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 Vikings got another masterful coaching job from Kevin O’Connell, Jayden Daniels proved why he’s the right QB to lead Washington’s revival, and the playoff field became much more clear. Welcome to Winners and Losers.
Winner: Kevin O’Connell
Behold the power of Kevin O’Connell’s coaching:
That was the scene in the Vikings’ locker room after Sam Darnold threw for 377 yards and three touchdowns in a 27-25 win over the Packers, setting up what is essentially an NFC North title game next week against Detroit. Darnold got a well-earned hero’s welcome by his teammates, but O’Connell should have been up there with Darnold on the players’ shoulders after drawing up a game plan that had Green Bay’s defense a step behind all afternoon and provided Darnold with an endless supply of clean pockets and easy completions. Darnold’s talented right arm took care of the rest.
There was so much to love about O’Connell’s plan, especially his strategic use of tempo. Minnesota hurried to the line without a huddle on several second-down plays—but went no-huddle only once on other downs, and that was during a two-minute drill before the half. The goal of going up-tempo was to force Green Bay’s defense to play quickly, which makes it harder to line up in the exotic fronts and disguised coverages that Packers defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley likes to call in passing situations. When the Vikings sped up, it appeared Green Bay defaulted to one of a small handful of coverage checks—which O’Connell was able to hone in on and exploit. Darnold’s touchdown to Jalen Nailor came on a no-huddle play on second down, thanks to a perfectly timed call from the Vikings coach.
Justin Jefferson’s dig route from the backside grabs the attention of safety Xavier McKinney just long enough for Nailor to get behind him. Had McKinney run with Nailor, Jefferson would have been wide open. It was the perfect call against the coverage O’Connell knew Green Bay would be in.
O’Connell’s play designs rule, but coaches don’t earn the type of respect O’Connell clearly has in the locker room simply by drawing up cool pass concepts. That team believes in its quarterback because O’Connell believes in his quarterback. He showed that on Minnesota’s game-sealing drive. Darnold had some shaky moments on the previous possession. But when the Vikings got the ball back, O’Connell called a bootleg for Darnold on the first play to move the chains and get the clock moving. And then the final dagger came on another play-action fake. Darnold nearly made O’Connell look foolish with a poorly placed pass, but Cam Akers made an impressive grab to put Green Bay away for good.
The coaching on the other side of the ball was just as impressive for Minnesota. Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores put Matt LaFleur and Jordan Love in a proverbial blender. Flores had Love seeing the same ghosts Darnold saw on that night in 2019 against the Patriots. The Packers quarterback was sacked only three times, but it felt like he was under pressure every time he dropped back to pass. And the downfield replays showed a dearth of open receivers, with Vikings defenders dropping right into the windows where Love was looking to throw. He finished the game with only 185 passing yards, and most of those came after the Vikings took a three-possession lead into the fourth quarter. Love had been on a heater against the blitz coming into the game, but Flores’s blitz package isn’t like any you’ll see around the league.
If Minnesota isn’t the best-coached team in the NFL then it’s on the shortlist of contenders. And if there was any question if the Vikings belonged on the shortlist of Super Bowl contenders, O’Connell’s team answered them on Sunday.
Winner: Commanders Fans
Nobody’s had a better week than D.C. football fans. Days after the Senate passed the RFK Stadium land bill, clearing the way for the team to return to the District after spending the last three decades playing in Landover, Maryland, the fans watched rookie quarterback Jayden Daniels lead yet another clutch game-winning drive for an overtime win over the Falcons. The win clinched the team’s first playoff berth since the 2020 season—and its most successful season since it won the Super Bowl in the 1991 season, which was the last time the franchise had won more than 10 games. During the Sunday Night Football broadcast, it looked and sounded like an early ’90s game at RFK, showing how desperate this fan base has been for a worthy team to cheer for.
There were isolated seasons that provided a jolt during the Daniel Snyder era, but those teams almost always seemed to back into the playoffs and fall apart quickly in January. With the rookie Daniels leading the resurgence, though, this feels different. This feels sustainable.
