NFL Week 18: To sum it up

For a few teams and most especially Josh Allen, the final weekend was a microcosm of the regular season.

The 2023 NFL season concluded in both triumph and heartache. C.J. Stroud and Puka Nacua continued to set rookie records. The Jets halted their long losing streak to the Patriots in what could be Bill Belichick’s last game in New England. Matthew Slater, Derrick Henry, and Justin Fields (maybe?) said their goodbyes.

So did the Falcons to Arthur Smith, whose head coaching career was remarkably consistent but not in a good way. Same for the Commanders and Ron Rivera.

There were disappointing endings, surprising storylines, and a decent mix of predictable and unpredictable results.

As Josh Allen would say, Week 18 was a “microcosm” of this season. Some of the outcomes this weekend represented how the entire season played out for several teams, both those that made the playoffs and those that didn’t.

Bills finally got out of their own way while the Dolphins stumbled against a playoff team

Round 2 between the Bills and Dolphins was much closer, and much lower-scoring, than their first meeting (a 48-20 win for Buffalo in Week 4). The stakes were also higher this time, with the winner taking the AFC East crown and getting the chance to play host next weekend in the Wild Card Round. 

That represented quite the turnaround for the Bills, who looked like toast at the start of December. Entering their bye, they were 6-6 and fresh off a crushing overtime loss to the Eagles. Their playoff chances hovered around 15 percent, and they were still staring down three more matchups against playoff teams (Chiefs, Cowboys, Dolphins). Then, days before the game in Kansas City, a report came out about Sean McDermott using the 9/11 terrorists as a source of motivation several years ago, and the Buffalo coach had to publicly apologize for the remarks.

At that point, I thought the Bills and McDermott were probably cooked. What was supposed to be a potential Super Bowl season had largely been a disappointment. The defense had too many injuries. The offense made too many mistakes. Josh Allen couldn’t stop turning the ball over. The team couldn’t close out games. 

Since then, however, the Bills haven’t lost. The defense has been healthier (but not completely), the offense has found more consistency under newly promoted OC Joe Brady, Allen has cut down on the turnovers, and four of Buffalo’s five wins in that time have been decided by one score. 

Before their Sunday night kickoff, the Bills had already clinched a playoff spot, thanks to the Jaguars’ loss to the Titans. Perhaps that took a bit of pressure off of Allen, though you wouldn’t have guessed that in the first half in Miami. 

Allen was shaky, as he had been earlier in the season. After getting into the red zone, he threw off his back foot and right where Eli Apple (Dolphins player) was and not where Gabe Davis (his teammate) was for his first interception. On the Bills’ next drive, he overthrew a wide-open Stefon Diggs, who juked Jalen Ramsey into another dimension, for what would have been an easy touchdown. A few plays later, Allen was picked off in the end zone for a second time. 

Near the end of the half, with the Dolphins holding a 14-7 lead, the Bills had a golden opportunity to tie things up. Instead, Allen threw short of the end zone. Miami’s defense stopped it, and McDermott was visibly upset because the Bills had no timeouts left. Their only touchdown of that half was incredibly lucky; the ball bounced off a defender and Trent Sherfield made a terrific toe-drag grab.

It wasn’t until the start of the fourth quarter when Allen started to settle down. He had fumbled on Buffalo’s second drive of the second half, but the defense forced a punt, which Deonte Harty ran back 96 yards for a touchdown. The next time Allen touched the ball, he led a 74-yard scoring drive to give the Bills the go-ahead score. At the same time, Buffalo’s defense, despite more injuries, didn’t allow a single point in the second half.

That was the kind of team effort that had propelled the Bills on their season’s end winning streak, and how they came together in the fourth quarter on Sunday night is what ultimately led them to their fourth straight division title. 

On the other sideline, the Dolphins were undone by injuries, questionable playcalling, and their own miscues. Still, they had one more shot for a game-tying touchdown. But with Tyreek Hill hampered and Jaylen Waddle out due to an ankle injury, Tua Tagovailoa was left targeting Chase Claypool on the all-important drive … and that went about as expected. 

Tua’s second interception of the night — and his lowest passing output all season (173 yards) — pushed the Dolphins from the No. 2 seed down to the No. 6 seed, and for the 15th year in a row, they have failed to secure the AFC East. 

While the injuries (most notably to their pass rushers) have clearly taken a toll on the Dolphins in the second half of the season, their biggest problem remains how they shrink against top competition. They finished this year with a point differential of +105, third-highest in the AFC. Yet when you single out their matchups against playoff teams, that number is a ghastly -91, worse than every team except the Commanders and Giants. 

