We select some of the winners and losers from Week 17 in the NFL as the playoff race heads to the final weekend of the regular season...
The Philadelphia Eagles offense may continue to sputter, but Vic Fangio's Super Bowl-calibre defense remains in tact, and it remains a defining pest in the face of Championship-chasing quarterbacks. The unit that suffocated Patrick Mahomes in New Orleans last February just stifled reigning MVP Josh Allen as the defending champions held off a late assault to beat the Buffalo Bills 13-12, in doing so compensating for a second-half performance in which the Eagles managed just 17 yards from 17 plays. Kevin Patullo ought to hold Fangio's luggage at the airport.
It was Fangio's defense that set the ball rolling when Jaelan Phillips knocked the ball loose from a scrambling Allen, allowing Jihaad Campbell to recover in Bills territory. It was Fangio's coverage that lured Allen into spiralling into no man's land for a sack and a loss of 19 while trying to make magic on third-and-eight in the fourth quarter. It was Fangio's unit that forced the Bills and its second-ranked EPA/play offense to punt on six possessions. It is for this defense that the Eagles can still go back-to-back as Super Bowl champions, despite their major flaws on the other side of the ball.
It is all set up perfectly for a final day winner-take-all playoff decider in the AFC North, exactly how the NFL script writers planned it. The Pittsburgh Steelers squandered their opportunity to win the division on Sunday night as they were beaten 13-6 by the Cleveland Browns, a day after a Derrick Henry-inspired Baltimore Ravens had kept their season alive in a 41-24 win over the Green Bay Packers. It means Pittsburgh and Baltimore will now face off in Week 18 for the right to advance to the playoffs as AFC North champions, a scenario that probably should have been dead in the water such have been the Ravens' struggles this season. Mike Tomlin's side felt the absence of the suspended D.K. Metcalf as the offense stalled completely, Aaron Rodgers throwing for just 160 yards while averaging 3.9 yards per pass and Arthur Smith's attack converting three of 15 third downs. Inconsistency has come back to bite them, and now they risk missing out altogether.
It is almost unfair that the New England Patriots should go out and find their long-term answer at quarterback so quickly and so soon after the Tom Brady era. Drake Maye bolstered his MVP case on Sunday as he torched the New York Jets in a 42-10 win, completing 19 of 21 passes for 256 yards and five touchdowns before being replaced by Josh Dobbs in the third quarter with the game out of sight. It was another surgical day, albeit against an inept Jets team, for a quarterback with every weapon in the bag, from the precision and diagnosis to dissect a defense from the pocket to the creativity to feast out of structure. Maye just led the Patriots to their first AFC East division title since Tom Brady's final season in New England in 2019, propelling the entire franchise ahead of schedule in its bid to return to contention. He is efficient, he hits every level, he can hurt teams with his legs, he can beat them through the air, he can dominate from the pocket, he can improvise off-script. Sure, it was the Jets. But the MVP calls have become increasingly-difficult to ignore.
It is about this time every season when fans tend to lament a reality in which an average division champion with fewer than 10 wins is able to enter the playoffs with home-field advantage. It is about to be the case again as the Carolina Panthers (8-8) and Tampa Bay Buccaneers (7-9) take their battle for the NFC South title into the final week of the campaign. Carolina had the chance to win the division on Sunday only to be comfortably beaten 27-10 by the No 1 seed-chasing Seattle Seahawks, Mike Macdonald and Aden Durde having their way with Bryce Young and a stagnant Panthers offense. Elsewhere the sliding Buccaneers suffered a 20-17 defeat to the Quinn Ewers-led Miami Dolphins, marking their fourth straight defeat and seventh in their last eight since the Week Nine bye. The cliff-fall of a once-MVP-contending Baker Mayfield and his offense has been alarming, while Todd Bowles' job security as head coach has been plunged into major doubt. The Panthers edged out the Bucs 23-20 after a late Mayfield interception when the teams met in Week 16, and now they will face off again to decide which of them reaches the playoffs on Saturday evening.
Ireland's Charlie Smyth is drilling 57-yard field goals as the pride of Mayobridge, Tyler Shough is playing like a franchise quarterback and the New Orleans Saints are riding a four-game winning streak having been sparked into life by their irrelevance in the playoff picture. Quarterback purgatory has been a long-running theme to New Orleans' woes in life since Drew Brees, and a defining conundrum awaiting Kellen Moore when he agreed to become head coach, but Shough has arguably done enough to ensure the Saints need not explore the market this offseason.
The second-round rookie finished 22 of 27 for a career-best 333 yards and two touchdowns to lead the Saints to a 34-26 comeback win over the Tennessee Titans, becoming the third rookie ever to record three consecutive games of at least 250 passing yards and no interceptions. Shough has won five of eight games since officially taking over from Spencer Rattler as starter in Week Nine, completing 181 of 260 passes for 1,997 yards and nine touchdowns to four interceptions, leading the Saints on their first four-game winning streak since 2020 when Brees was still in New Orleans.
If ever there was a reminder of how long, how winding, how two-halved the NFL season can be, it is the Indianapolis Colts and their dramatic decline from contender to pretender. Shane Steichen's team were officially eliminated from playoff contention on Saturday night by way of Houston's victory over the Los Angeles Chargers, before suffering a 23-17 defeat to the Jacksonville Jaguars on Sunday.
It would mark their sixth straight defeat since entering their Week 11 bye with an 8-2 record, at which point Daniel Jones had been playing the best football of his NFL career, Jonathan Taylor was marching towards Offensive Player of the Year, Tyler Warren was dazzling in Offensive Rookie of the Year contention and Lou Anarumo was living up to his 'Mad Scientist' nickname behind one of the league's smartest defenses. Cracks began to appear, but it would be a pile up of injuries to Jones that spelt trouble until he was finally shut down for the year with a torn Achilles, prompting one of the stories of the season when 44-year-old Philip Rivers signed with the team five years into his retirement from the NFL. Rivers instilled unlikely life while reading NFL defenses as if he had never been away, but it hasn't been enough to stop the rot as the Colts slump into the offseason.
