playDan GrazianoOct 11, 2026, 08:05 PM ETCloseDan Graziano is a senior NFL national reporter for ESPN, covering the entire league and breaking news. Dan also contributes to Get Up, NFL Live, SportsCenter, ESPN Radio, Sunday NFL Countdown and Fantasy Football Now. He is a New Jersey native who joined ESPN in 2011, and he is also the author of two published novels.Multiple AuthorsOpen Extended ReactionsDid we overreact to the Raiders’ 3-0 start? To the Packers’ rough beginning?
To Drake Maye’s early-season struggles? Almost assuredly, yes.But that’s OK. Early-season overreactions are like that. We jump in headfirst with either zero or minimal knowledge about who these teams are or what they’re going to turn out to be, make our guesses and watch to see how we did every week as evidence piles up.Even now, five weeks in, the season is still a baby.
We have some better ideas about how things might go. The Eagles look as if they could be in real trouble, given three straight tough losses and their ever-deepening roster holes. The Vikings might need to be taken more seriously if their offense is going to come around; the Cowboys might not.But everything we say here today could easily look silly five weeks from now. But that is part of the fun and is certainly not going to stand in the way of the Week 5 Overreactions column, where we look at five potential takeaways and judge them as legitimate stances or irrational exaggerations.
Plus, we hit a few fantasy football overreactions at the bottom.Jump to: NFC East winner will be below .500? Titans looking for another QB in 2027? Jaguars going to their first Super Bowl? Bailey favorite for DROY?
NFC West has three best NFC teams? Fantasy overreactionsThe NFC East winner will have a losing record this seasonThe week opened with the Cowboys laying a major egg at home on Thursday against the previously winless Buccaneers to drop to 2-3. Sunday morning opened with Philadelphia giving the Jaguars everything they had but still losing a brutal heartbreaker in London to drop to 2-3. Then came a Giants-Commanders game no one wanted to win.
The Giants fumbled on a promising drive late in overtime. Then Washington quarterback Jayden Daniels brain-locked on the final play of overtime, seeming to forget his team had no timeouts and watching the clock run out even though the Commanders were in field goal range.That left the Commanders at 1-3-1 and the Giants in first place at 3-1-1 but down to their second-string quarterback for the rest of the season. The Giants have beaten the Cowboys and tied with the Commanders. Washington has lost to Dallas and Philadelphia and tied the Giants.
The whole thing is a mess. And frankly, none of these teams looks very good.play1:26Giants, Commanders botch late-game sequences as game ends in tieVerdict: NOT AN OVERREACTIONThis might be disrespectful to the 3-1-1 Giants, and I apologize if it is. But not having quarterback Jaxson Dart or star edge rusher Brian Burns for the rest of the season is going to be tough to overcome. Their schedule still includes trips to Houston, Philly, Seattle and Detroit, along with home games against the Jaguars and the 49ers.The Cowboys’ defense looks no better than it did last season.
Dallas has December road games against the Seahawks and the Rams and home games against the Jaguars and the 49ers. The Eagles are without their top three running backs and are also missing four of their Week 1 starting offensive linemen, and their final four games of the season include a home contest versus Seattle and a game at San Francisco. The Commanders — well, after Sunday, I think we can just say we aren’t going to give them much of a shot.We do love when the NFC East is a big, jumbled, confusing mess, and that’s exactly what it is. But it’s tough to look at any of these teams and feel good about their chances of them winning more games than they’ll lose.The Titans are going to be looking for a quarterback again in next year’s draftTennessee selected Cam Ward with the No. 1 pick in the 2025 draft.
It fired coach Brian Callahan during Ward’s rookie season and replaced him this offseason with Robert Saleh, who brought Brian Daboll to be offensive coordinator. It’s safe to say things haven’t worked the way the Titans had hoped just yet.Tennessee is 0-5 after Sunday’s listless 26-3 loss to the previously winless Texans. Through five games, Ward has completed 63.2% of his passes, with three touchdowns and three interceptions. He has been sacked 10 times.
His QBR on Sunday was a season-low 12.8. Tennessee had high hopes after Ward finished last season strong, but he has not made progress, and Saleh was fielding questions about Ward’s status as the team’s starting quarterback after Sunday’s outing. Saleh said Ward was safe. But there’s a lot of season left, and the Titans would surely like to see some progress soon.Verdict: OVERREACTIONThis was a close one, but I’m still going to give Ward and Daboll a chance to show more than they have.
Ward wasn’t a controversial No. 1 pick. Many people around the league believed at the time (and entering this season) that he had the tools and the makeup to be a franchise quarterback. He has had five lousy games in a new system, and I understand feeling discouraged. But the Titans have no reason to bench Ward.
He gets 12 more games to show he can still be the guy they believed him to be when they drafted him. That’s a lot of games. If you believed in Ward two months ago, it’s too soon to give up.The Jaguars are going to the Super BowlIt might have taken a late-game miracle, but Jacksonville beat the Eagles on Sunday in London to improve to 4-1. Dating to the middle of last season, Jacksonville has won 13 of 16.
The Jaguars been good and consistent on both sides of the ball this season, and the success quarterback Trevor Lawrence has had under coach Liam Coen appears sustainable.Jacksonville has given Lawrence a wide receiver corps that fits his strengths. The Jags are still working on the run game, but it shows promise. They play in the AFC South, where the second-place team is the 2-3 Colts. Only four of the Jags’ remaining 12 games are against teams that currently have winning records.
Jacksonville is positioned to grab the top seed in the AFC playoffs if things keep going the way they have to start the campaign.Verdict: NOT AN OVERREACTIONThe Chiefs could still have something to say about this. The Bills have looked good. The Patriots are rounding into form in a big way. The AFC North is going to produce at least one tough playoff team.
I guess the Broncos could still make some noise. So, there are potential contenders in the AFC, for sure.But honestly, none of them has played better than Jacksonville since Week 9 last season. The public might not be inclined to take the Jaguars seriously as a contender, since they rarely have been throughout their three-decade-plus history. But the Jaguars use that skepticism as a chip on their shoulder.
And while they should have lost Sunday, the teams that go all the way are the ones that figure out how to win games they should lose during the season. So, don’t ignore what the Jaguars are doing; they’re sticking around.play0:48Jags’ big return sets up winning 57-yard FG to stun Eagles as time expiresDavid Bailey will be the Defensive Rookie of the YearHey, the Jets beat the Browns 17-12 on Sunday. It was kind of gross, but wasn’t that what you were expecting? Bailey, the No. 2 pick in April’s draft, had three sacks.
He now has five on the season, putting him on pace for 17. And sure, New York faced this rickety version of Deshaun Watson and a Browns offense full of rookies, but that offense certainly wasn’t a pushover entering Sunday’s game. It was a strong defensive effort by the Jets, led by their star rookie. And now, New York is 2-3 ahead of a game at New England next week.Verdict: NOT AN OVERREACTIONGenerally, the person who wins this award is a guy who gets a lot of sacks or a lot of interceptions.
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