A good portion of the AFC feels like bizarro world, where preseason Super Bowl contenders are sitting at 1-4 (Baltimore) and 2-3 (Kansas City) while the AFC South has three potential playoff teams in its midst. The big surprises are the teams on top, Indianapolis and Jacksonville, with the latter stating their claim to contention status on the back of a thrilling 31-28 win over the Chiefs on Monday night.
The bar was low in Liam Coen's first year as the Jaguars' head coach, but he has quickly instilled confidence in his team, which handed the San Francisco 49ers their first loss of the year in Santa Clara a week prior. With the latest edition of FanSided's NFL Stock Watch hot off the presses, Coen's star quarterback is the biggest riser in the league.
NFL Week 6 Stock Watch - Risers
Trevor Lawrence
While no one would really call Trevor Lawrence a bust at this stage of his career, the Jaguars' quarterback entered 2025 with people wondering if he was simply just a guy at this point. The "generational" label that endured during Lawrence's college career had faded and with just one standout campaign in his career, there was every reason to believe that Jacksonville paid Lawrence just because it was the standard operating procedure in the league to pay a good quarterback.
The arrival of Coen has seen Lawrence begin to play some of his best football, including an impressive performance against the Chiefs' strong defense, when he completed 18-of-25 passes for 221 yards and a touchdown while adding 10 carries for 54 yards with the go-ahead touchdown in the fourth quarter. If Jacksonville can get this version of Lawrence, who averaged 8.8 yards per attempt on Monday, going forward they will be in excellent shape for the future.
New England Patriots
The importance of good coaching is also evident in New England, where Mike Vrabel has brought credibility back to Foxboro for the first time in years. The Patriots were business-like on Sunday night, going up to Orchard Park and handling the Bills to hand Buffalo its first home regular season loss in nearly two years, suddenly turning the AFC East into an actual conversation.
While the Bills are the more talented outfit than the Patriots, New England played a much cleaner football game, committing fewer penalties than Buffalo and winning the turnover battle 3-1. With a manageable stretch of schedule coming up (the Patriots have a two-game trip to Tennessee and New Orleans before hosting Cleveland in their next three), New England has a chance to build on this win and climb into the AFC Wild Card hunt.
The 1972 Dolphins
It has been a noted tradition that the surviving members of the 1972 Miami Dolphins, the only NFL team to go undefeated and win the Super Bowl, often raise a glass to toast their achievement when the last remaining perfect team suffers its first loss of the year. Those Dolphins got to celebrate early this year as both Philadelphia and Buffalo, who entered Week 5 at 4-0, fell at home to Denver and New England to assure that no one will be undefeated in the 2025 season.
No one has made a serious run at perfection in years and the NFL is set to make things harder with the league reportedly pushing to add an 18th regular season game at some point in the next decade. The increased parity in the NFL also makes it hard to build a true super team, so the 1972 Dolphins have to feel good about maintaining their legacy as the league's only true undefeated champion.
Post Hype Passers
One of the biggest trends in the modern NFL has been seeing highly drafted quarterbacks thrive in a later stop in their careers. It is really hard to develop quarterbacks in the NFL and a lot of young passers are set up for failure in their existing situations, with Sunday's action showcasing the value of three post-hype success stories.
Daniel "Indiana" Jones, who was dumped by the Giants last year before taking a pit stop to backup Sam Darnold in Minnesota, had another strong game to help the Colts improve to 4-1 on the year. The game of the weekend featured two second chance stars in Seattle as Tampa Bay's Baker Mayfield (Cleveland, Carolina, LA Rams) and Darnold (Jets, Panthers, 49ers, Vikings) engaged in a highly-entertaining passing duel that could serve as a playoff preview.
NFL Week 6 Stock Watch - Fallers
Los Angeles Chargers
After a 3-0 start with three division wins looked to set the Chargers up for a runaway in the AFC West, reality has hit hard for Jim Harbaugh's team. Losing consecutive games to the Giants and Washington Commanders has all but erased Los Angeles' AFC West cushion, allowing Denver to pull into a tie for first place in the division while Kansas City sits one game behind at 2-3.
The injury bug has begun to wreak havoc on Los Angeles' offensive line, with Joe Alt and Mekhi Becton joining Rashawn Slater on the sideline, and standout rookie Omarion Hampton just landed on injured reserve. The line is a much bigger issue for the Chargers as Justin Herbert has been getting hit hard the past few weeks, and with Los Angeles' bye still almost two months away it could be a bit before the group can fully reload.
Arizona Cardinals
Dark clouds are swirling around Arizona, which has squandered a 2-0 start thanks to a persistent inability to close games. The biggest set back came on Sunday, when an Emeri Demercado fumble through the end zone turned a potential 28-6 lead into the spark plug for an insane Tennessee rally that saw the Titans, who looked a play away from packing up their ball and going home, stun the Cardinals 22-21 in a game that wrecked knockout pools around the nation.
There is also some heat on head coach Jonathan Gannon, who was fined $100,000 dollars for getting into an altercation with Demercado on the sideline that saw the coach appear to put his hands on the running back after berating him. That game, which made Arizona the biggest loser of the week, has a chance to turn into a doom spiral for the Cardinals that could wreck their season and cost Gannon his job.
Jake Browning
It appears that the magic Jake Browning had while subbing for Joe Burrow in 2023 was merely a case of Cincinnati catching lightning in a bottle. Browning has started three games for the Bengals in place of Burrow this year and lost all of them, throwing for 757 yards with six touchdowns and eight interceptions, more turnovers than he committed in nine games two years ago.
The Bengals have pulled the plug on Browning, trading for Joe Flacco to be their new starter to try keeping their dimming playoff hopes alive in the event that Burrow can return in December. While Flacco is a bad fit for Cincinnati as an immobile pocket passer behind a shaky offensive line, the fact that the Bengals think a 40-year-old learning a new scheme gives them a better chance to win than their established backup is a bad sign for Browning's NFL future.
Mike McDaniel
The temporary reprieve that McDaniel got from the hot seat by beating the hapless Jets evaporated quickly as Miami displayed another inept performance against Carolina. Despite racing out to an early 17-0 lead, the Dolphins gave the game away, falling 27-24 to a Panthers' squad that was essentially boat raced in New England a week prior, having surrendered 42 consecutive points in a blowout loss to the Patriots.
While the loss of Tyreek Hill to a season-ending injury didn't help, the Dolphins are more talented than Carolina and had a big lead in the game, making the loss devastating for McDaniel's chances of maintaining employment. It feels like a matter of when, not if, Miami owner Stephen Ross pulls the plug on the McDaniel era and begins to look for a new coach to try and get more out of this underachieving bunch.