Superstars may lead the discussion when it comes to success in the NFL, but more often than not, it’s the guys you barely know who will make the plays needed when they’re needed. Such players can be underrated for all kinds of reasons. Perhaps they’re playing in a smaller market, and the media isn’t appropriately trumpeting their exploits. Maybe they’re hidden in a depth chart behind bigger names who may not be doing as much. Or, it’s always possible that a wayward coach hasn’t quite figured out that one guy needs elevation to bring better results to the team.

Whatever the reason, we at SB Nation always like to bring the underrated names to you with the offseason Hidden Gems and in-season Secret Superstars series. You can also catch up on the AFC and NFC Secret Superstars for the 2026 season right here.

Here are our NFC Secret Superstars for Week 6 of the 2026 regular season. And if you haven’t yet, download the new SB Nation app, so you can better read our stuff and join the conversation wherever you are!

(All advanced metrics courtesy of Next Gen Stats, Pro Football Focus, Sports Info Solutions, and Sumer Sports unless otherwise indicated).

When the Minnesota Vikings traded former 10th-overall pick J.J. McCarthy to the Giants on September 28 for a 2027 fifth-round draft pick, there could be no more obvious way of stating that McCarthy’s NFL career had hit rock bottom. The Michigan star whom the Vikings traded up to take in the 2024 draft now couldn’t be out of the building quickly enough, and the Giants had their own quarterback issues with Jaxson Dart’s season-ending knee injury.

The Giants already had Jameis Winston, and if you’re going to ride that ride, you know the risks involved. Jameis will show you the good and bad sides of the Quarterback Rogue Gene, and when Jameis threw an interception with 12:28 left in Sunday’s game against the New Orleans Saints, head coach John Harbaugh apparently had enough for the moment. McCarthy was in.

Of course, McCarthy’s day didn’t start very well. With 10:27 left in the game, McCarthy threw his own pick.

So, nobody could be blamed for thinking that McCarthy was just going to disappoint again.

Except that from there, he did anything but disappoint. Overall, McCarthy completed 11 of 23 passes for 243 yards, one touchdown, that interception, and four explosive plays that very few people could have expected.

The Giants had blown a 10-0 second-quarter lead to the Saints, who then scored 34 unanswered points, but with 12 seconds left in the game, McCarthy was actually in position to tie things up at 34-34 had his pass to tight end Isaiah Likely been completed.

McCarthy’s outing was far from perfect — start with the fact that on that final play, he missed a wide-open Malik Nabers in the end zone — but offensive coordinator Matt Nagy set McCarthy up to do the two things he does well — air the ball out downfield, and run around when things get complicated. McCarthy was also the Giants’ leading rusher on the day with 26 yards on two carries.

So, it wasn’t one of those overnight turnarounds, but the fact that McCarthy was able to come in cold and do what he did was singularly impressive. Per Next Gen Stats, he wound up tied for the sixth-most fourth quarter passing yards in this century, and his 14.9 air yards per attempt and 17.2 air yards per completion were the most by a quarterback with at least 20 dropbacks in a game this season. McCarthy led the NFL last year with 9.3 air yards per attempt and a 42.4% downfield throw rate, so little surprise there.

”It’s not even up for discussion or conversation right now,” Harbaugh said after the game, when asked whether Winston or McCarthy would take the helm from here on out. “We’ve got to go back and go to work. I have no problem with Jameis whatsoever. I love the way he competes, I love the way he fights, all those kind of things. He was up and down today for sure, but those things will all be decided not 10 minutes after a game.”

As for McCarthy, Harbaugh said that he “did a heck of a job given the circumstances. It’s different than normal football, but [he] made some plays and got us back, gives us a chance to win the game, and we’re throwing the ball in the end zone at the end, so that was good. You’ve got to compliment him on that.”

What it means for McCarthy’s NFL future is unknown, but that was a bright spot in what’s been a disappointing run so far.

(Note: Hubbard was the winner of this week’s NFC Secret Superstars poll, where you can vote for the third Secret Superstar for both the AFC and NFC every week).

