The Chiefs are cooked, Baltimore is indeed not back, the Eagles are in a freefall, the Bucs are plain bad, the Dolphins can’t lose, J.J. McCarthy stuffs the stat sheet and Philip Rivers is back in the NFL.
Who had all of that on their NFL bingo cards a month ago?
Before another eventful week of pure chaos unfolds across the NFL, we look back on the winners and losers from Week 14.
NFL Week 14 Winners
Peak Josh Allen still unparalleled
It’s not that anyone forgot Buffalo quarterback Josh Allen is the reigning NFL MVP and one of the best players in the game, but as the Bills lost four of seven games in the middle stretch of the season and their Super Bowl odds dipped, there were simply fresher narratives taking the spotlight.
Rams QB Matthew Stafford is having a career year at 37 years old and remains the clear MVP favorite with -185 odds from BetMGM, while Patriots QB Drake Maye is next on that list (+200) and is the face of the next era of QBs after this breakout season for he and New England.
But peak Josh Allen is hard to match.
Especially with Patrick Mahomes and Lamar Jackson mired in down seasons, Allen might be alone at the top of the QB pyramid right now even if he’s a longshot to win a second straight MVP (+1,000 odds).
Allen completed 22 of 28 passes for 251 yards, 3 touchdowns and 0 interceptions and rushed for 78 yards and a TD in the Bills’ 39-34 come-from-behind win over the Bengals last week.
Buffalo’s rematch with New England this week — Allen vs. Maye in Foxboro — is suddenly one of the most anticipated games of the entire NFL season.
All good in Green Bay again
Nobody was more dubious of all the Green Bay Packers Super Bowl hype than myself for much of this season, as they looked as uninspiring as possible in losing to the Browns, tying the Cowboys, eking by the Cardinals, losing at home to the Panthers, scoring just 7 points in a loss to the Eagles, trailing the Giants in the fourth quarter, etc.
But the last few weeks have been different.
From the dominant 23-6 win over the Vikings, the 31-24 road win over the Lions in which the Packers looked in control throughout and a big 28-21 win over the upstart Bears last week, Green Bay absolutely looks like a Super Bowl contender again.
The defense can take over for stretches, Jordan Love (7 TDs, 1 INT the last two weeks) is playing his best football of the season, and wide receiver Christian Watson looks fully back to form now as one of the league’s best deep threats (after returning in late October from offseason knee surgery) with 169 receiving yards and 3 TDs in those last two games.
The Packers are now tied for the second-best Super Bowl odds (+750) on BetMGM along with the Seahawks and behind only the Rams.
Houston is a problem
Nobody in the NFL wants to play the Houston Texans and their defense right now.
Houston has won five straight games — no matter who has been at QB — and just went into Arrowhead and stifled a desperate Chiefs team in a 20-10 win that was the most impressive yet of this streak.
The Texans held Kansas City to 274 yards and forced 3 turnovers to likely knock the perennial Super Bowl contenders out of the playoff picture entirely.
Houston is now a game back of the Jaguars in the AFC South thanks to that NFL-best defense that ranks first in both points allowed (16.0 per game) and yards allowed (266.3 per game).
Jalen Pitre’s bone-jarring hit on Chiefs WR Rashee Rice on Sunday was a metaphor for what the Texans’ defense is doing to the rest of the league week after week right now.
Shedeur Sanders
From the stunning draft slide all the way to the fifth round to third-string status to start the year to one of the worst stat lines imaginable when forced into action off the bench against the Ravens and all the chatter that his own head coach isn’t a believer in his abilities, it’s really something to see Shedeur Sanders put up 4 TDs in his third career start.
Sanders was 23-of-42 passing for 364 yards, 3 TDs and 1 INT plus a rushing TD in the Browns’ 31-29 loss to Tennessee, and yet he still couldn’t avoid being tossed into controversy as coach Kevin Stefanski controversially pulled Sanders off the field and went without a QB for a failed game-tying 2-point conversion attempt.
What a circus in Cleveland.
Hope yet for J.J. McCarthy
Look, we’re not saying one game changes our perception of J.J. McCarthy’s NFL outlook — it doesn’t.
But if we’re going to call him Zach Wilson 2.0 and eviscerate the Vikings for using the 10th pick in the draft on a college “game manager” QB and then let him sink a playoff-caliber team, we have to fairly acknowledge that McCarthy showed some resilience last week.
He completed 16 of 23 passes for 163 yards, 3 TDs and 0 INTs in a 31-0 win over Washington.
