The 2025 NFL Season — Week 6 Review

Week 6 of the 2025 NFL season featured multiple games that were decided by one score. Much like last week’s action then, it shows just how competitive the NFL is this season, and how much of a week-to-week league (admittedly heavily influenced by injuries) the league can be.

Game of the Week

In last week’s review article, I predicted Sunday Night Football’s Kansas City Chiefs vs Detroit Lions game would be the highlight of Week 6.

In many ways, it duly delivered — the Chiefs continue to look better and better on offence as the weeks progress, and, given Rashee Rice will also be returning from suspension next week, the Chiefs’ offence will only continue to get better too. The Lions’ offence also showed what it is capable of, although Jared Goff did manage to waste a very good trick play by not getting himself set in the backfield prior to receiving a touchdown pass. It speaks volumes that the most notable incident from the game, other than Goff’s failed trick play, was the scuffle that broke out at the end of the game between the Lions’ Brian Branch and the Chiefs. As SNF play-by-play announcer Mike Tirico said during the broadcast, Branch has a history of confrontations, and has already received multiple fines this season, so there’s a good chance NFL commissioner Roger Goodell will come down hard on him in the aftermath of this latest fracas. Even Lions head coach Dan Campbell admitted what Branch did was “inexcusable”.

Instead, I’m going to say that the two Monday Night Football (MNF) games were tied for Game of the Week in Week 6.

One saw the top two draft picks of the 2024 NFL Draft — quarterbacks Caleb Williams and Jayden Daniels — face off as the Chicago Bears played the Washington Commanders. The game had a bit of everything — receiving touchdowns, a rushing touchdown, an interception, and the Commanders coming from 13–0 down to lead the game by eight points before Jake Moody eventually kicked a field goal to end the game and win the game for the Bears.

The other game saw the reigning NFL MVP — Josh Allen — face off against the #8 pick in the 2024 Draft, Michael Penix Jr, as the Buffalo Bills played the Atlanta Falcons. The Falcons looked good throughout against a Bills team that is rightly considered a Super Bowl contender, and so, we can call the Falcons winning the game 24–14 an upset, meaning the Bills are now on a two-game losing streak. It was an upset that featured some very impressive performances from the Falcons too, as Penix was 20/32 for 250 yards and a touchdown, Bijan Robinson rushed for 170 yards and a touchdown while also getting 68 receiving yards, and Drake London had ten receptions for 158 yards and a touchdown.

All four quarterbacks represent the future of the NFL, and so, it was good to see both MNF games showcase their talents.

Other Action

Elsewhere, another candidate for Game of the Week involved the Dallas Cowboys again, who lost to the Carolina Panthers 30–27 following a game-winning field goal from Ryan Fitzgerald to end the game.

Let me be clear; I do not like the Cowboys. There is an expectation of success that exudes from team owner Jerry Jones that comes across as entitlement and which bears no relation to the results on the field in recent seasons. Certainly not in the playoffs, at least. Jones’s public comments on The Michael Irvin Podcast regarding Micah Parsons’s contract this summer also came across as very tone-deaf and… ‘antiqued’ would be the best word.

The Cowboys do statistically have the best offence in the league this season, and it shows, as their offence is very entertaining to watch. The previously-inconsistent defence, even with the addition of All-Pro defensive lineman Kenneth Clark as part of the Parsons trade, is clearly now worse under new defensive co-ordinator Matt Eberflus though. That is not to take anything away offensively from the Cowboys’ opponents — the New York Giants played fantastically on offence in Week 2, the Green Bay Packers played well in their Week 4 draw with the Cowboys, and the Panthers’ offence was very good on Sunday. I said before the season that the Panthers got better and better as last season progressed. While they haven’t been as strong as I expected them to be thus far in 2025, they have looked good — Rico Dowdle has stepped up and played excellently the past two weeks in the absence of Chubba Hubbard, and Tetairoa McMillan, who I thought played very well in the Panthers’ Week 4 loss to my New England Patriots, deservedly got the first two touchdowns of his NFL career in Sunday’s game.

