In week four, Matt Schaub destroyed his team's hopes right at the death – throwing an interception that was returned for a game-tying touchdown by Seattle's Richard Sherman with less than three minutes left to play. The Seahawks, who had trailed 20-0 at the half, went on to beat Schaub's Texans in overtime.  After such a painful defeat, perhaps Schaub simply decided simply to get things over with quickly this time around. That is one of the more generous explanations that you could come up with for the terrible decision he made with his very first pass against the 49ers on Sunday, throwing the ball straight to cornerback Tramaine Brock – who ran it back 18-yards for a score.  It was a record-breaking moment for Schaub, who became the first quarterback in league history to have an interception returned for a touchdown in four consecutive games.  Already before this disastrous run, fans in Houston were asking whether Schaub was good enough to fulfil their Super Bowl ambitions. He had posted solid numbers since joining the team via trade from Atlanta in 2007, with a passer rating over 90 in every year except the first one, but at times he seemed brittle. Did he really possess the moxie, or even the arm, to win a playoff game against an elite signal caller?  Many doubted that he did. By now they might be wondering what it will take for him just to win another game. Schaub has thrown a total of nine interceptions in five weeks – second-most in the league, and there are concerns for his mindset. Earlier this month the player deleted his Twitter account, leading to suggestions that he was struggling to cope with the abuse he was receiving.  Even without social media, he would have been hard pressed to avoid some of the stories doing the rounds in recent days, from fans burning his jersey in parking lots to one Houston restaurant selling a "Matt Schaub burger" – for which punters are invited to "Pick Six" toppings, "And pay dearly for it".  Schaub was benched in the fourth quarter of what became a 34-3 defeat on Sunday, but Gary Kubiak insisted afterwards that he had no plans to change his starter. The head coach told ESPN's Michelle Tafoya at half-time that the quarterback's poor performance was hardly the only thing going wrong for his team. But while that is certainly true, no concern should be more pressing than a player consistently giving up seven points to the opposition every week.  As Jerome Solomon wrote on the Houston Chronicle's blog:  "Don't talk to me about other problems. That's like being concerned about gas mileage when you have a car that doesn't start.".  Rob Gronkowski did not play for New England on Sunday. Reports throughout last week had suggested that the Patriots tight end might finally be ready to return to the field, after missing the first month of the season with back and forearm injuries, but in the event he never even made it onto the plane to Cincinnati.  He will be back soon enough, but in the meantime, Gronk might have surrendered his position as the NFL's best tight end. With each week, Jimmy Graham is presenting a more and more compelling claim to that title.  The Saints player snared 10 catches for 135 yards against Chicago on Sunday, helping his team to bully the Bears' defense en route to a 26-18 road win. Along the way he equalled an NFL record – albeit one that he already jointly held. He and Tony Gonzalez remain the only tight ends ever to have posted 100+ receiving yards in four consecutive games, but Graham has now done it twice.  He had already made history this season, when he was named as the NFC's Offensive Player of the Month for September. No tight end had ever previously won the award.  With 37 receptions for 593 yards and six touchdowns so far, he is on pace for an unprecedented season. Gronkowski's 1,327 receiving yards and 17 touchowns in 2011 both represent NFL records at the tight end position, but if Graham can maintain his present output, then he will finish the year with 500 more yards and a couple more scores.  That will not be straightforward, of course, but neither will it be easy for opponents to slow Graham down. There are not that many defenders capable of covering a 6ft 7ins former college basketball star who runs the 40-yard dash in 4.5 seconds. And any defense that commits additional resources to slowing him down runs the risk of leaving opportunities open for the many other playmakers in this potent Saints offense.  Graham has credited his explosion this year to a summer spent working closely with quarterback Drew Brees. As the tight end has noted, the pair were prevented from having a full offseason together in 2011 by the NFL lockout, and then in 2012 by the quarterback's own contract hold-out.  This year they had all the time they needed to get on the same page. The rest of the NFL, is still catching up.  There was no clear winner in the duel between Russell Wilson and Andrew Luck. Going head-to-head for the first time in their careers, the two second-year quarterbacks posted similar passing statistics, with the former completing 15 of 31 attempts for 210 yards and two touchdowns, while the latter went 16 of 29 for 229 yards and two scores. Wilson did also throw one interception, but it came on a fourth-and-15 desperation heave on his team's final possession.  Each player excelled in different ways. Wilson reminded us that he could be a threat with his legs, adding a further 102 yards rushing on 13 carries. Luck showed composure beyond his years as he led his team on the 14-play, 86-yard fourth-quarter touchdown drive – topped off with a successful completion to Reggie Wayne for the two-point conversion – that put the Colts back on top for the final time in their eventual 34-28 victory.  