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Just like everyone predicted, the worst team in football is from New York. Everyone was wrong though, because the Giants, winners of 11 games last year, and not the Jets are the NFL's dregs in 2017.

The Giants were already bad and probably done in terms of playoff hopes (1.5 percent heading into the week) but with the likely loss of Odell Beckham for the season with a fractured ankle, there is a viable case for the Giants to prepare for an offseason of blowing everything up and rebooting the franchise. 

This is not a rash move. The Giants are in an odd position from both a coaching and personnel front. And they are no longer built for the long haul. 

Beckham, for all the negative attention he draws from the tabloids for things that are largely blown out of proportion, is the best player on the team. And it's not remotely close. This offense scored three points against the Cowboys in Week 1 without him but started to come to life a little bit over the last three weeks. Too little, too late. Beckham will likely need surgery on his left ankle, which he injured in the preseason, after it folded up underneath his leg on Sunday. He was carted off in an emotional state, immediately ruled out and taken straight to the X-ray room. 

With Beckham gone, Dwayne Harris done for the season and Brandon Marshall and Sterling Shepard dealing with injuries, the Giants are now down to a single wide receiver, Roger Lewis. Maybe Marshall is back this week, but it's irrelevant. There just aren't a lot of areas in which this roster remains exceptionally talented. 

Quarterback Eli Manning is at a crossroads. He hasn't been protected this year and he'll be 37 when the playoffs start. New York needs to come up with a long-term plan at the position and will likely get an opportunity to do it during the 2018 NFL Draft. The offensive line is chock full of former high picks, but it hasn't been able to protect Eli this year. Credit Ereck Flowers for having a nice game against the Chargers, but he shouldn't be this team's starting left tackle. The running back position is a mess too, with the Giants turning to Orleans Darkwa and fourth-round pick Wayne Gallman because Paul Perkins is hurt and hasn't worked out anyway. 

Defensively there are some pieces to build on, including Olivier Vernon (just 27), Landon Collins, Eli Apple and Janoris Jenkins. Jason Pierre-Paul is still just 28 and Damon Harrison is an underrated run stuffer. If this team wins any games in 2017, it's because the defense will step up and slow down some bad offenses. 

Five weeks into the season is early to call for jobs, but it would not be unreasonable to see the Giants consider a reboot in the front office either. Jerry Reese made a splash in free agency, but spending big and missing on draft picks, all while ignoring the protection of the franchise quarterback, is coming home to roost. Ben McAdoo was a nice playcaller, but the Giants look sloppy often, and good luck getting the offense going without OBJ. Maybe that's an excuse. 

Or maybe a lack of offense and a boatload of losses for a franchise that hasn't won less than six games since 2003 will be the impetus for hitting the reset button. There could be a real opportunity to land a combo like Josh McDaniels and Nick Caserio, as Jason La Canfora suggested on the Pick Six Podcast Sunday (subscribe via iTunes here).

The Giants are going to end up winning something in the range of 3-4 games, barring something very odd happening. They have a tough schedule and an offense without enough punch to really do anything against even mediocre defenses. 

New York doesn't need to burn it all to the ground and start over. Eli isn't entirely washed at this point. But he is old enough for the Giants to at least consider the future. What needs to happen over the course of the next several months is leadership needs to determine if McAdoo and Reese should be in charge for the long haul. That shouldn't be about rallying over the next several months, but about finding the best plan that incorporates the final stretch run for Eli, preparing for life after Eli and putting pieces in place to make sure that Eli and/or the next guy can succeed.

If that means a clean sweep, so be it.

Alex Smith for MVP?

Sure, why not? The Chiefs are the best team in football right now, and second place is not that close. Maybe the Packers or the Cowboys, but no one is nearly as complete or -- and I can't believe I'm writing this -- explosive as the Chiefs.

We saw it in Week 1, but it wasn't an anomaly; Smith is just a different quarterback than he was last year. Maybe it was all the jerks who picked the Chiefs to struggle, or maybe it was the Chiefs drafting Patrick Mahomes. Whatever the case, Smith is pushing the ball down the field and showing a willingness to let balls rip into tight windows like never before. 

Cris Collinsworth pointed out on NBC Sunday night that there's a clear difference -- an edge, if you will -- to Smith's off-the-field attitude right now too. 

And after throwing for 324 yards during the Week 5 primetime win over the Texans in Houston, Smith now has the third most passing yards in the NFL. He has thrown 11 touchdowns (t-2 with Tom Brady and Dak Prescott) and zero interceptions. He is completing 76.6 (!) percent of his passes, by far and away the most in the NFL -- of passers with more than 50 attempts, only Josh McCown is also above 70 percent. 

Smith isn't some Charlie Checkdown this season, either. He's pushing the ball down the field, averaging 8.8 yards per attempt (the highest rate in the league) and he's using all of his weapons. Travis Kelce, who is beasting out this season, goes down with a concussion? No problem. Smith starts feeding Charcandrick West, because why not. 

The Chiefs are unbeaten, they are the best team in football and they are clicking right now. Smith has taken a lot of grief over the course of his career, but he's playing great football right now. If he continues this over the course of the season, he has to be considered a viable MVP candidate. Through the first five weeks he's one of the best choices. 

