Happy New Year! I hope everyone has had a wonderful holiday and is looking forward to 2025. My resolutions for the coming year:

• Make sure I call my timeouts at the end of the fourth quarter in prime time with a potential game-winning kick in the cards.

• Hold the football as I cross the goal line to ensure I score six points.

• Get two feet down once, never one foot down twice.

Week 17 of the 2024 NFL season is in the books. Every Tuesday, I’ll spin the previous week of NFL games forward, looking at what the biggest storylines mean and what comes next. We’ll take a first look at the consequences of “Monday Night Football,” break down a major trend or two and highlight some key individual players and plays. There will be film. There will be stats (a whole section of them). And there will be fun.

This week, we look at the most dangerous sleeper teams in the playoff field (or potentially in the playoff field) and judge whether each can get hot and go on a run. Then we make three big postseason predictions — including a Super Bowl pick — and size up Joe Burrow‘s 42-touchdown season. Let’s jump in.

Jump to a section:
The Big Thing: Most dangerous wild-card teams
Three big postseason, Super Bowl predictions
Second Take: Let’s cool the Burrow MVP talk
Mailbag: Answering questions from … you
Next Ben Stats: Wild Week 17 stats
“Monday Night Football” spin

The Big Thing: Dangerous wild-card teams

Every week, this column will kick off with one wide look at a key game, player or trend from the previous slate of NFL action. What does it mean for the rest of the season?

This is the best wild-card field we’ve seen in a while.

We don’t know exactly who will be in it just yet, of course. The Vikings and Lions will be fighting for the 1-seed in the NFC on Sunday, and the loser will fall into the 5-seed. The Ravens and Steelers still could flip-flop atop the AFC North. And the seventh spot in the AFC is up for grabs (most likely the Broncos but possibly the Dolphins or Bengals).

The enthusiasm for a Cinderella Bengals postseason run has been rampant following Saturday’s overtime win against the Broncos. Patrick Mahomes is 15-3 in his postseason career, and his only losses have come at the hands of Tom Brady and Joe Burrow, so Cincinnati could be a roadblock in the way of the Chiefs’ three-peat efforts.

But the Bengals have only a 10% chance to make the playoffs, according to ESPN’s Football Power Index (FPI). And it’s worth remembering that Burrow didn’t beat Mahomes in that AFC Championship Game in the 2021 season; the Bengals did. That was a much different Cincinnati defense back then. There’s a reason the Bengals need so much help to get into the playoffs this season; they’re just not a very good team. Even if they’re the only team left that knows what it feels like to knock out the Chiefs, I don’t think they’re equipped to stop Kansas City (or anyone in the AFC playoff picture) this time around.

Still, all the Bengals hype got me thinking: Who can make a Cinderella run from the wild-card group this season? Three wins, all on the road, to make the Super Bowl. Only 11 wild-card teams have done it in NFL history, starting with the 1975 Cowboys (who lost a heartbreaker to the Steelers in Super Bowl X) and ending most recently with the 2020 Buccaneers (another one of those three teams to beat Mahomes in the postseason).

It feels like just about anyone from this wild-card field can make a run. Assuming all the favorites win in Week 18, every single wild-card team will have at least 10 regular-season wins. That’s the first time that’ll happen in the four years of 14-team playoffs. We have had only one 13-win wild-card team before (1999 Titans, who also made the Super Bowl from the wild-card ranks); this season, we will have a 14-win wild-card team for the first time.

With a stacked wild-card class, I’m dreaming of big upsets. And I don’t think those dreams are too farfetched. Here are the three wild-card teams I think are most capable of making a Super Bowl run and the paths it would take for each to get there.

Green Bay Packers

Let’s go ahead and get the elephant out of the room early. In order for the Packers to make a Super Bowl run, they will have to beat at least two (if not all three) of the Eagles, Lions and Vikings — the consensus top tier of the NFC playoff picture. This season, the Packers have had five combined chances to beat Detroit, Minnesota and Philadelphia. They are 0-5.

It’s not just that the Packers are 0-5 against their NFC contemporaries, it’s that they’ve actually lost bigger than things would initially appear. They never led in Week 4 against the Vikings in a game they lost 31-29, and in Sunday’s rematch, they trailed for 42 minutes before losing 27-25. They trailed for 45 minutes in their first game against the Lions — which they lost at Lambeau Field 24-14 — and they trailed for another 39 minutes in the 34-31 Week 14 loss in which Detroit was mighty banged up. Only the Eagles game was a roughly even battle (29 minutes ahead, 24.5 minutes trailing before losing 34-29), but that came in Week 1 in Brazil.

