Every week this NFL season, we will break down the highs and lows—and everything in between—from the most recent slate of pro football. This week, the Lions are just messing with the rest of the NFL, Sam Darnold continues to cook, Jayden Daniels pulled off another last-second win, and the quarterback switch in Atlanta just might have saved the Falcons’ season. Welcome to Winners and Losers.
Winner: Jayden Daniels’s Rookie of the Year Campaign
Jayden Daniels has already won over the hearts and minds of Commanders fans, and they might be ready to induct him into the franchise’s Ring of Fame after he led another dramatic victory on Sunday against the Eagles. Daniels sealed this one by throwing a dart to Jamison Crowder in the back of the end zone after Philadelphia’s defense forced him off his first read. It was an impressive display of poise in the pocket in perhaps the biggest moment of Washington’s season. The rookie didn’t blink.
Daniels did blink on his first attempt at leading the game-winning drive, throwing a pop-up that was intercepted by Eagles safety Reed Blankenship. Daniels may have landed on the “losers” side of this column if not for Eagles receiver DeVonta Smith, who dropped a pass that would have wrapped up a Philadelphia win on the ensuing drive.
Instead, the Eagles had to settle for a short field goal, and Washington’s offense got one last chance to win the game. Daniels didn’t miss this opportunity. And that was true for most of the day, which featured a handful of clutch plays that kept hope alive amid a flurry of Commanders turnovers. They handed the ball over to Philly’s defense FIVE times, and may have lost in a blowout fashion if not for Daniels’s play on third and fourth down. On 11 dropbacks on those money downs, Daniels averaged 8.6 yards and 0.32 EPA per play. He moved the chains twice on fourth down with daring scrambles, including this 29-yard scamper through the heart of the defense on fourth-and-11.
Daniels also did it with his arm on this perfect deep pass to Terry McLaurin in the face of an all-out blitz.
As good as Daniels was in the clutch, it’s hard to shake the feeling the Eagles gave this game away—even if Jalen Hurts missed most of it after suffering a concussion in the first quarter. Since 2000, NFL teams have a .952 winning percentage when forcing at least five turnovers in a game. The Eagles became the 27th team to pull off a rare loss—just weeks after the Texans joined the list after intercepting Jared Goff five times in a Week 10 loss. Eagles backup quarterback Kenny Pickett committed two turnovers to keep Washington in the game, but it was ultimately Philadelphia’s stars who let this game, quite literally, slip through their fingers. Smith’s drop will get the most attention, but A.J. Brown and Saquon Barkley also had key drops in the second half that may have changed the game's result.
With the win, Washington did manage to close ground on Philadelphia in the NFC East standings, but the Eagles still have a 98 percent chance to win the division, per The Athletic’s prediction model. Philadelphia’s shot of getting the no. 1 seed in the conference and home-field advantage may be over, though, as this loss dropped their odds to just 6 percent after Detroit and Minnesota won on Sunday. And that doesn’t account for Hurts possibly missing time with the concussion. But only 4.8 percent of teams have lost a game this century when forcing five or more turnovers, so this Eagles team does know what it takes to overcome long odds.
Winner: The Stumbling (on Purpose) Detroit Lions
The Lions offense has been amazing all season, and now they’re just rubbing it in our faces. While so many offenses around the league struggle with the basics, Detroit is pretending to be bad at football, seemingly just for fun. And against a floundering Bears team on Sunday, the tactic worked for a touchdown.
Jared Goff isn’t the most athletic quarterback—in fact, he might be the league’s least athletic starter now that Kirk Cousins has been benched—but he put on a masterclass in physical acting on this play. Goff’s controlled stumble sold the fake, and he had the second level of the defense scrambling to figure out what was happening. By the time they realized that Goff was only pretending to be uncoordinated in this instance, it was too late.
It’s creativity like this that should make offensive coordinator Ben Johnson the most sought-after coaching candidate in the offseason. The play design was reportedly inspired by a Jordan Love fumble against Chicago way back in the 2023 season opener that unintentionally created the same effect on the Bears defense with a similar result.
