play0:23Saquon Barkley takes it 65 yards for a TDSaquon Barkley finds a hole and breaks free for a 65-yard touchdown to give the Eagles a 7-0 lead.
play0:21RJ Harvey takes off for a 40-yard TDRJ Harvey dashes in for a 40-yard Broncos rushing touchdown vs. the Cowboys.
play0:20C.J. Stroud finds Xavier Hutchinson for 30-yard TDXavier Hutchinson hauls in a pass from C.J. Stroud and takes it to the end zone for a touchdown.
play0:28Live on CBS: Keaton Mitchell breaks off a 25-yard runKeaton Mitchell gets the Ravens’ offense moving with a 25-yard rush.
play0:27Tua Tagovailoa links up with De’Von Achane for a TDTua Tagovailoa and De’Von Achane connect on a 3-yard touchdown for the Dolphins.
play0:22Tucker Kraft rumbles into the end zone for Packers TDTucker Kraft gathers a pass from Jordan Love and finds pay dirt to put the Packers on the board.
Does the road to the Super Bowl go through the Packers? (1:19)Alex Smith, Adam Schefter and Rex Ryan discuss the Packers’ young roster and their chances of reaching the Super Bowl. (1:19)
Saquon Barkley takes it 65 yards for a TDSaquon Barkley finds a hole and breaks free for a 65-yard touchdown to give the Eagles a 7-0 lead.
RJ Harvey takes off for a 40-yard TDRJ Harvey dashes in for a 40-yard Broncos rushing touchdown vs. the Cowboys.
C.J. Stroud finds Xavier Hutchinson for 30-yard TDXavier Hutchinson hauls in a pass from C.J. Stroud and takes it to the end zone for a touchdown.
Live on CBS: Keaton Mitchell breaks off a 25-yard runKeaton Mitchell gets the Ravens’ offense moving with a 25-yard rush.
Tua Tagovailoa links up with De’Von Achane for a TDTua Tagovailoa and De’Von Achane connect on a 3-yard touchdown for the Dolphins.
Tucker Kraft rumbles into the end zone for Packers TDTucker Kraft gathers a pass from Jordan Love and finds pay dirt to put the Packers on the board.
Sunday of Week 8 of the 2025 NFL season won’t go down as a legendary day of football. After a 27-point blowout of the Vikings by the Chargers on Thursday night, all but one of Sunday’s games were decided by double digits, with the Jets-Bengals shootout as the lone exception. Including that Vikings-Chargers game, 11 of the 12 games we’ve seen so far in Week 8 have been decided by 10 or more points. That 92% clip is the highest for any week going back through 1990.
You get the idea: It wasn’t a very fun weekend of games to discuss. At the same time, there were nuggets and moments to enjoy, even if the games weren’t very competitive. Let’s find and celebrate the fun pieces from each of Sunday’s games. A great performance? A cool play? A return to form? There’s at least one takeaway to savor from all 11 matchups.
Jump to: TEN-IND | NYG-PHI | NYJ-CIN DAL-DEN | CLE-NE | SF-HOU TB-NO | BUF-CAR | CHI-BAL MIA-ATL | GB-PIT
Ho-hum. Yes, the performance was against a Titans team without star defensive tackle Jeffery Simmons, who might be the only reason people outside of the Nashville area even turn on Tennessee tape most weeks. But when you have four three-touchdown games by the midway point of the season and the rest of the NFL has eight combined, you’re doing something right.
After he torched the Titans for 174 scrimmage yards and three scores on just 14 touches, Taylor can make the case that he’s in the middle of a historic stretch of football. He has scored 10 touchdowns over his past four games. That’s the first time a player has scored 10 or more times over a four-game span since 2015, and Taylor is just the 15th player in NFL history to make it to 10 scores in four weeks of action.
In addition to having five more TDs than anybody else in the NFL (14), Taylor has recorded 3.9% of all the league’s rushing yardage by running backs this season (850). Since 2002, that’s the sixth-highest rate recorded by any back through eight weeks. And a league-best 31% of his touches are turning into first downs or touchdowns.
More than the numbers, what truly signifies a special season for me is seeing how a player can make other NFL players look foolish. Great backs having spectacular seasons, like Saquon Barkley and Derrick Henry a year ago, have a way of making the angles and calculations in other players’ heads go haywire. Defenders are in a panic before they even get to the open field and melt down once they do get there.
As it turned out, all it took was a game against his former employer, which has the league’s worst EPA per play against designed runs this season, to get Barkley going. He racked up his first two explosive rushes of the season. The one that will stick with Eagles fans as hope that the real Barkley is coming back is the 65-yarder on the opening possession of the game.