Speaking of strong offensive performances, Jaxon Smith-Njigba had eight receptions of 162 yards and a touchdown in the Seattle Seahawks’ 20–12 victory over the Jacksonville Jaguars. Week after week, the Seahawks — and specifically Sam Darnold, who went 16–27 for 295 yards and two touchdowns in Sunday’s game — are proving wrong my pre-season prediction that they would not do well, as they currently have a 4–2 record, aided by a well-organised defence under head coach Mike MacDonald.

The Philadelphia Eagles suffered a second consecutive loss, this time to the Giants, which will hurt even more given the Giants are an NFC East divisional rival. The Eagles’ defence got better and better as the season went on last year under new defensive coordinator Vic Fangio. It may be then that oppositions are getting increasingly wise to the Eagles’ defensive schemes, and so, Fangio will need to mix things up. In particular, the Giants’ rookie running back Cam Skattebo rushed for three touchdowns, and it looked far too easy for him to break through the Eagles’ defensive line throughout the game. As mentioned, Thursday’s loss to the Giants also means that the Eagles are on a two-game losing streak. It’s certainly not a crisis, but the Eagles will not be happy to have lost two games they will rightly think they should have won, and the entire coaching staff will need to draw up some new plays and ways of doing things as all four of the Eagles’ win thus far during the 2025 season have been by seven points or less.

Week 6’s NFL London Series game between the Denver Broncos and the New York Jets was a bust for many given it was a relatively low-scoring affair. This is what happens when two very good defences face off — the Broncos’ defence has the most sacks of any team thus far this season, while the Jets’ defence is arguably the only decent thing about the team. I personally thought the Broncos’ offence did well, and the Broncos certainly deserved to win the game. Next week’s London Series game at Wembley — between the Los Angeles Rams and Jacksonville Jaguars — should certainly be more entertaining as an offensive spectacle though.

That being said, the Rams’ victory this week over the Baltimore Ravens was also not a very high-scoring affair — the Ravens had a toothless offence without Lamar Jackson, who is still out with a hamstring injury, in spite of backup quarterbacks Cooper Rush and Tyler Huntley still being surrounded by talent in the skill positions, and what is a good Rams defence was able to keep the Ravens’ run game contained. Similarly, despite dealing with multiple injuries on defence, the Ravens’ defence still played well and managed to neutralise what is a very good Rams offence for large parts of the game.

Final Thoughts

Injures are continuing to influence the outcome of games. This has always been true of the NFL — it’s the nature of what is a very brutal game — but it has been more apparent this season; the Chiefs’ offence improved markedly upon the return of speedster wide receiver Xavier Worthy against the Ravens in Week 4, and has kept trending upwards since. The Ravens, meanwhile, were impacted significantly going into that Week 4 game, which then only got worse as that game progressed.

That being said, injuries can also highlight just how good parts of a team are. For example, the 49ers’ offence is missing Brock Purdy, George Kittle and Ricky Pearsall currently, but the likes of Mac Jones and Kendrick Bourne have stepped up and performed well in recent weeks. Part of that will be down to the connection Jones and Bourne already had from their time together in New England, but part of it will also be because of how good the 49ers’ offensive scheme is under head coach Kyle Shanahan and offensive coordinator Klay Kubiak. Admittedly, this didn’t prevent a Week 6 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and what is a very good defence under Bucs head coach Todd Bowles, but that loss arguably also showed the importance of individual players on both sides of the ball, as the 49ers defence looked far less organised after Fred Warner was carted off with a season-ending ankle injury, as CBS play-by-play announcer Jim Nantz and analyst Tony Romo noted on the broadcast.

For now, let’s look ahead to the Week 7 slate of games — the Eagles will look to break their two-game losing streak to what has been a subdued Minnesota Vikings team thus far. Both teams are capable of playing excellent football on both sides of the ball. If the offences and defences of both teams turn up next Sunday, it could end up being a very entertaining, back-and-forth contest that ends up being the Game of Week 7.

Given how the offences have performed though, the Rams vs Jaguars game from London could also be a candidate, as could the Broncos vs Giants game. As it’s being played at Mile High Stadium, I’m going to give the Broncos the edge in that game.

That’s see how everything plays and meet back here next Tuesday, shall we?

Brett Walker is a sports writer who hosts The BCS Podcast, and can be found on Twitter @BrettChatsSport. He is also on Bluesky.