8 thoughts on Sunday's NFL action through a Patriots' prism

On a Sunday where the Patriots weren’t playing, here are eight quick thoughts on how things played out around the league from a New England perspective.

1. Forget about the AFC — the Chiefs are the best team in the NFL right now. Kansas City is clicking on offense, stout on defense and getting a strong effort out of its special teamers. The 1972 Dolphins don’t have anything to worry about, but it certainly appears that the Chiefs are in it for the long haul, putting some distance between themselves and the rest of the AFC with their win over the Texans in Houston Sunday night. There’s a lot of football between now and January, but the prospect of facing Kansas City in the playoffs at Arrowhead would be a sizable challenge for any team, not just the Patriots. As for the Texans, everyone is going to sit and wait for official word on J.J. Watt. If Watt’s injury isn’t long-term, they’ll still be able to make life interesting for the rest of the AFC. If not, we shall see. (UPDATE: As of late Sunday/early Monday, reports indicate both Watt and Whitney Mercilus are done for the rest of the year. Yikes.) One thing we’re pretty sure of? Youngster Deshaun Watson remains the real deal, accounting for five touchdowns in the loss.

2. So did the Bills fall back to Earth on Sunday? After impressive wins over the Broncos and Falcons and a 3-1 record over the course of the first four games of the season, it looked like Sunday's Buffalo-Cincinnati matchup would seriously favor the Bills. But the host Bengals pulled off the 20-16 shocker. Buffalo had done well in all three phases of the game over the first quarter of the season, but on Sunday, the Bills’ offense failed to capitalize on multiple takeaways and a couple of nice returns, one of which was courtesy of ex-Patriot Brandon Tate. Tyrod Taylor was 20-for-37 for 166 yards, one touchdown and one killer interception that fundamentally ended things late in the fourth. Compounding those issues for Buffalo was the fact that A.J. Green was a true home-run threat, finishing with seven catches for 189 yards (124 of which came on two plays), one of the best outings of his career. The Bills lost cornerback Leonard Johnson (hamstring) and tight end Charles Clay (knee), and will head into the bye week at 3-2, tied with the Patriots and Jets for the top spot in the AFC East. It’s an excellent start for a team that had low expectations entering 2017, but it’ll be fascinating to see if they can keep up that pace when they return from the bye — three of their next four games are against teams that are currently .500 or better.

3. What’s up with Ben Roethlisberger? He threw five picks, including multiple pick-sixes in an ugly 30-9 defeat to the Jaguars, and then moped in the wake of the loss, saying, “Maybe I don’t have it anymore.” This is weird stuff from the Steelers’ quarterback, who flirted (albeit briefly) with the idea of retirement this past offseason. One school of thought says that if you’re publicly pondering retirement, you’ve all but hung them up. Maybe this is some sort of bizarre way to motivate the rest of the roster, or a passive-aggressive swipe at a teammate. And maybe it’s just some leftover frustration following an uneven start to the season for the Steelers, who are now 3-2 and face the high-powered Chiefs next week. But at this point on the calendar, Pittsburgh doesn’t look like its usual self. Maybe the Steelers can rip off a late-season winning streak and right the ship, but they’re certainly looking more and more like a team at a crossroads. How they respond in the next couple of weeks could ultimately determine the legacy of this year’s Pittsburgh team, and shed some light on whether or not the Patriots-Steelers game set for Dec. 17 at Heinz Field will be the apocalyptic AFC showdown many believed it would be when the 2017 schedule was first announced.

4. We’re going to temper our statement here because the Raiders were without Derek Carr, but the Ravens showed a little something with their 30-17 win on the road in Oakland. Baltimore flashed some resiliency, bouncing back after losing its last two games by a combined score of 70-16. Now, the Ravens are tied for first place in the AFC North with the Steelers. Ultimately, we’ll fall back in the age-old assessment of the Ravens after the first five games: it’s not as good as we think and not as bad as we think. Right now, their truth lies somewhere in the middle. The bottom line is that they’ll need to display some consistency over the next four games — road games against the Vikings and Titans and home dates with the Bears and Dolphins — before we put them back on a short list of genuine Super Bowl contenders.

5. I know there was a whole sideshow to what happened in Indy on Sunday (I'm talking about, of course, the weekend celebration for Peyton Manning, where No. 18 had his jersey retired), but let’s pause for a moment to appreciate Jacoby Brissett. The former Patriots’ third-string quarterback led the Colts to an overtime win at Lucas Oil Stadium over the Niners, 26-23. In his second win as a starting quarterback, Brissett was 22-for-34 for 314 yards with four sacks and one interception. He wasn’t Bradyesque, and you have to take into the account that it was a win at home against a still-winless San Francisco team. But for a youngster like Brissett, it was another positive moment. So far this season, Brissett has completed 61 percent of his passes (77-for-127) for a pair of touchdowns, three picks, 997 yards and a passer rating of 80.7. A really nice start for a guy who deserves to have success.

6. Next Sunday, the Patriots will face the Jets in the first divisional game of the year for New England at MetLife Stadium in North Jersey. Like just about everyone outside of Fireman Ed, if you had told me that it had a chance for first place in the AFC East, I would have said you were bananas. But New York has exceeded expectations through the first five weeks, going 3-2 to start the season. The Jets’ wins were over the Dolphins, Jaguars, and Browns (the final of which came Sunday in Cleveland), so you take it all with a grain of salt. But in a year where the Jets were supposed to Suck for Sam (Darnold), they’ve been one of the biggest surprises in the league. It'll bring some unexpected spice to next Sunday's contest. “We’re not going to lay down and we know they’re not going to lay down,” Jets cornerback Mo Claiborne said after Sunday's win when he was asked about their upcoming date with the Patriots. “It’s going to be a big blast.”

7. The Dallas-Green Bay game had absolutely zero impact on the Patriots and the AFC, but it once again made us yearn for a Brady-Aaron Rodgers Super Bowl. The two best quarterbacks in the game slugging it with a title on the line is the sort of championship game every football fan deserves.

8. Here’s a quick look at how a dozen ex-Patriots did this weekend:

Quarterback Brian Hoyer: 29-for-46, 353 yards, 2 sacks, 2 TDs, 0 INT for San Francisco in a loss to Indy
Tight end Martellus Bennett: 3 catches, 3 targets, 53 yards for Green Bay in a win over Dallas
Tight end James O’Shaughnessy: 0 catches on 1 target for Jacksonville in a win over Pittsburgh
Safety Tavon Wilson: 10 combined tackles, 3 tackles for loss for Detroit in a loss to Carolina
Defensive end Chris Long: 1 tackle, 1 quarterback hit for Philadelphia in a win over Arizona
Running back Le Garrette Blount: 14 carries, 74 yards for Philadelphia in a win over Arizona
Cornerback Logan Ryan: 3 combined tackles, 1 tackle for loss for Tennessee in a loss to Miami
Defensive end Jabaal Sheard: 7 combined tackles, 1.5 sacks, 2 tackles for loss, 2 quarterback hits for Indianapolis in a win over San Francisco
Defensive lineman Barkevious Mingo: 1 tackle, 1 tackle for loss for Indianapolis in a win over San Francisco
Cornerback Darius Butler: 4 combined tackles for Indianapolis in a win over San Francisco
Kicker Adam Vinatieri: 4-for-4 on field goals, 2-for-2 on extra points for Indianapolis in a win over San Francisco
Cornerback Justin Coleman: 2 tackles for Seattle in a win over Los Angeles Rams