—The fifth weekend of the season got off to a dramatic start when the Falcons beat the Bucs, 36-30, in overtime as Kirk Cousins threw for 509 yards. The only thing that marred the game was a non call on what should have been a facemask penalty on Atlanta on the Bucs last drive. The Falcons then got a chance to get the ball back and tie the game with a field goal on the last play of regulation. Had the penalty been called, the Bucs probably would have won in regulation.
–The other two prime time games are the Cowboys at the Steelers Sunday night and the Saints at the Chiefs Monday night. The Cowboys-Steelers was a great rivalry in the 70s when the two teams combined to win six Super Bowls, four by the Steelers and two by the Cowboys, who also lost two exciting Supers Bowls to the Steelers that decided team of the decade honors. The Cowboys also lost a Super Bowl to the Baltimore Colts in that decade.
The Steelers and Cowboys played a third Super Bowl in 1995 with the Cowboys winning. The Cowboys haven’t been to the Super Bowl since. The Steelers have won two Super Bowls since, the last one at the end of the 2008 season, but neither team looks like a contender this year.
–The Chiefs will attempt to boost their record to 5-0 with a victory over the Saints Monday night. The Chiefs keep battling injuries with Rashee Rice on IR and every game they play is close but they manage to find a way to win. Minnesota also tries to boost its record to 5-0 with a Sunday morning victory over the Jets in London on the NFL Network. The game starts at 9:30 am in New York and 8:30 am in Minnesota.
–CBS has three early games and two of them — Buffalo at Houston and Baltimore at Cincinnati — figure to be interesting and will get wide reviewing audiences. All four teams are playoff contenders. The Bills and Texans are both 3-1 while the Ravens are 2-2 and the Bengals 1-3. The third game — Indianapolis at Jacksonville — will basically be shown in the markets of the two teams. Indianapolis hasn’t won in Jacksonville since 2014. The Jaguars are the only winless team in the league but are three point favorites over the Colts.
–The CBS late feature game pits the Packers at the Rams. The other late game is the Giants at Seattle. Neither is particularly compelling.
–Fox has a single game Sunday with three early games — Cleveland at Washington, Carolina at Chicago and Miami at New England and two late games — Arizona at San Francisco and Las Vegas at Denver.
–The byes start this week so there are 14 instead of 16 games. The first four teams to get buys are Detroit, Chargers, Eagles and Titans.
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