NFL Week 5 team grades: Patriots and Packers top CBS’s marks as the NFC East struggles to win

Week 5 brought a clear split in the league, at least by the lens of CBS Sports’ weekly team grades. The Patriots and Packers earned the highest mark, an “A+,” setting them apart from the rest of the field after what the outlet characterized as decisive play.

CBS’s broader theme for the week was contrast, pointing to how quickly the narrative can swing from one weekend to the next in the NFL. For New England and Green Bay, the grade reflected a performance CBS viewed as both impactful and complete enough to separate them from teams struggling to sustain momentum.

Perhaps the most striking storyline in the grading column was the NFC East’s difficulty finding wins. CBS noted that there were four teams in the division and that none of them won in Week 5, even though two NFC East opponents played each other. That kind of result does not just reshuffle standings, it also compresses the “must-win” pressure for every club in the division going forward.

The two failing marks, which CBS reported without the preview text specifying the teams, underline the same point from the other side of the ledger. In a league where one turnover swing, special-teams lapse, or red-zone miss can change the outcome, “failing” grades usually correspond to a combination of execution problems and missed opportunities.

These weekly grades are not official standings and they are not postseason projections, but they can still be a useful shorthand for how observers assessed a team’s overall command. When a team receives an “A+,” the implication is that it controlled key moments and gave itself the best chance to win consistently, while failing grades typically suggest the opposite.

For the Patriots and Packers, the immediate question is how much of this Week 5 performance was tied to matchup factors versus baseline improvements. The NFL rarely rewards teams with a single attribute for long, so the next step for both clubs is to see whether the same identity shows up across different game scripts.

With the calendar turning and the division logjam as a pressure point, the next watch items are straightforward: whether the NFC East finally breaks through next week with a win, and whether New England and Green Bay can turn strong marks into longer stretches of consistency rather than isolated peaks.