Week 6 of the 2024 NFL season was a treatise on the play of the next generation of young quarterbacks. Five different first-year signal callers got starts. Only one earned a win.

We'll lead off with Caleb Williams being a revelation. We'll save Jayden Williams' continued artistry for this week's quarterback rankings as he remains a viable piece of the MVP race. We'll talk about the optimism involved for Drake Maye (real!) and Bo Nix (less real!) in a part of losing efforts Sunday (and we might get to Spencer Rattler next week).

Let's talk about what we learned, from bettors maybe kinda-sorta beginning to take the Chicago Bears seriously to the Lions' thievery of their own dang playbook to T.J. Watt generally being a nuisance capable of swinging games in the Pittsburgh Steelers' favor.

Please bear with me for any Twitter embed issues. Our editing software has become a whole problem on that front this weekend. Rest assured, if there's a play alluded to in the text it's worth clicking through to see if it didn't make it into the article itself.

1. The betting market cannot believe the Chicago Bears are good

The Bears finished 2023 with one of the league's hottest defenses. They added a quarterback drafted first overall in a stacked class for passers. Caleb Williams and new addition D'Andre Swift both began to come online around Week 4, where they beat an overwhelmed Matthew Stafford in a 24-18 home victory.

Despite all these points in Chicago's favor, it still ended up barely favored in games against two of the league's worst teams. In Week 5, that meant a 3.5-point spread before a 36-10 dismantling of the Carolina Panthers. In Week 6, the line flipped back and forth between the Bears and a Jacksonville Jaguars team that had recorded its first win a week earlier.

And so, Chicago went out and proved oddsmakers wrong. Again.

Williams shined once again against a bad defense and the Bears improved to 4-2 despite injuries that sapped them of key players throughout the secondary. There's going to be plenty of praise for the young passer this week after a four-touchdown performance -- which was nearly five if not for an overturned fourth quarter toss to D.J. Moore ruled short of the goal line. We'll get there, but let's start with the guys who are making this all possible.

The offensive line that allowed its rookie QB to be sacked 13 times in a 1-2 start has given up only seven sacks the last three weeks -- not coincidentally, three wins. Swift averaged 1.8 yards per carry en route to 68 rushing yards to start his Chicago career. In the three games since he's run for 257 yards on 54 handoffs for 4.8 yards per rush.

Some of that success has been the result of a clock-grinding strategy late in wins against tired defenses, but Swift is thriving in space. The dancing and jukes that can be headaches behind the line of scrimmage are a lot more tolerable when he's five-plus yards downfield and accelerating into chaos.

Hell yeah.

Of course, that merely set the stage. Williams got up there and danced all over it.

As the throw above suggests, Williams' near-80 percent completion rate wasn't the product of wide open windows (though these certainly existed). He thrived behind a playbook loaded with short passes. While he didn't do much in the deep range, he completed eight of eight passes on throws that traveled between nine and 19 yards downfield -- with FOUR touchdowns.

Williams made the correct read and put the ball where it needed to be on a regular basis. He proved he could not only play within offensive coordinator Shane Waldron's structure but fill it to the brim with big throws. He also proved he's willing to exhaust every option on his play sheet before escaping the pocket... where he's also devastating.

This is remarkable, even if it may not be sustainable. Williams has seven touchdown passes over his last three wins, but they came against the NFL's three worst defenses in terms of DVOA and expected points allowed per dropback. Weeks 4 through 6 weren't a challenge for Chicago, they were a launching pad.

But hooooooo buddy, Williams took off. He gets a bye and then the league's 26th-ranked pass defense to bump his hype train up to unsafe speeds before November hits.

2. Drake Maye cannot save the 2024 New England Patriots, but his 2025 could be awesome

Let's check in on how Drake Maye's first NFL start bega--

Oh no. Oh no, no no.

The Patriots threw the third overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft into the fire in Week 6. New England yielded the league's worst pressure rate in its 1-4 start, with Jacoby Brissett feeling heat on nearly half his dropbacks. What better place to debut a rookie than a showdown with the Houston Texans, who have the league's highest pressure rate?