Here’s what I would argue, though: The moment the postseason starts, we can throw out regular-season results. Of course, I am worried about the offense’s slow starts against Brian Flores’ Minnesota defense in their two matchups this season, but drawing any conclusion off a two-game sample in the NFL is a fool’s errand. Flores is just as likely to have the same success in a third matchup as Matt LaFleur is to come out with a new, customized game plan that gets the drop on Flores. We shouldn’t use five-game samples from Green Bay’s season when we have a whole 17-game sample to use, even if it feels sharper to use the “postseason opponents” as a better barometer for team strength.

play

Are Packers the scariest NFC team? Chris Canty says they can be

Chris Canty believes when Jordan Love and the Green Bay Packers are at their best, they are the scariest team in the NFC.

And what the whole season tells us about Green Bay is that it’s a very good football team. The Packers are the eighth-best offense by expected points added (EPA) per play and the fourth-best defense by the same metric. They rely on explosive plays on both sides of the ball, boasting one of the highest explosive play rates on offense and an enormous 104.2 total EPA added on takeaways (fourth highest). So, they suffer the occasional cold game, but they also can get red-hot.

In the postseason, I like teams that can win in a variety of ways, and the Packers clearly fit that qualification. They have an excellent rushing attack that can mow down defenses and a broad cadre of receivers catching deep balls from a fearless Jordan Love who will quickly punish opponents that decide to load the box. Love has been more erratic this season than perhaps the Packers had hoped, but again, I’m looking for a sleeper for a deep playoff run. All I need is a hot streak from Love to get there.

Consider the Packers’ surprise win as the seventh seed last season, entering AT&T Stadium as 7.5-point underdogs to the Cowboys. Love was making flamethrower passes, and the running game was effortless. After one takeaway and three touchdown drives (including a 94-yarder in which Love hit two gorgeous downfield throws), the Packers were up 20-0 before the two-minute warning of the first half.

That’s the sort of game the Packers need to make a run, and we know it’s within their range of outcomes. The run game and defense are both better this season, and even though the rough outing from the receiving corps against the Vikings is fresh in our mind, this is still a solid group. Connect on the deep balls and they can beat just about anyone.

Ideal runout: If the Packers get the sixth seed, as expected, they’ll likely face the Rams, whom they beat earlier this season (albeit when the Rams were much more injured) and whom remain extremely beatable nowadays. The return of cornerback Jaire Alexander is critical to the Packers’ ability to handle wide receivers such as Puka Nacua (and Justin Jefferson and Amon-Ra St. Brown and A.J. Brown). But even in a shootout, I like the Packers against the Rams’ secondary every time.

If the Packers are instead the seventh seed, it’s not terrible news. Green Bay matches up with Philadelphia better than either of its divisional foes, as the Packers’ coverage liability is in the middle of the field, where the Eagles don’t really throw the ball. In either universe, the Packers will most likely have to get a win over the 1-seed Lions, who are so injured that every game they play will likely be a shootout. If the Packers are lucky, they won’t have to play a third game against the Vikings in the conference championship, and the path forward will be clear.

Key player: Love has been generally pretty good this campaign, but a few misses in those key regular-season games are glaring. Love will always be a high-variance quarterback, but that could serve the Packers well if he catches fire in the January stretch.

Pittsburgh Steelers

I promised myself around Week 11 — after their wins over the Commanders and Ravens — that I would not rule out a heroic Steelers postseason run, no matter what. Here they are, having lost three games in a row and I’m still here to tell you it’s in the cards. (I’ll acknowledge that Pittsburgh might still win its division and not be a wild-card team, but we’re still including it here.)

The past three games for the Steelers have been perhaps the most brutal stretch of any team this regular season: at Philadelphia, short week, at Baltimore, short week, vs. Kansas City. In that span, they saw absences from star wide receiver George Pickens, defensive tackle Larry Ogunjobi, cornerback Joey Porter Jr., cornerback Donte Jackson and safety DeShon Elliott. Oh, and T.J. Watt is clearly hurt, even if he isn’t missing time.

Now there isn’t a fairy godmother to wave a magic wand and make everyone healthy in the postseason; the Steelers are going to have to carry some of these nagging injuries with them. But I’m confident that Pittsburgh is a better team than recent memory is telling us.

