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32 things we learned in NFL Week 6: Best teams, top 2nd-year QB might stir healthy debates

October 13, 2025
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The 32 things we learned from Week 6 of the 2025 NFL season:

0. Still the number of wins the New York Jets have since Jan. 5, former QB Aaron Rodgers’ final game with the team. Rookie coach Aaron Glenn, now 0-6, was already the first in team history to start 0-5.

1. The number of undrafted players to amass at least 200 yards from scrimmage in consecutive games since the 1970 AFL-NFL merger. That would be Carolina Panthers RB Rico Dowdle, who followed up his 234-yard performance in Week 5 with 239 more (plus a TD) on Sunday while making good on his bid for revenge against his former team, the Dallas Cowboys. He is the only player of any kind in the past five seasons with back-to-back 200-yard days. Dowdle, who rushed for nearly 1,100 yards with Dallas in 2024 but was not re-signed, has started the past two games for injured Chuba Hubbard – both of them narrow Carolina wins.

1a. Dowdle’s big day also marked the most yards from scrimmage a player had posted against his former team … ever.

2. The top two players picked atop the 2024 NFL draft – Chicago Bears QB Caleb Williams and Washington Commanders QB Jayden Daniels – will meet for the second time in two seasons Monday night outside the nation’s capital. Last year’s matchup ended with Daniels tossing a game-winning Hail Mary, which helped spark the Commanders’ push to the NFC title game while sending Chicago into a 10-game tailspin.

3. Yet New England Patriots QB Drake Maye, the third player off the draft board in 2024, is compiling quite a case that he might eventually be the best of the bunch. Maye tied his career high with three TD passes in Sunday’s 25-19 defeat of the New Orleans Saints. His 140.1 passer rating was the second best of his young tenure.

4. And while it’s a rather granular accomplishment – thank you, analytics and Major League Baseball, for the rise of arcane factoids – Maye joined Patrick Mahomes, Dak Prescott, and Dan Marino as the only passers with at least 200 passing yards AND a passer rating of at least 100.0 in five consecutive games prior to their 24th birthday. Obviously – good company.

5. The number of wins the Indianapolis Colts have in their first six games, something they last accomplished in Hall of Fame QB Peyton Manning’s heyday (2009) – a season that concluded in Super Bowl 44.

5a. If the season ended now – it won’t – the Colts and Tampa Bay Buccaneers would be your No. 1 playoff seeds.

6. Indianapolis rookie Tyler Warren continues to be a huge component of the Colts’ success, pacing the team with six catches, 63 yards and a TD in Sunday’s narrow win over the decimated Arizona Cardinals. The most notable thing about Warren is that he’s been able to carry over – let’s call it his position-less tight end usage – from Penn State.

7. Remember when “Tank for Tua” was a thing prior to the 2020 NFL draft? Sunday, QB Tua Tagovailoa was picked off three times for the Miami Dolphins, who got him with the fifth pick five years ago, before calling out his teammates following a 29-27 loss to the Los Angeles Chargers.

8. Tagovailoa was completely upstaged Sunday in South Florida by the player chose one spot after him, Bolts QB Justin Herbert, who passed for 264 yards and two TDs as his team broke a two-game slide. Herbert’s 42-yard completion to WR Ladd McConkey in the game’s final minute set up LA’s game-winning field goal.

9. The Seattle Seahawks beat the Jaguars 20-12 in Jacksonville on Sunday for their club-record ninth consecutive road victory, which is currently the longest in the NFL. Second-year coach Mike Macdonald is 10-1 overall away from Seattle’s raucous Lumen Field.

9a. The number of times – spread over eight different defenders – that the Broncos sacked Jets QB Justin Fields, pushing Denver’s league-leading total to 30. Fields was bagged by Jonathon Cooper and Justin Strnad on New York’s final offensive play, a fourth-and-8 from the Denver 44-yard line … which apparently was not within K Nick Folk’s range.

(Negative) 10. The Jets’ net passing yards in Sunday’s loss after Fields threw for 45; the Broncos’ nine sacks led to 55 yards in aggregate losses. The figure marked the fewest passing yards in NYJ history – and league-wide this century – while also being the fewest Denver has allowed. Both teams were founded in 1960 as original members of the American Football League.

11. The number of consecutive games in which the Cleveland Browns have failed to score more than 17 points. They’re 1-10 in that stretch following Sunday’s 23-9 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers.

12. Browns rookie QB Dillon Gabriel threw the ball 52 times Sunday … which produced all of 221 yards, or 4.3 per attempt. That doesn’t even account for the 38 yards lost on the six sacks he suffered.

