NFL fans, seemingly sober enough and of their own free will, were chanting, "We want Moore; We want Moore," on Sunday. This was not a call for more from the Miami Dolphins, who once again were among a bevy of teams with little to nothing to display on offense on Sunday, but in fact was a beckon call for none other than Matt Moore.

Let that sink in.

A mere five weeks in to the season we have paying customers of the Miami Dolphins screaming for a journeyman backup quarterback because they can't take any more of their starter (excuse the pun).  Jay Cutler, of course, looks like a guy who was, until August, happily retired from the NFL (full statement and all) and is playing like a guy who may be still retired. Hence the movement for Moore to take over.

But this was hardly a singular problem. On the opposite sideline, of a game being played between a 2016 AFC playoff team and a team with 2017 division title aspirations, stood the dynamic duo of Matt Cassel and the newly-signed Brandon Weeden. Good grief. Yeah, that happened. Also on this day, Brian Hoyer and the 49ers lost again and failed to score for a good portion of the day. Jacoby Brissett displayed the highs and lows that come with a first-year starter, Carson Palmer got swallowed up, whole, behind a barely-there offensive line and with age seemingly getting him in a stranglehold. Blake Bortles is still Blake Bortles.

DeShone Kizer, the worst regular starter in the NFL to this point, got benched five games into his career (Kevin Hogan is the better quarterback there and it's been apparent since he played some in Week 2). EJ Manuel got a start for goodness sakes (and yet Colin Kaepernick can't get a workout). Given the inevitability of future injuries, we may have hit critical mass here folks.

Yes, certainly, injuries have already played a role in this trend. Young, emerging starters like Marcus Mariota, Ryan Tannehill, and Derek Carr are all out, and Andrew Luck has yet to take a snap this season and might be a month away from doing so. Maybe we can find some solace in that, and it appears like Mariota and Carr at least will be back soon. But this was pretty ugly. Throw in the fact that Ben Roethlisberger, Eli Manning and Philip Rivers are all showing their age to varying degrees as well – it looks like an ooolllddd 36 for all of them more often than any of their teams would like – and it comes out looking like an ugly miss-mash on Sunday.

Kizer was overwhelmed by the suddenly-soaring Jets, going 8-for-17 for 87 yards with a pick. The Browns are winless and coach Hue Jackson is desperate to win a game (he is 1-21 since taking over the team), and going with Hogan makes all the sense in the world in that regard, even if it means Kizer, a second-round pick, has to sit for a while.

Cassel was harder to watch than Kizer. He seemed incapable of delivering a spiral, his passes wobbled and sputtered even when they weren't getting knocked down around the line of scrimmage, which seemed to be happening with some regularity. Cassel, somehow, managed to throw 32 times and amass just 141 yards – 4.4 yards per attempt, or the equivalent of an above average rushing team. Let's just say it was a struggle to even amass 10 points in their loss in Miami.

Palmer was able to make the boxscore seem less like a nemesis in the second half after the Cardinals fell woefully behind, but the two sacks allowed belie the pressure he was under. On the season he has six touchdowns to five interceptions with a rating of just 80.5 and the search for the quarterback of the future should probably be underway.

Hoyer and Brissett each ended up throwing for over 300 yards, in an overtime game, but man did it take some getting there. The 49ers late surge will probably hold off questions about rookie CJ Beathard's viability in San Francisco – at least they should – but rookie coach Kyle Shanahan has already had to field some of those this season. Brissett and the Colts rode four field goals for the OT win.  Manuel, well, he was 7-for-12 for 96 yards in the first half while the Ravens ran off to a 24-10 lead. Bortles need only sit on the ball with the Jags pummeling Pittsburgh, but still, going 8-for-14 for 95 yards with an interception is not what anyone would hope for.

If you paid to watch some of this, you may want a refund. The good news, I suppose, is Mike Glennon has already been Osweilered and at least we'll get to see what rookie Mitchell Trubisky can do Monday night.

Roethlisberger in giving mood 

Things could get dicey in Pittsburgh real soon. That offense just cannot sustain anything, we've seen blowups between Big Ben and Antonio Brown and they've had their spirited team meetings trying to sort it all out and still this offense looks uneven at best.

The Jaguars suffocated the Steelers, in Pittsburgh, Sunday. No other way to put it. Roethlisberger's pick-sixes came in bunches and he couldn't get out of his own way and after an immediate bomb to Brown to start the game it was diminishing returns for this outfit again. If this persists, I would not be surprised if there is a shakeup on that side of the ball. Perhaps a new play caller. Something to try to harness all of that talent and turn it into a team. It's not the Rooney Way, to be sure, but it's also a growing trend around the league already, too.

Used to be that old comparison between Bortles and Reothlisberger didn't make any sense, but it's Big Ben who is putting up the Bortles-esque numbers. Through five games, Roethlisberger is 120-for-195 (61.5 %) for 1,269 yards (6.51 per attempt) with six touchdowns and seven picks and a QB rating of 75.8. And that's with one of the few solid offensive lines in the league. I can't fathom that he is that bad all season … but this also might not just fix itself, either.

Where do Giants go from here?

The question for the New York Giants is do they take a quarterback with a top five pick. Especially now, given their lack of weapons after a rash of injuries that wiped out their receiving group and might end Odell Beckham's season.

Because they seem to be heading in that direction and the defense slipping has done them no favors. This has the look and smell of a lost season, but they don't usually pick that high, either, and while there would be allure to trade down for a bonanza of picks, QB decisions are looming 

More from Week 5

  • Hand it to the Panthers and Cam Newton for stacking another victory. They look like a team that knows how to do just enough to win, again.
  • Kudos to Josh McCown and the Jets. As I've noted a few times this season already, he has clearly been among the higher-functioning QBs in the NFL. He's still not getting great protection (15 sacks in five weeks) and it's not super sexy, but completing 71.4 percent of your passes and protecting the football goes a long way. The Jets defense is much better than many expected and while I don't suspect they stay above .500 for all that long, getting to 3-2 with three straight wins is notable, especially amid all of the dire, 0-16 talk.
  • Is next week a must-win for the Titans? I think so. They drop a Monday night game at home to the Colts – who are quietly finding ways to win games without Andrew Luck – and I think it's fair to start asking macro-level questions about them, They had serious hopes of a division title and taking steps on both sides of the ball, and they've been a big disappointment to this point. They lose this game to fall to 2-4, with three division losses, and even in the usually-forgiving AFC South I think they're in trouble. I'm not sure they can run their way out of that hole.
  • Could be a while before the 49ers get that first victory of their new coaching and front office regime. They face Washington, Dallas and Philadelphia the next three weeks – a tour of the toughest teams of the NFC East – with the Skins and Eagles games on the road.