There were two games on Sunday that allowed fans and analysts to get a very good read on the AFC. In the early slate, there was the now 8-2 Pittsburgh Steelers v the now 7-4 Baltimore Ravens. In the late slate, it was the Kansas City Chiefs v the Buffalo Bills.
Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson has been great against most opponents as a passer, but the Steelers have had his number. In six previous career games against Baltimore’s most prominent divisional opponent, Jackson had completed 78 passes on 132 attempts for 870 yards, four touchdowns, seven interceptions, and a passer rating of 66.8 – by far his lowest against any opponent. And against Pittsburgh on Sunday, Jackson completed just 16 of 33 passes for 207 yards, one touchdown, one interception, and a passer rating of… 66.1. Pittsburgh has a knack for forcing Jackson to stay in the pocket, compressing things with pressure, and blanketing his receivers with tight coverage.
Related: NFL roundup: Allen’s 26-yard gallop helps Bills end Chiefs’ bid for perfect season
Things began less than optimally for the Ravens with several unexpected debits. Running back Derrick Henry, who is also a legitimate Most Valuable Player candidate this season, fumbled for the first time in a Ravens uniform, and for the first time in his last 538 touches. Henry hadn’t done so since Week 15 of the 2022 season, when he was with the Tennessee Titans. And future Hall of Fame kicker Justin Tucker continued his recent accuracy maladies with two missed field goals on consecutive drives in the first half. Tucker has already missed six field goal attempts this season after missing just five in the entire 2023 campaign.
Those two Tucker misses mattered a lot, because this was a typical Steelers-Ravens rock fight with the final score 18-16 in Pittsburgh’s favor. That’s the seventh straight Steelers-Ravens game in which neither team managed more than 20 points, and it was Steelers kicker Chris Boswell’s six field goals in six attempts that made all the difference this time around.
As for the formerly 9-0 Chiefs… well, there’s been a legitimate argument all season long that they haven’t played to a level worthy of that title. Coming into Week 11, Andy Reid’s team had the lowest point differential (+58) of any 9-0 team in pro football history, and they’ve underperformed to their record by any metric you care to mention.
Patrick Mahomes has looked like a lesser version of himself through most of 2024, and that story continued when Mahomes threw a horrible interception on the second play of the game – a desperation heave as Buffalo defensive lineman DaQuan Jones was bringing him down. Safety Taylor Rapp was there to retrieve the errant pigskin.
Bills quarterback Josh Allen responded with his own ill-advised interception to Chiefs defensive back Chamari Conner on a fourth-and-3 from the Kansas City 34-yard line with 7:38 left in the first half.
So, that evened itself out.
The Bills led 16-14 at halftime, which gave them no confidence whatsoever. The Chiefs came into this game with nine straight wins in games where they’ve trailed at any point in the second half, which is an NFL record.
This time, luck worked in the Bills’ favor. The Chiefs managed another touchdown in the second half, but Buffalo started to pull away when Allen hit receiver Curtis Samuel for a 12-yard touchdown with 12:51 left in the game.
And then, with 2:17 remaining, head coach Sean McDermott decided to put things in Allen’s hands – or, more specifically, his legs. On a fourth-and-2 from the Kansas City 26-yard line, the Bills eschewed the easy field goal, and Allen responded with a 26-yard touchdown run that just about sealed the deal.
Linebacker Terrel Bernard’s interception of Mahomes’ pass with 1:17 left put the boot in.
The 30-21 final ended the Chiefs’ hopes of an undefeated season, and gave the now 9-2 Bills a small measure of revenge against the team that has been their primary postseason nightmare over the last few years. Hopefully, we’ll see these two behemoths face off in the playoffs once again.
MVP(s) of the week
David Montgomery and Jahmyr Gibbs, RB, Detroit Lions. The now 10-1 Lions have won games when quarterback Jared Goff threw for just 85 yards (Week 8 v the Titans), and when Goff threw five interceptions (Week 10 v the Houston Texans). Goff has been lights-out for the most part this season, and he was assisted on Sunday by the Jacksonville Jaguars’ pitiful defense (more on the turmoil in Jacksonville in a bit). But what makes this Lions team so dangerous is that they can still get it done when Goff’s lights are out.
One reason is a defense that has improved drastically in the 2024 season now that defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn has the types of players he wants, especially in coverage. Another is the Detroit rushing attack. In the Lions’ 52-6 thrashing of the Jaguars, David Montgomery gained 75 yards and scored two touchdowns on 15 carries. Jahmyr Gibbs, the lightning to Montgomery’s thunder, gained 69 yards and scored a rushing touchdown on 11 carries. Gibbs also had a big 54-yard reception on a simple swing pass.
That two-headed rushing attack isn’t just great – it’s now historic.
Video of the week
Since the Titans selected him in the second round in the 2023 NFL draft, quarterback Will Levis hasn’t exactly looked like a franchise guy. On Sunday, Levis was facing a Minnesota Vikings defense that throws more disguise and late movement at enemy quarterbacks than any other. So, disaster was foreseen. The Titans lost the game, 23-13, but Levis had a couple of serviceable plays, and one very big one – this 98-yard touchdown to receiver Nick Westbrook-Ikhine with 7:00 left in the third quarter. The Vikings went with a five-man pressure, and Westbrook-Ikhine beat his defender for the massive play.