That shouldn’t happen, not when the same offense put up a historic 70 points and 726 yards earlier this season. And it doesn’t bode well for them entering the postseason, where any opponent they encounter will have a winning record. 

The Eagles and Jaguars continued their downward spirals

Last season, the Eagles and Jaguars were two up-and-coming playoff teams who looked like they could be a postseason fixture for the foreseeable future. Six weeks ago, they both had decent odds of securing the No. 1 seed in their respective conference. Philadelphia was 10-1 and had just rallied to beat Buffalo in overtime. Jacksonville was 8-3 and avenged an earlier loss to the Texans in what, at the time, seemed to be a division-clinching victory. 

After that, they both collapsed and went 1-5 over the final stretch of the season. 

The Eagles’ free fall cost them the NFC East, which has now been won by a different team for 19 consecutive seasons. The Jaguars’ cost them a playoff berth. 

Let’s start with last year’s Super Bowl runners-up, whose defense has gone from “so-so” to “downright awful” in the second half of the season. Amazingly, switching to Matt Patricia as their defensive playcaller didn’t help things at all!

Only once in this span did the defense hold an opponent under 25 points: the Seahawks, who won with a late comeback drive. They lost in similar fashion last week to the bottom-rung Cardinals (who scored a season-high 35 points) and then were never even competitive against the mediocre Giants this week. 

The Eagles didn’t have a ton to play for on Sunday. They needed the Cowboys to lose to have any hope of winning the division, but that was unlikely considering Dallas had the Commanders on the schedule (predictably, the Cowboys won). But what they needed was a reset of sorts; to get back into a rhythm before Wild Card Weekend. 

What happened instead was the offense was out of sorts from the get go (zero points and three turnovers in the first half) and the defense looked worse than ever. Even more troubling, Jalen Hurts and A.J. Brown got banged up, and Sydney Brown tore his ACL. 

This wasn’t how this season — this past month in particular — was supposed to go for the Eagles. Now they will limp into the playoffs, a far cry from where they were a year ago. 

At least Philly is in the postseason, unlike Jacksonville. The Jaguars simply needed to beat the last-place Titans — as they had in Week 11 — and they’d win their second division title in a row. Derrick Henry had other plans, though. In what was likely his last game in a Titans uniform, Henry dominated the Jags, as he has done throughout his career. The 30-year-old racked up a season-high 153 rushing yards and a touchdown, and even recorded his fastest speed in more than two years on his longest run of the day. 

The defense was the biggest problem on Sunday, but there’s plenty of blame to go around for the Jaguars’ late-season skid. Trevor Lawrence, who was battling multiple injuries, made a couple of mistakes that overshadowed his good plays. The running game was practically nonexistent. They lost the turnover battle. Those are the same issues that have been plaguing them in recent weeks. 

The Jags basically experienced an inverse of their 2022 season, when they started slow and then got hot at just the right time to claim the AFC South. Two obstacles got in their way this year: a more competitive division and themselves. They can’t do anything about the former, but they can, and should, work on the latter in the offseason. 

C.J. Stroud and Jordan Love came through in the clutch

Both C.J. Stroud and Jordan Love were first-round picks and first-time starters entering 2023, but their circumstances weren’t entirely similar. Stroud immediately started as a rookie, while Love had to wait three years after he was drafted. 

The expectations they faced this season were different, too. Stroud was joining a team that had won only 11 games since 2020 and just hired a first-time head coach. All he needed to do as a rookie was show promise that he could be a franchise QB.

Love was taking over for four-time league MVP and Super Bowl winner Aaron Rodgers, who himself had taken over for three-time league MVP and Super Bowl winner Brett Favre. The Packers were also coming off a disappointing season, the first time they had missed the playoffs under Matt LaFleur. This is a franchise used to success and elite quarterback play — at length. Even if Love wasn’t expected to look like peak Rodgers, he was supposed to demonstrate that he could reach those highs one day soon.

After Week 8, both the Texans and Packers had a losing record. Stroud had flashed, but Houston still wasn’t a likely playoff team, especially coming off a loss to the Panthers. PFF pegged the Texans’ postseason odds at around 15 percent going into Week 9, the same as the Packers. Love had regressed a bit after his strong start to the season, with four touchdowns to seven interceptions during Green Bay’s then four-game losing streak. 

