Week 18 is in the books—272 regular-season games down, and we’re headed toward the playoffs (and you can get your preview of all 14 teams in those playoffs on the site Monday morning). But before we get there, here are my 10 takeaways coming out of two packed days of pro football …
Detroit Lions
The Detroit Lions look as close to indestructible as any team has the past few seasons. Their defense was torn to shreds by injuries. Their offense lost a workhorse in David Montgomery. And despite all of that, their coach, Dan Campbell, made the call to go all-out Monday night of Week 17 against the San Francisco 49ers.
Some coaches would’ve pulled back, knowing the showdown with the Minnesota Vikings was coming.
Campbell punched the gas. Six days later, his foot’s still on the floor, and his team is 15–2.
First, the Lions dispatched the Niners 40–34 in Santa Clara, in the kind of shootout you’d expect they’d have to engage in given the damage they’ve incurred on defense. Sunday night, it was far more resounding—the 31–9 rout of the Vikings coming, really, every which way.
But two things really stood out, to me at least, as symbols of what Detroit is right now.
The first, of course, was how that defense played. While they did get Alex Anzalone back, they’re still without Aidan Hutchinson, Alim McNeill and Carlton Davis III, among others. They were faced with a Vikings team that had scored 27 or more points in four consecutive weeks, and five of six. And given all that, the mismatch that some might have thought was coming went the other way entirely.
Campbell said a few weeks back that, given the injuries, the Lions would play any style they needed to in order to scratch out wins. Somehow, this time around, that meant riding their defense through the early stages of what looked like a rock fight—and leaning back on the leader they had lost, Anzalone, who figured he could give them something they’d be missing.
“[GM] Brad [Holmes] and his staff, first of all, have done a good job trying to piece together personnel to put a quality defense on the field,” Anzalone told me as he was leaving Ford Field. “It’s a hard job to do this late in the season, as the injuries have accumulated. At the end of the day, defensively, we’ve been catching a lot of flak, but at the same time we just haven’t been playing clean football with energy and passion.”
So Anzalone thought he could make a difference in his first game in seven weeks bringing that to the table. It worked, “And that’s what leads to good defense. It’s not necessarily what you do but how you do it, and that’s where we’d been lacking. It was fun to be a part of it.”
When the Lions’ offense stalled, and Jared Goff threw a couple of picks, the defense had their back.
And it happened through a game plan that defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn concocted to run the Lions out there in light boxes—with more defensive backs on the field—to better cover the Viking’ receivers and have slot corner Amik Robertson follow Justin Jefferson (with help) all over the field. That roadmap to victory required trust, of course, in Robertson, and also the defensive line to hold up its end of the bargain, and force Minnesota into a game it didn’t want to play.
“Amik Robertson traveled with 18 a lot of the game and we had doubles on him, but at the same time Amik challenged him—and a lot of players around the league aren’t willing to do that,” Anzalone says. “We stopped the run out of a light box, and guys got pressure on [Sam] Darnold, and we were sticky in coverage.”
And the results followed.
The Lions didn’t allow a touchdown all night. Four Viking trips to the red zone ended in a total of six points. Two of those were closed out with turnovers on downs—one on a fourth-and-goal from the 3, the other on a fourth-and-goal from the 2.
In the seven games leading into Sunday night, Darnold had passer ratings of 107.0, 116.1, 111.6, 157.9, 74.1, 112.3 and 116.1. Against the Lions, the Vikings’ quarterback had a 55.5 rating. Meanwhile, outside of a 58-yard burst from Cam Akers, Minnesota was held to 62 yards on 18 carries against those light boxes, with no other run of even 10 yards. Jefferson was held to 54 yards on three catches.
Which leads us to the second symbol of where Detroit is.
Given the Lions’ injury problems, and a Monday trip back from the West Coast, three time zones away, it’d stand to reason that fatigue would, at some point, set in, and probably late.
The fourth quarter proved it never would with this group. In fact, that was when Detroit was landing its heaviest blows of the night, with Jahmyr Gibbs and Craig Reynolds combining for 108 yards and two touchdowns on 11 carries, Detroit outgaining the Vikings 147 to 16 and what had been a one-possession game becoming a rout.
In the midst of that, Glenn’s defense stood tall, again, forcing a punt and a turnover on downs—and keeping the Vikings from even crossing midfield in the final 15 minutes.
Glenn’s plan, of course, was great. But to his players, there was more to it than just that.