This went roughly as expected. Maye was swarmed and swamped. He was pressured on two-thirds of his pass attempts in the first half but still managed to average a healthy 7.4 yards per pass -- up from Jacoby Brissett's 5.2 over the first five weeks of the year. That was the result of some solid run-after-catch skills early in the game before head coach Jerod Mayo, staring down a multiple score deficit, changed up his game plan.

Maye completed eight first half passes; six were screens or other short passes within six yards of the line of scrimmage to his right.

After throwing four passes that traveled 10-plus yards downfield in the first half, Maye attempted seven more in the second half. He finished with five completions on throws at least 10 yards downfield -- a number not quite half Brissett's total across five starts to begin 2024 (11) in considerably fewer dropbacks.

There's more good news. Maye was able to use his legs and escape pressure for useful gains. The rookie was New England's leading rusher on a day without Rhamondre Stevenson, adding 38 yards on five scrambles. There's bad news as well. He didn't always look great when New England gave him space to climb the pocket and look downfield.

But these are mistakes with which the Patriots can live. Maye showcased the downfield passing ability that made him a distinct upgrade over any quarterback post-Tom Brady in New England. His first NFL touchdown pass is the kind of thing that will drive Boston-area talk radio for weeks on its own.

My goodness, what a throw. By the third quarter, he'd already set new season highs for New England's passing yardage and touchdowns. It was decidedly un-Patriots in its execution.

Maye's most important facet Sunday was that of a player not yet spooked by NFL pass rushes -- an immensely valuable trait for a team that's had five different players take snaps at left tackle in six weeks. Early game jitters didn't persist. Maye was not afraid to take damage if it meant dealing some out himself. That's how he turned Houston's five-man rush on third-and-long into his third passing touchdown of the day.

The rookie still has a lot to learn. That curve will only get steeper as opposing defensive coordinators compile tape on him. But his first NFL start backed up what we saw at North Carolina and during the 2024 preseason. He can sling a gorgeous deep ball and progress through his reads despite chaos unfolding around him.

That's massive progress for the Patriots. They're feeling it, too.

3. Ben Johnson is plagiarizing himself (and the Dallas Cowboys had no answer for it)

Ben Johnson may not have much longer as offensive coordinator of the Detroit Lions. In his third year of absolutely thriving, he'll have his pick of head coaching roles in 2025.

That was more or less the case last offseason and he opted to come back. It was a curious decision, impressive in its loyalty but risky. If the Lions' offense fell off, it would seriously dent his chances at a massive payday. Could Johnson's motion-heavy, play-action exploiting offense continue to thrive in an NFL that's had plenty of opportunities to figure it out?

Turns out, against the Cowboys, it sure as hell can.

If that looks familiar to you, well...

As ESPN's Ben Solak pointed out, that end-around flea flicker worked just as well last season in Detroit's 42-24 Week 5 win over the Carolina Panthers last season. Why couldn't Dallas stop it? Well, valid complaints about the Cowboys' coaching and preparation aside, it turns out Johnson has a million ways to get the guys you know are gonna get the ball extremely open despite his opponents' best efforts.

This was not the only rerun that was new to Dallas. Jameson Williams' 37-yard touchdown grab to push the lead to 34-6? As Yahoo Sports Nate Tice points out, Johnson called it in an extremely similar situation last fall.

In the third quarter, with the ball at the Dallas two-yard line and nursing a 34-9 lead, Johnson dialed up a play-action pass to offensive lineman Taylor Decker -- one that looked extremely similar to the called-off two-point conversion that would have won last season's meeting between these teams but instead was ruled an illegal touch pass. Decker couldn't haul it in (turns out the Cowboys remembered that one), but the message was plain. "Even if you know it's coming you're gonna have one hell of a time trying to stop it."

There are limits to this. Johnson's offense had gone eight straight red zone drives without a touchdown before Tim Patrick -- Tim Patrick! -- got the ball down to the goal line late in the second quarter and David Montgomery barreled toward six points from there. Detroit thrives in open space and puts in work to create that open space in a compressed field.

Which means designed laterals to your All-Pro right tackle.

It's not all reruns for Detroit. Even some plays that look familiar are just different enough to be unstoppable. And if those plays can't be stopped, that's a pretty good argument to run them again. The Lions spammed some of their greatest hits in Week 6 and left Dallas with a 47-9 win.