The hamstring injury for Pickens was particularly glaring. Here’s what quarterback Russell Wilson has looked like this season throwing to Pickens relative to any non-Pickens receiver, regardless of position.

This disparity becomes increasingly worrisome on deep passes, which are not just integral to Wilson’s game but also integral to any playoff push for the Steelers. Pickens has caught nine of 17 downfield targets (20-plus air yards) from Wilson since he became the starter, which is a catch rate over expectation of plus-24.3%, per NFL Next Gen Stats. Anyone with eyes can tell you this, but Pickens catches downfield passes at a preposterous rate. For the season on downfield targets, Pickens has 5.8 receptions over expectation (leads the league, per Next Gen Stats), 199 receiving yards over expectation (leads the league, per NGS) and 27.0 expected points added (fourth in the league, but still).

Wilson has been better in all facets of quarterbacking — including throwing underneath, the quick game, moving in the pocket and scrambling — than I expected, given his performances in Denver. But the reality of Wilson remains the same: He has to connect on the moon balls. Without Pickens from Weeks 14 to 16, the offense was clearly missing the explosive element necessary to keep pace with top-scoring teams. With Pickens back in the fold, that possibility returns to the table.

Of course, Pittsburgh has not been known for recent postseason success. Coach Mike Tomlin has gone one-and-done in four consecutive postseason appearances dating back to the 2017 season. That first loss was a bad one too — 45-42 to Blake Bortles‘ Jaguars after securing a first-round bye. But since then? Tomlin hasn’t so much lost postseason games as somehow dragged bad teams into the postseason. The 2020, 2021 and 2023 Steelers were quarterbacked by 38-year-old Ben Roethlisberger, 39-year-old Ben Roethlisberger and Kenny Pickett/Mason Rudolph. Two of those three offenses were coordinated by Matt Canada. It’s a miracle those teams even made the playoffs in the first place.

According to the numbers, this Steelers offense doesn’t look that much different. Since Wilson took over, Pittsburgh is averaging minus-0.03 EPA per play on offense with a success rate of 40.7%, both of which are below league average. But there’s clearly a higher ceiling for this group than the past offenses. Its explosive pass rate is 13.6%, way higher than anything we’ve seen in recent seasons, and that’s with a midseason quarterback change and a stretch of Pickens absences. And even though Tomlin has lost in the postseason recently, we’re still talking about a dynamite situational coach with a playmaking defense and a great special teams unit. Tomlin has proved over his long career that he is good at winning close games and overachieving as an underdog.

Pittsburgh will be offensively outclassed in every postseason game it plays, but the AFC is a sneakily weak conference. Kansas City just beat the Steelers 29-10 — for its biggest margin of victory on the season. The Bills’ defense is highly suspect, and the Ravens have historically struggled with Tomlin’s Steelers. If it comes down to fourth-quarter drives and last-second field goals, Pittsburgh is deserving of a disproportionate amount of our faith.

Ideal runout: If the 18-point underdog Browns can somehow upset the Ravens in Week 18 and gift the Steelers the AFC North title (so long as Pittsburgh beats the Bengals Saturday), that’d be swell. Short of that, Pittsburgh might draw the 5-seed or 6-seed, depending on the result of its game against the Bengals (and the Chargers’ matchup against the Raiders). The 5-seed is optimal, as the 4-seed Texans are as weak of a division winner as there is in the field this season.

After that, the Steelers would love a third crack at the Ravens, whom they already beat once and hung with much closer than a 34-17 score would indicate in the rematch. Buffalo is the most important team for the Steelers to avoid; I don’t think they have a shot of outscoring the Bills.

Key player: Pickens. The outside cornerbacks of the AFC playoff picture are eminently gettable: Chiefs CBs besides Trent McDuffie have struggled all season, and Pickens already put McDuffie on a poster last week. Buffalo’s Rasul Douglas and Christian Benford are good zone players, but neither is great at locking down a man for four quarters. Nate Wiggins and Brandon Stephens are where you want to attack the Ravens. So, Pickens has the chance to dominate each and every postseason game the Steelers play.

Detroit Lions/Minnesota Vikings

This one should go without saying, but the loser of the Week 18 showdown for the top NFC seed remains an extremely live team to run through the conference as a wild card.

Both the Lions and Vikings are dome teams, and cold-weather games under the stars could hurt both offenses (Jared Goff and the Lions doubly so). But the only cold open stadium above the 5-seed in the NFC playoffs belongs to Philadelphia. The 1-seed and 3-seed (probably the Rams) will each have a dome, and the 4-seed will either have a dome (in Atlanta, of all places) or Raymond-James Stadium in Tampa Bay.