Daniels has been impressive as a passer all season, but his scrambling has been Washington’s best source of offense now that he’s fully over a midseason rib injury. We haven’t seen a young quarterback who remains this calm in chaotic situations since early Lamar Jackson. It’s a lofty comparison, but just look at Daniels go:
And the numbers back this up. Daniels is about to wrap up a historically prolific season as a scrambler. He’s generated 51.5 expected points added on scrambles. No other quarterbacks are over 36.0 EPA, per TruMedia. Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes are the only quarterbacks who have generated more scramble EPA over the last two seasons than the rookie has in his debut campaign. Daniels’s mobility has provided the offense with a wide margin for error. Whenever one of offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury’s play designs doesn’t work, Daniels can take off on a scramble that keeps Washington ahead of the chains. We often hear about how an offensive coordinator can make things easy for a young quarterback. Daniels is the rare young quarterback who makes his offensive coordinator’s job easier by keeping Washington in favorable down-and-distances. Kingsbury could be a hot head-coaching candidate after helping lead this turnaround while developing Daniels, but I wouldn’t expect Washington’s offense to fall apart if it loses its play caller. As long as this quarterback is healthy, the offense will put up points.
This isn’t just the best Commanders team in decades. It’s also the most entertaining one to watch. Outside of the rough patch when Daniels was playing hurt, the offense has scored points in bunches. The defense isn’t very good, but it’s come up with timely turnovers in clutch moments. This is a team that any fan base would be proud to cheer for. But for this particular fan base, it means a lot more.
Loser: Week 18
With the playoff field mostly set, we’re looking at the least suspenseful season finale in recent memory. Assuming the Lions take care of business against the 49ers on Monday night, the NFC North tilt between Detroit and Minnesota could be the only matchup featuring two playoff teams that each have something on the line. With the Ravens-Browns and Bengals-Steelers games on Saturday, we could be headed for an anticlimactic Sunday. Here’s what we’re looking at with that slate:
Saints at Buccaneers: Tampa Bay needs a win to lock up the NFC South, but it’s a 14-point favorite to do so.
Chiefs at Broncos: Denver needs to beat Kansas City to take the AFC’s final playoff spot, but the AFC West champs have already locked up the no. 1 seed, have no incentive to play its starters, and expect to start Carson Wentz at quarterback.
Dolphins at Jets: If the Broncos stumble as 8.5-point favorites against the Chiefs’ backups, Miami would be next in line for the final playoff spot in the AFC.
Lions-Vikings on Sunday Night Football should be worth the wait, but we’ll have to sit through some bad football to get there. Week 17 didn’t provide any more intrigue outside of a Vikings-Packers game that wasn’t nearly as competitive as the score implies, thanks to a diluted Sunday schedule caused by the league trying to take over the entire holiday sports schedule.
The past two Sundays haven’t been the best advertisement for the NFL product, and next week doesn’t look any better. Can we just fast-forward to the playoffs already?
Loser: The Victorious New York Giants
Tankathon, a website that tracks the NFL’s draft order based on current league standings, crashed on Sunday afternoon, shortly after the Giants pulled off an unexpected 45-33 win over the Colts. I’m guessing those two events are connected, as the upset win dropped New York from the top of the board down to the fourth pick, which should make it that much harder for the Giants to find their next quarterback this offseason. The 2025 class of quarterbacks doesn’t feature a slam-dunk prospect, and in Cleveland and Tennessee, both of whom leapfrogged the Giants after Sunday’s results, there are two quarterback-needy teams ahead of New York in the current pecking order. It’s not an exaggeration to say that Sunday’s “win” could set the team’s pending rebuild back by at least a year.
If Giants fans want someone to blame for this setback, they can start with Drew Lock, who picked a most inconvenient time to have the best game of his career. His stat line is legitimately shocking to read: 17-of-23 for 309 passing yards, four touchdowns, and no interceptions. Lock also ran one in for a score. Based on expected points added, it was one of the best quarterback performances of the century.
