NFL Week 15: The curse has been lifted
The football gods smiled upon several bad-luck franchises ... and laughed at the Patriots.
I wasn’t sure any game on Sunday could top what happened in the early window on Saturday, when the Vikings staged the largest comeback in NFL history.
By Sunday morning, I was convinced that the (American) football action would pale in comparison to perhaps the most epic (men’s) World Cup final ever. And yeah, nothing that transpired in the NFL in Week 15 was at the same level as Messi vs. Mbappe in a championship bout. But dang if the league didn’t try its hardest.
On Sunday, only one game was decided by double digits: the Bengals’ 11-point win over the Bucs. At one point, the Bengals were in a 17-0 hole, but they turned things around in a big way, becoming the third team this weekend to complete a 17+point comeback — a record for any single week in the NFL. We also saw three walkoff touchdowns (tied for the most ever in a week) in Week 15’s three overtime contests.
Every game was dramatic in its own way. Even the league’s worst teams showed out. The Texans and Bears, long since eliminated from the playoffs and both guaranteed a top pick in the draft, gave two of the best teams (the Chiefs and Eagles) about all they could handle on Sunday.
Although the Texans’ and Bears’ losing streaks continued, other ill-fated teams caught a rare break. A few hard-luck franchises known mostly for losing are playing good football and, for some of them, are suddenly knocking on the door of the playoffs.
Not every cursed franchise can say the same, though. The Falcons and Commanders still managed to lose in hideous (and unfair) circumstances. But for the most part, Week 15 was not business as usual in the NFL. It was better, more surprising, more suspenseful, and — at least in the case of one game — so much dumber. Let’s start there.
Pitchy Pitchy Whoops: Raiders *aren’t* dealt a heartbreaker
Four years ago, the Patriots lost a game in one of the stupidest possible ways: the Miracle in Miami. The lateral-filled ending was an uncharacteristic brain fart from a Bill Belichick team, but it ultimately didn’t matter, except for the lolz, since New England went on to win the Super Bowl almost two months later.
Fast forward to the present, when a Belichick team somehow found an even stupider lateral-filled way to lose a game, with a “pitchy pitchy whoops” (™ NFL RedZone):
There were still lolz to be had, courtesy of former Patriots pass rusher Chandler Jones trucking over Mac Jones (no relation) for the game-winner:
This time, however, the Pats’ blunder could have dire consequences for their playoff hopes. They entered Week 15 with a 42 percent chance of making the postseason and exited with just a 22 percent chance.
While the Raiders are still technically alive in the playoff hunt, if facing longshot odds of around 5 percent, their improbable victory on Sunday was significant for another reason: They really needed a win like this where the ball bounces their way.
Before this week, Las Vegas was 0-4 this season when leading by 10+ points at halftime. Seven of the team’s eight losses were decided by one score, and all of them were embarrassing in different ways — but none so more than last week’s debacle against the banged-up Rams and their new quarterback, as of 48 hours earlier, Baker Mayfield.
This week, the Raiders were up 17-3 at the half. Once the Patriots took a 24-17 lead, it looked Josh McDaniels’ squad was headed for another collapse, this time against his former team.
Instead, the Raiders made a couple of key plays and had a little luck on their side, as was the case with the game-tying touchdown in which Keelan Cole may or may not have been out of bounds. There’s not much time left in the season for the Raiders to build off this win, but even if it was “too little, too late” for postseason purposes, it will be remembered as one of the most insane endings in NFL history. Or in other words, what happened in Vegas won’t stay in Vegas.
The tide has turned: Lions have figured out how to win
As the month of October came to an end, Dan Campbell said, “I do know we’re close, and you just don’t know when it’s going to turn. But if we don’t keep swinging away at it, it’ll only get worse.”
At the time, his Lions were 1-6 and could not figure out how to finish games or win on the road. It was also hard to believe what Campbell was saying, simply because Detroit fans have been hearing similar sentiment most of their lives.
But, in fact, Campbell knows his team better than any of us do. The Lions have gone 6-1 since then, including Sunday’s 20-17 win over the Jets at MetLife Stadium.
Afterward, Campbell told his players, “We would not have won that game earlier … something would have happened right at the end. We have figured out a way to win.”
And once again, Campbell was 100 percent correct. The Lions hadn’t trailed all afternoon until midway through the fourth quarter, when the Jets took the lead on a touchdown drive right after Detroit had missed a 54-yard field goal attempt.
That probably would have been the nail in the coffin for the old Lions. If not that, then what happened next would have been their undoing: They got the ball back with 4:37 remaining. On the first play of that possession, tight end Brock Wright dropped a pass from Jared Goff that he should have had. But neither Goff nor Wright was fazed by the mistake.