As such, the ideal runout for either has them missing the 2-seed Eagles in the divisional round, so they’ll need the Rams or Commanders to win in the wild-card round (assuming seeding plays out as chalk expects). The Vikings and Lions would each be road favorites against either the Buccaneers or Falcons in the wild-card round, and I’d expect them to be the same against the Rams in the divisional round, as well. These are two of the three best teams in the NFC playoff picture.

But wait, why not …?

Before fans of any excluded teams yell at me, why not the …

Three big playoff predictions

Because this is my last regular-season weekly column before the playoffs kick off, I want to be able to screenshot some winners.

The Super Bowl will be between the Ravens and Vikings

We’re beyond the stage where I have one sound prediction for the Super Bowl and into the stage where I’ve thought of so many different permutations that I’m just rooting for a favorite. We still don’t know if either Minnesota or Baltimore will win their respective divisions or run through the wild card, but I’m confident in both teams’ “can beat anybody on their best day” qualifications.

The biggest thing I’d like to see is the Lamar Jackson-Brian Flores rematch. Jackson played a famously poor game in 2021 against the Flores-led Dolphins, losing 22-10 after Flores mercilessly blitzed Jackson into submission. Since then, Jackson has gotten a new offensive coordinator and dramatically improved against all-out pressure. But Flores also has evolved and wins more these days by simulating pressure, not sending it outright.

play

Shannon isn’t buying that Orlovsky expected the Vikings’ success

Shannon Sharpe takes issue with Dan Orlovsky saying he isn’t surprised by how successful Sam Darnold and the Vikings have been this season.

Jackson hasn’t played Flores since that contest — not even in 2022 against the Steelers, when Flores was a senior defensive assistant there. It would be a rematch three years in the making and a battle between the most unguardable quarterback and the most unanswerable defense. Get-out-your-popcorn stuff.

Justin Herbert will get his first playoff win

It’s easy to forget that Herbert has never won a playoff game, save for the droves of Dolphins and Bengals fans reminding me that he hasn’t won one every time I say a single thing about him. Herbert has made the playoffs only once in his career, somehow and spectacularly surrendering a 24-0 lead to the Jaguars in a 31-30 loss in the 2022 wild-card round.

Herbert certainly has the least postseason success of all the young quarterbacks whose names are tossed into the “elite” conversation. And while a one-game sample is a dreadful resource to use for evaluating a QB, it is inarguable that the point of the sport is to win the Super Bowl, and to do that you have to win playoff games. If Herbert wants his name mentioned next to that of Joe Burrow, Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson (which Herbert absolutely deserves for his on-field play), more postseason success will usher that conversation along.

The good news is that Herbert has time. He is 26 years old — one year younger than Jackson, who just made his first conference championship last season, and two years younger than both Burrow and Allen. And the plan was never really for the Chargers to make a run this season. They’re still a young and very incomplete team. With a win against the Raiders on Sunday afternoon, they will secure the fifth seed and draw a reeling Texans team that’s only in the postseason because of an impotent AFC South.

Getting that first postseason win under your belt is a big sigh of relief, and I think Herbert will get it this season. (I wouldn’t even rule out two.)

The Chiefs and Lions, as the top seeds of their respective conferences, will both be one-and-done

This has happened before! In the 2010 playoffs, the top-seeded Falcons and Patriots both lost, and each fell to a No. 6 seed (at the time the worst seed of the playoffs). The Aaron Rodgers-led Packers trounced Atlanta 48-21 en route to an eventual Super Bowl victory, while the Rex Ryan defense of the Jets knocked league MVP Tom Brady and the outrageously good 14-2 Patriots out of the postseason, winning 28-21. (It also happened in 1979, but I’m not going to pretend I know a lot about those games.)

I don’t think the Chiefs and Lions are any stronger or weaker than usual top seeds. Of course, both are imperfect teams: We know the Chiefs struggle for explosive plays, and we know the Lions are very banged up on defense. But it’s not any particular weakness in either team. It’s just that the wild-card fields are extremely good this season.

How would ESPN BET set the line for a 6-seed Packers team in Detroit on divisional weekend? I’d guess Detroit would be only about a 3-point favorite, since that was the line when these two teams met in Detroit earlier this December, and the Lions are about as hurt now as they were then. What about the 5-seed Vikings? Detroit is less than a field goal favorite Sunday against the Vikings in their home barn.

play

Bart Scott: Chiefs’ experience can lead them to third straight title

Bart Scott explains why the Chiefs’ playoff experience can guide them to a third straight Super Bowl win.