That said, he still has passed for 9 TDs and 10 INTs this season and been held under 165 passing yards in six of seven starts.
Rams’ offensive riches
As if the Rams needed any more offensive firepower to go with MVP favorite Matthew Stafford, star WRs Puka Nacua and Davante Adams and reliably productive RB Kyren Williams.
But then along comes fellow RB Blake Corum, who had a career day Sunday with 128 yards and 2 TDs on 12 carries in Los Angeles’ 45-17 win over the Cardinals. Corum, the former Michigan star, essentially split carries with Williams (13 for 84 and a TD).
Dolphins vs. doubters, Discount Double-check, Don’t write off the Lions
Time for our weekly alliterative speed round …
The once left-for-dead Miami Dolphins have won four straight and five out of six games (including 34-10 over the Jets last week) to move to 6-7 and technically stay alive in the playoff picture. The postseason remains unlikely with the Steelers, Bengals, Buccaneers and Patriots still to play, but we’ll keep spotlighting the job coach Mike McDaniel did to keep this team locked in and playing hard after a 1-6 start and star WR Tyreke Hill’s season-ending injury.
…
Aaron Rodgers broke out his old signature “Discount Double-check” TD celebration — from his Packers days and his State Farm commercials — after rushing in for a first quarter score in Pittsburgh’s 27-22 win over Baltimore on Sunday.
The pivotal AFC North win dealt the Ravens a major setback while keeping alive Pittsburgh’s fading playoff hopes and Mike Tomlin’s incredible streak of never having a losing season. The Steelers had lost three of their previous four games but now again lead the division at 7-6.
…
It was about time the Lions looked like the Lions again.
Detroit piled up the points in a 44-30 win over Dallas as Jared Goff passed for 309 yards and Jahmyr Gibbs scored 3 more TDs. The Lions had lost four of seven games before that, but at 8-5 and still with the potential to be the best-looking offense in the NFL on any given week, this renewed some hope for the team’s postseason potential.
NFL Week 14 Losers
RIP: Chiefs Dynasty
No alliteration here — just shared disappointment by three teams expected in the preseason to be Super Bowl favorites.
After reaching seven straight AFC championship games, five of the last six Super Bowls and winning three of them, the Kansas City Chiefs are 6-7 and looking at this unlikely scenario as their only path to the playoffs.
Even though the signs have been there all season, it’s still hard to believe that the Chiefs’ run really is likely over.
Now, let’s not be overly dramatic here. There’s nothing saying Andy Reid, Patrick Mahomes and some offseason roster upgrades won’t have the Chiefs right back in the Super Bowl hunt next year, but the KC mystique as we’ve known it is over.
They’ve lost four out of five (and nearly all five if not for the come-from-behind overtime win against the Colts).
Future Hall of Fame TE Travis Kelce continues to show his decline.
Mahomes doesn’t have all the answers anymore, especially playing behind a depleted offensive line, tossing 3 interceptions in that must-win loss to Houston as the Chiefs managed just 10 points.
And Reid isn’t pushing all the right buttons any longer. His decision to go for it on fourth down from the Chiefs’ own 31 in the fourth quarter of a 10-10 game, as Houston’s offense was as stifled as Kansas City’s, swung the game as the Texans turned that field position into a short touchdown drive.
Hurts so bad
That’s a play on words — not a damning critique of a Super Bowl-winning QB — but yeah, this loss hurt bad for the Eagles (again).
Philadelphia’s 22-19 overtime loss to the Chargers on Monday night was every bit as painful as blowing the 21-0 lead against the Cowboys.
Jalen Hurts finished with 4 interceptions and a fumble — including a game-ending pick in overtime with the Eagles in position for a potential game-tying field goal — as Philadelphia (8-5) lost for the third straight game.
The Eagles offense has been broken most of the season, but they straight up gave this game away with the turnovers — including a historic moment as Hurts became the first player since 1978 to commit two turnovers on the same play. Yeah.
This ain’t hard, fellas
While we’re on it, let’s take aim at Nick Sirianni’s decision to have the Eagles kickoff to start overtime. Why do NFL coaches continue to defer in OT like it’s college football’s format? Yes, both teams get the ball regardless in NFL OT now, but that doesn’t make them the same.
In college, it’s alternative short-field sequences where the clock isn’t a factor, and with the high probability both teams are going to at least get a field goal it’s a clear benefit to go second and now what is needed.
