12 Oct Roughing the passer, a heated debate: What to expect in week 6 of NFL action

There isn’t much of a surprise that one big storyline throughout all of Week 5 was the penalty of roughing the passer. It impacted not one, but TWO outcomes throughout the week. The consistency for the officiating and for this rule in particular rightfully deserves the criticism. However, there are more storylines to follow in the week besides how the league plans on handling this problem.

The first would be the New York Giants. Just their entire team. Who would have thought that we weren’t just going to see the Giants improved, but that they are 4-1 right now? They just beat the Green Bay Packers in London by shutting down Aaron Rodgers and company in the entire second half. That’s not something that other teams just do every week. The Giants are genuinely loving playing for their new head coach Brian Daboll and the decision to hire him is looking like the best one of the offseason.

Next, there is the question regarding the Jacksonville Jaguars. This is a personal opinion, but I’ve been saying it for years. The Jaguars are better when they choose to feed James Robinson. It’s simple science at this point. They’ve lost three games this season, all of them saw Robinson touch the ball less than 11 times. In the two games that they’ve won this year, Robinson handled it over 17 times each. While it’s unfortunate that sometimes they fall into a negative game script, they have to just try and ride his success early on and let him get into a rhythm. His usage is something to monitor when they head down to play the Indianapolis Colts.

Then, we have one of the most exciting matchups of the week. The Buffalo Bills are taking on the Kansas City Chiefs in a Divisional Round rematch. Josh Allen and the Bills just TORCHED the Pittsburgh Steelers in unbelievable fashion. They dominated straight away with a 98-yard Gabe Davis touchdown and never looked back. Meanwhile, the Chiefs just had a massive comeback win over the Las Vegas Raiders with Patrick Mahomes hooking up with Travis Kelce for four touchdown passes. Two of the most efficient and disruptive offenses in the league square off after Buffalo lost the Divisional round game back in January. There’s no doubt that we could see some bad blood and a lot of scoring.

This is a bit of a sleeper game, but the Carolina Panthers and the Los Angeles Rams might tell a lot more than some other matchups. The Panthers finally fired Matt Rhule but lost Baker Mayfield for a few weeks. Sam Darnold isn’t ready to return so it’s looking like another PJ Walker start at quarterback. If he has success, you could point to either Baker or Rhule for that. If he doesn’t well, then Carolina continues to need work. On the flip side, the Rams look nothing like the team that just won the Super Bowl. Their offensive line is horrendous, and their game plan quite literally just consists of feeding Cooper Kupp the football. They have to get going offensively at some point. Even though Kupp is great, they need more weapons to get going besides just him. That recipe isn’t working this season. If the Rams lose, they have a whole lot of questions that are going to need answering. The same goes for if the Panthers can win. Definitely a game that has big implications on the final result.