Week 6 of the NFL season was nothing short of a bang, with the New York Giants taking down the defending champs Philadelphia Eagles, on Thursday Night Football. While this week may not have ended up being as thrilling as last week, there were still some close matchups that came down to the wire.

We learned a lot in Week 6, and here are my 10 takeaways from Week 6 of the NFL season.

Eagles are in serious trouble

Yes, Philadelphia is 4-2, but they have one of the best overall rosters in the sport, and yet they make everything look so hard whenever they are playing.

Offensively, Jalen Hurts and his receivers have looked completely out of sync. His stat line never looks bad, but he just keeps on missing so many big throws. It would take at least two hands to count how many times he’s missed one of his receivers for a big play downfield.

Defensively, the Eagles look like a shell of what they were last year. They have held just one of their opponents to under 20 points this season (which oddly enough was the Kansas City Chiefs), and just gave up 34 to Jaxson Dart and the Giants, who only scored 14 last week against the New Orleans Saints.

Something’s wrong in Philly, and they need to figure it out soon.

Jaxson Dart is the real deal

Have the NY Giants finally found their franchise QB? Well, it seems so. Through three games, Dart has thrown for 508 yards and four touchdowns with two interceptions while adding another 167 yards and two scores on the ground. Yes, he had a really bad game against the Saints, where he threw two picks and fumbled once, but I actually thought he didn’t look that bad outside of those mistakes.

One of the key traits of being an NFL quarterback is remaining calm under pressure, and Dart never looks rushed. He’s fine with taking a hit while delivering the ball, but he can also take off and run if he needs to.

Dart’s composure is going to pay dividends in the future. If he can continue to develop and keep that same coolness in the pocket, he’ll be a quarterback in this league for a long time.

The Cowboys could miss the playoffs despite having one of the best offenses

The Dallas Cowboys have one of the best offenses in football. There’s no ifs, ands, or buts about it. Dak Prescott is an MVP candidate, George Pickens is playing to his potential with CeeDee Lamb out, and even though they weren’t great this week, owner Jerry Jones would be happy with their run game.

Still, the Cowboys are in danger of missing the playoffs.

The fact of the matter is, their defense is horrible. They’re giving up an average of 30 points per game this season, and that’s with teams like the New York Jets and Carolina Panthers on their schedule (no disrespect to them). They can’t get pressure on the quarterback consistently, they can’t stop the run, and they can’t cover.

Everything that could go wrong has gone wrong for them defensively, so despite having a top-five offense, do not be surprised if they do not make it to the playoffs.

The Broncos’ defense is something else

I’ll preface this by saying I know it’s the Jets, but come on, you can’t watch that game and tell me you don’t think the Denver Broncos have one of the best defenses in football right now.

The Broncos held the Jets to NEGATIVE 10 net passing yards. Justin Fields threw for 45 yards, and the Broncos had 55 yards worth of sacks. I don’t recall that happening in my lifetime, but even if it has, it’s very, very rare. They also held the Jets to a 3.0 rushing average, and if you take away Field’s rushing yards, that average drops to 2.5.

It’s not like it was just one guy wrecking everything. It was a concerted effort. Eight players recorded at least 0.5 sacks, and even when Fields had time, nobody was open downfield.

The Broncos’ offense looked bad, but it didn’t matter because their defense was so great.

Aaron Glenn had a similar start to Dan Campbell

Aaron Glenn is having a very similar start to his head coaching career as his former boss, Dan Campbell. In his first year with the Detroit Lions, Campbell started 0-8. His first non-loss wasn’t even a win; it was a tie. After that, they’d lose two more games (0-10-1) before finally getting their first win.

One thing about the 2021 Lions is that they never gave up. They fought hard until the final whistle every single game, no matter how much they were trailing. The same can be said about the Jets. No matter how much they’re down, they’re going to fight for every yard, and that’s the sign of a team that believes in their head coach.

HC Glenn even gets under the media’s skin a little bit, which Campbell did plenty of early in his tenure. When asked about Justin Fields’ play and whether he could be benched, Glenn responded with, “what kind of question is that? Come on, you know better.”

That didn’t sit well with the media. I understand being frustrated, but it was a perfectly reasonable question after Fields’ performance.

