We are just two days removed from the end of Week Eight, and people have already begun looking ahead to the Thursday Night Football game between the Miami Dolphins and the Baltimore Ravens. But before we kick off the Thursday night festivities, let's take a look back at Week Eight and identify two big winners, two big losers, and two pressing questions for some of the most prominent teams and personalities in the NFL.
Winners
The Denver Broncos
They had one of their toughest tests of the season, taking on the high-flying Dallas Cowboys offense, and the Broncos passed with flying colors. They held Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott to 188 passing yards, zero touchdowns, and two interceptions, an impressive feat considering he had thrown 16 passing TDs and just three interceptions leading up to that game. With that victory on the books, the Broncos have won five straight games after starting the season 1-2. More importantly, they are in first place in the AFC West and still have five more games to come against divisional opponents, which gives them the chance to take a commanding lead in the race for the divisional crown. They have a big game this weekend against the Houston Texans, but if they win that, then they should be able to easily take care of the Las Vegas Raiders the following week. It all leads up to a Week 11 matchup against the Kansas City Chiefs that will probably go a long way in deciding who ends up winning the AFC West.
Brian Gutekunst
On Sunday night, we got to see a once-in-a-lifetime event when Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Aaron Rodgers went head-to-head against the team that drafted him, the Green Bay Packers. Even though the Steelers were winning at halftime, the Packers outscored Pittsburgh 28-9 in the second half of this game for an eventual 35-25 victory. Packers quarterback Jordan Love looked like an MVP candidate because there was a point during the game where he had completed 20 straight passes! He finished the game with 360 passing yards, three TDs, and looked better than Aaron Rodgers. Nobody is happier about Love's performance than Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst. This win justifies Gute's decision to trade away Aaron Rodgers in the off-season leading up to the 2023-24 campaign. The student has become the master, and Jordan Love has made it easy for Packers fans to move on from Aaron Rodgers, which makes Brian Gutekunst look like a genius for drafting Love and letting him take over as Green Bay's quarterback when he did. Whenever a general manager nails their quarterback decisions, they will be lauded as a genius.
Losers
Kirk Cousins
We mentioned this the other day, but it bears repeating that Kirk Cousins might have screwed his NFL future after the performance he had against the Miami Dolphins. Cousins has been sitting on the bench and collecting dust ever since Michael Penix Jr. took over as the quarterback of the future in Atlanta last season. Therefore, it was a miracle that Cousins somehow got a chance to start this weekend and show the world that he still has what it takes to be a good quarterback in the National Football League. That's not what happened, though. Cousins looked old, ineffective, and like the game had passed him by. Before Week Eight, Cousins seemed like a good trade candidate for a quarterback-needy team like the New York Jets, Minnesota Vikings, Las Vegas Raiders, or Cincinnati Bengals. But after the stinker he put up on Sunday, his trade stock has plummeted. It now feels like a guarantee that he will still be on the Falcons' roster after the NFL trade deadline passes on November 4th, 2025, barring some sort of catastrophic quarterback injury to a Super Bowl-contending team.
NFL fans
We can all admit that the Week Eight slate of games was one of the worst we have seen in recent years. There were simply not a lot of competitive or compelling games. In fact, only one contest was decided by one score: the Bengals-Jets game. Every other matchup from Thursday night to Monday night was a blowout. The average margin of victory in Week Eight was almost 18.5 points per game. If we don't include the Bengals-Jets matchup in that equation, the average margin of victory jumps up to almost 20 points per game! There were several non-competitive games this weekend, which sucks because we only have ten more weeks left of NFL action. There's nobody to blame for the lopsided victories. These things happen every once in a while in the National Football League. It stinks that NFL fans didn't really have a lot to get excited about in Week Eight.
Questions
Who will win the AFC North?
We can automatically eliminate the Cleveland Browns from this conversation. They're 2-6 on the season and are already 0-3 in games against AFC North opponents. That means it will likely be a three-team race between the Cincinnati Bengals, the Baltimore Ravens, and the Pittsburgh Steelers. Two weeks ago, it looked like the Steelers were going to run away with this division. But after back-to-back losses, they're now just one game above .500 and have the Bengals breathing down their necks. Speaking of Cincinnati, the Joe Flacco magic ran out last Sunday when they found a way to lose to the New York Jets despite having a 14-point lead in the fourth quarter. That kind of loss doesn't give Bengals fans much reassurance. Then there are the Ravens, who returned to the win column after a bye week and beat a respectable Bears team without Lamar Jackson. We all agree that it's too early to say that the Ravens are back, but if they can take care of business over the next five weeks against teams that they should beat, then this divisional race will become much more interesting in late-November and December. Cincy probably won't win the AFC North, so the race for the divisional crown will end up being between the Steelers and the Ravens.
Are the Chicago Bears a good team?
It's not fair to call them a bad team because bad teams don't put together four-game winning streaks. Plus, bad teams don't win close games in back-to-back weeks, which the Bears did when they defeated the Las Vegas Raiders and the Washington Commanders. This weekend felt like a good chance for Chicago to solidify itself as a good team. They squandered that opportunity, though, and lost to a Baltimore Ravens team that didn't even have its starting quarterback. Good teams need to beat opponents who do not have their starting quarterbacks. Now, what seemed like near-guaranteed victories against the Cincinnati Bengals and the New York Giants feel like toss-up games. After all, if the Bears can lose to a Ravens squad without Lamar Jackson, then they can lose to a Bengals team without Joe Burrow and a Giants group without Cam Skattebo. The Bears will probably win both of those games, but the confidence that was building in Chicago has taken a huge blow.
