NFL Research spotlights the best nuggets from each slate of games. Here are the most eye-popping statistical accomplishments from Week 8 of the 2025 NFL season.
1) Taylor, Jones leading Colts to best record in NFL
The next time the Colts take the field it will be in November. They have the best record in the NFL at 7-1. Jonathan Taylor and Daniel Jones are in the MVP conversation, and the team is setting records nearly every week. The Colts are for real.
Here is one of those aforementioned records: Indianapolis is the first team in the Super Bowl era to allow fewer than 10 sacks and turn the ball over fewer than 5 times in their first eight games of the season. No team has ever taken that good of care of the football (and their quarterback).
In Indy's Week 8 win over the Titans, Jones had his first game with more than two touchdown passes since 2019. It was the seventh time in 2025 that he has had a passer rating of at least 100 -- and that is rare. Exceedingly rare. Here is how rare: There have only previously been three seasons in which a player had a 100-plus passer rating in at least seven of their first eight games in a season (on 25-plus pass attempts): Aaron Rodgers in 2020 and 2011 (both MVP seasons) and Tom Brady in 2007 (MVP season).
Jones' 2025 season is right up there with Rodgers and Brady's MVP campaigns. Less than three months ago he was still in a quarterback competition with Anthony Richardson!
Meanwhile, Taylor is leading the NFL in rushing. The 26-year-old running back scored three times in Week 8 (two rush TDs and one receiving TD). It was already his fourth game with at least three touchdown scores this season, the most by any player in a season since LaDainian Tomlinson in 2006 when he set the NFL touchdown record with 31 (and won MVP).
Taylor, who was playing in his 75th career game, also raised his career rush touchdown total to 63 -- tying Hall of Famer Earl Campbell and trailing Tomlinson (71), Hall of Famer Emmitt Smith (69) and Adrian Peterson (66) for the fourth-most rush touchdowns in the Super Bowl era by any player in their first 75 career games.
2) Hall fuels Jets for New York's first win '25 season
Another week, another improbable comeback win by an NFL team.
Entering 2025, teams had lost 135 consecutive games when trailing by 15-plus points entering the fourth quarter (including playoffs). With the Jets coming back against the Bengals, there have now been four such wins just in 2025 (the Bills versus the Ravens in Week 1, the Titans at the Cardinals in Week 5, the Broncos versus the Giants in Week 7 and the Jets at the Bengals in Week 8).
The Jets trailed 31-16 entering the fourth quarter -- winless in 2025 and coming off a week full of controversary surrounding quarterback Justin Fields' job status.
While Fields had a solid game (with a respectable 99.0 passer rating, for those interested in their quarterback's rating) it was running back Breece Hall who had the historic performance.
Hall finished with 133 rushing yards and two rushing touchdowns, but it was his touchdown pass that gave the Jets their first lead of the game.
Trailing 38-32 with just under two minutes remaining, the Jets had narrowed a once 15-point fourth quarter deficit and with the ball on the Bengals 4-yard line, Hall rolled out to his right on a trick play and threw a tight window touchdown to rookie tight end Mason Taylor.
Hall is the first running back with a go-ahead touchdown pass in the final two minutes of regulation since Hall of Famer Curtis Martin did so in 2000 against the Buccaneers, also on a Jets team with a first-time head coach (Al Groh). Those Jets improved to 4-0 with the win, while the 2025 Jets earned their first win of the season and the first of Aaron Glenn's career as the head coach.
Hall also became the first running back with at least 125 yards rushing, multiple rush touchdowns and a touchdown pass in a single game since Hall of Famer LaDainian Tomlinson in Week 3, 2005 against the Giants.
3) Allen starting a new trend for QBs
We got an average "Josh Allen Game" in Week 8 as the Bills dismantled the Panthers, 40-9. What is a Josh Allen Game you may ask? That would be when a player throws at least one touchdown pass and runs for another in a single game. We can refer to it that way moving forward because Allen now has 46 games with one-plus pass touchdown and one-plus rush touchdown, which broke a tie with Cam Newton for the most such games in NFL history.
Allen had two rush touchdowns in Week 8, improving his career total to 70. Newton (75) is the only other quarterback in NFL history with 70-plus career rush touchdowns.
Allen, a Firebaugh, CA, native, also joined what will now be referred to as the 70 and Sunny Club. As in, players with at least 70 career rush touchdowns who were born in the state of California. Allen joined Hall of Famer Marcus Allen (123) and Marshawn Lynch (85) in that rarefied air.
4) Bills RB cooking the competition
James Cook and the Bills came stampeding out of the bye week, as their Pro Bowl running back set a new career high with 216 rush yards against the Panthers.
James' older brother Dalvin, a Pro Bowl running back with the Vikings (who last played for the Cowboys in 2024) had two career games with at least 200 rush yards.
James and Dalvin Cook are the only pair of brothers in NFL history each with a 200-yard rushing game in their career. Thomas Jones and Julius Jones got very close (Thomas had a 209-yard game in 2009 and Julius had a 198-yard game in 2004).
5) Flacco aging like fine wine
Albeit in a loss this week, Joe Flacco continued to breathe new life into the Bengals offense as Cincinnati scored a season-high 38 points in its Week 8 loss to the Jets.
Flacco threw for a pair of touchdowns in this game -- but it was his one-yard touchdown on the ground that made history. At 40 years old, Flacco became the oldest player in Bengals history to score a touchdown -- surpassing Terrell Owens who was 36 years old in 2010 when he netted 9 touchdowns in his final NFL season.
Flacco also had a 13-yard run to convert a third-down-and-12. Flacco became the first player age 40-plus with back-to-back games of multiple pass touchdowns and a 10-yard run since Doug Flutie was scampering around for the Chargers back in 2003.
6) Garrett has historic performance in loss to New England
Myles Garrett had one of the best possible defensive performances for a player on the losing side of a 32-13 defeat as the Browns failed to upset the Patriots on the road in Week 8.
The 2023 Defensive Player of the Year set a career-high and a Browns franchise record with 5.0 sacks, mostly at the expense of Patriots rookie left tackle Will Campbell (three of Garrett's five sacks were against Campbell, according to Next Gen Stats).
Garrett, 29, raised his career sack total to 112.5, setting a new record for the most sacks by any player prior to their 30th birthday. Garrett, who doesn't hit the big 30 until December 29, broke Reggie White's record (The Minister of Defense had 108.0 NFL sacks prior to his 30th birthday).
The bad news for Garrett: This was the 20th time since 1982 (when sacks were first tracked) that a player had at least 5.0 sacks in a game. It is the only one of those games to have been in a double-digit loss (the Browns lost by 19). The last player with 5.0 sacks in a loss was the late-great Hall of Famer Derrick Thomas in 1990 (lost to Seattle 17-16 in a 7.0-sack performance).