The decision to defer in overtime in the NFL, meanwhile, makes not one iota of sense.
It’s been proven time and again that there are three reasons why this is counterintuitive (to put it nicely) …
1. The most obvious. Why choose to let the other team’s defense rest while putting your tired defense on the field first for its most important series of the game?
2. Given the 10:00 clock, there is a very real possibility the team getting the ball first reels off a methodical drive taking up 6 or 7 minutes of that time, leaving the other team with a short clock.
3. If both teams are tied after two possessions, then it’s almost a certainty the team that got the ball first and thus gets it back again will have the last shot at scoring and winning. Even if Hurts hadn’t tossed that game-ending interception and the Eagles kicked the game-tying field goal with under 2:30 to play, then the Chargers would have likely had the ball last with a chance to steal the game.
This isn’t that hard, fellas — take the ball first in overtime!
So about that improved Cowboys’ defense
Dallas had won three straight games since bolstering its defense through the trades for DT Quinnen Williams and LB Logan Wilson, but it looked more like the early-season Cowboys in that 44-30 loss to the Lions on Sunday.
Detroit put up 408 yards with no turnovers and scored on four of five red zone opportunities.
Dallas is 6-6-1 and on the outside of the playoff picture with the 9-4 Bears and 49ers the last teams in on the NFC side as it stands now, but the Cowboys are only 1.5 games back of the Eagles in the NFC East with a very favorable closing schedule with the Vikings, Chargers, Commanders and Giants
Bucs’ collapse
Tampa Bay is tied for the NFC South lead with the Carolina Panthers at 7-6, but the Buccaneers haven’t looked like a playoff team since October. They’ve now lost four of their last five games, including a bad 24-20 defeat to the Saints last week as Baker Mayfield completed just 14 of 30 passes for 122 yards, 1 TD and 1 INT.
Mayfield doesn’t look healthy, but the Bucs have an advantageous final stretch of schedule with the free-falling Falcons, two games against the Panthers to decide the division and the Dolphins.
Either way, it’s hard to see a higher ceiling for this team than a first-round playoff exit.
Poor Daniel Jones
Daniel Jones was finally set free from the Giants and had looked rejuvenated playing for a functional NFL team and offense this season in Indianapolis.
And then it came out he’d been playing through a fractured fibula, which is commendable (crazy?), and his reward for that grit and resilience was … a torn Achilles tendon.
Just a brutal outcome for Jones and the Colts, who went from fringe Super Bowl contender at 7-1 to four losses in five games and now facing the reality of closing out the season with a QB room of Riley Leonard or 44-year-old Philip Rivers who was pulled out of retirement this week after not playing in the NFL since 2020.
Un-likely end zone luck for Ravens TE
Nobody has had worse misfortune and near-TD catches than Ravens tight end Isaiah Likely.
Let’s work chronologically …
Week 1 of last season, the Ravens lost 27-20 to the Chiefs after Lamar Jackson’s pass to Likely in the back of the end zone with no time left came whiskers short of being a game-tying TD as Likely just barely came down on the white line.
Flash forward to Nov. 27 of this year vs. the Bengals. Likely was about to cross the goal line on a long catch-and-run TD when he had the ball knocked out and through the back of the end zone for a touchback.
And then Sunday.
The Ravens entered the fourth quarter down 27-16 to the Steelers at home in that pivotal AFC North showdown, but it looked like they’d come all the way back to take the lead in the final minutes on a 13-yard TD pass from Jackson to Likely.
Likely story, though.
Despite clearly catching the ball and taking a couple steps, he had the ball then knocked from his outstretched hands and the call overturned to an incompletion in the most controversial officiating decision of the week.
The Ravens went on to lose 27-22.
Bettors who took bad beat on Broncos
This either went down as an all-time bad beat or the most unlikely backdoor cover bettors could have hoped for.
To set the scene, the Broncos were 7.5-point favorites (or 8 depending on source) and led 24-14 with just under a minute to go when they turned it over on downs. Raiders QB Kenny Pickett later hit Tyler Lockett for 26 yards to the Denver 33 with time ticking and no way for Las Vegas to stop the clock. Except Broncos safety Brandon Jones knocked the ball out of Lockett’s hands as he tried to get up, drawing a delay of game penalty that stopped the clock with 5 seconds left.
And despite being down 10 points, Raiders coach Pete Carroll elected to kick a field goal meaningless to the game — but very meaningful to many as it blew the Broncos’ cover and the under line for bettors.
Incredible.
