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Good, bad and ugly from Week 5

You can't hand another NFL team 14 points in one game and expect to win. That's the issue the Philadelphia Eagles faced against a previously lifeless Detroit Lions squad on Sunday.

It started with an unnecessary roughness penalty on Eagles safety Rodney McLeod on a second and long in the first quarter. Two plays later, Matthew Stafford would hit Theo Riddick for the Lions' second touchdown of the opening stanza.

Then, with the score 14-7 later in the first half, Pro Bowl defensive tackle Fletcher Cox committed perhaps the dumbest penalty on the young season

Going after Stafford, he ripped the helmet completely off the quarterback's head, adding yet another 15-yard penalty against the Eagles. That play come on third-and-nine with Detroit inside Philadelphia's 20. A couple plays later, and the Lions would add their third touchdown before intermission to take a two score lead.

These aren't the physical mistakes that coaches can live with. Instead, they are the mental ones that can change a season on a dime. At 3-0 heading into Week 5 and following their bye, the Eagles gave a game away. It's that simple.

And so starts the bad from NFL's Week 5 action.

* The New York Jets are really bad at this thing we call defense. It's somewhat akin to trying to put a child down to bed after giving the kid a bowl full of ice cream. No matter how hard you try, you fail at every turn. And in reality, most of it is your fault.

New York allowed 30 first downs and 433 total yards of offense to the Big Ben and the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday.

For his part, Roethlisberger completed a whopping 34-of-47 passes for 380 yards with four touchdowns and zero interceptions. He connected with second-year receiver Sammie Coates on six catches for or 139 yards and two touchdowns, including this 72-yard strike.

Overall this season, opposing signal callers are completing 81.2 percent of their passes for an absurd 129.2 quarterback rating against New York. Magnifying these pass defense issues, receivers are averaging an absurd 16 yards per catch thus far on the year.

We can't blame Darrelle Revis for these issues. While he himself has yielded an 80-plus percent catch rate, he was sidelined with a hamstring injury on Sunday. It's in this that the rest of the Jets' pass defense failed to step up.

It really is like taking a samurai sword to a stick of hot butter. Pittsburgh knifed through this unit in a manner that should make Todd Bowles and company embarrassed.

* The San Diego Chargers have now lost 14 games by one score since the start of last season. Fourteen freaking games, guys and gals. The latest meltdown came against the division-rival and now first-place Oakland Raiders on Sunday.

A botched snap on a field goal with the Raiders up 34-31 and two minutes left represented the latest disaster for Mike McCoy and the Chargers. It came after the team had already committed four turnovers on the day, resulting in 13 points for the 4-1 Raiders.

This is just the latest in a series of meltdowns for the Chargers under McCoy. And in reality, it could very well lead to his firing here soon. Now at 1-4 on the season, San Diego finds itself three games behind both the Denver Broncos and Raiders in the AFC West.

Any further climb into the abyss of haplessness, and the Chargers will likely move on from McCoy completely. That was the word prior to this recent loss, and it's likely been magnified even more now.

“Quoth the Raven, nevermore."

* John Harbaugh and company have to legitimately feel like they are the subject of this great Edgar Allan Poe poem following a second consecutive heartbreaking loss.

Much like the Eagles above, Baltimore really only has itself to blame for its loss to the Washington Redskins on Sunday. With Baltimore down 13-10 with less than seven minutes remaining in the third quarter, C.J. Mosley intercepted an ill-fated Kirk Cousins pass and seemingly returned it for a touchdown.

Unfortunately, Mosley couldn't be bothered to actually maintain possession of the football. Instead, he fumbled into into the end zone for a touchback.

Washington would go on to compile a time-consuming field goal drive on the ensuing possession, giving the team a six-point lead heading into the final stanza.

While this looked horrible in and of itself, the Ravens would bounce back. Joe Flacco went on to engineer what looked to be a game-winning touchdown scoring drive.

The Super Bowl winning quarterback hit second-year receiver Breshad Perriman on a 23-yard scoring strike. In an agonizing turn of events, officials would rule the pass incomplete after initially calling it a touchdown.

It was a correct call from the officials, but this doesn't make the situation any less frustrating for Baltimore. In the end, the Ravens would drop the game by a 16-10 score.

“If it looks like a duck and sounds like a duck, it could be a really ugly swan.” 

* Ugly. Not the ugly duckling ugly. It's a completely different type of ugly. The kind that forces you not to want to look away. You're amazed by the breathtaking ugliness of the product that reminds you of old "Seinfeld" reruns about ugly babies

That's an apt description of what we've seen from NFL's nationally televised slate of action thus far this season. And it begins our look at the ugly from Week 5 of the NFL season.