While the AFC field of the Chargers, Steelers and (probably) Broncos looks less intimidating, and while I shared my belief that the Chiefs are turning a corner as of last week, it’s still indisputable that the Broncos or Chargers could beat the Chiefs at Arrowhead Stadium. After all, it took a field goal block and a banked-in last-second field goal to beat those respective teams at Arrowhead this season.

Second Take: Joe Burrow can still be good without being in the MVP conversation

ESPN’s “First Take” is known for, well, providing the first take on things — the instant reactions. Second Take is not a place for instant reactions but rather the spot where I’ll let the dust settle before taking perhaps a bit of a contrarian view.

There are three things I’d like to do here. I’d like to talk about good quarterbacking seasons without having to say “MVP” every single time. I’d like to talk about passing yards and passing touchdowns and how they are produced. And I’d like to talk about Tee Higgins.

Let’s start at the end and work our way backward. Higgins is so, so, so good. It should have been an absolute no-brainer for the Bengals to pay Higgins the moment he became eligible for an extension and then again this offseason instead of franchise-tagging him. There’s always an issue in the public perception of a player when he isn’t paid; it’s easy to assume he’s automatically worse than the players who have been paid. But Higgins is a clear top-15 receiver and arguably the best WR2 in the NFL (with Philadelphia’s DeVonta Smith being his lone but very close competitor).

Look at this Higgins sideline catch to set up the game-winning touchdown grab he also made. He makes this look easy, but it isn’t. He gets serious separation off the line of scrimmage, and while Burrow would usually throw this as more of a 50-50 ball and let Higgins pluck it off the rim with his chest facing the throw, this ball goes a little long. Higgins has to follow it over his shoulder and into the sideline. Despite the fact that Higgins is at a full stride when this ball arrives, he still tracks it and secures it with his hands while getting two feet down.

JOE’S TAKING THIS INTO HIS OWN HANDS.

📺: #DENvsCIN on NFL Network
📱: Stream on #NFLPlus pic.twitter.com/3izlmZGlSB

— NFL (@NFL) December 29, 2024

Again, it looks easy but only because Higgins has a huge catch radius and great body control. A lot of other receivers in this league get one foot down or bobble this ball over their shoulder.

If you don’t believe me, look at Burrow’s passing splits in the five games he has played without Higgins this season relative to the 11 games he has played with Higgins.

I want to highlight the Higgins splits because they bring up something else: just how good Ja’Marr Chase is opposite him. Because even as Higgins was shredding the Broncos (11 catches on 12 targets for 131 yards and three scores), Denver couldn’t get star cornerback Pat Surtain II over Higgins because he was too busy on Chase. Surtain spent 43 of his 56 coverage snaps over Chase, allowing only three catches on six targets for 27 yards to the NFL triple crown leader. That’s right. Even after a three-catch, 27-yard game, Chase still leads the league in receptions (117), receiving yards (1,612) and touchdown catches (16).

The respective gravity of Higgins and Chase is unlike any other in the league. Chase is good enough to go thermonuclear in Higgins’ absence. (See: 11 catches on 17 targets for 264 yards and three touchdowns against the Ravens in Week 10.) Burrow trusts Chase as much as any quarterback trusts a receiver in the NFL, and Chase has the ability to create a big gain out of any target. But when Higgins is also on the field, he can become that target funnel, automatic big playmaker and Burrow safety blanket at the drop of a hat. This isn’t Batman and Robin; this is Batman and another Batman.

That’s a dangerous metaphor to use, as the only wide receiver duo that can hold a candle to Chase and Higgins is A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith in Philadelphia, and they already have donned the Batman monikers. And from a talent perspective, it’s a legit debate. But from an impact perspective, the Bengals’ duo easily clears. The Eagles are one of the run-heaviest teams in the league; the Bengals are one of the pass-heaviest squads.

That brings us to the larger scope of the Bengals’ offense. NFL Next Gen Stats has the Bengals with a pass rate over expectation of plus-5.4%, and only the Chiefs are higher. The Bengals know that no matter the game script — trailing, leading, early, late — they need to throw to move the ball. They aren’t a terrible running team, but they are more of a home run or strikeout team than a consistent ground-and-pound group. So, the Bengals throw a lot — with plenty of short, quick stuff on top of the incredible downfield production — to stay ahead of the sticks and keep the offense on schedule.