I’m unsure how many other coaches would see a chaotic play like that and decide to make it into a designed call. Actually, that’s not true. There aren’t any other coaches who would have done it. Johnson is in a league of his own as a play caller right now. His play naming skills could use some work, however. The Lions are referring to this play as the “Stumble Bum,” which sounds like a Britishism for someone who’s had too much beans and toast for breakfast. A play this cool deserves so much better.
And while the Lions offense showed out, it was a fantastic Sunday for the entire organization. Detroit set a franchise record with its 13th win on the season, and no Lions defender was injured. In fact, according to The Athletic's Colton Pouncey, the team didn’t even put up the blue tent on Sunday. For a team that has been decimated by injuries, especially on that side of the ball, that feels like one of the biggest wins of the weekend.
Detroit also remains on top of the NFC North standings with two games to play. A win next week, paired with a Minnesota loss to Green Bay, would give the division to the Lions. If they lose, Week 18’s rematch with the Vikings would decide the division—and could clinch home-field advantage throughout the postseason.
Losers: Sam Darnold Skeptics
Those of us waiting for Sam Darnold’s resurgent season to come crashing down will have to wait another week. His performance in Minnesota’s 27-24 win in Seattle wasn’t his best of the season, but it may have been his most memorable thanks to his incredible game-winning throw to Justin Jefferson late in the fourth quarter.
That throw, on its own, is as impressive as any you’ll see this season. Darnold hits a narrow window in Seattle’s Cover 2 defense, beating both the cornerback who was playing underneath Jefferson and the safety ranging over the top. There are not many quarterbacks who could pull that off while standing still in a wide-open pocket. Darnold hit it while on the move after pressure flushed him out of the pocket. And he did it after rolling his ankle on a sack the previous play. Darnold was also nursing an injured finger on his throwing hand.
Of course, Darnold did have a few shaky moments. Two plays before his heroic throw to Jefferson, he threw a pass that should have been intercepted by Seattle linebacker Ernest Jones.
That was one of two turnover-worthy plays for Darnold, per Pro Football Focus, and he also took three sacks. But all of those negative plays pale in comparison to the big-time plays he made throughout the day, as Minnesota’s run game failed to get much of anything going. Many of those plays came in the face of intense pressure.
Darnold has been living a quarterback’s dream this season. He’s playing for one of the NFL’s best offensive play callers in Kevin O’Connell and throwing to the league’s best receiver in Jefferson—not to mention also having a top WR2 in Jordan Addison and a top-10 tight end in T.J. Hockenson. But nothing came easy against Mike Macdonald’s defense. Open receivers were difficult to find, and the Seahawks’ defensive line won the battle in the trenches. In a game with so much on the line for Minnesota as they try to keep pace with the Lions in the NFC North, the Vikings needed Darnold to flash every bit of the talent that made him a first-round prospect not too long ago, and he didn’t disappoint.
Things won’t get any easier for Darnold over the next month and a half. The Vikings have two tough games against the Packers and Lions before the playoffs start. If he turns in a few more performances like he did against Seattle, though, his skeptics will have to find a new slant and Minnesota’s front office may have to formulate a new long-term plan at quarterback this offseason after spending a first-round pick on J.J. McCarthy last offseason.
Winner: Michael Penix Jr. and the Atlanta Falcons
No matter how poorly Kirk Cousins had been playing in recent weeks, benching him for a rookie quarterback while in the middle of a playoff race was a risky move for head coach Raheem Morris to make. Now, after Michael Penix Jr., the eighth pick in this year’s draft, led Atlanta to a 34-7 romp over a Giants team that appears to have quit, the gamble looks like a masterstroke from Morris that just might have saved his team’s season.
Penix didn’t light up the Giants defense, but in his debut he looked the part of a future franchise quarterback and may have already allayed some of the concerns in his pre-draft scouting report. In college, Penix did most of his damage in college on throws outside the numbers, so it was unclear how willing and able he’d be to attack the middle of the field once he got to the NFL. On Sunday, he moved the chains with not one but two anticipatory throws over the middle of the field on third down. In both instances, Penix had to work to the backside of his progression to locate the open receiver. Both times, he delivered the ball on time and on target.