Just a few days after Drew Stanton and Blaine Gabbert went head to head in an epic Thursday Night Football duel, most expected the New York Giants and Green Bay Packers to put on a show Sunday night. Here are teams led by two Super Bowl winning quarterbacks seemingly in their pride. All was set up nicely for us to get our first good nationally televised game of the season.

Boy, did they disappoint.

Eli Manning and Aaron Rodgers combined to complete just over half their passes with three touchdowns and two interceptions in a lackluster performance from each signal caller.

Overall, the Giants and Packers combined to convert on 13-of-32 third-down opportunities, turned the ball over three times and saw 11 other possessions end in punts. It wasn't good defense. Instead, it was simply offensive.

This came at the exact same time Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were holding their second presidential debate of the election season. A debate that was highly anticipated. And a debate that was, for all intents and purposes, much more entertaining than the football game being played on NBC.

Taking a back seat to the election isn't necessarily a bad thing. With what's at stake here, the hope is that more people tuned into the debate than the game. Unfortunately for the NFL, the gap in ratings promises to be absolutely staggering, just like it was during the first debate late last month. If the league could provide us with anything relating to decent football, maybe the rating issues wouldn't be such a big deal.

Through five weeks, the product we've seen on national television has been absolutely horrific. Sunday night was yet another example of this.

On to the good, because that's really what defined a highly entertaining day of NFL football.

"All things come to him who waits – provided he knows what he is waiting for." 

* Fans in Pittsburgh know what Woodrow Wilson was talking about here. Sure, they were frustrated over Le'Veon Bell's latest suspension. The team would have to play its first three games without one of the most-talented players in the game. But fans knew he was coming back. This wasn't a long-term absence. As long as Bell could stay away from the wacky-tobacky, he'd be back.

Then in his first game back in the mix last week, Bell recorded 178 yards on 23 touches in a blowout win over the Kansas City Chiefs. Taking on a significantly worst New York Jets defense on Sunday, Bell followed that up with a 154-yard performance in yet another blowout Steelers victory.

Bell's mere presence to on the field is something to behold. When he's not putting up these huge numbers, opposing defenses have to account for him. That enabled Big Ben to absolutely tear apart a bad Jets defense through the air on Sunday. It really is becoming a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation for those taking on the high-flying Steelers.

* Tom Brady took to the field in Cleveland for his New England Patriots Sunday afternoon. Was he walking on water? Had he just parted the Red Sea during his four-game suspension? With Clipboard Jesus watching from the other sideline, Brady would on to act the part of a deity for his Patriots.

The future Hall of Fame quarterback made quick work of a horrible Browns team, throwing for nearly 300 yards and two touchdowns in the first half alone. In fact, Brady led a beautiful game-opening touchdown scoring drive. One possession, and he was already making a NFL defense look foolish.

When all was said and done on Sunday, Brady had thrown for over 400 yards and three scores in a 20-point whitewashing of the Browns. Even if it was against a bad team, Brady surely put the NFL on notice in this one. He's playing angrily, and clearly has something to prove. That's not good for the league's 31 other teams.

* There was some question about Tevin Coleman's availability against the Denver Broncos on Sunday. The Atlanta Falcons' running back wasn't injured. Instead, some had concerns about his ability to play at Mile High due to the presence of the sickle-cell trait.

We've seen the story regarding former Pittsburgh Steelers safety Ryan Clark playing in Denver while dealing with the same condition. It didn't end too all for Clark.

Not only did Coleman suit up, he absolutely dominated the league's best defense to the tune of 163 yards on 10 touches. Yes folks, Coleman averaged 16.3 yards per touch against the reigning Super Bowl champs.

Add in Matt Ryan's mistake-free performance, and the Falcons dominated their way to yet another win. Though, this time, it came against an undefeated Broncos team on the road. Coleman was no small part in this victory. And he should be commended for suiting up under less-than-stellar circumstances.

* The Washington Redskins are playing darn good football on the field. They're also making sure to keep up with the team chemistry in the locker room by taking part in a ping pong tournament. This is great. It's all fun and games. It's not life and death.

Unfortunately, football is the last thing on the minds of those in the Caribbean. Hurricane Matthew wreaked havoc on this region before making landfall in the United States, killing at least 900 in the impoverished nation of Haiti.

Making sure that they do their part during their bye week, owner Daniel Snyder is sending wide receiver Pierre Garcon and Ricky Jean Francois to ground zero on Monday. The two players, both of Haitian descent, will be bringing medical supplies and other necessities to the ravaged nation.

It's the humanitarian principle. The altruistic act. Something all professional sports teams could learn from. Good for Mr. Snyder and company here, you are making an impact off the field. While you might not want it, you deserve all the praise that's thrown your way.

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