In the end, we might have learned less about either player individually than we did about the Colts as a whole. Seattle had already established their credentials as contenders in the NFC, accompanying a blow-out win over San Francisco with resilient victories on the road in Carolina and Houston.  Indianapolis, despite an impressive win of their own in San Francisco, seemed to have a little more to prove. They had barely scraped past Oakland in week one and lost at home to Miami seven days later. Fans still wanted to know if this team could hold its nerve in a close game against playoff-caliber opposition.  The Colts did exactly that on Sunday. Within 11 minutes of kickoff they had fallen behind 12-0, but rather than fold they simply dug in, wiping out that deficit and going ahead 14-12 early in the second quarter with the help of a blocked field goal that they returned for a score. The lead would continue to change hands, but Indianapolis found ways to keep making plays in all three phases of the game.  And if Luck held his nerve at the end, then so did his coaches. Chuck Pagano has stated his intention to operate a balanced offense, and with the game finely balanced in the fourth quarter, he continued to put faith in his running backs as well as his signal caller. On third-and-five at the Seattle 45 with 4min 30sec remaining he called for a hand-off to Trent Richardson, who took the ball around left tackle for 10 yards.  The drive ended with a Colts field goal, and crucially also plenty of time chewed off the clock. The game ended with Indianapolis joining Seattle on 4-1, and looking like worthy front-runners in the AFC South.  The decision to reschedule Oakland's game against San Diego into an 8.35pm local time kickoff meant some late nights of Fantasy fretting for folks not living on the west coast. But you will not hear much complaining from anyone who was smart/desperate enough to have slotted Chargers wide receiver Keenan Allen into their line-ups. But who else stood out in week three? And who should you be looking to pick up this week?  1) Tony Romo might be a choker, but it is probably a little harsh to call him one this week after a remarkable performance against Denver. He hung on in a wild shoot-out with Peyton Manning right up until very end, before finally giving up his first interception of the day (which was really no worse than his opponent had thrown a quarter earlier). Still, at least Tony's Fantasy owners still love him and his 506 yards passing, not to mention his five touchdowns in that entertaining 51-48 defeat.  2) Bears wide receiver Alshon Jeffery followed up a big week in Detroit with an even bigger one at home to New Orleans, grabbing 10 receptions for 218 yards and a score. Just like Romo, he still wound up on the losing side of his real-life match-up, but probably won an awful lot of Fantasy ones.  3) Luck's favourite target this weekend was TY Hilton, whose accounted for more than half of his team's passing output with a 140-yard, two-touchdown day.  1) If Jeffery is still available in your league, then he should probably be your top priority. But if not then Jacksonville's Justin Blackmon could be worth a look. It is hard to completely trust any wide receiver in an offense as bad as the Jaguars', but Blackmon returned from a four-game suspension to catch five passes for 136 yards and a touchdown against St Louis.  • Was that Geno Smith's breakthrough performance we witnessed on Monday night? The Jets quarterback was a model of efficiency in guiding his team to victory over the Falcons, completing 16 of 20 passes for 199 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions. As if those numbers are not impressive enough in their own right, he did it at the Georgia Dome, too. And what of the 1-4 Atlanta Falcons? This team was supposed to have been built for an immediate run at the Super Bowl; increasingly it is hard to see how they are even going to make it back to the postseason.  • Anyone else catch Ed Reed announcing "I was born to do this" instead of naming his university, as is customary, during the NBC player introductions? My inability to find a clip of it online is beginning to make me question whether it really happened.  • The only player with more interceptions than Schaub this season is Eli Manning, who had another three during his team's 36-21 home defeat to Philadelphia, bringing his total to 12 on the season. Even head coach Tom Coughlin said that "two of them were almost unbelievable". A two-time Super Bowl winner, Manning is hardly in the same boat as Schaub on this one, but his team are 0-5 right now, and nobody seems to have any real answers as to how they are going to get better.  • Josh Freeman is on his way to Minnesota, where he is understood to have agreed a one-year, $3m deal. What this means in the immediate term remains to be seen. ESPN reported that Christian Ponder would remain the No1 quarterback on the depth chart, but he is out for now with a fractured rib. Backup Matt Cassel guided the team to victory over Pittsburgh in London, but you have to imagine that Freeman would only have made this move if he believed he would have a good chance to start.  • The Detroit Lions are investigating a claim that their center Dominic Raiola verbally abused members of the University of Wisconsin marching band. Per NFL.com: "Raiola allegedly taunted several band members for being overweight, questioned the sexuality of at least one band member, said the band "sucked" and used a highly derogatory term toward a female member of the group."  • And we leave you this week with what might be the worst, or possibly the best, sporting haircut of all-time – a remarkably detailed likeness of Robert Griffin III shaved into the back of a fan's head . (Readers of the Clockwatch have already seen this one, but I didn't want to think that anyone else might have missed out …)
Paolo Bandini: Houston Texans and New York Giants quarterback nightmares; New Orleans Saints tight end Jimmy Graham on record-setting pace