A few plays later, around midfield, Goff connected with Kalif Raymond on third-and-6. Raymond, who scored on a punt return earlier, tried to stretch for the first down, but the refs ruled him a yard short. Campbell decided to go for it on fourth-and-1, as he’s been wont to do and not always successfully, and IT WORKED. Not only did Goff go back to Wright for the critical play, but Wright came through in a huge way by taking the ball all the way down the field for the go-ahead touchdown:
There were still two minutes left to go, though, and the Lions have blown bigger leads in shorter amounts of time. The Jets weren’t going down without a fight, either. Zach Wilson found Garrett Wilson for two first downs. Then, on fourth-and-18, the QB Wilson escaped the pocket to buy time and heaved the ball to an open Elijah Moore, who went down with one second on the clock as Robert Saleh called his final timeout.
Maybe the old Lions lose in overtime, but these Lions didn’t even go to overtime. The Jets’ 58-yard field goal try was no good:
The Lions, now 7-7, are just outside of the playoff picture and have an easier remaining schedule than their wild card competition does. They’ve found ways to win. They’ve found ways to win on the road. They’ve found ways to close out games. Their postseason dreams may come down to being able to do all three, at Lambeau Field in the last week of the season.
The edge of 17: Jaguars can’t be counted out
Before this season, the Jaguars had only rallied from a 17+ point deficit once in franchise history. This season, they’ve done it twice: last month against the Raiders and this week against the Cowboys.
Down 27-10 midway through the third quarter, Trevor Lawrence engineered three touchdown drives in about 10 minutes of game time to give Jacksonville its first lead, all part of an excellent stretch from the young quarterback.
Then the Cowboys managed a similar feat as the week before, when they scored late to stave off an upset from the lowly Texans. The Dallas defense, remembering that it was ranked No. 1 in DVOA, stepped up with 1:38 remaining to force Lawrence to fumble.
While the Cowboys couldn’t run out the clock, they could have forced the Jags to use all three of their timeouts. But they elected to throw it on third-and-10, resulting in an incompletion.
The Jaguars got the ball back with a minute left and down by three. Just like with the Lions, this would’ve been a near-certain loss if this game had been played earlier in the season. At the end of October, Jacksonville was 2-6 and all of its losses had come down to one possession.
But just like the Lions of today, the Jags had confidence to pull this one out. Lawrence guided the offense to the Dallas 30-yard line, and, with the final timeout, set up the game-tying field goal.
The Jags went three-and-out in OT, and right when you thought that the Cowboys would escape once again, a Dak Prescott pass bounced directly to Rayshawn Jenkins, who ran it back for a walkoff pick-six:
That unlikely win not only ended the Jags’ 20-game losing streak to NFC opponents, but it also has them within striking distance of first place in the AFC South. Jacksonville has won four of its last six contests, including a double-digit victory in Tennessee last week, while the Titans have dropped four in a row. It’s quite possible that the division title will come down to the Jags-Titans rematch in the final week of the season.
Can I kick it: Yes the Chargers can!
For so long, the Chargers have been defined by their misfortune, from their relocation to their constant injuries, to their shaky kickers, to their late-game gut punches. Just think about their Week 18 matchup against the Raiders last season, when all they needed was a tie to make the playoffs … and they couldn’t even get that to go their way.
The Chargers never trailed the Titans on Sunday, but every time RedZone checked in on the game, I had a nagging feeling that LA would blow it in some god-awful fashion. The Titans’ tag-team, top-tapping interception in the end zone — Justin Herbert’s first pick in a month — right before the half didn’t quell my fears:
Neither did Tennessee's game-tying touchdown, led by an extremely hobbled Ryan Tannehill, with less than a minute left.
Despite having one of his least efficient performances of the season, Herbert came through in the clutch, needing just three passes to get the Chargers into field goal range. The third, in particular, was a beauty:
LA had a little time left to take another shot, but first, it got hit with a delay of game penalty. So perhaps this is where the Chargers’ curse would come in — surely, the 5-yard loss would be the difference between their kicker making and missing the field goal attempt, right?
But nope, not when they have Dicker the kicker:
Cameron Dicker, a rookie who has played in eight total games for the Eagles and Chargers, now has made three game-winning field goals in his short career. Maybe the cure to their kicking woes was someone whose last name rhymes with “kicker.”
Not that the Chargers have completely abandoned their old ways. After all, this was their seventh straight one-possession matchup. As Austin Ekeler put it, “Chargers football, man.”
Still, FPI puts their playoff chances at 93.1 percent after Week 15. With a manageable schedule the rest of the season — Colts, Rams, Broncos — the Chargers control their own destiny. Well, unless the football gods decide to butt in and spite them yet again.