Ten Thoughts on the NFL

1) Before week 5 kicked off there were six undefeated teams left, and now that week 5 is over, those six teams remain unblemished. I hate to say it, but the Green Bay Packers look to be the best of the bunch. Their defense has been playing really good, and their offense still has Aaron Rodgers.

2) I know the proper response to anyone praising the Cincinnati Bengals is, 'yeah, but they'll choke in the playoffs,' but the Bengals, led by QB Andy Dalton, are playing some damn good football.

They were down 24-7 in the 4th quarter of their game against the Seattle Seahawks, and they stormed back by scoring 17 4th quarter points, then the winning field goal in over time.

You can scoff at Dalton all you want, but he's playing at a level he's never approached before. His first four years as a pro his passer rating was 85.2, with a 4.7 TD% and a 3.1 Int%. Through 5 games this year he has a passer rating of 115.6, a TD% of 6.9 and an Int% of 1.3. The 27 year old Dalton may have finally got it.

OK, this is where you say, 'yeah, but he'll choke in the playoffs.'

3) Among the undefeateds, I'm still not buying the 2 teams in the NFC South. Both the Carolina Panthers and the Atlanta Falcons have had a favorable schedule and a little luck so far. I need to see them against a couple other top teams before fully believing in them.

4) Dallas Cowboys' QB Brandon Weeden has lost his last 11 starts making him 1-11 in his last twelve games. When as a quarterback, you share a stat with Jimmy Clausen, who is 1-11 in his starts, it may be time for a change.

EDIT: The Cowboys are making a change - Cowboys will start Matt Cassel over Brandon Weeden vs. Giants

5) How about that game last night? Running a play that takes some time to develop with only 5 seconds left takes a lot of guts. The Pittsburgh Steelers essentially said screw a tie, we want the win now, and then they went out and did it.

If you missed the walk off winner, here's the GIF.

5a) Now we don't just have the on field officials screwing up, but the clock operators? Somehow 18 seconds ticked off the game clock last night without one referee noticing and without the clock operator alerting the refs.

6) So the Butt Catch is a thing now.

Butt Fumble, Butt Catch... I'm waiting for a Butt Tackle at some point.

7) Sticking with the Cleveland Browns, have you noticed Josh McCown's numbers the last 3 weeks? Cleveland only has 1 win in their last 3, but McCown has dropped 341 passing yards during week 3, 356 during week 4 and 457 on Sunday. He has 6 touchdowns to just 1 interception in those games, but he's been sacked 13 times in the 3 week span.

8) Of all the weird things that happened this weekend, this was by far the weirdest.

But then I read this article, Gus Bradley links Bernard Pierce's concussion symptoms with punt coverage mistake, and it changed from weird to just sad.

9) I'm gonna talk a little NFL Draft for a second, so if that's not your thing, continue on to number 10.

Still here, good.

Before last weeks slate of college football games it was assumed by many, including SB Nation's Dan Kadar, that Cal quarterback Jared Goff would be the #1 overall selection. Goff had a rough night on Saturday against Utah by throwing 5 interceptions, but that probably won't alter the fact that he's the best QB prospect available.

He's also still the likely #1 overall selection, but if we look over the list of teams that could be picking first, there's a lot of teams that either seem content with their young signal callers or have a lot of money already tied up in the position. Depending on who ends up drafting in the top 10, Goff could fall down because teams just don't feel the need to get a young QB in their system.

Among the usual contenders for the top spot, I see youngsters Marcus Mariota, Jameis Winston, Blake Bortles and Derek Carr established as the QB of the present and future for their respective teams.

Joe Flacco has a firm grasp of the QB job on for the one win Ravens. The winless Lions have a lot of money tied up in Matthew Stafford, and even though he was benched on Sunday, he's still probably he guy moving forward.

The 49ers gave Colin Kaepernick a team friendly deal, so they could look for a new guy if they wanted to, but this is also the same franchise that thought Jim Tomsula was a better head coach than Jim Harbaugh, so who knows what they do. The Redskins may not be ready to move on from their QB shitstorm, because Dan Snyder is probably gonna Dan Snyder. The Dolphins owe Ryan Tannehill over $18 million in guarantees still.

The Chiefs owe Alex Smith nearly $18 million guaranteed next year, but that shouldn't stop them from taking Goff.

Do the Browns believe Johnny Manziel is the future?

The one win Saints would probably be open to finding the heir apparent to 36 year old Drew Brees, but that could be a similar deal to the Farve/Rodgers situation that Green Bay dealt with a few years ago.

I think the one clear cut, no doubt about it team, that would draft Goff #1 is the Houston Texans. There's too much overall talent on that team for them to keep faltering, but depending on how things end up, they could have their quarterback of the future fall right into their laps.

Unless a team trades up of course.

10) Can we stop saying that this was a bad snap.

It was a bad attempt at a block by rookie center Hroniss Grasu after the Chief defensive lineman got past left guard Matt Slauson WAY faster than he should have, but the snap was on the money.

I mean seriously, look how fast Slauson is beat. Grasu was probably shocked he had a guy to his left as quick as he did. And speaking of Grasu, I thought he played OK for his first career start. I think the speed and strength of the players he was facing took him some getting used to, but his technique improved as the game wore on.

What are some of your NFL Thoughts this week?