13. Still, coach Kevin Stefanski opted not to give newly promoted rookie backup QB Shedeur Sanders the opportunity to make his NFL regular-season debut.

14. Elsewhere in the AFC North, former Browns QB1 Joe Flacco, now starting for the Cincinnati Bengals following last Tuesday’s trade, needed 45 throws to pass for 219 yards (and two TDs) in his Cincy debut.

15. Unfortunately, the Burrow-less Bengals could only change so many stripes – still unable run the ball (55 yards) or stop a nosebleed in Sunday’s 27-18 loss to the Green Bay Packers, who racked up 409 yards.

16. Speaking of misfortune, at some point you have to feel for the snakebitten San Francisco 49ers, who lost All-Pro LB Fred Warner on Sunday to a dislocated and fractured ankle that will require surgery and almost undoubtedly end his season.

17. The number of points scored Sunday by Chargers K Cameron Dicker, who drilled all five of his field-goal attempts and both PATs. Dicker is currently, by far, the most accurate kicker in NFL history, his field-goal success rate now at 94.6%. He’s perfect on all 14 of his FG tries in 2025.

18.Elsewhere in the AFC North, how bad has it gotten for the Baltimore Ravens? They managed to hold the Los Angeles Rams to 17 points and WR Puka Nacua to two catches … and still lost by 14.

19. Might help to hand the ball to RB Derrick Henry near the goal line and leave the Tush Push-ing to the Eagles, fellas.

20. But don’t worry – all that much – Ravens fans, injured QB Lamar Jackson should be ready to ride to the rescue, with reinforcements, following the team’s Week 7 (and Week 6) bye.

21. Elsewhere in the AFC North, Pittsburgh now has as many wins (4) as the rest of the division combined. Woof.

22. The number of consecutive times the Steelers have beaten the Browns in Pittsburgh – in the regular season – a streak that dates to 2003. Led by then-QB Baker Mayfield, the Browns did win a playoff game at Acrisure Stadium during the 2020 postseason.

23. The Steelers are turning veteran DB Jalen Ramsey into quite the multi-faceted weapon. The seven-time Pro Bowler, acquired over the summer from the Dolphins, has been deployed all over Pittsburgh’s defense and recorded the first multi-sack game of his 10-year career Sunday.

24. Despite losing Warner and dealing with myriad other injuries – including QB1 Brock Purdy missing Sunday’s game – the Niners are getting plenty from Christian McCaffrey, who became the first running back with at least 100 yards from scrimmage in each of his team’s first six games since Saquon Barkley did it for the New York Giants in 2018.

25. CMC is also the first back to post at least 50 receiving yards in each of his team’s first six games to start a season.

26. With 46 catches already this season, he’s also tied for the most by a running back through six games of a season with Matt Forte (2014) and Alvin Kamara (2020).

27. What kind of company is Maxx Crosby keeping? He had two sacks in the Las Vegas Raiders’ defeat of the Tennessee Titans on Sunday. But here’s the greater context: Crosby now has 10 tackles for loss in 2025, joining Jared Allen and Aaron Donald as the only players in the 21st century with at least 10 TFLs in each of their first seven seasons.

28. The number of 1 p.m. kickoffs the Seahawks have had over the past decade. They’re 22-6 in those games.

29. It was the hometown Jags who appeared to be suffering from jet lag six days after their Monday night win over the Chiefs. They entered Week 6 with a league-best 14 takeaways but failed to record one in a game for the first time this season. They also committed 10 penalties and surrendered seven sacks of QB Trevor Lawrence.

30. And even though you could continue to question the impact of Jaguars rookie WR/CB Travis Hunter, his double duty did place him in the same company as Hall of Famer Deion Sanders, who was also Hunter’s head coach at the University of Colorado. Per OptaSTATS, Hunter became the first NFL player to catch at least four passes and record multiple tackles on defense in the same game since Sanders did it 29 years ago.

31. But let’s scrap all this (relative) negativity for the 4-2 Jags, who also provided Sunday’s best moment – when DE Josh Hines-Allen’s son, a cancer survivor, participated in the pre-game coin toss. The NFL always gets it share of backlash, but the league is a force for good with its “Crucial Catch” campaign.

32. Your MVP through six weeks? Gotta be the Buc; Mayfield, who continues losing wideouts to injury – including rookie Emeka Egbuka on Sunday – but keeps firing TD passes to whomever is downfield (Kameron Johnson and Tez Johnson in Sunday’s defeat of San Francisco) for NFC-leading Tampa Bay.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: NFL Week 6 takeaways: Drake Maye, Colts, Baker Mayfield on fire

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