Amazingly enough, that’s not the longest play in Titans history. That honor goes to the aforementioned Derrick Henry, who pulled off this 99-yard touchdown run against the aforementioned Jaguars on 6 December 2018.
Stat of the week
Seven. We do have to give Jared Goff some love here, because he did something against the Jaguars that was quite remarkable. In the entire history of professional football, there have been seven games in which a quarterback has thrown for at least 400 yards and at least four touchdown passes while recording the highest possible passer rating of 158.3. Ken O’Brien of the New York Jets did it in 1986. Nick Foles of the Philadelphia Eagles did it in 2013. Aaron Rodgers of the Green Bay Packers and Deshaun Watson of the Texans each did it in 2019.
The only other quarterback to accomplish this feat is Mr Goff, and he’s now done it twice in his career. There was his game against the Vikings on 27 September 2018, when he completed 26 of 33 passes for 465 yards, five touchdowns, and no interceptions. And there was Sunday’s game against the Jaguars, when he completed 24 of 29 passes for 419 yards, four touchdowns, and no picks.
Goff isn’t always the most consistent quarterback, but when he’s on, he’s really on. As long as that’s the case, and as much as we’ve talked about the AFC, anybody trying to stop the Lions’ Super Bowl chase might need more than a little bit of luck.
Elsewhere around the league
• The Chicago Bears fired offensive coordinator Shane Waldron after the team’s 19-3 Week 10 loss to the New England Patriots because the entire offense was broken, and 2024 first overall pick Caleb Williams looked like a shell of the quarterback he was expected to be. There were all kinds of reasons for that – most on Waldron and some on Williams – but under replacement OC Thomas Brown against the Packers, Williams looked far more like the star he was at USC.
While Waldron had Williams sitting in the pocket for too long so that he could throw hopelessly into route combinations that made little sense, Brown smartly designed things so that Williams would get the ball out more quickly, and Williams’ first reads were more readily open. Brown also clearly told Williams that if he didn’t like what he saw downfield, he should use his legs. The rookie responded with a game in which he completed 23 of 31 passes for 231 yards, no touchdowns, no interceptions and a passer rating of 74.2. Not world-beating numbers, but there is now a semblance of a passing game in the Windy City.
Sadly, the Bears could not turn that into a win; they lost 20-19 to the Packers in part because Green Bay defensive lineman Karl Brooks blocked Cairo Santos’ 46-yard field goal attempt as time expired. Bears head coach Matt Eberflus, whose in-game mismanagements have been a problem for a while, might want to bone up on geometry. Instead of running another play to get more yardage and an easier try for Santos, Eberflus chose to bleed the clock down to the three-second mark. Several Packers players said post-game that the longer field goal forced Santos to kick the ball at a lower trajectory, which made it easier to block.
• Speaking of embattled coaches… After Jacksonville’s Week 10 loss to the Vikings, Jaguars head coach Doug Pederson dismissively told a local reporter that he wouldn’t explain backup quarterback Mac Jones’ second interception in the 12-7 loss because “you guys wouldn’t figure it out.” That was the latest in a long line of embarrassments in the Jaguars’ season, which began with team owner Shad Khan saying outright that the 2024 Jags were the best-assembled team in franchise history, and that the expectation was to win now.
That has clearly not happened for the 2-9 Jags, who have been a disaster on both sides of the ball. This week, Ian Rapoport of the NFL Network reported that the seat under Pederson is white-hot, and were the Jags to be embarrassed by the Lions on Sunday, it could predicate movement for Pederson – ie, right out the door. And general manager Trent Baalke could follow Pederson sooner than later.
One 52-6 disaster later, we could say that Peterson’s seat has now escalated from hot to thermonuclear. The only good news for the replacements is that the Jags are in position for the first overall pick in the 2025 NFL draft.
• The Denver Broncos have cycled through quarterback after quarterback (14, to be exact) in search of a franchise savior since Peyton Manning retired at the end of the 2015 season. The search has been fruitless, and it includes the 2022 trade with the Seattle Seahawks for Russell Wilson that became one of the most onerous deals in recent NFL history. The Broncos released Wilson in March, despite the fact that the cut left the Broncos with $85m in dead salary cap resources over the following two league years.
But in 2024 12th overall pick Bo Nix, the Broncos and head coach Sean Payton might finally have their guy. Like most rookie quarterbacks, Nix has had his share of rough moments. But he’s turned things around decisively of late. In Denver’s 38-6 Sunday win over the Atlanta Falcons, he completed 28 of 33 passes for 307 yards, four touchdowns (each to different receivers), no interceptions, and a passer rating of 145.0. Nix was 0-4 in his touchdown-to interception ratio after his first two NFL games; he’s been 14-2 since.
While Washington Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels was once thought to be the runaway winner of the Offensive Rookie of the Year award, Nix has thrown his hat into the ring.
Daniels: 202 completions on 294 attempts for 2,338 yards, 10 touchdowns, three interceptions, a passer rating of 99.6, and 482 rushing yards and four touchdowns on 92 carries
Nix: 234 completions on 357 attempts for 2,276 yards, 14 touchdowns, six interceptions, a passer rating of 89.3, and 295 rushing yard and four touchdowns on 63 carries
Nix didn’t have the incendiary start to his rookie season that Daniels did, but as they say – it’s not how you start, it’s how you finish.