Remember when we were pressing the panic button on Drake Maye two weeks ago? Maybe we did that too soon.
The New England Patriots quarterback had one of the best performances of his young career in his team’s dominant win over the Las Vegas Raiders on Sunday. He looked like the version of himself that nearly won MVP last year, and he’s now one of a handful of players to make our weekly All-Star on multiple occasions through the first five weeks of the year.
Maye isn’t the only player this week making the list for the second time this season. There’s a strong Offensive Player of the Year candidate emerging at running back, while one of the most noteworthy free-agent pickups of the offseason has proven his worth in San Francisco.
Here are my Week 5 All-Stars.
Two weeks in a row? Drake Maye was arguably better Sunday than he was in last week’s win over the Buffalo Bills, throwing for 374 yards and four touchdowns with no interceptions, running for 25 yards and another score in the New England Patriots’ blowout win over the Las Vegas Raiders. It’s been two very different Mayes in 2026. In the first three weeks, he had one touchdown and six interceptions. In the last two weeks, Maye has seven touchdowns and one interception.
We certainly considered Jordan Love for leading a domination of the Chicago Bears in a big win for the Green Bay Packers, as well as Joe Burrow for an efficient four touchdowns and no picks in the Cincinnati Bengals’ win, though you lose points doing it against the Miami Dolphins.
Jahmyr Gibbs had over 200 yards of total offense in the Detroit Lions’ rout of the Arizona Cardinals, rushing for 151 and two scores and adding another 56 yards receiving. The Lions’ offense under Drew Petzing has been impressive, averaging nearly 33 points per game and getting at least 26 points in all five games. Gibbs has jumped ahead of Atlanta Falcons star Bijan Robinson for the lead the NFL in yards from scrimmage and put himself on pace for 2,540 over a 17-game season.
Bucky Irving was a huge part of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers finally getting their first win, with a 72-yard run that sparked them on the drive that put them ahead against the Dallas Cowboys. He finished with a career-best 165 yards and two total touchdowns.
Christian Watson had two long touchdowns — 42 and 53 yards — and the latter might have been the best catch of the week, leading Green Bay’s offense in a home rout of the Bears. Watson already has six touchdowns, one behind Seattle Seahawks star Jaxon Smith-Njigba for the NFL lead.
By pure numbers, we could go with Jacksonville Jaguars standout Parker Washington, who had two touchdowns in their close London win over the Philadelphia Eagles. Instead, we’ll go with Mike Evans, who was the biggest star in the weekend’s most anticipated game, finishing with 113 yards and a touchdown in the San Francisco 49ers’ win over the Seahawks.
The New York Giants are 3-1-1, and while it’s hard to cheer much out of a tie, Likely had another huge game, catching two touchdown passes among 11 catches for 94 yards against the Washington Commanders. His 11 catches are one short of the Giants’ record by a tight end, which is shared by Mark Bavaro and Jeremy Shockey.
Pittsburgh Steelers standout Pat Freiermuth also had two touchdowns, but half as many yards. And we’d be remiss not to mention Brock Bowers going for 110 yards and a touchdown in the Raiders’ loss to the Patriots. Bowers will almost assuredly appear on this list again this season, though.
OL: New England Patriots
It’s hard to lose a left tackle early in the second quarter and still get the weekly O-line nod, but congrats to New England for pushing through after losing Will Campbell to a knee injury. We’ll give a shoutout to six linemen then: both Campbell and first-round rookie Caleb Lomu, who stepped in for him, along with left guard Alijah Vera-Tucker, center Jared Wilson, right guard Ben Brown and right tackle Morgan Moses. They protected Drake Maye well, allowing just one sack in 35 dropbacks, zero tackles for loss in 65 offensive plays and a run game that had 165 yards on 31 carries for a neat five yards per carry.
David Bailey and Will Anderson each had three sacks on Sunday. Bailey now has five sacks in his first five games, one off the NFL record, as the No. 2 overall pick helped the New York Jets get their second win of the season, a 17-12 victory over the Cleveland Browns.
Anderson helped the Houston Texans finally get their first win in 2026, making easy work of the Tennessee Titans. Anderson now leads the NFL with 7.5 sacks, on pace to break the NFL single-season record and finish with 25.5. If we went inside, it would be Philadelphia’s Jalen Carter, who had two sacks and two forced fumbles in the loss to Jacksonville.
You guys will be angry we didn’t give it to Fred Warner, who had 10 tackles and a forced fumble in San Francisco’s big win over the Seahawks. But we appreciate the rarity of Quincy Williams forcing three fumbles, as he did for the Browns in their defensive-struggle loss to the Jets. How rare is that? There’s been only one other game with three forced fumbles in the last five years, with Dolphins safety Jevon Holland getting three in a game in 2023.
We continue to be impressed by Commanders rookie Sonny Styles, who had 13 tackles, a tackle for loss, and a pass defensed in their tie with the Giants.
Renardo Green is in his third year with the 49ers, but had the best game of his NFL career Sunday, picking off Sam Darnold twice in the 49ers’ victory. His first interception set up a short field for the 49ers offense to get their first touchdown. He also had a game-best three passes defended, which shows that he was targeted often and stepped up well. By comparison, he had two total passes defensed in the first four games this season, and just one interception in his first 35 career games before Sunday.
The 49ers and Seahawks meet again in Week 12, and keeping Seattle’s offense in check will be key to any San Francisco success.
We’ll go with co-winners here, with these two combining in the final eight seconds to steal a victory for the Jaguars in London against the Eagles. Two guys had five field goals each this week — Seattle’s Jason Myers and Indianapolis’ Spencer Shrader — but both were in losing efforts, so the Jaguars’ duo gets the nod.
Ameer Abdullah fielded the Eagles kickoff and returned it 53 yards, getting brought down so late the game clock initially read 0:00 before a single second was added. From there, Cam Little was clutch in hitting a 57-yard field goal to give the Jaguars a literal last-second victory.