Also of note: Because that run game isn’t consistent, the Bengals throw the ball a ton when they get in scoring range. In the red zone, the Bengals have a pass rate over expectation of plus-7.5%. Inside the 3-yard line, that jumps to plus-12.3%. Only the Jets are higher in both measures.

So, the Bengals pass a lot relative to expectation, and they really pass a lot relative to expectation in the red zone. Throw in a pretty bad defense and an offense that’s rarely nursing big second-half leads and you get 671 Burrow dropbacks this season, along with 606 total attempts, 4,641 passing yards and 42 touchdown passes. All of these numbers lead the league.

To this point, we’ve largely talked about the non-Burrow factors behind the passing boom in Cincinnati: the star talent of Higgins, the trailing game scripts and the inherent pass heaviness of the offensive philosophy. I wanted to talk about those factors because they matter a ton, but they get lost in the sauce of Burrow enthusiasm, and I think that’s a shame. And not just a shame; it isn’t representative of all that’s happening in Cincinnati.

play

Orlovsky: Bengals have wasted a great Burrow season if they don’t make playoffs

Dan Orlovsky breaks down how impressive of a season Joe Burrow is having and how bad it would be if the Bengals don’t make the playoffs.

Burrow has been playing in Zac Taylor’s offense for five years now. Burrow’s current offensive coordinator — Dan Pitcher — was his quarterbacks coach for four years. Where are the laurels for offensive continuity, such a rare thing these days in an ever-shifting NFL? Burrow is playing with the best pass-catching back he has ever had in his career in Chase Brown as well as the best pass-catching tight end of his career in Mike Gesicki. Where are the laurels for a deeper roster and a variety of pass-catching options?

This is the problem with sprinting to the MVP conversation: It drowns everything else out. It’s not just that we lose context; it’s that we intentionally sidestep it in favor of side-by-side statistical comparisons and win total hypotheticals. We’ve got Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen fans debating if QB sneaks are actually impressive or important in the MVP conversation. We’ve got Burrow leading the league in passing, which somehow means he should be in the MVP conversation like Tua Tagovailoa was last season or Jameis Winston was in 2019.

I don’t think Burrow should be in the MVP conversation. Not because he has been bad this season or is overrated; neither is the case. It has been the best season of his career, and he has been one of the best quarterbacks in football. At his peak, he has seemed unstoppable. No, I simply don’t think he should be in the MVP conversation because the other guys (Jackson and Allen) are more deserving. They’ve done more with less. They’ve been more valuable. That’s all.

Instead, I think Burrow belongs in the Patrick Mahomes conversation. Mahomes’ gross passing stats have taken a huge hit as he settles into the role that Kansas City’s offense needs him to fill in order for the team to win games. Burrow’s gross passing stats have taken a huge leap, but it has been for the exact same reason. This is the only out for the Bengals. Burrow is a wildly good player on an imperfect team doing his best to keep that team alive. He isn’t doing it as well as Mahomes, which is part of the reason the Bengals have lost more games than the Chiefs, but hey, Burrow is generally doing it really, really well.

It simply is not interesting to me to just point at passing yards and passing touchdowns and say, “He should be the MVP” or “That’s the best quarterback in football.” That has never really been how it works, and we should give a lot more respect and credence to everyone in the conversation — Burrow, Chase, Higgins, Allen, Jackson, Mahomes, Taylor, everyone — by being willing to talk about great players in more than one framing.

From y’all

The best part of writing this column is hearing from all of you. Hit me on X (@BenjaminSolak) or by email (benjamin.solak@espn.com) anytime — but especially on Monday each week — to ask a question and potentially get it answered here.

From Zack: “We know certain positions can rarely (or never) win the existing end-of-year awards, so if an O-lineman of the Year or a DB of the Year award existed, what would your ballots look like?”

Excellent question. I think Offensive Lineman of the Year is Tampa Bay’s Tristan Wirfs.

His numbers are all great; he has more than 500 pass-blocking snaps and has allowed 1.5 sacks and only 24 pressures. But I don’t really need the numbers to look any which way. Whenever I watch the Bucs, I’m blown away by their tackle duo (right tackle Luke Goedeke has been excellent, too), but Wirfs is a difference-maker on the left side. He is a focal point of Tampa Bay’s run game and impossibly dominant creating displacement upfield, but that was always the book on him coming out of Iowa. He is now one of the dominant pass protectors on the left side — which wasn’t even his natural position entering the NFL. If I wanted to start a franchise tomorrow, Wirfs would be near the top of my non-QB board.

