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 defense carried Detroit to a dominant win over the Vikings to clinch the NFC North and the no. 1 seed, Bo Nix ended the Broncos’ playoff drought, the Patriots fired Jerod Mayo after a costly win, and Lamar Jackson put an exclamation point on his MVP case. Welcome to Winners and Losers.
Winners: Aaron Glenn and the Lions’ Super Bowl Hopes
The much-anticipated final game of the NFL regular season was a dud. What figured to be a high-scoring shootout between the Detroit Lions and Minnesota Vikings, with the NFC’s top seed on the line, turned into a lopsided Lions win that was decided early in the fourth quarter. The Lions offense did its part, ringing up 31 points in the division-clinching win. Minnesota’s offense, meanwhile, while taking on a depleted Detroit defense that lost another key member of its secondary when rookie corner Terrion Arnold left the game with a leg injury, failed to hold up its end, mustering just nine measly points in the disappointing finale.
The failures of the Vikings offense, and those of quarterback Sam Darnold in particular, isn’t the biggest story, though. Rather, it was the relentless effort put forth by Aaron Glenn’s ravaged Detroit defense that forced Minnesota’s uneven performance. With a shorthanded secondary going up against a group of pass catchers headlined by the NFL’s undisputed WR1 in Justin Jefferson and a top-10 WR2 in Jordan Addison, it would have been understandable if Glenn deployed a safe game plan heavy on soft zones in an attempt to contain Minnesota’s explosive passing attack. Glenn, seemingly imbued with the confidence of Detroit head coach Dan Campbell, said to hell with that and attacked a Vikings passing game that has been shredding opposing secondaries all season. The Lions sent pressure in droves, they played tight man-to-man coverage, often asking Amik Robertson, a slot corner by trade who was forced outside because of injuries to other cornerbacks, to handle Jefferson in one-on-one coverage. Robertson held his own in the matchup. Jefferson finished the game with just three catches for 54 yards on nine targets.
And keeping Jefferson relatively quiet didn’t lead to opportunities for Addison and the other Vikings receivers like it usually does. This was a comprehensive plan from Glenn, and his players, many of whom started the season on the bench, executed it to near perfection.
Detroit’s defensive dominance in high-leverage situations ultimately decided the game. The Vikings offense went 3-for-16 on third- and fourth-down plays and 0-for-4 in the red zone. The key to that situational success was Detroit’s ability to put pressure on Darnold and muddy his downfield reads. Darnold has been lights-out against pressure all season, but he’s had issues when defenses force him to hold onto the ball a beat longer than he’d like. When Darnold is confident in who he’s supposed to throw to, the ball typically gets to its target whether there’s pressure in his face or not. When there’s uncertainty mixed with pressure, we see the missed throws and questionable decisions that defined Darnold’s career before he landed in Kevin O’Connell’s offense in Minnesota. Glenn’s defense created that confusion with a ferocious rush and tight man coverage.
This was not Darnold’s shakiest performance of the season, but it did come when the spotlight on him was brightest, which will naturally lead to questions about his ability to lead Minnesota to a Super Bowl. In the biggest game of the season to date, he was inaccurate and indecisive. But he also didn’t get much help from O’Connell’s protection plan. If these teams meet again in the playoffs, the Vikings might have a better answer for those aggressive looks Glenn threw at Darnold all night, and if so, we should expect to see a very different version of Darnold—one that resembles the new-and-improved version we’ve been watching all season. If Minnesota wants to put a positive spin on Sunday’s result, it can consider itself lucky that Glenn formulated this game plan in Week 18 and not in a potential playoff matchup between these NFC powers.
For Detroit, this win was important—they got the first-round bye and home-field advantage—but how they won should give the Lions defense a vital confidence boost. After giving up 31 points to Green Bay, 48 to Buffalo, and 34 to San Francisco in the last month, it was getting harder to consider this banged-up Detroit team a viable championship contender. But if the defense plays like it did on Sunday night over the next month, it’s hard to envision any team keeping up with the NFC North champs.
Winners: The Tennessee Titans and the Race for the No. 1 Pick
The Titans haven’t spent much time on this side of Winners and Losers, but they landed here in Week 18 by doing what they’ve done best all season: losing. Sunday’s 23-14 home loss to the Texans, which secured them the no. 1 pick in the 2025 draft, was a master class in tanking, complete with a cameo appearance from Will Levis, who split time with Mason Rudolph and closed out the loss in style.