“It’s just his leadership,” Anzalone says. “Obviously, he’s smart. Situationally, he knows every situation better than anyone I’ve ever been around. He knows when to call it, how to call it, and he calls it around our personnel. But at the same time, his leadership, he’s getting guys going, keeping guys accountable, but uplifting them at the same time. I’m excited to see him be a head coach.”
The time for that, of course, sure seems to be coming.
But the job he’s doing now, and has done this year, is what he’s been focused on. And what, of course, was on display again Sunday night.
“A.G. has never made excuses for the circumstances,” Campbell said, via text. “He puts the players we have left in the best position to have success, and every game plan is different. He expects the next man up to do his job with high effort and details, no matter what the skill level is. There is nothing that A.G. doesn’t do well as a man or a coach.
“He embodies everything we’re about and without him our success would not be what it is today!”
What that success is today is unprecedented for the franchise. With Sunday’s win, the Lions will be the top seed in the NFC bracket for the first time. Fifteen wins is a franchise record—and not just for a regular season, but playoffs included. And maybe most meaningful of all, to those there, is that these Lions have withstood a lot on the way here.
But to them, what’s important is what’s still in front of them.
Sunday night was another great example of how they’re headed there—full speed ahead.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Sunday afternoon was a good show of the strength of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ franchise, in a few different ways, as the team locked up its fourth consecutive NFC South title. It started with the way the team’s 27–19 win over the New Orleans Saints ended—with Mike Evans running a little flat route to get the five yards he needed to reach 1,000 for the 11th consecutive year and match Jerry Rice’s all-time mark for consecutive four-figure receiving-yard seasons.
But more than the record, really, it was the reaction that made the moment.
The whole roster spilled off the sideline as if Tampa had just won a title.
A little much? It actually wasn’t, if you dig into just how much Evans means to people there.
An hour or so later, Jason Licht, who made Evans his first draft pick as Bucs GM in May 2014, told me, as he drove home, “It’s making me tear up a little bit talking about it.” He then explained how Evans plays Fortnite with his 11-year-old. How he checks in with Licht’s son Charlie on how school is going. How he affectionately says to the GM’s daughter Zoey, “How’s my girl doing?” And how Evans has that relationship with a lot of families.
“We talk about Mike at the dinner table,” Licht says. “All week long, even when we went out to dinner last night, it was like, Is Mike going to get his 1,000 yards? You have to make sure he gets his 1,000 yards. I could go on and on. We would do anything for Mike.”
So to commemorate Sunday, with Evans closing in on the mark, Licht had hats made for the entire roster and staff, and told the team’s equipment staff to hand them out if he got to 1,000. With five minutes left, and Evans close, Licht went downstairs to watch the end of the game from the field—only to see Bucky Irving score with two minutes left, which got the Bucs closer to a win, but seemed to end the receiver’s pursuit at 995. The equipment guys then took the hats to Licht’s car, just as Licht retreated to the equipment room.
Once they got back, one of the guys told him the hats were gone, and said, “Congrats on winning the division anyway.” Licht responded that it wasn’t over yet. Then, a text came from former Bucs coach Bruce Arians. Tampa had the ball back.
Call a motherf---ing timeout!!
Licht laughed, reminding Arians he couldn’t quite get the message to current coach Todd Bowles. Still, Bowles got Arians’s sentiment loud and clear, calling a timeout to set up Evans’s last catch.
“To my family,” Licht says, choking back his words a bit, “I don’t think we can put him in a higher light.”
Even better? Evans, Licht and the Bucs get to keep playing, headed for the tournament for a fifth consecutive year, and a second season in a row following the departure of Tom Brady. And therein lies the second element here, which is how the tightknit group that was built around guys like Evans, and won it all back in 2020, has kept going, even if some of the faces within it have changed.
Yes, Evans, Vita Vea, Lavonte David and Tristan Wirfs are still around, and Antoine Winfield Jr. and Chris Godwin are, too, albeit injured right now. But on Sunday, it was Irving, a rookie, rushing for 89 yards and closing the Saints out with that touchdown, and fellow rookie Jalen McMillan hitting paydirt, and YaYa Diaby (a sack) and Zyon McCollum showing up, too.
And it was. Baker Mayfield, too, the quarterback who, in Licht’s words, “ran towards the fire” in wanting to come to Tampa and replace Brady.
Along the way, the Bucs ate a ton of dead money, hit on a bunch of picks and went from having one of the NFL’s oldest rosters to one of its youngest, in two years’ time. It started, as the GM recalls it, two years ago, in a scouting meeting, when Licht said to the staff, “Listen, this should be fun for you,” while laying down the challenge that the team needed to find more under-the-radar players while it paid off the credit card debt of the Brady years.
