With their comeback win over rival Baltimore on Sunday, the Cleveland Browns are in a spot that nobody expected them to be: First in the AFC North.
Now, by exceeding expectations this far into the season, the team might actually have sidetracked plans for the future.
Heading into the season, Cleveland’s predicted win total was set at 5.5 and it was one of the top choices to be in the race for the first-overall pick in the draft.
Instead, the Browns are a potential playoff team and a difficult question should be asked: What will the Browns do with Deshaun Watson?
The controversial QB, who faced more than 20 allegations of sexual misconduct by several massage therapists — and never truly apologized — had been one of the worst acquisitions in NFL history over his first few years in Cleveland.
It began with his suspension by the NFL for those allegations — after signing a fully guaranteed contract worth $230 million that was structured to negate the financial impact of his ban — and was followed by some truly terrible play on the field, then two Achilles tears that knocked him out of the 2025 season.
Nobody expected Watson to actually perform well this season after all of that drama, but despite some early game struggles, he’s putting wins on the board.
The big question now becomes what the Browns’ future at QB looks like and if it will involve Watson. The popular opinion coming into the season was that Watson likely would struggle and Cleveland would move on to Shedeur Sanders or Dylan Gabriel — the two QBs it drafted in 2025. And, should they both flame out, the team would likely have a good enough draft pick to land a future franchise QB.
Now, Watson is coasting along, the sophomore QBs are riding the bench and the team’s selection is getting worse with every unlikely victory.
It was assumed that the Browns would cut Watson after his season and eat the remainder of his hefty contract, as many other teams like Miami and Minnesota have done with their falling stars. Now, that might not seem so wise.
Cleveland is favoured in its next game, this Sunday against the lowly Titans, and then face the Steelers and New Orleans Saints.
Winning two out of those three games would give the Browns six on the season, more than they had all last year and double their 2024 total.
Maybe things actually are fine for the Browns, which is something you don’t really get to say that often. The team maybe doesn’t need to focus on the future if it’s winning and being competitive now.
But, of course, let’s not forget that Cleveland does have a second first-round pick this year, which comes from a team that nobody expected to struggle like it has.
Are the Super Bowl favourite Rams are in trouble?
When the Browns traded superstar defensive end Myles Garrett to the Rams over the off-season, it was assumed that the future Hall of Famer would help deliver another Super Bowl title to Los Angeles.
Instead, almost everything that could have gone wrong for the Rams has, and that first-round pick they sent to Cleveland is looking like a potential steal.
Are the Rams facing the curse of the super-team? It’s starting to look like it.
After cutting kicker Harrison Mevis after he blew a crucial kick against the Bills on Monday night, his replacement, lightweight Blake Grupe, went down hard while attempting to make a tackle against the Cardinals on Sunday and left the game.
Punter Ethan Evans did an adequate job in an emergency role, but the Rams opted to go for two and didn’t clearly didn’t have trust in him against Arizona.
The end result: The Cardinals — who were double-digit underdogs in the game — hit a game-winning field goal with time dying and Arizona completed a SoFi Stadium sweep for the season after beating the Chargers in Week 1.
While the kicking and special teams issues have plagued Sean McVay for a while, the team had several other blunders and the head coach often has looked overly agitated on the sidelines.
Veteran QB Matthew Stafford hasn’t played at MVP level after winning the award last year, red-zone monster Davante Adams is out for at least six weeks after suffering a ruptured hamstring and there’s no telling how long Puka Nacua will stay on the field — the star WR already is dealing with a pre-hernia, which could be aggravated at any time.
Garrett also hasn’t played since Week 1 in Australia, when he put up zeros across the board, and there hasn’t been a firm update on when he’ll come off the IR.
Aaron Donald has played well and the team’s additions at defensive back have lived up to their price tags, but there are just too many mistakes.
With the 49ers undefeated at 6-0 and having beaten L.A. already, that’s essentially a five-game gap between San Francisco and L.A. in the NFC West. And don’t forget defending champs Seattle, either.
Can the Rams turn things around? We wouldn’t rule it out, but they’re starting to run out of time to do so.
What kind of impact could Josh Jacobs make?
Over in Green Bay, there’s something brewing too — and we’re not just talking about Jordan Love’s underdog MVP campaign.
Star running back Josh Jacobs was activated off the exempt list after missing the first six weeks of the season after he was arrested in the off-season on domestic abuse allegations.
Jacobs pleaded no contest to the two charges he was arrested on, but more punishment could come if anything else surfaces.
Jacobs and his accuser have also appealed to have the video of the incident kept sealed, it would be a bad look for Jacobs, the team and the league if it gets out and is anything like the horrific Ray Rice or Kareem Hunt tapes of the past.
Are the Eagles going to blow it all up?
While we went into depth last week about just how bad the NFC East has become, it somehow sank to new depths in Week 6.
The NFC East became the first division in NFL history to go winless in consecutive weeks in which all teams in the division played a game — and two of the teams played each other last week.
But while each team has its issues, the Eagles appear to be in the biggest freefall. Super Bowl-winning QB Jalen Hurts was diagnosed with blood clots in his lungs this week – after a very concerning journey to and from London – and has been ruled out for the season while he goes on blood thinners in order to recover.
With Hurts sidelined against the Carolina Panthers, Tanner McKee didn’t exactly help turn Philly’s struggling offence around, either.
In fact, the Eagles kept to a similarly worrying game plan which clearly has been figured out by opponents. For the past three games now, the Eagles have not attempted a straight drop back pass from under centre. Defences have caught on and are blitzing, knowing that there will not be any quick outlets available.
If regular fans and followers have figured out this trend, how has an NFL coaching staff not adapted by now?
There are going to be some big questions asked in Philly as this season goes down the drain, but we wouldn’t be surprised if head coach Nick Sirianni is fired either before the season ends or on Black Monday and, if another team comes in with a decent offer, star running back Saquon Barkley could be on his way out of town.