Now that’s how you lose a football game. Plenty of other teams tried to secure the no. 1 pick, but the Titans outlasted them all. They didn’t let Mac Jones lead Jacksonville to the top of the draft board, losing to the Jaguars twice over the final month of the season. The Giants tripped themselves up by knocking off the Colts in Week 17. And the Patriots were the latest team to fumble the top pick. New England, which came into the week holding the no. 1 pick, probably thought it had it in the bag when it inserted quarterback Joe Milton III (a sixth-round pick who did not look like much of an NFL prospect at Michigan and Tennessee) into the lineup after a few plays for Drake Maye. Then Milton transformed into a young Josh Allen and spoiled the fun.
In the end, the Browns, with Dorian Thompson-Robinson and Bailey Zappe combining in a crappy quarterback cocktail on Saturday afternoon, were the closest competitors for the Titans’ spot as the NFL’s worst team. Saddled with Deshaun Watson’s prohibitive contract, Cleveland was probably the team that needed the top pick most. But nothing is given to you in the NFL. Tennessee earned its spot at the bottom of the standings and will now have its pick of a polarizing class of quarterback prospects.
These handfuls of losers didn’t give us much to cheer about all season, but the Titans, Giants, Jaguars, and Browns sure did make this race to the bottom exciting over the past few weeks. Their shenanigans crashed the Tankathon website for a second consecutive week and provided more intrigue than the league’s playoff race on Sunday.
Loser: Robert Kraft
The Patriots owner and his son, Jonathan Kraft, admitted their first significant mistake of the post-Bill Belichick era in New England when they fired head coach Jerod Mayo on Sunday afternoon, just an hour after his first season on the job ended with a win over a Bills team that was resting starters. Mayo was the first head coach the Krafts have had to hire in 25 years, and he went 4-13, matching Belichick’s record from 2023. With New England’s front office, now led by Eliot Wolf, doing little in free agency to improve the roster last offseason and the team breaking in a rookie quarterback who was viewed as a raw prospect by draft evaluators (including Belichick), a four-win season should have been viewed as a reasonable expectation. But various blunders by the rookie head coach—both on the field and off it—were enough to justify a swift and brutal decision from ownership.
Two things can be true: Mayo wasn’t ready to be a head coach, and the Patriots set him up to fail. Either way, the Krafts bailing on their handpicked coach so quickly can’t be viewed as a positive sign for franchise leadership. The Patriots turned down the opportunity to conduct an exhaustive search for Belichick’s replacement to accelerate Mayo’s hiring. They were that sure he was the guy.
The elder Kraft has been viewed as one of the league’s sharpest owners for decades, but we haven’t seen him succeed without Belichick on the staff. The new University of North Carolina coach controlled everything related to the Patriots’ on-field product. That included picking the coaching staff and filling out the front office. The Krafts’s early attempts at doing both without Belichick have not gone well. They’re now without a head coach, and the roster, other than at quarterback, looks as barren as ever.
There is, of course, an obvious reason to remain optimistic about where things are headed, thanks to Maye. He has been everything the Patriots could have hoped when they used the no. 3 pick on him in April. Maye’s shown the out-of-structure creativity and endless arm talent that jumped off his college film, and there’s been plenty of substance to go along with the flash. Maye has shown calm feet in the pocket and consistent accuracy. He’s had his bozo moments throughout the season—including a few in crunch time—but he rarely repeats those mistakes. Maye has checked every box for a first-round rookie quarterback.
That could explain why the Krafts acted with such urgency. Maye’s development is well ahead of schedule and he looks ready to make the proverbial leap in the next season or two. Waiting around to see if Mayo can develop into the guy could stunt the growth of the quarterback and the progress of the team as a whole. New England has a quarterback worth building around. Whether they have the right decision makers to build a competent team around him remains to be seen, and the early signs offer little promise.
Winner: Sean Payton’s Belief in Bo Nix
Whatever drama Cincinnati’s win over Pittsburgh on Saturday night created in the race for the final AFC playoff spot quickly faded on Sunday as the Broncos jumped all over the Chiefs’ backups and cruised to a 38-0 win. The Broncos locked up the no. 7 seed—and ended an eight-year postseason drought. Rookie QB Bo Nix completed his first 18 passes of the game, and the Broncos’ win percentage had already climbed to 97.7 percent by the time his first ball hit the ground, per ESPN.
Nix finished the game with more touchdowns (four) than incompletions (three), and his passing map included a handful of downfield throws, which haven’t always been common on the rookie’s tape this season. But that’s not to say Nix didn’t impress during his first NFL regular season. He showed better-than-advertised arm strength and a knack for turning sacks into productive scrambles thanks to his impressive wheels. As the season wore on, it became easier to see what Payton saw in the former Oregon quarterback when he drafted him in the first round. He earned the literal victory lap he took around the stadium following Sunday’s win.
