off the ground, afraid I’d be seeing a mangled arm. But no, it wasn’t broken. So a different worry set in when it looked as if Mahomes couldn’t move his right arm in a way that might suggest tendon or ligament damage. What if he’s seriously hurt, and he’d miss not just the rest of this game, but multiple weeks—or longer?
But in the same way LeBron James seems to cure rolled ankles by tying his shoes a little tighter, Mahomes shook his arm a few times, grimaced, pulled on a red arm sleeve, and started throwing the ball on the sideline. And sure enough, Mahomes was back on the field for the Chiefs’ next series—and he finished the game with 242 yards and a pair of touchdowns. He completed 12 of 16 passes for 122 yards in the second half.
While the production was there, Mahomes admitted after the game that he didn’t feel as good trying to throw the ball after the hit, and he’ll have testing done on his elbow to (hopefully) rule out any significant damage.
Kansas City has been leaning on Mahomes and running back Kenneth Walker III to do the heavy lifting this season. Together, they’ve covered for a pair of bad offensive tackles and a receiving corps that can’t separate downfield. The only pass catcher consistently getting open is 37-year-old tight end Travis Kelce, somehow. The Chiefs’ success this year has been encouraging, but the margins are thin. While I’d imagine that Mahomes will play through anything short of an injury that needs surgery, I’m actually not certain that a limited Mahomes is enough to carry this team the way it needs him to. Battling through the rest of Sunday’s game was a Herculean effort. But I’ll be holding my breath while we wait for further information on his elbow. —Lee
Loser: Harrison Butker
Harrison Butker hasn’t had the best week.
The Chiefs kicker/failing political operative/proud misogynist has struggled in general this season. Entering Sunday’s game against the Jets he’d made just 12 of his 18 field goal attempts and hadn’t made a kick over 50 yards. Then, just before halftime, there was this terrible two-kick sequence. First, Butker sent a 56-yard attempt wide right. The Jets, however, were called offsides, giving him another shot, this time from 51 yards. There were some moderate boos throughout the crowd in Kansas City after the first miss. But when Butker sailed the second, shorter kick wide right as well, the jeers got much louder. (Meanwhile, somewhere in America, a woman maxed out her 401k.)
In his post-game press conference, Chiefs coach Andy Reid said he wasn’t ready to make a decision on whether or not to stick with Butker.
“I’ll address that as we go throughout the week,” he said.
Not exactly a vote of confidence. Butker was pretty obviously on thin ice following the Chiefs’ signing of disgraced kicker Justin Tucker to their practice squad two weeks ago. The former Raven served a 10-game suspension last season after 16 women told The Baltimore Banner that Tucker had committed sexual misconduct during massage appointments. Signing Tucker was a hideous and unpopular choice, and while Reid isn’t typically one to let basic morality get in the way of a roster decision, it was the type of high-profile move teams don’t generally make unless they’re expecting that player to get on the field. That said, Tucker is 36 and had the worst season of his career in 2024. So, that’s what’s up with the Chiefs at kicker. It’s not great!
By the by, no franchise in the NFL benefits more than any other from the attention of female fans, and it consistently repays those fans with reminders that leadership does not give a single shit about their safety. Good luck with that right hash, boys! —Princiotti
Winner: Joe Burrow’s Bengals
The Joe Burrow–led Cincinnati Bengals offense has never started a season this hot. The Bengals cruised to a 34-17 win in Madrid over the Falcons on Sunday, as their offense is reaching new highs. By offensive success rate (54 percent) and EPA per drive (0.67), the Bengals are off to their best start to any season since they drafted Burrow first overall in 2020. No Bengals offense this century has scored more points through nine weeks.
Against Atlanta, Burrow had just five incompletions, while throwing three touchdowns, with no turnovers and just two sacks for –6 yards. Star wideout Ja’Marr Chase led the team with 10 receptions for 155 yards and this incredible touchdown:
Chase and fellow wide receiver Tee Higgins (who caught two touchdowns against Atlanta) are on pace for nearly 3,000 combined receiving yards this season. That would put them in rare company. Only four receiver duos have ever gone over 3K together: Herman Moore and Brett Perriman (Detroit Lions, 1995), Torry Holt and Isaac Bruce (St. Louis Rams, 2000), Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle (Miami Dolphins, 2022), and Demaryius Thomas and Emmanuel Sanders (Denver Broncos, 2014).