Penix’s confidence in working the middle of the field is an encouraging sign for his long-term prospects, but it was a throw to the perimeter that should have Morris’s staff feeling good about the team’s postseason prospects. This play-action fake from under center was the exact sort of thing Cousins has struggled to do as he’s recovered from last season’s torn Achilles.
The play-action pass from under center is one of the foundational concepts in offensive coordinator Zac Robinson’s scheme. Without it, the Falcons have been unable to punish teams for loading up the box against Bijan Robinson in the running game by creating explosive plays in the passing game. Penix on Sunday showed he can make the Falcons offense functional again—and that was the main reason Cousins had to take a seat on the bench. That Penix is able to get some important live reps while Atlanta salvages its season gives the Falcons the best of both worlds.
The Falcons might have won eight games with Cousins, but their playoff hopes appeared all but dead. Now they are very much alive. With their win over the Giants and Tampa Bay’s loss to the Cowboys on Sunday night, the Falcons are now in the driver’s seat in the NFC South. The Falcons and Bucs are tied at 9-7 with two games to play, but Atlanta holds the tiebreaker thanks to sweeping their head-to-head matchups earlier this season. That means the Falcons could clinch the division next week with a win in Washington combined with a Tampa Bay loss to the Panthers.
Winner: The Patrick Mahomes Lore
Patrick Mahomes didn’t make Chiefs fans who were worried about the health of his ankle wait too long on Saturday before they could take a collective sigh of relief. On his sixth dropback of the opening drive against Houston, Mahomes, who left last week’s game with a high ankle sprain, took off on a 12-yard scramble. Three plays later, he capped off the drive with a 15-yard scramble for a touchdown.
So, yeah, the ankle looks just fine. Mahomes scrambled only once more in the 27-19 win, but he reached at least 15 miles per hour on each of those three scrambles, tying a season high, per Next Gen Stats. His two runs of at least 10 yards also tied a season high. And that 15-yard touchdown run was the longest of his career.
Crucially, Mahomes also looked nimble inside the pocket. The Texans are tied for third in sacks but brought him down only once. Mahomes was hit only four times on Saturday after taking at least 10 hits in each of his previous three games. Mahomes and the Chiefs were largely able to neutralize Houston’s dominant pass rush by getting the ball out quickly—his time to throw was 2.5 seconds, his quickest delivery since early in the 2021 season—but this meant another long day of dinking and dunking. He averaged 5.5 air yards per attempt and didn’t complete one of his four attempted passes of over 15 air yards.
But, as has been the case all season, Mahomes rarely missed on throws underneath and did enough to keep the Chiefs offense moving. Despite another no-show from the deep passing game, this was the third-best game of the season for Mahomes based on expected points added against one of the best defenses he’ll see all season.
The most encouraging aspect of the passing game on Saturday may have been Marquise Brown’s debut after missing the first 15 weeks of the regular season with a shoulder injury suffered in the preseason. Brown ran only 14 routes against Houston, but Mahomes made a point to get him involved, targeting him eight times. And some of those targets came in high-leverage situations. Mahomes found Brown for a conversion on fourth-and-1 on the opening drive, and later, Brown moved the chains after the Texans forgot to cover him on a third-and-7. There were a few instances where Mahomes and Brown just missed on deep passes, suggesting this partnership has plenty of room for growth as the Chiefs head into the playoffs.
Mahomes may not have been limited against the Texans, but the sprained ankle could be a limiting factor as Kansas City tries to lock up the AFC’s top seed in the next two weeks. The Chiefs quarterback said after the game that he doesn’t have much trouble running in a straight line—as evidenced by the straight-line scrambles against Houston—but he admitted that “stopping and cutting isn’t great yet, so you just kind of have to keep it on the run.” That could prove problematic over the next few weeks with games against aggressive Steelers and Broncos defenses left on the regular-season schedule.
Outside of team accomplishments like completing a historic Super Bowl three-peat, there isn’t much else Mahomes could do to add to his legacy this season. He’s way out of the MVP race, and he won’t be breaking any passing records in this crummy version of the Chiefs offense. But this kind of game, where Mahomes thrives in a situation where most quarterbacks may have sat out, adds to the feeling of his, and this team’s, inevitability.