4. The Green Bay Packers were content to screen the Cardinals into complacency

Packers head coach Matt LaFleur is one of the NFL's top offensive engineers. Sometimes he creates openings through a combination of motion and mesh to rewrite his playbooks with a specific Green Bay twist. Sometimes he simply follows a time-honored tradition of doing the same thing enough times to lull opponents into a sense of complacency, then torching them with something else.

Week 6's 34-13 victory against the Arizona Cardinals fell more closely to the second bucket. LaFleur loaded Jordan Love's playbook with screen passes -- six of his first 11 passes failed to crack the line of scrimmage. At one point, Green Bay used the threat of a screen... to set up a different screen.

There was a method to this madness. A very simple one. LaFleur's offense thrives in space downfield. So when Arizona opted to use a single high safety in hopes of getting defenders to the ball more quickly, it became an advantage. Especially if that high safety doesn't stay that way, instead inching up to cover intermediate routes in the middle of the field.

That was one of Love's four touchdowns on the day -- a mark blemished by a single interception that was the result of Bo Melton slipping mid-route on a rainy afternoon in Green Bay. The fifth-year quarterback had been hamstrung by the combination of a slow start and an early season leg injury that left him barely a top 30 quarterback after Week 5. Then he used LaFleur's deep menu of short throws to set up his long ones and completed five of seven passes that traveled at least 10 yards downfield for 125 yards, two touchdowns and a 153.3 passer rating.

Yes, that includes some of the most Jordan Love [expletive] you could imagine:

Hey, at least Romeo Doubs can rest easy knowing he's a guy Love trusts enough to chuck a deep ball, back foot floater his way and hope for the best. After averaging 1.5 expected points added per game to start the season, Love was responsible for 19.6 EPA on Sunday alone. He threw 22 completions to nine different receivers. That was enough to push the Packers up to 4-2 and right in the thick of an NFC North race that's currently the most competitive in the NFL.

5. The Cleveland Browns are so cooked

Cleveland didn't convert its first third down in Week 6 until there was a minute left in the third quarter. It marked 26 straight third down failures with Deshaun Watson behind center for Cleveland Through the game's first 44 minutes, the Browns' longest offensive gain in Sunday's loss to the Philadelphia Eagles came on a 15-yard roughing the passer penalty.

Watson, the quarterback acquired despite more than 20 accusations of sexual misconduct and what the NFL called "predatory behavior," cannot create big plays with his legs. He cannot be trusted to throw the ball downfield.

He also cannot be released without massive financial ramifications until 2026, when he'd still cost the Browns nearly $100 million in dead salary cap commitments. That means at least one more season of historically bad quarterbacking and little hope of a high-value replacement on the horizon.

Cleveland is 1-5. Its quarterback, recipient of the largest fully guaranteed contract extension in NFL history, has yet to throw for more than 200 yards in a game this season. His offense scored zero touchdowns against the league's 21st-ranked scoring defense. The Browns have an estimated -$4.5 million in salary cap space available for 2025.

Cooked.

6. The Indianapolis Colts cannot be trusted

First thing first: the Colts went to Nashville and beat the Tennessee Titans on the road in Week 6. They erased a seven-point fourth quarter deficit to do so. They did so while missing several key players.

Anthony Richardson, the former top four pick pegged as the franchise's savior at quarterback, missed his second straight game. Jonathan Taylor, 2021's leading rusher, did the same. Wideout Michael Pittman was limited by a back injury that threatened to keep him off the field altogether earlier in the week.

But neither Taylor, Pittman nor Richardson play defense. Which leads us to this.

Third-and-19 and the Titans are content to protect the ball and settle for a field goal. The Colts, seemingly, are not. Tony Pollard slides through a lazy defense and into the end zone after shaking off a pair of structurally unsafe tackle attempts.

This is the conundrum of the Colts, a team general manager Chris Ballard opted to largely keep together following last year's nine-win campaign. Indianapolis has spent the first six weeks of the season looking better on paper than it does on the field.

The team's most effective quarterback is a 39-year-old Joe Flacco. Its defense found a way to trail a team led by human disaster Will Levis in the fourth quarter. It's capable of doing things like holding Levis to two completions on 12 passes that flew more than 10 yards downfield despite an embattled secondary (some drops helped). It's also capable of giving up the Pollard touchdown above.