The Defensive Back of the Year is the Defensive Player of the Year: Denver’s Pat Surtain II.

From Yehoshua: “Why do they credit extra yards on a runback (kickoff or interception) from deep in the end zone, but not extra yards on a pass caught deep in the end zone?”

Great question. No idea. NFL Next Gen Stats does count the air distance on those throws, though, so we know that the Bo Nix deep ball to Marvin Mims Jr. on Saturday was 67 yards in the air, which is sick.

From Kyle: “What level of rebuild do you foresee for the Colts? Roster tweaks? Coaching turnover? Total overhaul?”

I got a version of this question from several people, so I wanted to make sure I gave an honest answer: I have no clue.

You can talk me into anything here. I think another season of Shane Steichen and Anthony Richardson could really pay dividends. I liked both guys individually, and as a team, they’ve done cool things on offense. I’ve been pretty vocal about inconsistent wide receiver play being a huge factor in the Colts’ unreliable offense, and I’d love to see this offense next season with Chris Godwin or Amari Cooper to fill the role that Michael Pittman Jr. has seemingly never been able to. Get me a different defensive coordinator and actually spend some money on that side of the ball, and I’m interested.

I also think a complete blowup is totally justified. New coach, new general manager, new quarterback. Go back and look at all the internal free agents the Colts re-signed this past season: Pittman, Zaire Franklin, Grover Stewart, Kenny Moore II, Julian Blackmon, Danny Pinter. This is the team the Colts wanted, the one they tried to build. Yet they mismanaged the development of their young quarterback and imploded down the stretch. How can you trust the Chris Ballard-Steichen nucleus with another season?

Yeah, I’ve got no idea what to do with the Colts at all.

play

Pat McAfee is baffled by the Colts’ lack of accountability

Pat McAfee addresses his social media post about the Colts after their devastating loss to the Giants in Week 17, which knocked them out of the playoffs.

Next Ben Stats

NFL Next Gen Stats are unique and insightful nuggets of data that are gleaned from tracking chips and massive databases. Next Ben Stats are usually numbers I made up. Both are below.

1.2: That was Giants quarterback Drew Lock‘s EPA per dropback against the Colts on Sunday. It is the second-best game by EPA per dropback in the NFL Next Gen Stats database (minimum 20 dropbacks).

This is probably the most embarrassing performance of the season (which is saying something). The Colts entered the weekend with some playoff hope. They could win out, watch the Broncos lose to the Chiefs in Week 18 and get some help from the Dolphins and/or Bengals. A thin chance, sure, but a chance nonetheless. The hard part was supposed to be the help; the easy part was winning out against the Giants and Jaguars.

Instead, a Colts defense that wasn’t lacking any main players (save for a few early-season major injuries) gave up 45 points to the Lock-led Giants. A Giants offense that had yet to score 30 points in a game scored 38, and a 100-yard Ihmir Smith-Marsette kickoff return added another seven. Lock, who entered the game with a career TD-INT ratio of 29-26, threw four touchdown passes and no picks. He had yet to have a positive EPA per dropback in a game this season but averaged 1.2 EPA per dropback.

With the season on the line? It’s a shockingly poor performance. I don’t know exactly what the fallout will be for the Colts’ brass, but the collapse of this team does not cast a favorable light.

86.4%: That’s the Commanders’ conversion rate on fourth down. It’s the best season in NFL history (minimum 20 fourth-down attempts). Washington has gone 19-for-22. Bonkers.

The Commanders got stuffed on a fourth-and-1 run against the Eagles in Week 16 (45 seconds into the game) and a fourth-and-2 run against the Eagles in Week 11 (down 16 with two minutes left), and they picked up only 8 yards on a fourth-and-9 late in a one-score game against the Steelers (that one actually hurts). Other than that, the Commanders have converted on every single fourth-down attempt this season.

The next-best teams at this volume were the 2006 Patriots, who converted 16 of 20 tries (80%), and the 2008 Patriots, who converted 17 of 22 tries (77.3%). The 2023 and 2024 Eagles, who have nominally been the best fourth-down team in football given their tush push deployment, are at 73.1% and 72.0%, respectively.

It is difficult to overstate how impactful fourth-down success has been for the Commanders’ overall team success. An astonishing 23.4% of the Commanders’ points have come after a successful fourth-down conversion, which is the seventh-highest number since 2000.