From that point on, though, Stroud and Love proved they could put the team on their back. Stroud managed two dazzling game-winning drives in back-to-back weeks against the Bucs and Bengals, officially putting all that pre-draft BS in the rearview mirror. In December, Houston’s season was nearly derailed when Stroud suffered a concussion against the Jets and then missed the next two weeks. He returned in Week 17 and after a win over the Titans, the Texans would be back in the playoffs if they could beat the Colts, who were also in a “win-and-in” situation.

In the first primetime contest of his NFL career, Stroud was on point from his very first play, a 75-yard touchdown strike to Nico Collins. However, Stroud really showed his mettle on the Texans’ go-ahead drive in the fourth quarter. With the score tied at 17-all, the 22-year-old went a perfect 7-for-7 for 82 yards, including a couple of preposterous throws that a rookie has no business making. Houston’s missed extra point added some drama to the Colts’ next possession, but a bad throw/bad pass attempt combo — poor Tyler Goodson!—- on fourth-and-1¹ sealed Houston’s win and eventual AFC South title.

In his most important matchup of the season, Stroud completed 20 of 26 passes for 264 yards, two touchdowns, 20 yards rushing, and zero turnovers. He also finished with a season-best QBR of 88.1. Stroud became just the fifth rookie to throw for 4,000 yards and the youngest QB to lead the NFL in TD: INT ratio. He and DeMeco Ryans are now the first rookie QB-coach combo to ever win their division. 

Stroud ended his first season with 4,108 passing yards in 15 games, third-most for a rookie. Love finished with 4,159 passing yards in 16 games, third-most for a first-year full-time starter. 

Like Stroud, Love kicked it into gear in the second half of the season. After Week 10, when Green Bay was sitting at 3-6, Love transformed into a top-tier QB in the league, with 18 touchdowns to only one interception in that span. And like Stroud, he saved one of his best performances for last, in a do-or-die Week 18 rivalry showcase. 

On Sunday against the Bears, Love was nearly flawless, with 316 passing yards, two touchdowns, zero interceptions, and a season-high completion percentage (84.4%) and passer rating (128.6). He was a monster on third down — the Packers converted 7 of 10 chances — and consistently found his receivers for big gains. With a 17-9 lead late in the game, Love seized the opportunity to run the clock out with a 12-play, six-minute drive in which he went 4-for-4 passing, two of which came on third down.

I don’t know if Love will be Green Bay’s quarterback for the next 15 or so years like Favre and Rodgers were before him, but I do know that he was able to do something those two never did: guide the (very young) Packers into the postseason in his first year as the starter.

Both the Saints and Falcons left their fans unsatisfied

Entering the week, the Saints and Falcons each had a path to making the playoffs. The easiest path for both was 1) win and 2) hope the Bucs lose to the Panthers. 

The second didn’t materialize, which immediately eliminated Atlanta. But when these two hated rivals clash, there’s always something on the line: bragging rights and the satisfaction of taking your least favorite team down a peg. 

The first half was a back-and-forth battle, but the second half was, like November 1, all Saints. New Orleans scored on its first four possessions after halftime to command a 41-17 lead. Halfway through the fourth quarter, the Falcons waved the white flag and brought backup Logan Woodside, who I didn’t even realize was on the team, into the game for Desmond Ridder in what was probably his final start in Atlanta. 

With a minute and change to go, Woodside threw a pick to officially give Falcons quarterbacks a pitiful 17:17 TD: INT ratio on the season. That gave the Saints the ball at the 1-yard line, where they lined up in victory formation. 

What happened next is in the eye of the beholder. If you are big on sportsmanship or are Arthur Smith, you didn’t like what you saw: the Saints pretended to kneel it out but then handed the ball to Jamaal Williams for his first touchdown of the season. If you are a fan of trolling or are a Saints fan/Jamaal Williams well-wisher, then you probably enjoyed the fake out. 

Afterward, Smith was irate and let Saints coach Dennis Allen know about it, and Allen apologized in his press conference, saying that he told the offense they had to take a knee and that he understood why Smith was upset. But Jameis Winston, on behalf of the team, overruled Allen, as he explained in his extremely Jameis way. 

I can’t imagine either fanbase was thrilled with the ending. The Falcons got creamed, with one last touchdown to rub salt in the wound of their losing season, and Smith acted like a giant baby. The Saints won in a rout, but they still missed the playoffs and their head coach was kinda wimpy about that final touchdown. 

Well, maybe Falcons fans are a little happy. After all, they’re getting a new head coach.

1. I, like many others, really do not understand why Indy elected to take Jonathan Taylor out of the game on such a crucial play, but I still think the future is bright for the Colts.