“It was, We have to make this work, and we did,” Licht says. “I’m very proud of the way the plan worked. We were going to have to rely on young players, low salaries, to get us through the cap hell that we put ourselves into—intentionally—to try to win another one. The last two years, draft picks have come through in a big way. I’m proud of my scouts, proud of the personnel department, of the way that we were able to find these players, proud of the coaching staff with going along with it, playing the young players.
“It took total teamwork on the front office’s behalf with coaches, cap people, scouts to get through it, and it worked.”
Then Licht started listing his top lieutenants—assistant GMs John Spytek and Mike Greenberg; and directors Jackie Davidson, Mike Biehl and Rob McCartney—and got himself going again.
The Bucs aren’t the same franchise they were even five years ago. And it’s thanks to people like Evans that they aren’t.
Thankfully, Licht will tell you, there are a lot of those around him.
Carolina Panthers
On the other end of the NFC South equation Sunday, the Atlanta Falcons had everything to play for (until overtime, anyway), and the Carolina Panthers still outlasted them. And while it only got Carolina to 5–12 for the season, it did give a team that’s fought through its own recent past some light at the end of the tunnel to chase this offseason.
Remember, a lot of the guys playing for Dave Canales on Sunday were on their fifth coach in three seasons, after the in-season coaching changes of the past two years (Matt Rhule and Frank Reich) led to longer-term interim coaches (Steve Wilks and Chris Tabor). So if, at 1–7 on Halloween, the guys started packing it in then, well, that would’ve been understandable, especially with David Tepper’s itchy trigger finger still on the handle.
Instead, everyone stayed locked in. And the progress those inside saw coming would start to be more evident to all of us on the outside.
“It’s a testament to [Canales’s] leadership, his ability to lead when things aren’t going well,” veteran receiver Adam Thielen told me postgame. “It’s easy to be a good leader when things are going well, when you’re winning games, when you’re in contention. When things aren’t going your way, it shows your leadership ability. His shined through the tough times and showed who he was. He proved he wasn’t all talk. He was going to be about action. He was going to be a guy that was going to bring energy, positivity every single day.
“He was going to get it fixed.”
O.K., so calling it “fixed” at this point might be a stretch.
But it’s getting better—and fast. With the 44–38 win in Atlanta, in overtime, the Panthers got to 4–5 over their final nine games. On top of that, three of the five losses were by six or fewer points, leaving only games against the Buccaneers and the Dallas Cowboys as ones that got out of hand (by comparison, all seven losses in the 1–7 start came by double digits).
So yes, the victories are relatively small.
They’re coming, though. And the really cool part is that Thielen, now having played 11 years, could see it coming when few people could, and it seemed like the last two years bled into 2024.
“It wasn’t happening in the results,” he says. “We were really focused on the process. It was really cool to see because I’ve been on a lot of teams and when things aren’t going well, it’s not easy. I just didn’t feel a panic. There wasn’t a lot of talking going on. It was just a bunch of guys that wanted to figure it out and find a way to get wins and find a way to get this thing turned around and really just trusting it. …
“Just trusting the process and not getting overly worked up about results is always a tough thing to do. But it’s the right thing to do.”
Sunday only brought more proof of it.
Once-benched quarterback Bryce Young led a nine-play, 70-yard drive, capped with a 10-yard scramble for a touchdown, to put Carolina up 38–31 with 4:01 left. Then, after the Falcons tied it to force overtime, the in-stadium boards stopped showing the Saints-Bucs score. So for all the Falcons knew, they were still playing to get in (even if they, in fact, weren’t). And the Panthers responded, after winning the coin toss, by covering 70 yards in 10 plays to win the game, and getting another one of those small victories.
“It’s momentum toward next year,” Thielen says. “I think there’s a lot of confidence. The process is starting to pay off. As an athlete, as a competitor, that’s all you want to see. You want to see the hard work, the dedication, the focus of the team, you want to see those things pay off. Once you start to feel that, you know that it’s going in the right direction. We got a long ways to go. … But I know there’s a lot of competitors in this locker room that want to get it changed as fast as possible.
“We have the right people in this building to be able to do it.”
New England Patriots fire Jerod Mayo
New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft did what he had to do. The 83-year-old barely waited an hour after his team’s season-ending win over the Buffalo Bills to pull the plug on Jerod Mayo—not just because New England finished 4–13 for the second consecutive year, but because the organization, in so many ways, had become a shell of its former self. That’s complete with a horrific roster, eroding image, some internal strife and scattershot external messaging.