Cincinnati has now won four in a row, and while there are questions about their defense and run game, as long as Burrow, Chase, and Higgins are healthy, the Bengals are a Super Bowl contender. The entire offense is built around that trio. Everyone in the league knows it, but right now, no one can stop it. —Austin Gayle
Winner: Shedeur Sanders’s YOLO Throws
Cleveland and New Orleans delivered the messiest—and most entertaining—game of the early slate. The Saints won, 23-22, in overtime. The two teams combined for 751 yards of offense without ever looking like they knew what they were doing.
While New Orleans came away with the win, the biggest individual winner was Cleveland’s backup quarterback, Shedeur Sanders, for somehow finishing the game with a respectable box score. I’m not certain how much of a mentor Deshaun Watson has been to Sanders (or if he should be in a mentorship role to begin with), but Sanders has clearly learned something from watching Watson from the sidelines over the past two months. Watson, out due to a concussion he suffered last week, has gotten through this season the way college students do a group project. Fart around for the majority of the time, wait until the stakes are most dire, do just enough to prove you’re competent, and then let your more talented teammates carry you across the finish line. It’s been a (mostly) successful strategy for the Browns this year. And it almost worked again Sunday, as Sanders made his first start of the season.
Sanders began the game looking like the worst quarterback on any field this week (that’s saying a lot, considering we also saw Joe Fagnano and Joe Milton and Justin Herbert starting games), and he actively cost his team points on multiple possessions. He was particularly bad in the Browns’ two red zone trips, taking two sacks, throwing an incomplete pass, and coming up short of the end zone on a third-and-goal scramble. Cleveland had to settle for field goals in both instances, which allowed the Saints to hang around and ultimately win the game.
But Sanders also delivered some of the game’s biggest plays, like his 60-yard completion to receiver Denzel Boston in the third quarter, and a 64-yard touchdown connection with receiver K.C. Concepcion that gave the Browns the lead in the fourth.
Don’t worry about the fact that both of those passes were so badly underthrown that the nearest defensive back ended up flying past Sanders’s intended receiver, or the fact that the most impressive parts of each of those plays were the yards the receivers gained after the catch. There’s no stat in a traditional box score for ugly completions or improbable catches, so Sanders gets the credit for passing yards all the same. And you know what? Good for him.
You don’t have to think that he’s a good player in order to vibe out to Sanders’s YOLO throws, especially when it seemed like Sanders would be stuck on the bench all year. Sanders’s 30-yard strike to receiver Jerry Jeudy near the end of regulation was legitimately one of the best plays I’ve seen all year, and had me whooping in the house like I was a damn Browns fan.
While we can only wonder if there would’ve been any quarterback drama in Cleveland if Sanders had been able to get this win—and it nearly happened, after a dizzying catch-and-run overtime touchdown by Harold Fannin before a failed two-point attempt—but the wild nature of the game was satisfying enough. —Lee
Winner: Myles Garrett
Sunday offered a glimpse of just how difficult the Rams defense will be to block for the remainder of the season. Myles Garrett returned for the first time since undergoing arthroscopic knee surgery after Week 1 and recorded three sacks and a forced fumble in a 20-13 road win against the Commanders. In the 30 snaps that Garrett played alongside Aaron Donald, the Rams sacked Jayden Daniels four times.
This wasn’t technically Garrett’s Rams debut because he played 45 ineffective snaps while injured in the season opener in Melbourne (a loss to the 49ers). He didn’t show up in the box score for that game, and he clearly wasn’t healthy. So this was his practical Rams debut, and he looked like the player who won Defensive Player of the Year and broke the NFL sack record last season in Cleveland.
Los Angeles made the blockbuster offseason move to acquire Garrett—and convinced Donald to come out of retirement—in the hope that this defense could do a better job of finishing games. It struggled mightily to end drives and close out games against the Panthers, Bears, and Seahawks in the playoffs last January.
Entering Week 9, the Rams were just 19th in pressure rate when not blitzing, and they had just 12 total sacks as a team. Chris Shula’s unit had underperformed preseason expectations and projections that assumed it’d be one of the five best defenses in the NFL. Garrett changes everything.
Two of Garrett’s sacks on Sunday came in the fourth quarter, one on a critical third-and-5 with the Commanders driving in Rams territory with less than three minutes remaining. After the game, Garrett said, “I am that closer, so we don’t need to look any further.”