At least the Giants can feel great about rookie receiver Malik Nabers, who may have established himself as a top-10 player at his position with his 171-yard, two-touchdown performance against the Colts.
Nabers gives New York at least one reason to feel optimistic about the future. And there’s still hope for New York in the race for the no. 1 pick with a four-way tie at the bottom of the league standings. The Giants currently have the highest strength of schedule of the 3-13 teams, which hurts them in this case. The tiebreaker goes to the team with the lowest strength of schedule. So New York would need the Patriots (vs. Buffalo), Titans (vs. Houston), and Browns (at Baltimore) to win next week to reclaim the no. 1 spot in the draft order. So yeah … damn Drew Lock.
Winner: Saquon Barkley
Being a Giants fan won’t get any easier next week with a three-hour reminder that the team’s front office let Saquon Barkley walk last March, only to have him land with a division rival and then reel off the ninth 2,000-yard rushing season in NFL history. Barkley joined that club on Sunday with his final carry in Philadelphia’s 41-7 romp over Dallas —which also clinched the NFC East title for the Eagles.
That run gave Barkley 2,005 yards on the season, leaving him 100 yards short of Eric Dickerson’s single-season record set in 1984. Nick Sirianni said “we’ll see,” when asked if Barkley could go for the record against his former team next week. Barkley says he’s “all for” whatever decision the Eagles coach makes. And, look, I get it: Philadelphia’s goals go far beyond an individual record. The team is trying to win a Super Bowl. On the other hand, the opportunity to humiliate a divisional rival to this magnitude rarely comes along. If Barkley were to break a decades-old league record against the Giants, it could cause irreparable harm to that organization. And, most importantly, it would be really funny. Imagine playing this clip as a triumphant Saquon gets carried off the field by his offensive line:
That beats a banner-raising ceremony.
By signing an incentive-heavy deal with Philadelphia last March, Barkley made a somewhat risky bet on himself, and it will pay off at season’s end. He had up to $3 million in incentives built into his contract for this season that have already been earned—like the ones that came with surpassing 1,500 and 2,000 yards from scrimmage—and he can earn additional money by earning a first-team All-Pro nod and winning playoff games. With the Eagles at 13-3 two weeks out from the playoffs, there’s a good chance he’ll earn all of that extra money baked into his contract. Barkley doesn’t even need the rushing record to claim another victory over his former team.
Loser: Aaron Rodgers
We can’t publish the final winners and losers column of the 2024 calendar year without including Rodgers as a loser one more time. The Jets quarterback had actually been playing decent ball over the last month or so, but Sunday’s 40-14 loss in Buffalo was a new low point for this entire Rodgers experience in New York. Getting benched while down 40-0 wasn’t the only L Rodgers took on Sunday. He took one before kickoff when NFL Media’s Ian Rapaport reported that Garrett Wilson could request a trade this spring if New York decides to run it back with Rodgers at quarterback in 2025.
Rodgers finished the game Sunday with 112 passing yards and two interceptions. And he was flagged for unnecessary roughness after pushing a Buffalo player out of bounds after throwing his second pick of the day.
He took a safety in the game and also became the NFL’s most-sacked quarterback, passing Tom Brady for the, um, honor. “I got Tom in that,” Rodgers said, through a grin, in his postgame press conference. It may have been his only smile of the day.
It might have been his worst all-around performance. He was missing throws, scowling at teammates, and moving around like a 40-something quarterback a year removed from a major Achilles injury. It’s not hard to figure out why Wilson probably isn’t interested in running this back. If the “teenager” supposedly running the Jets, as Rodgers joked this week, comes to the same conclusion, Sunday’s stinker in Buffalo would be a fitting end to this disastrous experiment.
Winner: Tee Higgins’s Bank Account
We could add Tee Higgins’s new agent to the list of winners here as well, after his client caught 11 passes for 131 yards and three touchdowns in Cincinnati’s season-saving win over the Broncos on Saturday night—which included a remarkable sideline grab that set up his game-winning touchdown.