Kraft bit the bullet on this one despite comparing his identification of Mayo on instinct to finding his wives, Myra and Dana, and putting a succession plan in place two years ago that wound up fracturing his coaching staff in 2023—with Bill Belichick clearly not on board with that roadmap.
Now the Patriots’ owner, having just completed his 31st season, has to do the next hard thing.
He has to admit that, just like 2023 wasn’t a one-person problem, ’24 wasn’t either. The roster didn’t get bad in a year. Other organizations didn’t outgrow and pass his team overnight in quality and quantity of personnel, departments and results. It took years for things to get to this point in New England.
Along those lines, Mike Vrabel, whom I believe is one of the best coaches in football, will be the first name raised as a potential replacement for Mayo. But Vrabel will have options over the next couple of weeks, and has been deliberate in researching and assessing the state of the teams with openings, as I understand it. I don’t think he’s going to be sentimental. I do think he’ll try to make the decision that gives him the best chance to find success and sustain it.
And yes, the Patriots have elements in place. The Krafts have, on balance, been very good owners over the past three decades. More importantly, a young franchise quarterback on a rookie contract is in place. They’ll have a top-five pick in every round in April, and already four of the top 100 slots in the draft. They’ve got over $100 million in cap space. Whoever’s next will enter a situation that he can make his own.
But if the Krafts view this, again, as a one-person problem, and simply whack Mayo to hire Vrabel, and keep the model they’ve had in place, they’d be setting themselves up to fail.
Eleven years ago, when I was at NFL Network, I ran a project that examined the structure of all 32 teams—from who reports to whom, to who was making the final call on personnel, to how coaching and scouting were set up. What I found was that each team was a little different from the next, and New England’s was unique. And that really came across in talking to people who’d worked there and gone elsewhere.
“I think it’s the person, not the structure there,” said one exec, who’d won titles in New England, and moved on to success elsewhere. “There are very few people like him—Belichick is very unique. You see how many guys coming out of that tree have failed. That’s because it's the person, not the structure, that makes it go. You have to be unique to do it that way. I think he’s just extremely smart, and very well-rounded, good in all aspects.
“Most people can’t do it like that, in that structure. Again, you see the guys from that tree, and they get out there and can’t handle some of the other facets of running a team, outside their comfort zone. So you look at it, and you say it’s Belichick, and if it wasn’t Belichick, that structure probably wouldn’t work, because it hasn’t with guys who’ve come out of that system.”
This particular guy went on to say that it was almost like there were a dozen Belichicks in the Patriots’ building—no one knows exactly how he got everything done, it just got done, because Belichick was so—again, this word—uniquely qualified to do so much.
That much should have hit the Patriots in the face this year. They had a head coach elevated a year or two before Kraft intended to promote him, whose only NFL jobs had come within the walls of Foxborough, and asked him to do the job as Belichick did, without all the different modern elements teams such as the Baltimore Ravens, Philadelphia Eagles and 49ers have. Maybe Mayo would’ve failed anyway, but, with things as they were, he had no chance in 2024 and it showed.
So now, it’s on the owners to invest, and help Eliot Wolf and the personnel department (assuming they stay the course there), add elements of analytics and sport science, and build out all the things that the team didn’t have before. After the NFLPA excoriated the Patriots for their physical infrastructure last year, the Krafts drew up plans to, finally, build a stand-alone facility to house football operations. They were, essentially, shamed into action.
If you root for that team, you’d have to hope that happens again now, with the Patriots realizing just how far behind they are, and how much Tom Brady and Belichick did to allow things to run the way they did for two decades. Recognition of it would come with, again, a hard look at the totality of football operations, and all that needs to be done to erase the disadvantage they put their own people at this year. It would encompass undergoing a real search process, too, allowing the Krafts to see how it’s done elsewhere.
In other words, if Vrabel’s the next guy (and he’d be my top candidate, to be clear), and he wants to come, then fine. Just don’t do to him what you just did to Mayo and his staff.
Washington Commanders
The Washington Commanders’ win didn’t mean much in the standings—it made them the No. 6 seed, rather than the No. 7, so they get to play the Los Angeles Rams rather than the Eagles—but, in their minds, it did show something. Just consider the situation at the end of their game against the Cowboys in Arlington on Sunday. Washington was down 19–16. Marcus Mariota was in for Jayden Daniels at quarterback. Six seconds were showing, with the ball sitting at the Cowboy’ 5-yard line.