That defense came through big late, forcing an interception and a pair of punts after taking a 20-17 fourth quarter lead. Indianapolis just had to salt down the clock with a long drive to ice the game. Instead, the Colts went three-and-out twice and gained 27 total yards on three drives, ultimately succeeding thanks to Levis's failures and Titans coach Bill Callahan's unwillingness to go for it on fourth down deep in his own territory with fewer than three minutes to play.

The Colts are now 3-3 and completely untrustable, especially with Richardson -- the league's 32nd-best starting quarterback -- nearing his return. They are the only win on the Jacksonville Jaguars' ledger. They are half the defeats on the Chicago Bears' resume. They exist solely to destroy picks and parlays across the universe.

7. Bo Nix's stasis may be maddening

For one week, Bo Nix looked like the franchise quarterback the Denver Broncos were promised. In dusting the Las Vegas Raiders 34-18, the rookie quarterback completed a career best 70 percent of his throws and tripled his season touchdown output (from one to three, but still).

This was a vital turnaround. One week earlier the New York Jets had limited him to 60 passing yards on 25 attempts. Denver still managed to win a rainy game in New Jersey, but nothing about it was especially uplifting. By hammering a division rival, Nix looked like he may be the kind of high-floor quarterback the Broncos had hoped.

Another division rival loomed in Week 6's home game against the Los Angeles Chargers. Nix didn't quite regress to Jets form, but it was close for a while.

Those are Nix's halftime numbers. In that span, he'd thrown a single completion that traveled more than five yards beyond the line of scrimmage. It was to Cameron Sutton. It came six yards downfield. Denver trailed 20-0 at this point.

Nix eventually found something approaching the rhythm in a game that was effectively decided. He tossed a proper 29-yard deep ball Troy Franklin's way before hitting his fellow rookie in the back of the end zone for a two-yard score to get the Broncos on the board in the fourth quarter. He made it multiple passing touchdowns by tossing the ball into Courtland Sutton's vicinity and allowing the NFL's least appreciated WR1 do the rest.

Nix was good enough to turn a 23-0 deficit into a seven-point loss, which is a moral victory if decidedly not a real one. His 216-yard performance was Blake Bortles-ian in stature, a monument constructed in a game that had mostly been decided. Nix has thrown 27 deep balls this season and completed only nine of them. He has three interceptions and zero touchdowns on these attempts.

There's some benefit to knowing Nix can operate outside of the short-range scripted offense Sean Payton generally draws up for him early in games. But the rookie's biggest gains are happening in ways it's difficult to care about. He can find room downfield and make a dynamic throw for a big gain. He's just as likely, if not more so, to average two yards per attempt over a full half and fail to find the end zone.

That is the duality of early career Bo Nix. He's got plenty of time to fix things, but Denver's gonna be tough to watch until he does.

8. Financially, Dak Prescott picked a great time to turn into a desiccated husk of himself

For years, no NFL player was given more guaranteed money than Deshaun Watson, who inked a deal with a promised $230 million in 2022 in order to be the quarterback the Browns truly deserved. Two years later, Dak Prescott signed a contract extension with $231 million in total guarantees. Then, he started playing like garbage.

Prescott followed up a 2023 in which he finished second in MVP voting with what's been one of the least efficient seasons of his career to date. He was already on pace some of the lowest completion rates, passer ratings and touchdown rates he's ever seen in the NFL. Then the Lions came to town and stole his lunch money, intercepting him twice and sacking him four times en route to a woeful -15.2 expected points added (EPA) and a spot on the bench in the fourth quarter as Cooper Rush mopped up an embarrassing home loss.

Prescott, playing with a limited receiving corps and almost non-existent run game, struggled to find openings that could lead to meaningful gains. He completed only 17 of 33 pass attempts. Just six of those completions came more than five yards downfield.

Prescott is 3-3 as a starter in 2024. He's beaten the Pittsburgh Steelers, Cleveland Browns and New York Giants -- a lineup where maybe one team will eventually make the postseason. He's been responsible for a negative expected points added (EPA) figure three times this season. That's left him with a *total* of 3.4 expected points added this year -- a number less than half what Joe Flacco put together in the Indianapolis Colts' Week 6 win.