I’m not trying to say he’s the next Dan Campbell, because he’s not. I’m just saying the two had similar starts, so you can’t just count him out because he inherited a bad team that is playing bad football. Hopefully, the Jets give him time and don’t cut the cord too early.

I think we just saw a Super Bowl preview

The Kansas City Chiefs and Detroit Lions met on Sunday Night Football, and man, was it a good game. I know the Chiefs are off to a slow start and all that good stuff, but with their win tonight, I still believe they’re the favorites in the AFC, and this could’ve been a Super Bowl preview.

In my opinion, as good as the Indianapolis Colts and some of the other AFC teams have been, the only team that’s a real threat to the Chiefs in the AFC is the Buffalo Bills. But they haven’t proven that they can beat the Chiefs in January. Right now, I’d take the Bills, but there’s something about Mahomes in the playoffs that’s hard to pick against.

In the NFC, I think there are a lot of teams that could make it to the Super Bowl. The Eagles, Buccaneers, Packers, and Seahawks are all threats, but as of today, the Lions are still my pick to represent the NFC.

I know nobody wants to see the Chiefs in the Super Bowl again, but if we got to see this game played on a neutral field, I wouldn’t have too many complaints.

Yeah, this Drake Maye kid is pretty good

The New England Patriots have their guy. All the talk last season was about Caleb Williams and Jayden Daniels (rightfully so), but the best second-year quarterback this year has been Drake Maye.

If you just look at Maye’s stat line, you’d think he played really well. He threw for 261 yards and three scores on just 18 completions, but it could’ve been so much more. He had two deep passes called back for offensive pass interference, and one was a 50+ yard touchdown that, to be quite frank, was not a penalty (and that’s coming from a Saints fan).

This easily could’ve been a 300+ yard, 4+ touchdown game for Maye. He is the real deal, and he’s not going anywhere anytime soon.

The Buccaneers are 100 percent NFC contenders

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers had a somewhat fluky start to the season. They won each of their first four games with last-minute scores, but after seeing how they played tonight, I’m convinced they’re contenders in the NFC.

Baker Mayfield just seems to have that “it” factor that someone like Tom Brady had. Even when things are going horribly wrong, he finds ways to win games. Today, Emeka Egbuka went out early, leaving him without his top three receivers. And what did he do? Threw for 256 yards and two touchdowns as he led the Bucs to 30 points.

Defensively, I thought the Buccaneers played really well, too. They held the 49ers to 19 points, sacked Mac Jones six times, and held San Fran to 3.0 yards per carry. I know they were injured (so were the Bucs), but the 49ers looked like a shell of themselves on Sunday.

This team has what it takes to contend with everyone in the NFC. They may not be as good as the Detroit Lions, but I guarantee you, Detroit does not want to see Tampa in January.

The Ravens’ 1-5 record doesn’t really matter

Obviously, nobody wants to start 1-5. You put yourself on the back foot in the playoff race, but when you really look at it, the Baltimore Ravens still have a realistic shot at the playoffs.

Both the Ravens and the Pittsburgh Steelers have one win in the AFC North. The Ravens are three games behind overall, but with two head-to-head matchups against the Steelers still to come, anything can happen. If they can win both of those games, all they need to do is out-play the Steelers by one game the rest of the way, and the automatic AFC North bid is theirs.

With a bye week coming up, the Ravens are hoping they can get a lot of players back for Week 8. Then, all they need to do is win, and they’ve done a lot of that with Lamar Jackson under center. Nothing is off the table for Baltimore right now, but they do need to clean up a lot of things defensively.

Plus, despite the three-game deficit to the Steelers, the Ravens still have +140 odds to win the division. And we all know Vegas knows things nobody else does.

Add Kimani Vidal in fantasy

For my final takeaway, let’s talk some fantasy. If Kimani Vidal is still available in your league (45 percent rostered in Sleeper), pick him up right now.

Everyone thought it would be Hassan Haskins who took over for Omarion Hampton, but of course, it was actually Vidal. He received 18 of the 24 touches this weekend and ran for 124 yards (6.9 average). Use your top waiver spot or spend a ton of FAAB on him, because he’s the Chargers’ RB1 moving forward.