There's so much that happens every week in the NFL that you could be forgiven for not necessarily having a handle on all the major developments. Lucky for you, that's why we're here.
From now until the end of the season, we'll spend every Tuesday updating you on the current state of both the playoff picture and the race for the No. 1 overall pick in the 2020 NFL Draft; as well as making sure to provide some stats and notes and tidbits that shed light on what happened and what mattered in the prior week's games.
Playoff Picture
There is just one playoff spot still up for grabs in each conference. One of the Titans, Steelers or Raiders will make in the AFC, while either the Eagles or Cowboys will make it in the NFC.
Meanwhile, the Ravens clinched the No. 1 seed in the AFC. The Patriots currently control the No. 2 but the Chiefs can take it away from them if Kansas City wins next week and New England slips up. Houston can also jump up from the No. 4 spot, but that would involve the Chiefs losing next week. The Bills are locked in at No. 5, while one of the aforementioned three teams will get the No. 6 seed.
Week 16 is in the books and there's a lot to go over. Fortunately Will Brinson, John Breech, Ryan Wilson and Sean Wagner-McGough are here to break everything down on the Pick Six Podcast. Listen below and be sure to subscribe right here for daily NFL goodness.
In the NFC, the Eagles took control of the NFC East with a win over Dallas, and only need to beat the Giants to clinch the No. 4 seed. Dallas can only get the No. 4 by beating Washington and seeing the Eagles lose to New York. There is so much going on with the 49ers, Saints, Packers, and Seahawks, quartet that it's almost not even worth sorting out all the tiebreakers right now. Let's just show you how things stand at the moment, and make it clear that things have the potential to get pretty crazy next week.
Race for the bottom
Here's how the top 10 in the 2020 NFL Draft would shake out at this moment:
- Bengals (1-14)
- Washington (3-12)
- Lions (3-11-1)
- Giants (4-11)
- Dolphins (4-11)
- Jaguars (5-10)
- Chargers (5-10)
- Panthers (5-10)
- Panthers (5-9-1)
- Jets (6-9)
The Bengals are on the clock. Washington, by virtue of having lost the Chase Young Bowl to the Giants, holds the No. 2 pick, while New York tumbled down to No. 4, one spot behind the Lions. The Dolphins, who looked like the most notorious tankers in recent memory, are set to pick at No. 5. There's still a jumble of teams in the back half of the top 10, and we won't know what order in which they'll pick until after Week 17.
The Week in Review
We'll use this space to give you one stat, one note, one nugget, one piece of information from each of this week's games. It won't necessarily explain the game's outcome, but the hope is it will make you a smarter, more-informed football fan for having read it.
Texans 23, Buccaneers 20: Jameis Winston has thrown 31 touchdowns and 28 interceptions this season. Those 28 picks are already the second-most any quarterback has thrown in any season where he threw 30 touchdowns, behind only the 29 thrown by Lynn Dickey back in 1983. Winston has a chance to become the first quarterback ever with a 30-30 season. Considering he threw two picks against the Falcons in the teams' first matchup this season, it's eminently doable for him.
Patriots 24, Bills 17: The Bills have now allowed the opposing offense to score more than 20 points only four times this season. That's really good! The bad news is they're 1-3 in those games, with the only win coming against the Dolphins. It's not that the Bills themselves are incapable of scoring more than 20: they've done it six times in 15 games. (Now that I type it out, that doesn't sound good either.) But it seems like when they need to score that many, they have some difficulty getting it done.
49ers 34, Rams 31: The two primary tight ends in this game (George Kittle and Tyler Higbee) are two of just seven players at that position with at least 60 catches for 650 yards this season. Along with Darren Waller, they are also two of the only three among that group catching at least 78 percent of passes thrown in their direction.
Jets 16, Steelers 10: The latest simulations from Sportsline's Stephen Oh give the Steelers only a 28 percent chance to make the playoffs. That's down from 53 percent heading into the weekend. Only the Cowboys experienced a larger drop-off in their playoff chances this week.
Saints 38, Titans 28: Michael Thomas is now the all-time single-season leader in receptions, with a game still remaining in the regular season. His 145 catches have come on "only" 176 targets, giving him an 82.4 percent catch rate. Among players with 100-plus targets in a season, that catch rate is the sixth-best of all time. The other five players in front of him are either running backs or Thomas himself, who caught 125 of the 147 passes thrown his way last season.
