Through the first five weeks of the season, the Minnesota Vikings have looked like the best team in the NFL.
The undefeated Vikings have been so dominant that they've only trailed for a total of 3:26 over the first five weeks of the season, and if NFL history is any indication, the Vikings could soon be Super Bowl bound.
Since the AFL-NFL merger in 1970, only five other teams have made it through the first five weeks of the season while trailing for 4:30 or less and ALL FIVE of those teams ended up making it to the Super Bowl with three of them winning it.
Here's a look at the list (via ESPN stats and info):
1. 2009 Saints (Trailed for zero seconds in first five weeks): Won Super Bowl
2. 1984 Dolphins (Trailed for 1:07): Lost Super Bowl
3. 2023 49ers (Trailed for 1:45): Lost Super Bowl
4. 1999 Rams (Trailed for 2:30): Won Super Bowl
5. 2024 Vikings (Trailed for 3:26): TBA
6. 1998 Broncos (Trailed for 4:23): Won Super Bowl
The Vikings haven't trailed in a game since Week 1 when the Giants took a brief 3-0 lead in the first quarter. The Vikings scored a touchdown before the quarter was over and they haven't trailed in ANY game since, despite playing some tough competition like the 49ers, Texans, Packers and Jets.
There's obviously a lot of football left to play, but the Vikings have put themselves in the conversation with some impressive company.
So that else happened in Week 5?
Let's check out 14 more of the wildest stats from Week 5 (via CBS Sports research):
- Lamar Jackson makes NFL History. The Ravens QB threw for 348 yards and four touchdowns while also rushing for 55 yards, which is notable, because it makes him the first QB in NFL history with multiple career games with at least 300 passing yards, 50 rushing yards and four TD passes. Jackson must really like playing in Week 5 because he also accomplished the feat in Week 5 of the 2021 season.
- Derrick Henry hits major milestone. With 92 yards against the Bengals, the Ravens running back now has 10,074 for his career. Henry became the 32nd player to hit the 10,000-yard milestone, but first since Marshawn Lynch did it in 2017. Henry also scored his 100th career touchdown against the Bengals.
- Defenses dialed up long distance touchdowns in Week 5. There were two defensive touchdowns of at least 100 yards on Sunday, marking the first time in NFL history that there have been multiple defensive scores of 100 yards or more in the same week. The touchdowns came from Denver's Patrick Surtain (100-yard pick-six) and Seattle's Rayshawn Jenkins (102-yard fumble return).
- Jayden Daniels makes his own history. Jayden Daniels became the first player in NFL history to have at least 1,000 passing yards and 250 rushing yards in his first five career games. Daniels has 1,135 passing yards and 300 rushing yards through five weeks. With the Commanders at 4-1, Daniels is just the third rookie QB since 1970 to start and lead his team to a win in four of the first five games of the season. Daniels joins Buffalo's Joe Ferguson (1973) and Dak Prescott (2016).
- Josh Allen struggles with accuracy. The Bills QB completed just 9 of 30 passes (30%), which means he finished with the lowest completion percentage by any QB with at least 30 attempts since 1992. Allen went 0-for-13 on passes that traveled 15 yards or more in the air, which was the worst showing by any QB since air yards were first tracked in 2006.
- Money McKinney comes up big for Packers. The Packers safety recorded an interception against the Rams and now has an interception in all five games that Green Bay has played. That makes McKinney the first player since the AFL-NFL merger in 1970 with an interception in his first five games with a new team.
- Blocked field goal party. There were two touchdowns scored off of blocked filed goals in Week 5, marking the first time that's happened since 2012 and just the seventh time in NFL history. New York's Bryce Ford-Wheaton returned a blocked field goal 60 yards for a touchdown against Seattle, while San Francisco's Deommodore Lenoir got a 61-yard TD off a blocked field goal against the Cardinals.
- Quarterbacks finally have a big week. Through the first four weeks of the season, there was only been one instance where a QB threw for at least 330 yards with at least three touchdowns passes (Jordan Love in Week 4). In Week 5, that happened a total of FOUR times with Lamar Jackson, Joe Burrow, Kirk Cousins and Joe Flacco all accomplishing the feat.
- Bears get Moore production. With 34-yard TD catch and a 30-yard TD catch in the first half against Carolina, D.J. Moore became the first Bears player with two receiving touchdowns of at least 30 yard in a first half since 1970 (James Scott).
- Underdogs continue to shine. The Giants and Cardinals were both an underdog of at least seven points on Sunday and both teams won. With those wins, teams that are an underdog of a touchdown or more are now 7-2 straight-up on the season, which is the best five-week showing ever for big underdogs. Since 1970, there's only been one other five-week span where seven-point underdogs even had a winning record (They went 7-6 from Weeks 4 thru 8 in 1990).
- Home sweet home for Caleb Williams. The Bears rookie quarterback is now 3-0 at home after Chicago's win over the Panthers. He's now just the fourth rookie QB since 1950 to win his first three home starts while also throwing zero interceptions in those games. He joines Matt Ryan (2008), Russell Wilson (2012) and Tua Tagovailoa (2020).
- Aaron Rodgers hits a major milestone. With 244 yards against the Vikings, Rodgers now has 60,148 for his career, making him just the ninth player in NFL history to cross the 60,000-yard mark.
- Deshaun Watson is having a down year. The Browns QB now has five straight games where he's thrown the ball 25 times or more with less than 200 passing yards in each game, which is tied with Donovan McNabb (2003) for the longest streak to start a season in the past 75 years. The silver lining here for Watson is that McNabb did end up making the NFC title game in 2003 despite his rough start.
- Rookie quarterbacks off to a hot start. The Broncos (3-2), Bears (3-2) and Commander (4-1), have won a combined 10 games with their rookie quarterbacks, which is the second-most by a group of rookies since the AFL-NFL merger in 1970.
The only season that had more rookie wins was 1987, but that was a strike year, so there were a lot of new quarterbacks on the field because the NFL used replacement players for part of the season.
