The Eagles-Cowboys prime time game may have been Sunday's main course, but the appetizer was a pretty intense late afternoon game in Kansas City. The Bills hung on to beat the Chiefs 20-17 when receiver Kadarius Toney's clear and egregious offsides penalty nullified the go-ahead touchdown in the final two minutes.
For the Chiefs, it was the latest chapter in a frustrating season in which their wide receivers can't stop making mistakes and they have not been able to get their once-vaunted offense going. They've now lost four of their past six and are amazingly only one game ahead of the Broncos in the AFC West. Their remaining schedule features the Patriots, Raiders, Bengals and Chargers, so they should be able to hold off Denver and win their eighth straight division title. But their chances of getting the top seed in the AFC playoff field are down to 9.9%, and the likelihood of Patrick Mahomes having to play a road playoff game for the first time in his career is increasing by the week.
Meanwhile, it was absolutely a must-win game for the Bills, who improved to 7-6 for the season and saw their chances of reaching the playoffs climb to 37.5%. It has felt all season that everything that could go wrong has gone wrong for Buffalo. Devastating injuries to key defensive players. Handing the Broncos a second chance at a winning field goal by having too many men on the field. The scapegoat firing of offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey after that game. The embarrassing revelation this past week of coach Sean McDermott's citation of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in a speech to the team four years ago. But in spite of everything, the Bills aren't cooked just yet.
Sunday's win kept the Bills in contention, and they've shown enough over the last half-decade to prove that we shouldn't count them out. So we'll start the Week 14 overreactions column -- in which we judge some of the biggest potential takeaways off the slate of games -- with them.
Jump to:
Bills among AFC's most dangerous teams?
NFC playoff teams with losing records?
Will Fields start somewhere in 2024?
Will Tomlin have a losing season?
Eagles not a Super Bowl-caliber team?
The Bills will be the most dangerous team in the AFC playoff field
The field appears to be wide open this season, and the Bills have already beaten the Dolphins and the Chiefs. There's no Joe Burrow in Cincinnati and no Deshaun Watson in Cleveland. Trevor Lawrence is playing hurt for Jacksonville, and C.J. Stroud left Sunday's Texans game and is in concussion protocol.
It's a jumble, and if the Bills get into the playoffs, they'll have as much postseason experience as any team in the field other than the Chiefs. Quarterback Josh Allen is capable of lifting the team onto his shoulders and delivering a massive win when needed. The Bills were one of the preseason favorites, and you can make a case that no one wants to see them playing their best football when January starts.
Verdict: OVERREACTION
They aren't even in the top seven yet! The Bills' remaining four games are home against the Cowboys, at the Chargers, home against the Patriots and at the Dolphins. If they split those four, they're 9-8 and not guaranteed a spot. If they slip up against the Chargers or Patriots, they're almost certainly out. Plus, cornerback Tre'Davious White and linebacker Matt Milano aren't coming back for the playoffs. And as great as Allen is, the offense has shown a lot of flaws throughout the season, from turnovers to the inability to develop a second consistent, reliable wide receiver to pair with Stefon Diggs.
The most dangerous-looking teams in the AFC right now are the Ravens and the Dolphins, and I like both of their chances to make a deep playoff run more than Buffalo's odds.
The NFC playoff field will have multiple teams with losing records
At the present time, only five of the NFC's 16 teams have a winning record. One of them is the Vikings, who just beat the Raiders 3-0 on Sunday. No, I'm not kidding. Go look it up. The Packers can become the sixth NFC team with a winning record if they beat the Giants on Monday night, but you get my point. These are not great teams beyond the top handful of contenders.
The rules say the conference must have seven playoff teams, but there is nothing in the rules that requires all seven to have winning records. As of right now, the 6-7 Buccaneers would be NFC South champs, while the 6-6 Packers would be the No. 7 seed, with the Rams, Seahawks, Falcons and Saints each a half-game out of a spot and the 5-8 Bears (!) only a game and a half out. Yuck.
Verdict: OVERREACTION
The idea of the NFC South champion having a losing record isn't farfetched. It happened just last season. But a look at remaining schedules shows that the Packers, Rams, Falcons and Saints all have reasonable paths to winning records. Green Bay is playing really well at the moment, and the Rams were on a nice roll before Sunday's heartbreaking overtime loss to the Ravens. One or more of these teams is going to finish the season hot and maybe even be a team you don't want to see in the playoffs.
Heck, Matthew Stafford, Aaron Donald and Cooper Kupp were Super Bowl champions just two seasons ago. You think they can't find a way to pull an early round playoff upset if they get themselves in?
