NFL Week 8 All-Stars: Who Had A Better Sunday, Joe Burrow Or Trevor Lawrence?

Most weeks, picking the quarterback for our weekly All-Star Team is a relatively straightforward exercise. We typically pick the quarterback with the eye-popping stats, because more often than not, they had the best week of any passer in the league. Week 8 brought an interesting conundrum, though. Cincinnati Bengals star Joe Burrow threw five touchdowns, rushed for another and threw for over 450 yards, joining Norm Van Brocklin as the only other player to do that in NFL history. However, he also threw three interceptions as the Bengals needed overtime to take down the Tennessee Titans. Trevor Lawrence, meanwhile, wasn’t asked to do as much for the Jacksonville Jaguars on Sunday, but he thrived in their win over the Indianapolis Colts. He threw for 210 yards on just 14 passes, as Jacksonville cruised its way to a win. So, which quarterback performance was better? Here are our Week 8 All-Stars. It would be easy to go with the Bengals’ Joe Burrow here, throwing for 462 yards and five touchdowns in their overtime win. But he also threw three interceptions, which contributed to why he had to throw it 48 times in an overtime win over the now 1-7 Tennessee Titans. Instead, we’ll go with the extremely efficient Trevor Lawrence, who needed only 14 passes to throw for 210 yards and three touchdowns in the Jaguars’ rout of the Indianapolis Colts. That’s the fewest pass attempts for a 200-yard game since Ben Roethlisberger in 2005, and the fewest for a three-TD game since Philip Rivers in 2007. Bucky Irving led the way in the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ ridiculous 56-carry, 324-yard run game that was good enough that they won easily despite not completing a pass against the Atlanta Falcons. He’s reset his career high twice in recent weeks, getting 170 yards and a touchdown on Sunday. More surprising was Tyler Allgeier, who went off for 147 yards and a touchdown with another 44 yards receiving and a score there as well in the Arizona Cardinals’ overtime win over the Cowboys. This was a deep week for strong rushing performances, with five other guys rushing for over 100 yards and at least a touchdown. Not nearly as good a week for receivers, though. Tee Higgins gets the nod over teammate Ja’Marr Chase because he had two touchdowns and 155 yards on 10 catches on just 11 targets, five fewer than Chase. Michael Wilson caught the game-tying touchdown with six seconds left, setting up Arizona’s overtime win, and he finished with eight catches for 111 yards. The yards are a season-high, and it was just his second touchdown of the season, getting the nod over the Los Angeles Rams Puka Nacua and the AD Mitchell of the New York Jets. The Las Vegas Raiders rallied for 24 points in the second half to beat the Jets, and Brock Bowers was a central part of that, catching seven passes for 92 yards and two touchdowns from Kirk Cousins. He’s been a near miss on here several times, but is very deserving this week, even with the Cleveland Browns’ second-year standout Harold Fannin getting 154 yards in a loss. Dalton Kincaid (Buffalo Bills) and Mike Gesicki (Bengals) deserve mentions as well, going for 75-plus yards and a TD. The Buccaneers repeat here, following last week’s 258-yard outburst with a franchise-record 324 rushing yards in a rainy rout of the Falcons. The line got right tackle Luke Goedeke back from injury and got to run the ball 56 times, the most for any NFL team in any game since 2010. Congrats to (l-r) Tristan Wirfs, Ben Bredeson, Graham Barton, Cody Mauch and Goedeke, who now have the NFL’s No. 1 rushing offense at 169 yards per game, with three games of at least 240 yards in four weeks after one such game in the previous nine years. Defensive success for the Bengals is relative, holding the Titans to 36 points. But Dexter Lawrence did a little of everything, logging a sack in the final minute to force overtime, a share of a safety in a tie game, a fumble recovery and seven tackles. We looked hard at the Colts’ Jacob Martin, who got three sacks in a losing effort, but we’ll go with T.J. Watt, who had two of the Steelers’ eight sacks in a dominating win over the Browns. Kudos too to the Vikings’ Andrew Van Ginkel, who had 2.5 sacks in Minnesota’s first loss of the season. We gave a long look to the Bucs’ Alex Anzalone, who had two first-quarter interceptions in Tampa Bay’s shutout win over the Falcons, but we’ll go with Hopper, who had eight tackles, three passes defensed, a sack and an interception to lead the Green Bay Packers in their Thursday win over the Carolina Panthers. Hopper stepped in with Edgerrin Cooper lost for the season, and they’ll need more big plays in the middle of that defense if Green Bay is going to keep up in a tough NFC North battle. How rare is a three-interception game these days? Amani Hooker’s three-pick showing in an overtime loss to the Bengals was just the second in the NFL in the last seven years. Losing in a game with three picks is rarer. The last seven players to do so were all in victories, so the last player with three picks in a loss was the Buccaneers’ Aqib Talib in 2009. Tennessee had six interceptions as a team in all of 2025, so three in a game is a major accomplishment, even in a losing effort. Finally, a kickoff return touchdown in 2026, with Dylan Laube going 95 yards for a score in the Raiders’ win over the Jets. The third-year back from New Hampshire has just five carries and four catches this season, so special teams is why he’s on the roster. Thanks to the 95-yarder, he also now leads the NFL in average kickoff return at 34.1 on his 17 attempts this season.