But that’s not even the wildest part. The other offenses that rank highly are very bad offenses: 2023 Panthers, 2023 Commanders, 2024 Browns, 2024 Giants. These are teams that don’t score unless they’re in desperation drives in big deficits in the fourth quarter. The Commanders, meanwhile, are an objectively good offense that is also dominating on the last-ditch down. They have scored 108 points after fourth-down conversions, passing the 2022 Eagles (100 points) for the most since 2000. At 41.7 EPA on fourth down, they’ve also passed the 2008 Patriots for most total expected points added on fourth downs in league history.

This is, without question, the best fourth-down offense we’ve ever seen.

4: That’s how many players have rushed for over 1,000 yards on under 200 attempts in their rookie seasons. Those players are Franco Harris, Beattie Feathers (a real name of a real person from 1934), Phillip Lindsay and Buccaneers running back Bucky Irving.

Irving is at 1,033 rushing yards on 188 attempts, so he’ll likely clear the 200-attempt mark in his 17th game when the Buccaneers face the Saints with the NFC South on the line. If we filter it to 210 attempts, we add some more names: Tyler Allgeier, Tony Dorsett, Ricky Watters, LeGarrette Blount and another actual real person in Ickey Woods.

Perhaps that list doesn’t sound too impressive; those players weren’t high-volume rushers after all. But if Irving maintains his 5.5 yards per rush, he’ll be only the third back in history to average that or better on over 200 carries, joining Adrian Peterson (5.6 on 238 carries) and Clinton Portis (5.5 on 273 carries). I’m not convinced that a career rife with 300-carry seasons is in the cards for Irving, who is undersized at 5-foot-10 and 195 pounds, but the proof is in the pudding. The Bucs got a good one in Round 4.

‘Monday Night Money’

Each week, we will pick out one or two of the biggest storylines from “Monday Night Football” and break down what it means for the rest of the season.

Every Monday, I make a mailbag call for this column. And every Monday, I get one question more than all others: What would you do with 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy and his contract?

The 49ers lost to the Lions 40-34 on Monday night and have fallen to 6-10. On paper, it’s not a bad loss at all. The Lions are a very good and very motivated 14-2 team. But in context, the 49ers had the banged-up Lions stuck in a shootout that could have gone either way. Then Purdy threw a bad pick to Kerby Joseph, and then he threw another one. Suddenly, the Lions were up two scores.

Kerby Joseph with his second INT of the night!

📺: #DETvsSF on ESPN/ABC
📱: Stream on #NFLPlus and ESPN+ pic.twitter.com/dfXyDReu3r

— NFL (@NFL) December 31, 2024

It was a pretty typical Purdy game in that he set a personal best for single-game passing yards (377), hit five or six awesome throws into tight windows or on the move and also sailed a few throws that left us scratching our heads. So the question again: What do you do with him?

The answer is actually a lot easier than it seems — wait. Purdy’s contract is not up until the end of the 2025 season, and there isn’t a quarterback contract on the horizon between now and then that’s going to really tip the market. We’ve seen the best of Purdy in his first two seasons with the 49ers, when Christian McCaffrey was healthy, Deebo Samuel Sr. was still prime and Trent Williams was still dominating. Now, we’ve seen what might be his worst. The offense still produces yardage but struggles in the red zone and suffers key turnovers. Purdy can still execute the offense, but the 49ers have to ask themselves how much that’s worth.

Of course, 2025 might tell us something new. The supporting cast could get worse as the 49ers clear the cap sheets and prepare for a new era of football. Maybe the floor will fall out from Purdy’s game. Maybe he’ll develop a new rapport with Ricky Pearsall and other youngsters and get some of his shine back. I don’t know what will happen, but I know more data won’t hurt. Sure, it’s usually good to be ahead of the market, but in a $60 million quarterback market, what’s an extra $5 million for another year’s worth of information?

There’s no reason to rush this one. The 49ers are in limbo as a team anyway, and this offseason’s quarterback class — both in the draft and free agency — isn’t suited for a quick turnaround (save for one Sam Darnold, but that’s so spicy a take I can’t even get my own head around it just yet). Watch Purdy for another season. Watch some of the other teams who signed quick, big contracts (Dolphins with Tua Tagovailoa, Packers with Jordan Love, Jaguars with Trevor Lawrence) and see if there’s anything to be learned from their victories or failures. Play it slow and accept the inevitability of your long rebuild.