NFL Week 16: Chaos theory
Certain teams keep flying by the seat of their pants this season.
This late in the season, I thought I’d have a decent handle on most of the teams in the NFL. Instead, I don’t know what to expect out of about half of them in any given week.
Sure, I know that the Bears and Texans are bad but still somewhat competitive. The Eagles, Bills, Chiefs, and 49ers are good, if sometimes inconsistent. The Broncos are completely dysfunctional, so much so that they fired Nathaniel Hackett before his first season as a head coach was even over — and somehow that felt overdue. The Packers never go away. Neither does Tom Brady.
But other teams have proven to be more unpredictable this year. Well, there is one predictable thing about them: You’ll want to tune in to the end of their games because they’re gonna be chaotic.
Below, I’m going to look back at the five teams I thought were most chaotic in Week 16 and then look forward to what the future holds for them. As best as I can, anyway.
The Vikings keep living on the edge
For the most part, the Vikings’ season can be boiled down to one kind of win (a one-score nail-biter) and one kind of loss (a blowout in which they never stood a chance). Luckily for them, they’ve been much more likely to deliver on the former. The Vikings are 12-3, and an NFL-record 11 of those wins have been decided by a single possession — the only exception came in Week 1, a 23-7 victory over the Packers.
Despite Minnesota’s high-wire act in the first half of the season, its wins have somehow increased in difficulty throughout the second half. It started in Week 10, with the “game of the year” against the Bills. In the last two weeks, the Vikings have turned up the drama even more: first with the biggest comeback in league history and then with the longest field goal in franchise history. After the Minnesota defense allowed the Giants to tie the game, Greg Joseph ended up hitting a 61-yard field goal as time expired:
(That doesn’t even do justice to how wild the fourth quarter got, but we’ll get to that next.)
So what does this mean for the Vikings, with their +5 point differential, when the playoffs roll around? On one hand, if the game comes down to the final minute, they’re battle-tested and have the confidence to believe they can pull out a victory. On the other hand, maybe their luck is due to run out. After all, we are talking about the Vikings in the postseason, where all they’ve experienced is heartbreak and painful collapses.
For now, though, we can just enjoy the roller coaster ride that is the Vikings each week … and groan at Kirk Cousins’ dad tweets:
The Giants are resilient, even in a loss
The Giants came out on the wrong end of a close game Saturday, but that hasn’t been the case often this year. In mid-October, they were 6-1 — all of which were one-score affairs — and had rallied from second-half deficits in five of those wins. Now they’re a “mere” 8-4-1 in matchups that came down to one possession, including 1-1 in the last two weeks.
In Week 15, the Giants led most of the way, then held off the Commanders in the final minute (with a little assistance from the officials) to end a four-game winless streak. In Week 16, they made a few mistakes in the second half, and caught a couple bad breaks, such as T.J. Hockenson’s improbable touchdown catch, that put the Vikings ahead. Still, the Giants weren’t deterred and scored a touchdown, plus a two-point conversion, to pull into a tie with two minutes to go.
Although the Vikings won on another improbable play (Joseph’s long game-winning kick), the Giants were, as coach Brian Daboll said, “resilient.” They could have given up when, once they took 13-10 lead in the third quarter, all of this happened:
- Cor'Dale Flott’s woulda-been interception is overturned on review (Vikings score a TD on the drive)
-Daniel Jones is picked off for the first time in more than a month (Vikings turn it over on downs)
-Richie James drops an easy pass on third down (Giants settle for a field goal to cut their deficit to one point)
-The Giants’ punt gets blocked (Justin Jefferson increases Minnesota’s lead with a TD catch five plays later)
Instead, the Giants evened things up on a 75-yard drive that took less than a minute off the clock. It’s that tenacity that makes the Giants a pesky opponent, win or lose, and could mean someone is in for a dogfight this postseason if NY secures a bid. The good news for the Giants is that the loss didn’t negatively impact their playoff odds that much. FiveThirtyEight gives them a 92 percent chance of making the postseason in Daboll’s first season in New York.
The Cowboys are all over the place
The Cowboys were relatively stable in the first half of the season, even without Dak Prescott for five games. Lately, though, they’ve been playing erratic football. In the last four weeks, Dallas has:
1. Turned a 21-19 third-quarter lead against the Colts into a 54-19 bloodbath one quarter later
2. Needed a last-minute touchdown to take down the Texans, at home
3. Blown a 17-point lead against the Jaguars, losing in overtime on a fluky pick-six
4. Rallied past the Eagles (twice) to hand their hated rivals only their second loss of the season
At their best, the Cowboys are as good as any team in the NFL. At their worst, they look like so many Cowboys teams in recent years: a disappointment.