And who was on the other end of the throw, reaching over DaRon Bland and putting his body on the line, to get the win? Only one of the team’s best players. Terry McLaurin hauled it in, the Commanders won 23–19, the sixth seed was secured and a point was made.
“It’s an identity,” McLaurin told me. “D.Q. [Dan Quinn] talks about being a B.M.F. If you want to be one of those heavy hitters, be a B.M.F., you got to come in week-in, week-out, practice-in, practice-out and be that. He’s set that standard for us. Great thing about it, we have a great group of leaders who embody that, and a great group of young guys who have learned from us and taken the torch as well. We know we can compete with the best in the league if we put our best foot forward.”
Indeed, McLaurin’s been a bad you-know-what all year long, and he’s not alone.
The Commanders finished the regular season 12–5, despite a ton of holes, and guys there will tell you this approach—a relentless, hyper-competitive, edgy approach to the game—is why. And maybe it’s also why in this environment, against a Cowboys team playing out the string, and with Washington “managing” a few guys through to next week’s wild-card round, Quinn’s crew didn’t seem to break its stride.
The guys who were out were out. But for those who were in, the standard didn’t change. They were all expected to be all the way in. Quinn, per McLaurin, gathered the team’s leaders early last week to deliver that message. They had a score to settle with the Cowboys from earlier in the season (“They were more physical than us then), a game to win and a shot to get better Quinn didn’t want to pass on.
“We trust him to take care of us,” McLaurin says. “He does a great job of orchestrating the practice schedule to where we get great reps in and, at the same time, he allows us to take care of our bodies. Nobody’s feeling great at this time of the season. We know that. It’s the end of the season. The teams who are able to be resilient, the teams that have depth and the next-guy-up mentality are the teams that are usually going to have success in the long run.”
And the Commanders are getting there now, having completed the franchise’s winningest regular season since the team won its last Super Bowl in the 1991 season.
It’s even more satisfying for guys such as McLaurin, Jonathan Allen, Daron Payne and Tress Way, who were there for the depths of the Dan Snyder era, and now have so much to look forward to, starting with a playoff game next weekend in Los Angeles.
“To be able to do that with not only them, but the great group of guys that we’ve brought into this organization from Josh [Harris] taking over with the rest of the ownership group, bringing in A.P. [GM Adam Peters], bringing in D.Q. and then drafting Jayden, it just feels like there’s some synergy going on for the first time since I’ve been here. There’s one message, there’s one culture, there’s one feeling throughout the entire organization.
“It’s starting to show. For us to have the turnaround that we’ve had in one season, it just shows you when you put the right people in place and you put the right players who believe in the culture that’s being set forward, anything’s possible. We’ve grown immensely as a team this year. I’ve grown immensely as an individual, as a player, as a leader. I’m excited for what’s to come.”
And based on the past few months, there’s plenty ahead for this group, in 2025 and beyond.
Denver Broncos
The Denver Broncos stumbled in Week 17. They left no doubt in Week 18. And, sure, Denver was faced with … let’s call it an “altered” Kansas City Chiefs lineup Sunday. Still, 38–0 is 38–0, and this one, from the start, was about as one-sided as an NFL game will get.
The Broncos’ first three drives covered 70, 85 and 89 yards, moved the chains 16 times and ended in three touchdowns. Their fourth covered 59 yards in four plays, inside the final two minutes of the half, with Will Lutz capping it with a 33-yard field goal with three seconds left. So at the break, Denver had outgained Kansas City 313 to 55, had 18 first downs to the Chiefs’ three, and rookie Bo Nix was 18-of-19 for 215 yards and three scores.
“The energy was different. You could tell,” All-Pro corner Patrick Surtain II told me after. “The magnitude of this game, they didn’t play their starters through the game, but we knew, no matter who was out there on the field, we had to finish. This was our moment, our time to shine, our time to do what we need to do to make the playoffs. We preached about it the whole week. Go out there, play our brand of football and win. That’s what we did today.”
So, sure, maybe the Broncos would’ve won regardless, based on the players K.C. had out there.
But the way they won should get your attention.
And, to me, it goes right back to what Sean Payton’s built—and GM George Paton and his staff deserve credit, too. I’ve seen it the past couple of summers, with the former Saints coach staging rugged Bill Parcells–style training camps. If the rules say you can practice for two and a half hours, these Broncos are going to go to 2:29:59. If they say you can hit four days a week in camp, Payton’s team would strap up in full pads all four days.
In 2023, there was some grousing. This year, there was zero dissent.
