24. Carolina Panthers (2-3)
How about that win? The Carolina Panthers get their second win of the season and are showing a ton of fight, which is actually a welcome change for this franchise. Bryce Young now has seven touchdowns against four interceptions this year, so his TD:INT ratio is at least pointing in the right direction.
It’s tough to see how Carolina is ging to emerge as anything in the 2025 NFL Season, but two wins across the first five games is actually something that many other NFL teams cannot say they have done thus far.
Ultimately, though, I do not get the sense that Young is going to all of a sudden turn into the franchise QB they have been missing since the prime Cam Newton years. The front office that drafted Young has not been with the team for multiple years, so it’s worth noting that.
Unless something radical changes, the Carolina Panthers are probably going to take a QB at some point very high in the 2026 NFL Draft. They get a nice win in Week 5, but the big picture does not change much at all.
23. Arizona Cardinals (2-3)
This was supposed to be a game in which the Arizona Cardinals get back on track after a two-game losing streak. The Tennessee Titans are one of the worst teams in the NFL, so you’d think that the Cardinals would have won this one, right?
Well, they made just about every unlikely error that you can think of, and it’s the type of game that separates the contenders from the pretenders. I was high on the Cardinals this year as a 10-win team and a potential Wild Card playoff club, but this feels like one of the most underwhelming, average teams in the NFL.
This loss was simply inexcusable, and it feels like the franchise just got set back a bit by this one. The Cardinals fall a bit in our updated NFL power rankings as Week 5 closes out.