It's Week 6 already, and this season's NFL is all kinds of topsy-turvy. Just look at a Sunday afternoon ripe for overreaction.
The Jaguars can't stop anyone. Todd Gurley's the MVP. The Bengals gonna Bengal. Washington is ... well, who knows?
Six weeks in, we still don't know anything about what's going to happen in the NFL, which is the way we like it. But that doesn't stop Overreaction Monday.
Here are this week's submissions, for your hand-wringing, teeth-gnashing pleasure:
The Cowboys will win the NFC East
Dallas scored a total of 83 points in its first five games, then dropped a 40-burger on the Jacksonville Jaguars on Sunday. If you saw that coming, I'm picking you up this afternoon and we're going to Vegas. At 3-3, the Cowboys are tied with the Eagles for second place in the division, just a half-game behind Washington, whom they play next week.
Graziano's verdict: NOT AN OVERREACTION. If you asked me to pick a team to win this division right now, I'd pick the defending Super Bowl champion Eagles, who got their own offense in gear Thursday night against what used to be the Giants. But it's not an overreaction to think Dallas can win a knock-down, drag-out NFC East. If you can score on the Jags, you can score on anyone. The key for the Cowboys will be to develop some consistency on offense (and to win a road game), but their passing game isn't going to be any worse than it was in Weeks 1-5, and here they are.
The Jaguars' defense is broken
It's one thing to give up 30 to Patrick Mahomes and the high-flying Chiefs, as Jacksonville did last week. It's quite another to give up 40 to a Dallas team that came in averaging 16.6 points per game. Jacksonville was expected to continue its dominant defensive ways of 2017 but has so far allowed more points than it has scored.
Graziano's verdict: OVERREACTION. This is a two-game blip, folks. Jalen Ramsey's playing hurt, the Cowboys are somehow weirdly tough at home, and this is still a team that allowed just 14 points per game in September. The stud players at all three levels of the Jacksonville defense didn't all of a sudden forget how to play two weeks ago. Here's guessing they find themselves a bit at home next week against Houston.
Adam Thielen is the best wide receiver in the NFL
Thielen had 11 catches for 123 yards in Minnesota's victory over Arizona on Sunday. He's the first player in 57 years to open a season with six consecutive games of at least 100 receiving yards. His 58 catches are an NFL record for the first six games of a season. He has caught a touchdown pass in four of the Vikings' six games.
Graziano's verdict: NOT AN OVERREACTION. This isn't new. Vikings teammate Stefon Diggs is great, and will always be the Minneapolis Miracle guy, but Thielen's been outplaying him for more than a season and a half now. He finished fifth in the league last season in receiving yards and eighth in catches. It's no surprise Kirk Cousins has locked in on him. He might not get the pub that Antonio Brown, DeAndre Hopkins, Julio Jones and Odell Beckham get. But if you're lucky enough to have Thielen on your fantasy team, you know he's playing better than all of them.
Sam Darnold is the best of the rookie quarterbacks
Darnold completed 80 percent of his passes and posted a 113.9 passer rating in the Jets' victory over the Colts on Sunday. He has thrown five touchdown passes against two interceptions in his past two games, both of which the Jets won. He beat the Broncos deep last week, then picked apart the Colts underneath Sunday because that's what Indy was giving him. He seems smart and poised and gives Jets fans reason to believe they've finally figured this out.
Graziano's verdict: OVERREACTION. Hey, he absolutely could turn out to be the best of the five quarterbacks drafted in this year's first round. And he was definitely the best in Week 6, when Baker Mayfield had a rough day for the Browns, Josh Allen got hurt in Buffalo's game, Josh Rosen was kind of "meh" in Arizona's loss, and Lamar Jackson continued to ride the bench for the Ravens. But one look over the past six weeks at this blissful roller coaster with these rookie quarterbacks should convince you not to draw any big conclusions off a couple of good games (or a couple of bad ones). All of these guys are learning and growing and will continue to have ups and downs, and we won't know for years which is the best. That's the fun of it.
Jon Gruden's Raiders are the NFL's worst team
What did the football fans in London do to deserve us sending them the Raiders? Seattle was among the bottom six in the league on offense entering Sunday's action but managed to outgain Oakland 369 yards to 185 and outscore the Raiders 27-3. The Raiders are 1-5 -- their only victory a 45-42 overtime fiasco against the Browns -- and have allowed the third-most points in the league while scoring the sixth fewest.
Graziano's verdict: NOT AN OVERREACTION. Someone has to be the worst team in the league, and Gruden's bunch looks like a strong candidate. The Raiders are one of four 1-5 teams, along with the Colts, Giants and Cardinals. (The 49ers could join the group Monday night.) But the thing that really bugs you about the Raiders is that you don't know what the way forward is. Gruden treated this offseason as a tear-down, traded the team's best player a week before the season started and hasn't been able to get Derek Carr going the way he believed he could. He's got nine years left on his contract after this, and it's possible the Raiders are just gearing up for the move to Vegas, but it's no fun to watch in the meantime.