Losers: Baltimore’s Demons
The Ravens kept themselves alive in the AFC North and re-established themselves as a Super Bowl contender with a 34-17 win over the division-leading Steelers on Saturday. Don’t let the wide margin of victory fool you, though. The game was not nearly as comfortable as the final score implied. Early in the fourth quarter, the game appeared to be playing out like so many of Baltimore’s frustrating losses this season—including its Week 11 loss in Pittsburgh. With the Ravens leading by a touchdown and driving deep into the red zone, a miscommunication between Lamar Jackson and Rashod Bateman led to a momentum-shifting interception for the Steelers.
Ravens fans have seen plenty of these sloppy games play out over the past few years. But before that sinking feeling could truly set in that the Ravens would give away yet another game to the Steelers, Marlon Humphrey snagged an ill-advised pass by Russell Wilson and returned it for a touchdown in what had to be a cathartic moment for the entire city of Baltimore. Humphrey’s game-changing pick came just two snaps after Jackson’s interception.
Outside of that pick, the Ravens played a clean game that didn’t feature the type of mistakes that have plagued Baltimore in its losses this season. The Ravens committed just two penalties after coming into the game as the most penalized team in the league. The struggling Justin Tucker, who missed two kicks in the two-point loss against Pittsburgh in their first matchup, made both of his field goal attempts on Saturday, including a 51-yarder, and all four of his extra points. The secondary, which had a problem with busted coverages throughout the first half of the season, held Wilson to 217 passing yards on 33 attempts, and surrendered just one deep completion. The Ravens also recovered all three of their fumbles, which felt like a sign from the football gods that this game would be different.
The Ravens still have work to do to win the division, though if Baltimore wins out, the path will be much clearer. If the Ravens can win out, and if Pittsburgh loses to either the Chiefs or Bengals (who are somehow still alive in the playoff chase), it would be enough to give the Ravens their second consecutive division crown. The final two games could be tricky with a road game at Houston on Christmas Day and a rematch with Cleveland, which won the first matchup in Week 8. Those should be winnable games, but it’s hard to trust this Baltimore team to do anything it should do—even after it earned back some trust over the weekend.
Winner: Joe Burrow, Gift Giver
After signing a five-year, $275 million contract last offseason, Burrow has plenty of disposable income to throw around. Earlier this season, he revealed on Hard Knocks that he spent nearly $3 million on a Batmobile, and this week he bought the entire Bengals offensive line Japanese katanas as holiday gifts. According to ESPN’s Ben Baby, the offensive linemen had asked Burrow for guns, but the socially conscious quarterback opted for a less destructive option. The big guys didn’t seem to mind, though. “The fact that he bought me a sword,” said offensive tackle Orlando Brown Jr. “It’s the most ancient form of respect.”
Unfortunately, Burrow’s generosity didn’t lead to better pass protection on Sunday. The Browns sacked Burrow four times and pressured him on over 40 percent of his dropbacks. The Bengals offensive line nearly sacked Burrow a fifth time when center Ted Karras tripped the quarterback on a red zone play in the first quarter. Somehow, Burrow managed to throw a touchdown pass to Tee Higgins while parallel to the turf.
It was one of a handful of miraculous plays Burrow made under pressure while his line was overwhelmed by a Browns rush led by Myles Garrett.
Burrow also extended his streak of games with at least 250 passing yards and three passing touchdowns to seven, setting an NFL record. It did require a bit of garbage-time stat padding, as his third touchdown pass came with under two minutes to go in a game Cincinnati had already wrapped up. To be fair, Cleveland could have conceded the game but took a timeout after a Bengals run with under two minutes to go.
The 24-6 win kept the Bengals’ fading playoff hopes alive. Their playoff odds stand at just 5 percent after Sunday’s games, but the road to a postseason berth at least feels more realistic than the numbers are saying. If Cincinnati beats Denver in Week 17, all they would need in Week 18 would be a win over the Steelers and a Broncos loss to Kansas City to earn a spot in the playoffs.
