A quiet Sunday around the league still produced one team finally doing the ordinary thing, another getting its expensive pieces back, and an owner daydreaming out loud about a schedule he doesn't control.
Baltimore's Week 4 inactive list against Tennessee came back friendly. Zay Flowers is active. Ronnie Stanley is active. Four Ravens were deactivated, and the fact we can't name them yet says plenty about how deep this roster has become. My read: Stanley's availability matters more than Flowers'. Lamar Jackson's offense can manufacture a second receiver. It cannot manufacture a left tackle. The four deactivations are the tax on a team that now has real choices on Sunday instead of emergency ones.
New York's first interception in a very long time got erased by a flag, which is the most Jets sentence available, and then the real one arrived against the Bears. The drought had reached 20 games. Nobody picked off a pass in all of 2025, and a full season is 17 games, so this thing carried three weeks into the new year. That isn't bad luck. Twenty games without a takeaway through the air is a coverage and pass-rush problem wearing a costume. One pick ends the streak, not the problem. I'll bet the Jets still finish outside the top 20 in interceptions.
Matthew Golden's fourth-down score put Green Bay up 7-0 on Tampa Bay, and the shape of the drive is the actual story. Nine plays from the Buccaneers' 10-yard line or closer before the touchdown on fourth down. Nine. Most offenses in that spot either score by play three or send out the kicker. Green Bay kept snapping the ball. That's a staff that trusts its short-area designs, and Golden converting on the money down is how a receiver earns more of them. Expect his red-zone target share to climb.
Jerry Jones floated the idea that the NFL might lean into geographic rivalries. Here's the number that explains why he brought it up: since Houston joined the league in 2002, the Texans and Cowboys have played seven times. That's two franchises in the same state, meeting roughly once every three seasons. The 2002 realignment carved the league into eight divisions of four and parked Houston in the AFC South, and the rotation has kept Texas' two teams apart ever since. I don't think Jones gets his wish. The rarity is the product. Cowboys-Texans sells tickets precisely because it almost never happens, and a schedule formula that guaranteed it every year would drain the thing that makes it interesting.
Jordan Reid's debut top 50 for the 2027 class runs six quarterbacks deep and flags an elite receiver. The companion item asks whether Jeremiah Smith could go first overall. The history here: no receiver has been taken No. 1 since the Jets drafted Keyshawn Johnson in 1996. Three decades of quarterbacks, tackles and edge rushers at the top of the board. If a wideout finally breaks that run in 2027, it says more about how the modern game prices separation than it says about any single prospect. Six quarterbacks in a top 50 published eighteen months before the draft is normal now, not a signal. Early rankings are entertainment with a scouting department's letterhead, and I read them that way.
My verdict for the week: the Jets ending their drought gets the highlight, but Baltimore getting Stanley and Flowers on the field together is the more meaningful development, because the Ravens' ceiling has always been about who is available in January, not October. And I'll go on record now. No receiver goes first overall in 2027, Smith included.
