Week 5 left the NFC East in a strange place: nobody got the result they wanted, and every head coach walked away with some level of headache. The Cowboys stumbled on Thursday night, the Eagles crumbled in London, and the Giants and Commanders played a tie that felt like a missed opportunity from Washington’s side and a rescue job from New York’s.
For Dan Quinn, the damage came without an actual loss on the schedule. Washington had control of the game for most of the afternoon, building a 14-point lead before the Giants stormed back to force overtime. Then the Commanders had the game in front of them again in the extra period, only to botch the final play and let the clock run out before they could even try for the winning field goal.
“Leaving tonight with a tie feels like a loss,” Quinn said after the game. “The right call is to clock it early and don't put ourselves in that spot, and that's my responsibility and nobody else's,”
That outcome only adds to the pressure around Quinn. Washington is now 1-3-1 in the division and sitting in last place, so letting that one slip away makes the result sting even more. A win over New York would have mattered a lot in that race, and instead the Commanders are left sorting through a tie that landed like a defeat.
Nick Sirianni’s Sunday was uglier. In London, the Eagles took a one-point lead with eight seconds left, then watched the Jaguars rip off a kickoff return that set up the winning Jacksonville field goal. It was the kind of ending that can turn a routine postgame into a full-blown reckoning.
“One of the craziest endings of the year. https://t.co/Wm9hwOjk1U”
Sirianni put the blame on himself and said the kicking team should have sent the ball out of the endzone.
"I didn't make the right decision, and I lost us that game. And that's what I said to our guys," he said.
"I [didn't] make the decision that I should make at the end of that game, and I cost us that one. And I put that fully on me."
The late-game collapse was the loudest part of the story, but it wasn’t the only issue hanging over Philadelphia. The offense still didn’t do enough, and that has already been a source of frustration. Sirianni probably isn’t headed for a midseason firing, but he does need a turnaround to quiet the noise that keeps building around the Eagles.
Dallas at least got to watch the rest of the division make a mess of Sunday and take some of the attention off its own Thursday-night loss. Brian Schottenheimer’s team fell at home on a short week to the winless Tampa Bay Buccaneers and undrafted rookie quarterback Jalon Daniels, dropping to 2-3.
Schottenheimer entered the year hoping Christian Parker would help repair a defense that was broken in 2025, but the unit still hasn’t looked much better. That has left Dallas in the familiar position of asking its offense to cover for the defense’s mistakes.
Even so, Schottenheimer’s job security doesn’t appear to be in the same danger as some of his division peers. Jerry Jones last fired a head coach midseason in 2010, and every Cowboys head coach since 2000 has lasted at least three seasons.
That doesn’t mean everything is comfortable in Dallas. Schottenheimer still needs to make the playoffs to ease any concerns, but compared with the heat surrounding Quinn and Sirianni, his seat is not as hot. And with nobody in the division winning on Sunday, the Cowboys probably took the best emotional break of the bunch.
John Harbaugh’s situation is the calmest of all four. The Giants are in first place in his first season, and their fan base has plenty to feel good about simply because the team is competing at a high level.
The tie with Washington fit that broader picture. New York rallied from two touchdowns down to get to overtime, then leaned on its defense late to stay alive. The Giants left some points on the field in the extra period, but they still dug out a result on the road against a division rival.
Harbaugh has had a few decisions in these first weeks that he probably wants back, but Sunday still ended in a way that left Giants fans relieved more than disappointed. They didn’t win, but they also didn’t lose, and in this kind of week, that counted for something.
In Other News...
Jets Fans Are Demanding Answers After Another Officiating Flashpoint
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The most talked-about moment in that game came after a lengthy review of a scoring play, a sequence that only added to the sense that the day had drifted beyond the usual margin-for-error debates. A separate pass interference call also drew criticism, and with similar grievances spilling over from Jets-Browns, the officiating conversation quickly became a two-game headache for New York-area fans and for Aaron Glenn, who was reportedly unhappy with how things were handled. [Read more 🡒]
Giants Get A Rival Result Washington Should Have Regretted Even More
Washingtons overtime visit to the Meadowlands produced a result that lingered far longer than a routine division tie. The Commanders and Giants finished 27-27 after a final sequence that never got them to a potential game-winning field goal, turning what should have been a chance to leave with a needed victory into a messy ending that left both sides sorting through what went wrong.
Dan Quinn did not hide his frustration after slamming his headset and taking responsibility for the breakdown, and Jayden Daniels also owned his part in the sequence. For Washington, the tie felt costly in the moment and even more so in the standings, where a 1-3-1 start still leaves the Commanders at the bottom of the division and searching for a cleaner finish next time. [Read more 🡒]
Giants Face Another Prove-It Spot As Doubts Keep Following Them
The Giants keep finding themselves in spots where the record says one thing and the betting line says another. At 3-1-1 and sitting atop the NFC East, they still enter Week 6 as small home underdogs against the Saints, a reflection of how much skepticism lingers around a team that has had to grind through uneven stretches on both sides of the ball.
New Orleans comes in at 1-4 after a recent loss, so this is hardly a matchup that should overwhelm New York on paper. Still, the Giants have not exactly made things easy on themselves with turnovers and defensive lapses, which is why this feels like another one of those prove-it moments where a win would say more than the standings do. [Read more 🡒]