“We didn't complain,” Surtain says. “We didn’t point fingers through those tough days. All we did was work, grind, especially this year. You could see the urgency, with the competitive attitude throughout OTAs and camp, that we were built for moments like this. I knew that from the jump, even before the season. Creating the right habits, creating the right mindset through those days, through those grueling, tough training camp days.
“It helped us to the point we’re at now. As a team and as a group, and me individually, we all bought in consistently.”
And now, before most expected, they’re a playoff team, and they get there peaking, taking the wind out of the Chiefs’ skeleton crew swiftly and decisively, eight days after a heart-breaking loss on the road in Cincinnati.
Even better, around guys such as Nix and Surtain, Nik Bonitto and Jonathon Cooper, Riley Moss and Zach Allen, Courtland Sutton and Marvin Mims Jr., these Broncos are making it look like this is just the tip of the iceberg. They’re looking forward to the challenge of visiting Buffalo next Sunday—“Buffalo’s a tough place to play,” says Surtain, “It’s not going to be easy.” But it sure looks like this might be just the start.
“This embarks a journey, going ahead,” Surtain says. “We knew going into the season we had some doubters. That’s expected. We had a young team. People weren’t sure what type of team it was going to be. But the only people we need to believe in us at the end of the day is us. That’s what we proved each week. I’m very excited for the future as well because I know what we have to build off of. I know the type of team we have moving forward. To say that this is just the start, us reaching the playoffs is something spectacular.”
He then stops himself, and adds, “I’m not even looking forward to that. The season’s not even done yet. We have a lot more work to do.”
And a tougher test is six days away.
But as the Broncos see it, that’s what Payton’s built them for.
Top of the draft
The Tennessee Titans are going to be in an interesting spot. Tennessee locked up the first pick in the draft Sunday, losing in dreary fashion to the AFC South champion Houston Texans 23–14. My sense is changes will be forthcoming in Nashville, but more to support the work of coach Brian Callahan and president of football operations Chad Brinker (who was promoted from assistant GM to the top spot last year), than exact a pound of flesh for the lost year.
That said, a big, franchise-shifting decision is coming.
Internally, the Titans know the obvious, which is that they can’t go forward with Will Levis as their franchise quarterback. That doesn’t mean he can’t stay on the roster, or compete for playing time. It does mean the search for a long-term answer at the position is on, and it begins with the team having the first pick.
So now Tennessee will take a long look at Miami’s Cam Ward, Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders and quarterbacks who may go later in the first round or Day 2. This year’s class, for sure, isn’t what last year’s was at the position; and may prove to be as shaky as the 2022 class, when the first quarterback taken (Kenny Pickett) went 20th and the next one selected (Desmond Ridder) went 74th.
We’ll figure that out in the coming months. For now, though, the thought would probably be the Titans will either go quarterback or trade down.
He’s an early look at what else might happen atop the draft, with the order of the first 18 picks now set.
• If the Titans don’t take a quarterback and can’t move, then Colorado supernova Travis Hunter could fill needs on either side of the ball—they could use a great corner or receiver. And the fact that they’ve fortified the lines with JC Latham and Peter Skoronski on offense, and in adding T’Vondre Sweat to Jeffery Simmons on defense, gives them the flexibility to swing on a player like Hunter.
• The Cleveland Browns could take a quarterback—with their full intention, going into 2025, to add competition to the room for Deshaun Watson. They could also go with a tackle. The question is whether LSU’s Will Campbell (whom some see as a guard), Texas’s Kelvin Banks Jr. (who’s been inconsistent) or anyone projects as that type of prospect. If they add a veteran quarterback, rather than go the rookie route, Arizona’s Tetaroia McMillan or Hunter would be an interesting addition on offense.
• The New York Giants are another team in the quarterback hunt. They got their top execs multiple live exposures to seven top guys during the college season, and were all over Ward’s and Sanders’s bowl games. If they don’t take a quarterback, a corner such as Hunter or Michigan’s Will Johnson could be a consideration.
• The Patriots have a ton of holes outside of quarterback. So a lot of things could be in play, but tackle is the most glaring need. Again, whether Banks or Campbell are deemed worthy of being drafted this high would be the question.
• The Jacksonville Jaguars certainly could use someone like Johnson on defense, depending on who their next coach is. Or, if they aren’t scared off on Georgia defenders after taking Travon Walker with the No. 1 pick in 2022, they could look at the Bulldogs’ version of Micah Parsons, Jalon Walker.
• Then, you have the Las Vegas Raiders … another team in flux, and one that could actually be under a mandate to get a quarterback, like the Indianapolis Colts were a couple of years ago.
