Remember when we were hitting the panic button on Drake Maye two weeks ago? Maybe we did it 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 almost won the MVP last year, and now he’s one of several 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 coming back, while one of the standout free agents of the offseason has proven his worth in San Francisco.
Here are my week 5 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, rushing 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. Through the first three weeks, he had one touchdown and six interceptions. In the last two weeks, Maye has seven tackles and one interception.
Of course we considered Jordan Love for leading a dominant Chicago Bears to a big win for the Green Bay Packers, as well as Joe Burrow for an efficient four tackles 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’ win over the Arizona Cardinals, rushing for 151 and two scores and adding another 56 receiving yards. The Lions’ offense under Drew Petzing has been impressive, averaging nearly 33 points per game and scoring at least 26 points in all five games. Gibbs has passed Atlanta Falcons star Bijan Robinson for the NFL lead in rushing yards and put himself on pace for 2,540 over a 17-game season.
Bucky Irving was a big part of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers finally getting their first win, with a 72-yard run that sparked the game 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 may have been the best catch of the week, leading Green Bay’s offense to a loss at home to the Bears. Watson already has six touchdowns, one behind Seattle Seahawks star Jaxon Smith-Njigba for the NFL lead.
On pure numbers, we might go with the Jacksonville Jaguars’ 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 most anticipated game of the weekend, 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 get too much hype from a tie, he’s likely to have another big game, catching two touchdown passes among 11 catches for 94 yards against the Washington Commanders. His 11 catches are one shy 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’ 110 yards and a touchdown in the Raiders’ loss to the Patriots. However, Bowers will almost certainly appear on this list again this season.
OL: New England Patriots
It’s tough to lose a left tackle early in the second quarter and still get the weekly O-line shakeup, but kudos to New England for moving on after losing Will Campbell to a knee injury. Then we’ll call on six linemen: both Campbell and rookie first-rounder Caleb Lomu, who slotted 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 on 35 returns, zero tackles for loss on 65 offensive plays and a running game that had 165 yards on 31 carries for 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 shy of the NFL record, as the No. 2 overall 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 light 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 were to go in, it would be Philadelphia’s Jalen Carter, who had two sacks and two forced fumbles in the loss to Jacksonville.
You guys are going to be mad 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 this? There has only been one other game with three forced fumbles in the last five years, with Dolphins safety Jevon Holland getting three in one 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 on Sunday, picking off Sam Darnold twice in the 49ers’ win. His first interception set up a short field for the 49ers to get their first touchdown. He also had a game-best three passes defensed, which shows he was targeted often and got 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 success in San Francisco.
We’ll go with the co-winners here, with those two combining in the final eight seconds to steal a win for the Jaguars in London against the Eagles. Two guys made five field goals apiece this week — Seattle’s Jason Myers and Indianapolis’ Spencer Shrader — but both missed attempts, so the Jaguars duo gets the nod.
Ameer Abdullah took the Eagles’ kickoff and returned it 53 yards, sitting down so late that the game clock initially read 0:00 before a single second was added. From there, Cam Little was tight end on a 57-yard field goal to give the Jaguars a literally last-second victory.
