Week 5 brought massive upsets, broken records and iconic plays. Below we'll look at some of the top plays from Week 5 as if we are in the film room. Enter All-22, an exclusive NFL Pro feature that allows its subscribers to watch film like the pros do. Sign up for NFL+ Premium to gain access.
What is All-22?
As the name suggests, All-22 is a wide-angle film view that allows you to see all 22 players on the field at one time. This is the film view that coaches, scouts and players use to study or review film. Because it reveals how every player is positioned during a play, it's the most comprehensive perspective for evaluating players, schemes and game strategy. It reaches beyond what is visible on a standard broadcast.
NFL+ Premium: Top All-22 plays of Week 5
There is so much to break down here. Let's start with Jake Browning. As he works through his progression against the Lions' zone defense, the pocket collapses and forces him to scramble out to his right. Enter Ja'Marr Chase, whose efforts cannot be understated. When the ball is snapped, he is lined up on the 20-yard line on the left-side number. When the play ends, he's on the far-right sideline of the end zone catching one of the most improbable passes of the year between three Lions defenders, having covered 54.48 yards on the ground while doing so. Credit is due to Browning for dropping the ball right into his hands and extra credit to Chase for the unbelievable toe-drag swag that put six on the board for Cincy.
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It had been a quiet day for Chase up to this point, with just four catches for 31 yards (7.1 fantasy points). Between this incredible catch and the 64-yarder just four and a half minutes later, Chase scored 21.9 points on his last two targets of the game. This one really demonstrated just how high Chase's highs can be (after a whole lot of lows in recent weeks). The throw had a completion probability of just 12.5% -- with Browning scrambling 23.3 yards and slinging the ball 35.1 yards of air distance to the corner of the end zone, where Chase toe-tapped the catch between three defenders.
Thanks in large part to this fourth quarter, Chase is up to WR9 overall through five weeks, but we're going to need plays like this more frequently before trusting him fully in fantasy. While he had 36.5 points in Browning's first outing and 29.0 in this one, the star wideout scored fewer than nine points in each of the other three. Chase demonstrated his ceiling once again on this touchdown, and perhaps Cincy's move to acquire Joe Flacco will help raise his fantasy floor.
Dak Prescott threw this ball in just under four seconds but could've taken all day with the help he got from his offfensive line. Wideout George Pickens had just a big enough step on Sauce Gardner (and it was close) on a go route to make a spectacular play. Prescott unloaded the perfect deep ball when Pickens was crossing the 20-yard line and like a moth to a flame, Pickens' hands and the ball met in the end zone, leaving Gardner and the Jets in the ashes.
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If Prescott is going to get protection and receptions like this all season, he's going to have a legitimate road to MVP. The Cowboys QB had 3.92 seconds to throw the ball -- at which point Pickens was already 22 yards down the field and behind Gardner -- and there still wasn't a Jets pass rusher within six yards. The absolute dime of a throw then traveled 56.3 yards of air distance and couldn't have been handed to his ball-tracking savant of a receiver more accurately, preventing Gardner from making a play despite being just 0.6 yards away in coverage.
After a rocky start against the Eagles, Prescott has logged 22+ fantasy points in three of his last four games, including 59.24 over the last two weeks with the Pickens chemistry starting to take off. Pickens, in turn, is the WR3 overall since Week 2, behind just Puka Nacua and Amon-Ra St. Brown. With this newfound chemistry, and the imminent return of CeeDee Lamb from an ankle injury, Prescott and the Cowboys offense is set up for greatness over the course of the 2025 season.
Saquon Barkley looks like a seasoned wheel-route running veteran here. He exposes a significant weakness in a strong Broncos defense when he out-maneuvers the inside linebacker without breaking a sweat. When the strong safety cames barreling across the field to save the day, Barkley punched the accelerator, increasing his speed from 17.16 mph to 19.80 mph, leaving a pair of horses in the dust.
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If the passing game with A.J. Brown isn't working, and the running game with Barkley isn't working, why not try the passing game with Barkley? When Hurts released this pass, Brown, DeVonta Smith, Jahan Dotson and Dallas Goedert had a Broncos defender within 1.1 yards. And while Barkley technically did as well, it's only because he was blowing right by Alex Singleton -- traveling more than five miles per hour faster than the Denver LB -- to separate down the sideline. Hurts' throw was timed and placed so perfectly that Barkley actually picked up speed at the catch point (to 17.16 mph), giving him the momentum to glide into the end zone 47 yards down the field.
This 11.7-point fantasy play largely saved Barkley's otherwise lackluster day -- he scored only 6.1 points elsewhere, with just 30 rushing yards on the day -- so his fantasy managers are incredibly grateful it happened. But he won't break off receiving scores from midfield every week, so we need to be honest with our evaluations: Barkley hasn't hit 100 scrimmage yards in a single game this season and is averaging just 3.2 yards per carry. If you can trade him off the hype of this play, give it some serious thought.
This is where instinct meets athleticism. In fewer than three seconds, Jacory Croskey-Merritt had Derwin James draped on his shoulders and two more Chargers closing in just past the line of scrimmage several yards left of the hashes. Six seconds later, Croskey-Merritt was 27 yards down the field on the opposite sideline. How? He executed something between a duck, a dodge and a dive (instinct) then covered 57.31 yards of total distance, reaching 18.7 miles per hour at one point (athleticism). Pause the tape at around nine seconds, and you'll get a hysterical image of five Chargers defenders sprinting to try and cut off Croskey-Merritt's escape angle. It worked eventually, but not before the rookie running back picked up a huge chunk play.
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Croskey-Merritt racked up 22 rush yards over expected on this run after being contacted 1.6 yards behind the line of scrimmage. It was a microcosm of how good he's been analytically all season, leading all qualified rushers with 2.2 rush yards over expected per carry and a 60.5% success rate. He's averaging more yards per carry after contact (4.7) than Jahmyr Gibbs and De'Von Achane are averaging in total.
Between this carry and 13 others on the day, Croskey-Merritt totaled 111 yards and two touchdowns on the ground in Week 5, plus two catches for 39 yards through the air. He also handled 49.1% of the offensive snaps, a big step up from the roughly three-way split with Chris Rodriguez Jr. and Jeremy McNichols from weeks prior. The offseason fantasy hype around Croskey-Merritt might finally be coming home to roost, as he'll have RB2 upside running like he did on this play with that lead-back volume.