Saquon Barkley finds a hole and breaks free for a 65-yard touchdown to give the Eagles a 7-0 lead.
The Eagles are running duo here, where they’re hoping to get double-teams at the line of scrimmage, climb to the second level and isolate Barkley one-on-one against a defender. The line does an immaculate job of blocking this up against an overmatched Giants front; Barkley has to decide whether he wants to hit this into the open gap directly in front of his face or sneak out the back side to take on safety Tyler Nubin.
Barkley then added a 28-yard run on a counter play later in the day, though that was his final carry of the game, as he felt a groin issue start to show up at the end of the run. The three-time Pro Bowler said after the win that he would have been able to come back in and play if the score had been closer. The Eagles were likely wise to sit their star back, especially with Tank Bigsby also joining the 100-yard club on nine carries as Barkley’s primary backup.
This Sunday, Hurts passed for four more scores but the running game carried the bulk of the load. This was the second-best performance by EPA per snap on offense the Eagles have had since Sirianni took over, trailing only the win over the Commanders in the NFC Championship Game last season. Suddenly, as the Eagles reach their bye week, they appear to be hitting their stride on offense.
For the Jets, though, this has to feel like some sort of proof of concept. They were able to run the ball consistently and effectively, and they even hit a few big plays in the passing game without their star receiver. Their coach made what must have felt like an aggressive decision on the sideline, and it worked. The defense allowed 38 points without Sauce Gardner on the field, but it came up with a three-and-out and got the Bengals off the field on downs on the final two drives.
After a week when it felt like the Jets were essentially giving up on 2025, they suddenly started heading in the right direction. And maybe that encourages the Jets to hold onto Hall after all.
RJ Harvey dashes in for a 40-yard Broncos rushing touchdown vs. the Cowboys.
Aubrey maxed out with a 57-yard kick in pregame warmups, but he typically doesn’t try to hit anything from 60 or more unless it’s a game situation. Maybe the former soccer player told Schottenheimer that he couldn’t hit from 70 or more. But I sure would have liked to see Aubrey try.
This was a great example of just how much Garrett or another great pass rusher can do to make life easier for a secondary. While he wasn’t winning instantaneously and completely blowing up plays, the Browns star basically limited Maye to one read or one glance upfield. When Maye held the football or didn’t make an immediate decision, his time was up, and Garrett was in position to take him down.
Xavier Hutchinson hauls in a pass from C.J. Stroud and takes it to the end zone for a touchdown.
On the opening drive of the third quarter, the Bucs again took the ball to the 1-yard line. This time, they learned their lesson — but it didn’t seem to help. Baker Mayfield threw incomplete on first and third down, and in between, Tucker was stuffed again for no gain. Facing a fourth-and-goal (yes, still from the 1-yard line), Tampa Bay coach Todd Bowles kept the faith with his offense and was finally rewarded, as Tucker fought through a tackle to score a short-yardage touchdown for the Bucs.
The takeaways probably made McDermott particularly delighted. The Bills forced three turnovers against the Panthers, with two strip-sacks of Dalton and an interception on a quick screen by AJ Epenesa, who came within a yard of scoring on the return.
I’m not convinced that the Bills have things completely figured out on this side of the ball, but this was a promising return to form.
Instead, I want to look at the offensive side of the ball, where I was heartened to see a young player look like he was finally showing signs of his pre-injury form. Mitchell was a lightning bolt for the Ravens in 2023, turning nine carries into 138 yards and a touchdown in his first game with a rush attempt. The Ravens used Mitchell in a part-time role, with the former East Carolina back averaging more than 8 yards per carry across 47 rush attempts.
Live on CBS: Keaton Mitchell breaks off a 25-yard run
Keaton Mitchell gets the Ravens’ offense moving with a 25-yard rush.
On Sunday, though, Mitchell got four carries and turned them into 43 yards. He took a pitch in the third quarter and made it around the edge for a 25-yard gain, maxing out at 20.3 mph in the process (per NFL Next Gen Stats). In the fourth quarter, the Ravens ran a bash read concept and had quarterback Tyler Huntley hand the ball to Mitchell, who outran Daniel Hardy to the sideline and picked up 13 yards. Again, Mitchell topped out over 20 mph, which isn’t easy to do on such a short run.
Somehow, it was just that. Facing the same Falcons defense that slowed down Josh Allen and the Bills earlier this season, Tagovailoa delivered a vintage performance. After a three-and-out on the opening drive, the Dolphins had only one more of those the rest of the way, a major improvement for a team that had the fifth-highest three-and-out rate (28.2%) of any offense before Week 8.
Tua Tagovailoa links up with De’Von Achane for a TD
Tua Tagovailoa and De’Von Achane connect on a 3-yard touchdown for the Dolphins.