On Christmas Eve, they were a little bit of both. Despite MVP candidate Jalen Hurts sitting out with a shoulder injury, the Dallas defense surrendered 442 yards, including a season-high 355 through the air courtesy of backup QB Gardner Minshew. Once one of the most fearsome units in the NFL, the pass rush has managed just one sack in the last three games and did not get to Minshew once.
What the defense has done well, however, is create turnovers. The Cowboys forced the Eagles to cough it up four times on Saturday, most notably Miles Sanders’ fumble with just over two minutes remaining.
On the other side of the ball, the Dallas offense became the first opponent to crack the 400-yard mark against Philly, though Dak Prescott was sacked a season-high six times. Prescott also threw his second pick-six in as many weeks to put the Eagles up 10-0 early. Nevertheless, Prescott and the Cowboys climbed out of that 10-point hole — and then did it again in the second half — thanks to some clutch plays from the quarterback, like this third-and-30 throw to new teammate T.Y. Hilton:
The fourth-quarter drive ended with a game-tying touchdown, and the Cowboys never trailed again.
I’m not sure what to expect out of Dallas in the postseason. The Cowboys will almost assuredly travel to face the NFC South winner in the Wild Card Round and should come out on top. But “should win” doesn’t always mean “will win” for the Cowboys in the postseason, certainly not in the last 25 years. So as awful as that entire division has been this year, I wouldn’t necessarily trust the Cowboys to get out of Tampa or Carolina or New Orleans alive. If that’s the case, then Sean Payton, you’re up.
The Patriots, of all teams, are not playing sound football
Just over a month ago, the Patriots looked like they were going to make it back to the playoffs on the strength of their defense and thanks to several close wins, similar to what they did last year. Y’know, annoying Patriots stuff. I mean, any team that beats a rival on an 84-yard punt return as time expires has to be doing something right — and/or have luck on their side.
Since then, however, New England has lost three one-score games, the last two in back-to-back weeks. Both losses were clinched by dumb miscues, uncharacteristic of Bill Belichick’s teams.
Nothing will top last week’s lateral brainfart, but in one sense, the Pats’ Week 16 loss might have been costlier. With most of their wild card competition losing this weekend, the Patriots could’ve been right back in the driver’s seat in the AFC playoff picture, and with some momentum. They would’ve shown they could bounce back, both from a humiliating defeat and from a 22-point deficit against a talented Bengals squad.
That was almost the case. For most of the second half, it appeared as if the football gods were smiling upon the denizens of Gillette Stadium once again. Cincinnati’s offense went ice old. Joe Burrow threw a pick-six. The refs called Mac Jones for intentional grounding on what could’ve been a Cincinnati fumble return touchdown, the same play that helped Jones’ reputation as the NFL Grayson Allen spread.
Right after that, Jones’ Hail Mary-type throw on third-and-29 ricocheted into, who else, but Jakobi Meyers’ hands for a touchdown:
Then, with the Bengals clinging to a four-point lead late in the fourth quarter, Ja’Marr Chase fumbled. The Pats were on the verge of taking their first lead and potentially winning the game until the normally sure-handed Rhamondre Stevenson lost the ball.
In any other year, this would’ve been a guaranteed win for the Patriots and loss for the Bengals. Not this year, when Belichick’s crew lacks football smarts in key situations. They still have a outside chance at the playoffs, but if they miss out as expected, they only have themselves to blame. At least that might finally be what convinces Belichick to hire a real OC.
The Raiders can’t stop blowing halftime leads
In retrospect, there was no way the Raiders were going to beat the Steelers on Christmas Eve night. Not when Pittsburgh was retiring Franco Harris’ jersey, days after his passing and 50 years after the Immaculate Reception.
Still, the Raiders shouldn’t have lost that game, just like they shouldn’t have lost the NFL-record four other times they had 7+ point halftime leads and then withered (and, to be fair, like they probably shouldn’t have won last week against the Patriots).
This week, Derek Carr and the offense mustered just 50 yards in the second half. Josh McDaniels’ curious playcalling often ignored Josh Jacobs, the league’s leading rusher, much to the running back’s frustration. Carr was intercepted three times after halftime, giving him an NFL-high 14 picks on the season.
The Vegas defense could only hold on for so long. With three minutes to go, Steelers rookie QB Kenny Pickett put together his only touchdown drive of the night: a 10-play, 76-yard possession that ended with a 14-yard strike to George Pickens with 46 seconds remaining.
While Mike Tomlin still has the opportunity to keep his non-losing record streak alive, the Raiders are almost certainly toast, with a less than 1 percent chance of making the playoffs. It’ll likely be the end of Carr’s tenure in Vegas … and judging by Jacobs’ comments, the free-agent-to-be will probably sign elsewhere this offseason.