Justin Fields will be a starting quarterback in 2024 ... somewhere
Fields led the Bears to their second win in a row Sunday, a 28-13 victory over the NFC North's first-place Lions. He was 19-for-33 passing for 223 yards and a touchdown throw, and he ran for 58 yards and another score. Since returning from a right thumb injury four weeks ago, Fields has looked like an improved player and shown signs of development in key areas. Sunday was his eighth career game with a passing touchdown and a rushing touchdown. That's the third most such games in the NFL since Fields entered the league in 2021, behind Kyler Murray and Jalen Hurts.
The Bears, who are in line to have the first overall pick in the 2024 draft by virtue of having the 1-12 Panthers' first-rounder, are using the final stretch of this season to evaluate Fields and help them decide whether to commit to him beyond this year or use that pick to draft his replacement. If they did the latter, they'd probably look to trade Fields prior to deciding whether to pick up his fifth-year option for 2025.
Verdict: NOT AN OVERREACTION
I personally don't think Fields will be the Bears' starting quarterback in 2024. But he has shown enough that teams will be interested in acquiring him with the intention of possibly making him their starter. His running ability is special, and if he continues to show advancement as a passer over the final month of this season, there are going to be offensive coaches around the league who believe very strongly that they can shape him into an effective NFL starter.
Fields was the 11th overall pick in the 2021 draft, he doesn't turn 25 until March and right or wrong, there's a perception that he hasn't been put in the best position to succeed since he has been in Chicago. The Bears almost certainly will move on -- especially if they end up with the first pick -- but Fields will start games for someone next season.
This will be Mike Tomlin's first losing season
A week and a half ago, this would have been a ridiculous thing to say. Tomlin's Steelers were 7-4 -- two wins away from clinching a winning season -- and staring at two home games against two of the worst teams in the league. But they lost to Arizona in Week 13, and then they lost to New England on Thursday. Now they're 7-6, playing without their starting quarterback and apparently capable of losing to literally anyone.
Tomlin famously has not finished a season with a sub-.500 record since becoming the Steelers' head coach in 2007, but he will need to go at least 2-2 (or 1-2-1) the rest of the way in order to avoid that fate in his 17th year.
Verdict: NOT AN OVERREACTION
Again, the past two games were the layups -- home matchups with teams that were 2-10 at kickoff. The Steelers have four games left, all against playoff contenders, and three of them come on the road. They're at Indianapolis in Week 15, then home against the Bengals before finishing the season with trips to Seattle and Baltimore.
Could they win two of those games? Of course. The Colts and Bengals are using backup quarterbacks, the Seahawks used one Sunday and we don't know for sure when Geno Smith will return and the Ravens could theoretically have things locked up and have no reason to use their starters in Week 18. I'm not going to sit here and predict that Tomlin will finish with a losing record for the first time as a head coach, because I've felt several times in recent years that this could happen, and he has managed to pull it out of the fire every time. But after the week the Steelers just had, it'd be a mistake to rule this out.
The Eagles aren't good enough to get back to the Super Bowl this season
These are not last season's Eagles. Their defense isn't stopping anyone right now. Their offense turns it over too much. They spent November eking out close wins over some of the league's best teams, but they've started December with losses to the 49ers and Cowboys -- the two teams most likely to stand in their way of repeating as NFC champions.
Sure, the Eagles did a decent job of holding the Cowboys to field goals Sunday night, and it's not their fault the Cowboys' kicker has a tremendous leg. But they still gave up 33 points, failed to score an offensive touchdown and turned the ball over three times in Dallas territory. These Eagles are sloppier and more inconsistent than last year's Eagles, and as a result their path back to the Super Bowl doesn't look like it's going to be a smooth one.
Verdict: OVERREACTION
The Cowboys are technically in first place in the NFC East right now because the teams are tied, they split head-to-head matchups and the Cowboys have a division record that's a half-game better. But that's a quirk of the schedule. They'll end up playing the same number of division games, and it's actually Philadelphia that controls its own destiny. If the Eagles win all of their remaining games -- all of which are eminently winnable on paper -- they will repeat as division champs regardless of what the Cowboys do. And Dallas' remaining schedule still includes trips to Buffalo and Miami and a home game against the Lions.
So things are still set up for the Eagles to get playoff home games -- and even a first-round bye if the 49ers slip up and lose one of their final four games. There's no question the defense needs to play better. If it doesn't, the Eagles are likely an early exit team in the postseason.
But if the defense does play better, this is still going to be a playoff team with a coach, quarterback and roster that knows first-hand what it takes to win in January. Things have a chance to look a lot better in a month for the Eagles than they do at the moment, and quarterback Jalen Hurts isn't the kind of guy we should feel good about counting out.