Still, the credit for Nix’s success and the team’s playoff berth belongs mainly to the Broncos coaching staff, starting with Payton. The 61-year-old head coach, who’s now backing up all the shit he talked after taking the job in Denver, pulled off schematic miracles to turn Denver’s short passing game into a source of good production. His staff has helped solidify an offensive line that had been a weak link for years, helping to protect its rookie quarterback, and he’s built a run game that should be consistently productive going forward. And there’s the work Vance Joseph, Payton’s handpicked defensive coordinator, has done to build one of the NFL’s nastiest defenses.
Payton’s reward for overseeing this remarkable turnaround and ending the postseason drought is a trip to Buffalo to take on Josh Allen and the Bills in the wild-card round. With Buffalo opening as 7.5-point favorites, it’s unlikely that Payton’s season of redemption will last beyond next weekend. But it doesn’t matter. No matter how things end, the Broncos coach will head into the offseason as one of the big winners of the 2024-25 season.
Winner: Lamar Jackson
If Lamar Jackson’s season ends in a familiar fashion in the next few weeks, with the Ravens crashing out of the playoffs earlier than expected, none of what he’s just accomplished will matter. Not the historic touchdown-to-interception ratio or the numerous other records he set during the regular season. The questions about his capacity to lead Baltimore to a Super Bowl and be truly great will persist. That’s just how these things work for some quarterbacks, and Jackson is one of them. Those questions are silly, of course. Jackson has won multiple MVP awards and has essentially been a top-10 offense all on his own since stepping foot on an NFL field. We’ve seen Nick Foles and Trent Dilfer win Super Bowls. Of course Jackson can do it. It’s just a matter of time.
No matter how the season ends for Jackson and his teammates, it should be viewed as a step in a positive direction for the entire franchise. The Ravens offense, which had been so limited in the passing game over the first few seasons of Jackson’s career, has expanded under second-year offensive coordinator Todd Monken. Jackson has taken more ownership of the playbook and has shown a steadier hand with the offense in his control. The 27-year-old QB has rarely made mistakes that set back his offense. He threw only four interceptions during the regular season and took sacks on only 4.6 percent of his dropbacks, per TruMedia. Nothing could faze him. Not even pressure, which tends to bring the worst decision-making out of quarterbacks. He threw just one pick on pressured dropbacks, and only four quarterbacks had a lower sack rate when pressured. He routinely flipped those precarious situations into positive plays for the Ravens. This is just one play from Saturday’s win over Cleveland, but this is how Jackson managed pressured dropbacks all season long.
Yes, Jackson plays for a loaded team. Baltimore leads the NFL with nine Pro Bowl selections, with five of them on the offensive side of the ball. We don’t need to minimize the contributions that running back Derrick Henry, center Tyler Linderbaum, receiver Zay Flowers, and fullback Patrick Ricard have made to the team to prove Jackson’s value. Still, it’s impossible to ignore how he’s helped make his teammates’ jobs easier. Henry is one of the greatest backs in NFL history, but he’s never had a season like the one he’s having with Jackson next to him in the backfield.
The offensive line, anchored by the sturdy Linderbaum, ranks third in pass block win rate, but that stat doesn’t account for the effect Jackson has on opposing defenses, which have to use a mush rush to prevent quarterback scrambles. Jackson’s cool hand out of structure buys his receivers more time to get open and his impossibly talented arm allows him to get them the ball no matter where they are on the field. A lot of quarterbacks would love to trade their offensive situation for Jackson’s but he’s helped create this lush environment and elevated it with plays that only one or two other quarterbacks could make.
It looks so easy for Baltimore’s offense because Jackson makes it easy. He’s a quarterback who makes everyone around him better. That’s what championship quarterbacks do, and it’s what Jackson has done at an exceptional level all season. If this Ravens team doesn’t make it to the Super Bowl, it will say more about the rest of the team than Jackson’s individual ability.
Loser: The Green Bay Packers
The Packers came into Sunday with seemingly very little to lose, having secured an NFC wild-card spot weeks ago, but they still found a way to end up as one of Sunday’s biggest losers. The 24-22 home loss to the hapless Bears, which dropped the Packers down to the no. 7 seed after Washington’s dramatic win in Dallas, may be the least of Green Bay’s concerns after quarterback Jordan Love and receiver Christian Watson left the game with injuries. Head coach Matt LaFleur said that Love could have returned after the quarterback took a hit to the funny bone that caused him to lose feeling in his throwing hand, but LaFleur is not “super confident” that Watson will be ready for next week’s game against the Eagles.
Love has had a volatile season, has dealt with multiple injuries, and was coming off a shaky performance in Week 17 against the Vikings, in which Watson’s absence made a clear difference in the passing game. Love didn’t look much better early on against the Bears before taking the hit to his elbow. With the passing game headed in a troubling direction and possibly down its top big-play threat on the road against one of the NFL’s best teams, the Packers look more like a one-and-done candidate than a championship contender.