Draft season is close! I can’t wait to dive in on all this, especially since I know a lot of you, who root for teams like these, are ready to turn that page.
Baltimore Ravens
The Ravens’ program won out this year. Back in the middle of September, John Harbaugh’s crew inexplicably lost to the Raiders. They were 0–2. The defense, without last season’s coordinator Mike Macdonald or former Pro Bowler Patrick Queen, looked rickety. The offensive line, with three new starters, was a problem. Derrick Henry didn’t look like himself either.
Baltimore is 12–3 since and, in getting there, the Ravens once again showed the ability to develop people as we dove into with Harbaugh all the way back at the start of October.
“The idea” was, he told me then, “that we were going to be stronger at the end.”
They are, and while routing the Browns 35–10 to repeat as AFC North champs Saturday doesn’t give you the full view of that, how it fits into the bigger picture will. It was the Ravens’ fourth straight win, following a close loss to the Eagles. All of those came with the race against the Pittsburgh Steelers in full throat, and even the three losses Baltimore suffered over the past three-plus months weren’t exactly convincing—they came by a total of 12 points.
Bottom line, the Ravens are playing really good football, and they’re doing it with new people they developed, and maximized, taking the place of good people who are now gone.
So after this latest win, and another division title, I got on the phone with linebacker Kyle Van Noy—another guy who’s been maximized in Baltimore, having notched a career-high nine sacks last year at 32 years old, only to top it this year, at 33, with 12.5 in his second season as a Raven. Van Noy has perspective, having 11 years, five teams, and two Super wins on his résumé.
“It starts with the leadership at the top,” he told me, leaving the stadium. “You got to give the owner a lot of credit. Mr. [Steve] Bisciotti does a really good job. He entrusts the right people to make the right decisions. Coach Harbaugh’s done it a long time. He does a good job of developing coaches and finding good coaches that fit his system and what he does. Sashi Brown, the president, does a good job. E.D.C. [GM Eric DeCosta] does a really good job. His drafts, hot damn, he’s hit on every first-rounder that he’s taken. He took Hollywood Brown, who’s still a successful player in the league.
“He’s hit on every first-rounder, and then he’s hit on other players as well, like this year, my guy Roger [Rosengarten], who has a locker close to mine, he’s played outstanding this year. Just finding guys like that, that are football players, that are ready to play. Roger’s going to be a stud. I enjoy talking to him all the time. He’s just a dawg. They find a lot of dawgs. It’s harder and harder each and every year finding those players in football. They’re weeding themselves out with the NIL deals.
“Kids getting paid early, which is awesome, I’m not negative on that, it’s just harder to find football players. They’re doing a good job. They got a system down.”
And so it is that Zach Orr settled in as defensive coordinator, after some struggles similar to the ones Macdonald himself had in 2022; and Rosengarten, Patrick Mekari and Daniel Faalele have stabilized the line; and the front seven has sustained losses such as Queen and Jadeveon Clowney to create a younger, faster team. Henry, at nearly 2,000 yards, has rounded into form, too, and Lamar Jackson just posted the first 4,000-800 season in NFL history.
Of course, the Ravens were really good last year, too, and it didn’t work out for them, so Van Noy would be the last one to celebrate before anything’s over. But they’ve given themselves a chance again, and there’s something to be said for that.
“It’s been battle-tested,” Van Noy says of his team. “Battle-tested by our schedule, battle-tested with playing every playoff team already, just battle tested all the way through.”
And battle-tested with a lot to look forward to—in the playoffs, and otherwise.
Cincinnati Bengals
The Cincinnati Bengals have a lot to be proud of—and lots of work to do. Zac Taylor’s crew went down with a fight. With a 44–38 shootout loss to Pittsburgh in Week 13, they blew any margin for error they had left. Every game was a must win. And the Bengals won all five of them.
Beating the Steelers on a frigid Saturday night, by a narrow 19–17 margin, didn’t get them in the playoffs. But in completing the five-game winning streak to finish the season, I think you did get to see that the foundation laid three years ago, during the Bengals’ run to the Super Bowl, remains, and gives the team something to build on going forward. It’s something to be proud of, too.
“Incredibly proud,” defensive end Trey Hendrickson told me, after a 3.5-sack night. “Being with our backs against the wall at 4–8, giving ourselves a shot, guys playing at an incredibly high level, with Joe [Burrow], Ja’Marr [Chase], Tee [Higgins], the rest of the guys, Mike Gesicki and guys on defense, Joseph Ossai, Geno Stone, guys stepping to the plate on defense as well—I’m incredibly proud of those guys. I’m incredibly proud of this team.”
