NFL Week 9: Steelers, Saints leave winners, Packers losers on Sunday

The Steelers’ and Saints’ big victories make them big winners from Sunday in NFL Week 9, but who joins them — and who are the big losers of the week?

When you just look at the results from NFL Week 9 in the 2018 season, there isn’t that much that’s surprising. In truth, there weren’t many real upsets throughout the league on Sunday, with the lone exception being the New Orleans Saints handing the Los Angeles Rams their first loss of the season. But even then, the Saints were favored going into that matchup and were playing at home, so calling that a true upset might be a little rich.

While that all may be true, there is more to glean from a given week of NFL action than just which teams won and lost. In the larger scheme of the season, some wins and losses and some performances mean more than others. Subsequently, how things played out on Sunday may not have been surprising in regards to results, but there were plenty of notable things to take away.

Because it didn’t happen on Sunday, we’re not going to talk about Nick Mullens and the San Francisco 49ers here, but he’s worth mentioning a bit. In the wake of the Jimmy Garoppolo injury, it seemed as if Niners fans had nothing left to truly hang their hats on in the 2018 season. Thanks to another quarterback injury (this one to C.J. Beathard) though, that’s changed. Mullens came in and dominated in his NFL debut, and now gives San Fran fans something to get excited about while their franchise signal-caller recovers.

Elsewhere in the NFL, however, things are less exciting. There are plenty of teams that already appear to be not just out of contention, but out of answers for the foreseeable future. What’s more, there are other teams who are lying quiet to a large degree, but still need to be taken notice of given what they’ve done.

With all that in mind, let’s take a look at the biggest winners and losers from NFL Week 9.