Panthers offense clicking again

Despite sitting at 2-1, the Panthers were getting hit with the panic siren after failing to put up any points against the Saints and generally looked lethargic. Carolina exploded against the Patriots on the road and followed it up with an outstanding effort against the 3-1 Detroit Lions in a second straight road game. 

Once again, Cam Newton looked good. In fact, you could argue he looked the sharpest he's looked since 2015. The best throw of the day was a dime piece to Kelvin Benjamin for a score. 

Buddy, that is 40 yards on a rope, and it is in a spot where only Benjamin can catch the ball. Add in Devin Funchess beginning to emerge in a breakout season and we might be looking at a surprising return to prominence for Cam's wide receivers this year. 

Christian McCaffrey has not emerged as a week-in and week-out threat, but it could be coming. The biggest concern when Carolina took the Stanford running back in the first round was offensive coordinator Mike Shula not properly utilizing the explosive running back and being too vanilla with his rookie playmaker. We saw good signs in the preseason that the Panthers knew how to put him in a position to succeed, but McCaffrey's been a little slow to really explode.

He hadn't found the end zone through four weeks, but the Panthers got creative to help him score on Sunday against the Lions. The play in question was what's known from Urban Meyer's playbook as a "crazy option" -- it's a creative play that involves the quarterback having the option to run, pitch to a running back in traditional option fashion or to toss a shovel pass inside. 

McCaffrey was the guy open for the shovel, and the Panthers executed (almost) flawlessly. 

When you see the play happen from the angle of Lions defenders in the end zone, it becomes clear just how difficult the play was to defend.

This is a play that's become popular around the NFL in recent years, with Andy Reid and the aforementioned Chiefs utilizing forms of this. But, as Chris Brown (a.k.a. Smart Football) pointed out, it's been around for a while -- Bear Bryant ran the daggum thing. 

The larger point of plays like this isn't so much that Shula is being creative, although that is absolutely good news. To me, the bigger stories appear to be that 1. Cam is healthy and his surgically repaired shoulder is fine, and 2. the Panthers are going to continue to lean on Newton running the ball. 

They can just minimize the attempts, but eliminating them takes away one of the biggest threats that Newton offers. It would be wild to do that. Let Cam be Cam. The weapons will develop as the offense improves. 

Really impressed that the Panthers pulled off this win coming off a week where the Panthers dealt with a ton of controversy off the field in the form of dumb comments from Cam. This might be the second best team in football right now, by the way. 

What's wrong with the Steelers?

The loss to the Bears this year was a little justified because it was expected. The Steelers like to go on the road and lay an egg against bad teams at least once a year. But they just got sandblasted by the Jaguars at home, and that is just about the biggest red flag you can possibly have when you're supposed to be a contender. 

Pittsburgh did many things wrong, but the biggest problem was letting Ben Roethlisberger throw the ball 55 times. The Jaguars have a stingy pass defense and a questionable run defense. They loaded the box and Le'Veon Bell only attempted 15 rushes. But forcing Ben to throw that much when he was clearly off -- Roethlisberger threw five picks, a career high, and two of them were returned for touchdowns -- was just inexplicable. 

It put the Steelers in a terrible spot, and it left Roethlisberger questioning his long-term future after the game. 

Read what the Jaguars said afterwards and you get the sense the defense was playing chess while Todd Haley and the offense played checkers.

The Jaguars did exactly what the Steelers should have done, limiting the number of throws from Blake Bortles (14!) and letting Leonard Fournette do all the dirty work. The LSU rookie got loose, rushing for 181 yards and a 90-yard score, flipping the script on the Steelers and picking up a massive win to move to 3-2 and the top of the division. 

That's now multiple weeks where the Steelers have had some kind of personnel issue, whether it's Antonio Brown complaining during a win or Ben complaining after a loss. The offense has looked disjointed and the Steelers are not taking advantage of an opportunity to run away with the division or to try and steal the top seed in the AFC. It does not feel like this situation is going to magically resolve itself over the week leading up to a Sunday afternoon matchup against the Chiefs in Kansas City. 

Texans' rough Sunday

The good news for Houston is that they have found a quarterback in Deshaun Watson. The rookie quarterback once again looked outstanding, throwing five touchdown passes and keeping the Texans in the game against the Chiefs until the end. Watson's a stud. 

But the bad news might outweigh the success of Watson, because it is very possible the Texans have just lost two of their best defensive players for the year.

J.J. Watt suffered a tibial plateau fracture and could very well end up needing season-ending surgery. At the bare minimum, he'll miss multiple weeks, but a longer absence looks likely. There is no need for me to explain to you how important Watt is to this Texans team. He's isn't just the best defensive player -- he's the best player on the roster. It's a huge blow. 

The Texans also confirmed they lost Whitney Mercilus for the season as well with a torn pectoral, according to John McClain of the Houston Chronicle. 

Bill O'Brien did a nice job pivoting to Watson and getting the most out of the Texans. They've looked good offensively the last three weeks, the best they've looked maybe since O'Brien got there. That's how good Watson has been. But it won't matter if the defense collapses. And it looks like the defense could collapse without two of its best pass rushers.