It was quite the audition by Higgins for his potential suitors in free agency, and it was more proof that the Bengals WR2 will fetch WR1 money if Cincinnati lets him hit the open market in March. With Joe Burrow signing a big-money deal in 2023 and teammate Ja’Marr Chase still in need of an extension after his failed “hold in” at Bengals training camp, it’s widely believed that Higgins will be left without a deal to remain in Cincinnati. But Saturday’s performance, a masterclass from the Burrow-Chase-Higgins triumvirate, should convince the notoriously thrifty Cincinnati front office to pay both receivers and keep this thing going for another handful of years—even if it’s just to keep the franchise quarterback happy.
It’s unlikely that Chase would give the Bengals a hometown discount to make room in the budget for Higgins, after Chase earlier this year said he was looking to “beat the shit” out of Justin Jefferson’s market-setting deal, and “not by a penny, bro.” So signing both receivers would be pricey and would make filling out the rest of the roster with star players all the more difficult. But it’s hard to watch what this trio has accomplished during their time together, and especially during this historic stretch for Burrow, and think that getting rid of Higgins will get the Bengals closer to a title.
Having two coverage-dictating receivers on the outside gives Burrow an easier pre-snap read, which allows him to get rid of the ball quickly. The attention Chase and Higgins command frees up other receiving options and elevates their performance. And as long as Burrow, Chase and Higgins are together, the Bengals offense should be good enough to prop up a league-average defense, which won’t be all that expensive to build.
Besides, we’ve seen other title contenders build complete teams around an expensive trio of players at the top of the roster. The Eagles and Lions are among the best teams in the league with their top three players making well over a combined $100 million per season. When smart teams acquire good, young players, they pay them. It doesn’t need to be more complicated than that.
Winner: The Jim Harbaugh Brand
Ten months. That’s all the time Jim Harbaugh needed to clean up the mess left behind by Brandon Staley and Tom Telesco and turn the Chargers into a playoff team. Their 40-7 destruction of the Patriots on Saturday afternoon locked up a playoff berth in the first year of what figured to be a tedious rebuild. First-year general manager Joe Hortiz deserves some credit for accelerating the process by filling a depleted roster with useful players—and finding Justin Herbert a blind-side protector and a budding star receiver with his first two draft picks. But just look at the team’s depth chart. This has been a masterful coaching job by Harbaugh and his staff.
The win over New England was peak Harbaugh football. The Chargers lined up in big, heavy formations and ran the football for reliable 4-yard gains, eventually setting up Herbert to strike downfield off play-action. They put pressure on the Pats defense, and it eventually folded. Herbert made some impressive throws, but Harbaugh had him playing on easy mode.
There were vast pockets and wide-open receivers, which has been rare for Herbert in past years. During his introductory press conference in February, Harbaugh said he wanted the Chargers offense to “protect [Herbert’s] environment” by beefing up the run game and leaning heavily on the play-action pass. The ground-and-pound style doesn’t always accomplish that—especially when it’s up against more talented defensive fronts and offensive coordinator Greg Roman isn’t able to adjust—but it has made Herbert’s job easier when it does work like it did on Saturday.
The (relative) success of the offense isn’t totally surprising considering who the Chargers have at quarterback, but the defensive turnaround in year one of the Harbaugh era has been downright shocking. Derwin James Jr. has had a resurgent year as a nickelback, and Khalil Mack remains a force on the edge. Other than that, a lot of the key performances have come from cheap free-agent additions and late-round draft picks. Poona Ford and Teair Tart have fortified the defensive line. Elijah Molden, Tarheeb Still, and Kristian Fulton have given first-year defensive coordinator Jessie Minter productive snaps in the secondary. Outside of Mack, James, and, occasionally, Joey Bosa, none of the individual pieces of this defense are all that impressive, but the unit plays tough and smart. Harbaugh teams always do.
Having Harbaugh back in the NFL has been everything football fans could have hoped for. He’s already cut several memorable press conferences, he’s got Herbert finally exhibiting some emotion, and he’s already given us some hope that the Chiefs will finally get some competition in the AFC West in seasons to come.