Whether the team will have Watson or not, Sunday’s results made Green Bay’s path to the Super Bowl much more difficult. The Packers will now start their postseason journey on the road against a surging Eagles team that they lost to in Week 1. Green Bay’s defense has been at its best when it can force offenses into obvious passing situations, where defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley can cook up exotic pressures that have led to the takeaways that have powered the defense this season. Against Philadelphia, a team with one of the league’s most reliable run games, led by the electric Saquon Barkley, that won’t be easy to do.
Winner: Mike Evans’s Legacy
While some, um, cheaper franchises sat players who were nearing contract incentives in Week 18—I’m looking at you, Jerry—others went out of their way to make sure their guys got their bonuses. Sean Payton got Courtland Sutton the 82 receiving yards he needed to earn an extra $500,000 in the first half of Denver’s win over Kansas City. Sean McDermott made sure Mack Hollins got a $50,000 bonus with two catches in the first half of Buffalo’s meaningless loss to New England and helped punter Sam Martin earn a $100,000 bonus by punting from the 35-yard line when Martin needed just one more punt downed inside the 20 to earn it.
But the coolest (and most blatant) example of incentivized stat padding came when the Buccaneers gave Mike Evans a target on the final play of their win over the Saints, which extended his historic streak of consecutive 1,000-yard seasons to 11—and earned him a cool $3 million in the process.
It wasn’t just an expensive show of good faith to Evans. It was a downright risky move. With the Panthers-Falcons game in overtime and the Bucs holding just an eight-point lead and needing a win to clinch the NFC South over Atlanta, a pick-six or scoop-and-score fumble recovery by New Orleans could have led Tampa Bay to be knocked out of the playoffs. But coach Todd Bowles decided that doing right by his team’s best players outweighed the risks, and judging by the team’s delirious celebration after Evans got the necessary yardage, one that carried over into the locker room, it’s difficult to disagree.
Maybe it isn’t a coincidence that the teams that sold out to help their players earn bonuses will still be playing next week.
Loser: Russell Wilson’s Future in Pittsburgh
Steelers coach Mike Tomlin used the word “routine” eight times in a variety of ways during his postgame press conference after a 19-17 loss to the Bengals on Saturday night. The first use came when he was asked to determine the cause of the loss. “Not enough routine playmaking,” Tomlin said. “‘Routine things, routinely’ is kind of a signature of high-floor football, and I just thought, particularly on the offensive side, we didn’t do enough routine things well to move the ball with fluidity.”
Steelers Offensive Efficiency Rankings, 2024 Season
Tomlin is referring to only the Cincinnati game, but these words apply to the entire regular season. Pittsburgh hasn’t made routine plays routinely, and that lack of fluidity has been a feature of the offense for the past four months. The Steelers closed out the regular season ranked in the bottom third of the league in just about every relevant efficiency metric.
The Steelers saw a small increase in their success and explosive play rate after replacing Justin Fields with Russell Wilson in Week 7, but that was offset by a small decrease in average expected points added. The midseason quarterback swap once Wilson recovered from a calf injury didn’t make a meaningful difference in how the offense operated. Whether it was Fields or Wilson under center, the passing game was built on vertical shots outside the numbers to avoid the middle of the field, where interception rates for both quarterbacks increased. Pittsburgh’s two quarterbacks managed to avoid interceptions, but they didn’t connect on routine passes routinely.
Wilson had a good thing going with George Pickens before the receiver missed three games in December with a hamstring injury. His moon-ball throws weren’t so effective with a 5-foot-9, 165-pound Calvin Austin III on the other end of them, so the big plays dried up almost completely, and Wilson’s waning ability to make the routine plays was exposed.
Having Pickens back on the field was a net negative for Pittsburgh against the Bengals. He caught one of six targets and dropped half of them.
Wilson didn’t play well either. He completed just 54.8 percent of his throws and averaged 3.6 yards per dropback. He had just 45 passing yards in the first half, but Tomlin said he didn’t consider pulling his quarterback. “Our failures were collective,” he said after the game. “I just think at this juncture, the most prudent thing for us to do is to stick with [the players] on the field and work through it.”
It sounds like Tomlin will let the veteran ride this thing out in the postseason, but he doesn’t sound too thrilled about it, given the way the offense has progressed over the final month of the regular season. Wilson will have at least one more week to “work through” the issues that have plagued the Steelers during this slide and prove to Tomlin that he can do the routine more routinely. But with no contract for 2025, next weekend’s game against the [gulp] Ravens, who beat Pittsburgh 34-17 in Week 16, could be his final chance to do it in Pittsburgh after failing to lock down the gig over the past two months.