It speaks to the Carolina Panthers’ current construction that they were able to beat the Philadelphia Eagles 25-14 on Sunday with Bryce Young completing just 20 of 39 passes for 289 yards, two touchdowns, no interceptions, and a passer rating of 92.8, and an EPA per pass of +0.06. Not bad at all, but given Young’s overall development this season (he’s generally the engine of the offense now), head coach Dave Canales and offensive coordinator Brad Idzik were going to have to find other avenues to get things done.

And it isn’t as if the Eagles’ defense presents a natural pathway to inside runs — not when you can put Jalen Carter, Jordan Davis, and the underrated Moro Ojomo in the middle of your four- and five-man fronts. Coming into Sunday’s game, per Sports Info Solutions, the Eagles had allowed just 187 rushing yards and 3.3 yards per carry on 57 opponent runs listed as to the middle, or to the right and left inside. So, if the Panthers were going to get running back Chuba Hubbard on the good foot, they would need to bounce things outside. The Eagles had allowed 403 yards and 4.4 yards per carry through Week 5 on 91 opponent runs to off-tackle or outside.

Which is exactly what the Panthers did. Through the first four weeks of the season (the Panthers had a Week 5 bye), Hubbard had run inside on 26% of his carries. Against the Eagles, Hubbard hit the A-gaps on just five of his 28 carries. Overall, that allowed him to gain 120 yards with a rushing touchdown on those 28 carries.

Bouncing it outside as much as Hubbard did was a literal game-changer.

“We started off the game with a really nice run,” Canales said postgame of the overall plan, and Hubbard’s 11-yard run on the Panthers’ first offensive play of the game. “I was like, ‘Here we go.’ First half is gone, and I didn’t really come up with much after that. But the guys coming together, troubleshooting some different fronts, thought [Eagles defensive coordinator Vic] Fangio did an amazing job of just giving us different looks and making it challenging in the run game, but we were able to stick with it. We were able to find some success, and Chuba ended up with, I think, 120 [yards] or something like that by the end of it. And he’s running the ball really well right now. That should complement the rest of the offense.”

Hubbard is running the ball really well now. The 2021 fourth-round pick out of Oklahoma State has 426 yards and four touchdowns on 89 carries through five games, and he proved in this game (as he has before) that when you need a bell cow back to lean on, he has the goods to make it a positive reality.

When the Green Bay Packers and the Dallas Cowboys kicked off Sunday Night Football, the one thing you could expect was a lot of points, right? The Packers have been riddling their opponents of late with a killer deep passing game, and we all know that the Cowboys are unable to handle that (or any other) offensive concept. The less predictable aspect to the game was how Jonathan Gannon’s Packers defense would handle a Cowboys offense that has been the franchise’s balm through years of abysmal defensive coaching and execution.

As it turned out, Gannon and his crew put on a master class in how to throttle a great passing game. Against Dak Prescott, one of the smartest pre- and post-snap quarterbacks in the NFL, the Packers gave him all sorts of looks he didn’t expect. In Dallas’ 23-13 loss, Prescott completed 34 of 54 passes for 258 yards, one touchdown, two interceptions, and a passer rating of 65.2. Had referee Craig Wrolstad and his crew not called a series of truly mystifying roughing the passer penalties on various Packers defenders, Prescott’s game could have been much worse.

One of the key men in the Packers’ dismantling of Dallas’ usually high-flying offense was safety Evan Williams. The 2024 fourth-round pick from Oregon has really found a place in Gannon’s defense. Against the Cowboys, he had seven solo tackles, two quarterback hits, and he allowed one catch on one target for seven yards. Williams wasn’t the target on the interception he got with 14:23 left in the first half, because Williams started at the line of scrimmage, and hauled it all the way back to the deep third in time to jump Prescott’s skinny post throw to CeeDee Lamb that might have been a touchdown otherwise.

Overall, Williams never seemed to finish the play where he started it, and this is one reason Prescott hung in the pocket so often, trying to find openings, when there were no openings to be had.

“First of all, great call by J.G. [Gannon] — kind of put me in a great position to go get that one,” Williams said of the interception. “I saw CeeDee at 3 [the inside slot]; he’s normally a hot-route type of guy that Dak is looking for, especially in that high red [zone]. So, [I] got out, and really, instincts kind of took over. After the ball was snapped, I kind of floated to a good position, where I put myself between the man and the ball, and the ball showed up.”

Amazing what preparation, and the right guy in the right place, will do for a defense.