Colts 38, Panthers 6: After this blowout, the Panthers are now one of just seven defenses allowing a score on at least 40 percent of opponent possessions. What's interesting to me is that among those teams, the Panthers have awarded their opponents the fewest first downs via penalty (27), which means their actual defense might be even worse than the ones they're grouped with down at the bottom of the league.
Dolphins 38, Bengals 35: This game marked the second time in the last four weeks that Ryan Fitzpatrick threw for at least 300 yards and three touchdowns. Incredibly, he is now one of just 25 quarterbacks to post at least five such games after turning 33 years old. This game was also the third time since turning 33 that Fitzpatrick threw for 400 or more yards and four or more touchdowns, more than anybody in NFL history except Peyton Manning and Drew Brees.
Ravens 31, Browns 15: The Browns had the eighth-best Super Bowl odds in the NFL before the season. Just thought I'd remind everyone of that. Oh, and the Ravens (now the favorites) had the 16th-best odds. Good times.
Falcons 24, Jaguars 12: Incredibly, this was one of the best games of Devonta Freeman's career. He ended with 53 yards and a touchdown on 13 carries, but he also added nine catches for 74 yards and another score. It was the first time in more than three years that Freeman had more than 125 total yards and two touchdowns in the same game, and only the fifth time he's done so in his career.
Giants 41, Washington 35: This was Daniel Jones' third game this season with at least four touchdown passes, tying Deshaun Watson for the most such games by a rookie quarterback since the AFL-NFL merger. Jones also struggled with turnovers throughout the season, though. His three games with two or more interceptions were nowhere close to the most for a rookie quarterback, but his five games with two-plus fumbles were more than any player except for Tony Banks, who had eight such games.
Broncos 27, Lions 17: Courtland Sutton's numbers this season may not seem explosive on the surface: 68 catches for 1,060 yards and six touchdowns is pretty good, but it's not exactly unheard of. But for a second-year receiver, it's pretty rate. That's only been done 33 times by a second-year wideout since 2000, and the list of guys who have done it have almost exclusively gone on to be really, really good players. The Broncos found themselves a good one last year.
Raiders 24, Chargers 17: By a number of measurements, Derek Carr has actually been quite a bit better this season than he was in 2016, when he was a fringe MVP candidate for the 12-4 Raiders. Carr's completion percentage, yards per attempt, passer rating, and QBR are all better in 2019 than they were in 2016, and that's true even when you adjust for league averages during those two seasons. The Raiders themselves just aren't nearly as good, and so instead of getting a big contract at the end of the year, Carr might find himself getting cut when the Raiders move to Vegas.
Cardinals 27, Seahawks 13: It's been 1,437 days since Marshawn Lynch last suited up for the Seahawks. Here's hoping we see Beast Mode ride once again.
Eagles 17, Cowboys 9: In 2018, the Cowboys went 10-6 and won the NFC East. Along the way, they went 9-3 in one-score games, and so they ended the year with the point differential of an 8.4-win team. In 2019, the Cowboys are just 7-8 and they need a Week 17 miracle to win the NFC East. Along the way, they have gone just 1-6 in one-score games, meaning they currently have the point differential of a 9.6-win team. It could reasonably be argued that this year's Cowboys team was better than last year's but the 2018 team benefitted from a ton of good luck while this one was victimized by a ton of bad luck. Had the two seasons' results been reversed, it's likely that Jason Garrett would be the team's coach for a few more years. Instead, he's likely to be out of a job by this time next week.
Chiefs 26, Bears 3: The Chiefs' win over the Bears ran their winning streak to five games. During that span, their defense has not allowed more than 17 points in any game. The Chiefs' 48 points allowed are by far the fewest any team has allowed in its most recent five-game span, with the Steelers' 73 points coming closest.
Packers 23, Vikings 10: In case you somehow haven't heard, Kirk Cousins is now 0-9 on Monday Night Football.
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December 24, 2019 at 09:00PM
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Here's what you missed from NFL Week 16: Key nuggets on every team, playoff picture gets a little clearer - CBS Sports
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