The 2023 version of Prescott was worth a market-resetting contract. This version is roughly the league's 20th best quarterback. As long as he stays that way, the Cowboys aren't going anywhere.

9. T.J. Watt sure is playing like he's mad about not winning 2023's defensive player of the year

On a day where the Pittsburgh Steelers' offense converted just four third down opportunities and had a single drive that covered more than 43 yards, Pittsburgh still rolled to a 19-point road victory against the Las Vegas Raiders. Why? Because T.J. Watt knows exactly how good he'll look in a gold blazer five years after he retires.

Watt came into Week 6 with 4.5 sacks and 10 quarterback hits -- both top 10 numbers but not quite award worthy. Then he showed how much more he brings to the table than just stops behind the line of scrimmage. With the Raiders up 7-6 and looking to add more points before halftime, Watt shed a block and punched the ball out of rookie tailback Dylan Laube's hands to set up a short field and eventual Pittsburgh touchdown.

He liked it so much, he did it again. This time, it was at the goal line as the Raiders attempted to knock Pittsburgh's lead back down to a single possession in a 22-7 game.

Watt finished without a sack or quarterback hit, but added two tackles for loss and two forced fumbles. He created the space Justin Fields needed to thrive and helped push the Steelers to 4-2 after a brief early autumn skid. Pittsburgh is once again headed to a winning record until Mike Tomlin. Once again, T.J. Watt is the most important player on his roster.

10. The Cincinnati Bengals got a win, but not in a way that's gonna make anyone feel better

The Bengals got their second win of the season to keep from getting left behind in the AFC North. They held an opponent to seven points after giving up at least 24 in each of their last four games. They slammed the door shut on 10 of 15 third down conversions.

These are all good things. And they only led to a 10-point win against the New York Giants.

Cincinnati had the opportunity to make a statement after falling to 1-4 by teeing off on a middling Giants defense missing one of its best players in Kayvon Thibodeaux. Instead, an offensive line that had pushed Joe Burrow to the lowest pressure rate of his NFL career gave up four sacks and seven quarterback hits on only 32 dropbacks.

Burrow was left with little space to operate in the pocket, which forced him off his primary reads and onto the run. He managed only five passes that traveled more than 10 yards downfield. He took the kind of hits that could shorten his season in a hurry.

On one hand, this allowed Burrow to show off his running chops by way of a 47-yard touchdown run that opened Sunday night's scoring.

On the other, it limited Cincinnati to just 183 net passing yards and zero passing touchdowns.

That's not a problem if the Bengals defense can smother opponents like it did New York. But other teams won't be quarterbacked by Daniel Jones, who threw a red zone interception. They'll have full-time kickers instead of a hastily-signed Greg Joseph, who missed a 47-yard field goal and didn't get a chance for redemption when the Giants went for it on fourth-and-two in a 10-7 game rather than try a 54-yard field goal. This newfound competence was nice, but may not be permanent.

As such, Cincinnati got a much-needed win. But it was an expected one and nothing outwardly impressive. The Bengals have rallied back from slow starts before in the Burrow era. But little of what we saw Sunday night in New Jersey suggests a similar turnaround is about to take place.

11. Fantasy team you absolutely didn't want to field in Week 6

• QB: Dak Prescott, Cowboys (178 passing yards, two interceptions, one rushing yard, four sacks, 6.62 fantasy points)

• RB: Tank Bigsby, Jaguars (seven carries, 24 rushing yards, 2.4 fantasy points)

• RB: Javonte Williams, Denver Broncos (six carries, 23 yards, three catches, 13 yards, one fumble lost, 4.6 fantasy points)

• WR: Jerry Jeudy, Browns (one catch, 35 yards, 4.5 fantasy points)

• WR: Calvin Ridley, Titans (one rush, nine yards, eight targets, zero catches, 0.9 fantasy points)

• WR: Brandon Aiyuk, 49ers (two catches, 37 yards, 5.7 fantasy points)

• TE: Jake Ferguson, Cowboys (three catches, 11 yards, 4.1 fantasy points)

• D/ST: Dallas Cowboys (three sacks, 47 points allowed, -5.0 fantasy points)

Total: 23.82 points

This article originally appeared on For The Win: The Bears are printing money, Lions plagiarized the… Lions and 11 things we learned in Week 6