The win left the Bengals with playoff hopes narrowly alive, but only if results broke their way Sunday.
“We’ll see where the chips fall,” he said. “That’s part of football."
Now that they’ve fallen, the Bengals are on to 2025 and, again, they have a lot to look forward to—and plenty on the line.
Chase is headed into an option year, coming off his triple crown season. Higgins is a free agent. You’d imagine Hendrickson, after a second consecutive 17.5-sack season, would be looking for a contract correction again. The secondary needs help.
The Bengals will have to invest to keep Burrow, who’s (extremely) motivated to get back to contending for championships, happy. Remember, this is a franchise that went through Carson Palmer’s faux retirement, so they’ve been down that road before. They should know not doing everything it takes to avoid that sort of thing again could come at a heavy cost.
Burrow’s left breadcrumbs on all this, in the way he’s talked about Chase and Higgins and even defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo over the past few weeks.
He knows there’s a critical offseason ahead.
And in playing the way they did Saturday night, the whole team illustrated what’s on the line for the franchise over the next nine months.
“To get guys to believe at 4–8 is an incredible task in itself,” Hendrickson says, when I ask specifically about the job Anarumo’s done. “That is something that when you’re talking about a coach, is something that’s typically overlooked. To get us to play at an elite level and believe in a common goal, just to win. The opportunity to play in the National Football League, if we were all 16, 17 years old, we’d dream to play five games.
“That belief came from top down. Credit to the coaches and all the guys that bought in as well.”
And now, the ball is in the court of those who sign the checks.
Quick-hitters
The regular season is over, so let’s jump in on some quick-hitters to wrap things up. Away we go …
• The Jaguars fell to 4–13 Sunday, and that might be the end of a very weird Doug Pederson era. He got off to a 3–7 start in Jacksonville, then went 15–5 over his next 20 games, with a historic playoff comeback win over the Los Angeles Chargers and competitive divisional round loss to the Chiefs at Arrowhead mixed in there. Since then, he’s gone 5–18. Jacksonville ownership has been quiet, not making the background calls that a lot of teams do ahead of a firing. But that’s always been Shad Khan’s way, and I’d assume changes are coming (and probably a clean sweep of football ops there).
• Meanwhile, on the other end of that Sunday AFC South snoozer, Colts owner Jim Irsay announced that he was moving forward with coach Shane Steichen and GM Chris Ballard—there had been a lot of questions in league circles on Ballard’s future. One move that some expect in the aftermath is a change in defensive staff.
• Mike Vrabel has been connected to so many of the available jobs. There are the obvious connections to the Patriots and Raiders. There are the marquee-franchise fits with the Giants and Cowboys (New York’s already got a couple of his guys, in Ryan Cowden and Shane Bowen, on staff). He’s going to have options, and I’d expect finding a trust level with ownership and alignment with the personnel side to be major factors, after what he dealt with in Tennessee.
• On one hand, Carson Wentz didn’t look great Sunday, in throwing for 98 yards. On the other, he was throwing to someone named Nikko Remigio (who actually led the Chiefs with two catches for 48 yards). At least he got out healthy.
• Not for nothing, Darren Rizzi’s group, with Spencer Rattler and Jake Haener at quarterback for much of the past couple of months, played their butts off for him. The Saints are expected to give Rizzi a real interview and look. We’ll see where it goes.
• I wish Saquon Barkley had gotten a quarter or two to make a run at Eric Dickerson’s record. Selfishly, given the way the game is played today, it may be a while before someone has that good a shot at it again.
• The Bills were playing chess Sunday in throwing Mike White out there, with the division rival Patriots needing a loss to lock up the first pick in the draft.
• Falcons running back Bijan Robinson finished the year with 1,887 scrimmage yards on 365 touches—that’s about 5.2 yards per touch. Of course I understand why that wouldn’t get as much attention as what Barkley or Derrick Henry did. But that’s a damn good year in its own right, that should get Robinson some recognition.
• Good to see Caleb Williams’s competitiveness on display at the end of the win over the Green Bay Packers on Sunday. It also only underscored the pressure on the Chicago Bears to get their next hire right.
• I appreciate all of you coming out in 2024. And, as always, feel free to hit me up with any suggestions for how we can make all the things here at the site even better in 2025. We’ve got plenty of exciting stuff coming in the playoffs—stay tuned for all of that!
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Week 18 NFL Takeaways: Lions Look Indestructible Heading Into Playoffs.