Big week of blowouts and high scores. I think we’re finally starting to figure out who the really good teams are and who’s been faking it early on. For the week my picks were 10-3 and on the season I’m 57-34 so still doing pretty good overall. In tonight’s game, I have Buffalo winning. I wouldn’t mortgage the house and head to Vegas or anything, but a winning record is still a winning record.

I want to take a moment and deal with the Detroit/Dallas game. I’ve been saying all year that Detroit is the second best team in the league and the Super Bowl favorite out of the NFC. Today, I think they put an exclamation point on that statement. They were dominant in all three phases. Detroit used the fourth quarter as a practice session to run their silly trick plays and work on different defensive coverages. Let’s hope Hutchinson is ok, I mean, he’s not playing again this year, but overall I hope he’s ok.

Dallas on the other hand has been a challenge for me to figure out. At the start of the season I worried about their offensive line and running game. There were a couple games where they seemed to have figured that out. Lately I’ve worried about their defensive line and the injuries they have there, and that is still a problem. The bottom line is that this team just doesn’t have the depth of talent they had last year. They aren’t physical at the line of scrimmage. And that goes all the way back to week two, when they were still healthy. Look at what the Saints offensive line did to Micah Parsons. He was invisible the whole game. Dak is struggling to get the ball down the field. Part of the problem is that he doesn’t have receivers that can challenge the middle of the field. Everything is short or deep and that’s too easy to defend. Dallas has a winning record still, but they aren’t playing winning football. This is a bad team that has been taking advantage of worse teams so far. Detroit exposed them, and I think we’re going to see this team struggle in the rest of their games.

On to the Hits and Misses:

Hit
Justin Fields as the Steelers quarterback. I said it early and I still believe it – he just looks like he belongs in that offense, he belongs in that uniform, he belongs with that team. He could prove himself to be the long term quarterback they have been searching for since Roethlisberger retired.

Miss
The Jacksonville/Chicago game. I was sure that the overseas travel would be rough on a rookie quarterback and that the experience of the Jaguars would win out. Boy was that a miss! Chicago showed me something in this game, and now I’m wondering if the NFC North can send four teams to the playoffs.

Hit
Drake Maye offering hope to New England. The ball looked good coming out of his hand. There was some juice to those throws and the passing game produced big plays and points. There were still the rookie mistakes, but I think this performance proved it was the right call to turn to Maye for the rest of the season.

Miss
Tennessee coming off a bye week. Will Levis still made unforgiveable mistakes. If the coaching staff couldn’t get that corrected with a bye week, they aren’t going to get it corrected the rest of the season. And that’s bad news for a team that has good pieces and could win with the right quarterback on the field.

Hit
Joe Mixon as the engine of the Houston Texans. Even with Nico Collins missing, the Houston offense was dominant Sunday. Having Joe Mixon there getting the tough yards and adding balance to the attack is a must as these Texans try to challenge Baltimore and Kansas City at the top of the conference.

Miss
Chargers coming off the bye. Lots of injuries before this game and not everyone got healed up during the bye. It felt like Denver was playing better football, but The Los Angeles Chargers came out and played great on both sides of the ball. It was a good win for them and sets them up well to challenge for a wild card berth this year.

Hit
Cincinnati turning the corner. I said they were primed to start running off a string of wins if the defense could step it up a little. Last night’s game was a great start in that direction. The offense really needed the defense in order to get the win. It was definitely the kind of ugly win that can build confidence and launch a winning streak.

That’s it! Another week in the books and we’re already moving on to week seven. Good luck to everyone in the coming games. Don’t forget to check out our Week 7 Preview and the Gridiron Voice Podcast – both are live on Thursdays every week!