The early-season injuries and close losses have left the Rams, now at 5-4, with little margin for error. The offense still hasn’t found its peak. Questions about the quarterback’s arm health remain, and now there’s concern about a knee injury that receiver Puka Nacua suffered at the end of the game. Injuries continue to plague this defense, too. But for at least one day, we saw a glimpse of how dominant this pass rush duo can be, and it wrecked the Washington offense when it mattered most. —Dabbundo
Winners: Trade Deadline Sellers
CHOO CHOO! The hype train for Tuesday’s NFL trade deadline started barreling down the tracks at the speed of light on Sunday as it became clear which struggling teams should be sellers and fully start the pivot to next season. These teams that were losers on Sunday could be winners come Tuesday night:
Indianapolis Colts
The Colts already started their fire sale over a week ago when they traded guard Quenton Nelson to the Seattle Seahawks and defensive tackle DeForest Buckner to the San Francisco 49ers, and though The Ringer’s Tom Pelissero has reported they might get cold feet on moving other talent like RB Jonathan Taylor, losing to the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday should be the final motivation Colts owner Carlie Irsay-Gordon needs to finish the job.
Taylor, WR Josh Downs (who already requested a trade), and DT Grover Stewart have tradable contracts and plug-and-play starter value for any contender. Pelissero reported Sunday night that the Colts will not trade quarterback Daniel Jones. I have to wonder whether the Colts would listen to offers for cornerback Sauce Gardner a year after trading two first-round picks to acquire him. Prioritizing future draft capital for the next GM, even if that means moving on from Taylor or Sauce for pennies on the dollar, is the only way out of the mess this team has been in since Andrew Luck suddenly retired in 2019. Irsay-Gordon has started the team on the path to a teardown; there’s no reason to stop taking those steps after another ugly home loss.
Miami Dolphins
The Dolphins dropped to 1-7 with their 19-9 home loss to the Detroit Lions on Sunday. Quarterback Malik Willis, the highest-paid Dolphin under contract beyond next season, completed 13 of 25 passes for 128 yards, with a pick and three sacks. The offense ranks 28th in success rate through nine weeks, and the defense ranks 32nd. Willis isn’t good, and the roster stinks. This is a bad team with a bunch of rookies and a first-year head coach. Willis started only six games and had six passing touchdowns before this season. The Dolphins should fully commit to the tank and see if they can move on from Willis and older players like DT Zach Sieler (31), LB Jordyn Brooks (29), and edge Josh Uche (28) ahead of the deadline. Edge rusher Chop Robinson (23) and defensive tackle Kenneth Grant (23) are too young to move for surplus value, but the rest of the 27-and-up crowd should get turned into draft capital ASAP.
Los Angeles Chargers
The Chargers fell to 0-8 with an ugly and uninspiring loss to the Texans on Sunday. Pelissero has reported that Chargers GM Joe Hortiz has continued to tell other teams that L.A. won’t trade its frontline players. But this team doesn’t look even remotely interested in competing this season. Defensive linemen Khalil Mack and Teair Tart should be the first two players Hortiz looks to deal by Tuesday.
New York Jets
The Jets lost in a blowout to the Chiefs on Sunday, dropping to 2-7. They were sellers this time last year, moving both Gardner and DT Quinnen Williams at the deadline; now it’s time to strip down the offense and listen to calls for WR Garrett Wilson, RB Breece Hall, and even QB Geno Smith—if anyone is interested.
Arizona Cardinals
The Cardinals (3-6), who lost to Drew Lock and the Seahawks on Sunday, are similar to the Colts in that they have a lot of names worth moving at the deadline. The roster has talented, valuable players but no legitimate quarterback. After benching and then trading away veteran QB Jacoby Brissett to the Ravens, the Cardinals are riding with Gardner Minshew and rookie Carson Beck for the rest of the year. ESPN reported on Saturday that the Cardinals wouldn’t listen to an inquiry from the Broncos about trading for tight end Trey McBride, but they should be open to calls on other veterans, like safeties Budda Baker and Andrew Wingard, linebacker Mack Wilson Sr., edges Baron Browning and Josh Sweat, and interior offensive linemen Hjalte Froholdt and Isaac Seumalo, none of whom should be asked to play the twilight of their careers on an Arizona team with such big questions at quarterback and an unproven coach. —Gayle
