The end of the NFL regular season is always a sad day. It’s the signal that only four weeks of NFL games remain until the second week of September. That means I have to spend my next seven months of Sunday afternoons with commercials since there is no RedZone for the rest of the season. (Also, RedZone on the Fire TV NFL App skipped like a scratched CD the last two weeks, so someone needs to get on that.)
After all of the injuries, Sean Payton disses towards Russell Wilson and Mike Tomlin’s adroit press conferences, 14 teams made the playoffs and 18 others will be making major changes on the field and in the office suites. And as always, the ride through the regular-season schedule has been a thrill.
Once September ends, analysts and fans begin to believe there is some clarity as to how the remaining weeks will play out. Then the San Francisco 49ers are forced to deal with injuries to two of their best players, the Denver Broncos rip off a five-game winning streak and eventually the Philadelphia Eagles are no longer able to continue to eke out one-score wins.
There have already been coaches fired and certainly more will be on Monday. Fans of teams not in the playoffs will be looking up YouTube highlights of college players predicted to be available when their favorite team drafts at the end of April.
Through 18 weeks it is fairly clear that the Baltimore Ravens and the 49ers are the best teams in the NFL. Going into the final game of the 2023 regular season, a game that neither team approached with a must-win urgency, they were two of the best in NFL history, per total DVOA — third and sixth respectively. The last 10 years, the only other teams in the top 10 by that metric are the 2022 Buffalo Bills. Other squads measured that highly include the 1985 Chicago Bears, 1991 Washington R-words, 1987 49ers, and the 2007 New England Patriots.
The Ravens and the 49ers are clearly the favorites to meet up in a rematch from their Christmas Day duel on Super Bowl Sunday. However, there are no best-of seven, -five or -three series in the NFL playoffs. Both teams have a Wild-Card Weekend bye, and then will participate in a single-elimination tournament.
If the Los Angeles Dodgers, Atlanta Braves, Baltimore Orioles and Tampa Bay Rays can all get eliminated before the League Championship Series in MLB, then the Ravens and 49ers can both get upset before the big game in Las Vegas. The teams most likely to do so are the Bills, Cleveland Browns, Dallas Cowboys and Detroit Lions.
The Buffalo Bills only loss since late November was on the road in OT
When they dropped to 5-5 after losing at home to the Denver Broncos, there was little reason to believe in the Bills. They entered the season with drama surrounding their second-best player — Stefon Diggs — and Josh Allen resorted back to his heavy turnover ways. With 22, he trails only the recently benched Sam Howell — who was reinserted into the starting lineup after Jacoby Brissett’s Week 17 injury.
The Bills have gone 7-1 since losing to the Broncos. A consistent commitment to the run has helped turn around their 2023 season. In every one of their victories they have rushed for at least 100 yards as a team. Since that loss, the only game in which the Bills have registered less than 30 rushing attempts was when they ran the ball 28 times against the Kansas City Chiefs.
They have also gotten healthier on defense. DaQuan Jones returned to the field in Week 18 for the first time since Oct. 8 and Kaiir Elam is back in the lineup. The Bills defense was 21st in DVOA after their loss to the Broncos. Going into Week 18 they had climbed all the way to 12th.
All of this improvement has come as Diggs’ production has bottomed out. He totaled 100 or more yards receiving in five of the Bills’ first six games. Diggs has not had a 100-yard receiving game since Week 6, and did not reach 30 yards in Weeks 16 or 17. The Bills have turned into a smash-mouth football team and have improved from 5-5 to the No. 2 seed in the AFC.
Take the Dallas Cowboys for granted at your own peril
The Cowboys are so popular that it makes them easy to hate. Combine that with a team owner who loves the spotlight and has made many personnel mistakes both in the coaching staff and roster, along with no championships since the 1995 season, and the Cowboys can be a fun team to dismiss.
After a hot start to the 2023 season, they finished at 12-5. Their worst stretch of the season was consecutive losses to the Bills and Dolphins in December. That Bills loss was a bad look as the featured late-afternoon game in Week 15 because the Cowboys were moved all over the field like boxes in a new home. A defense great in fantasy football was supposedly exposed in real life — a defense that has given up 30 or more points only three times this season.
Dallas is one of only four teams in the NFL to enter Week 18 ranked in the top 10 in both offensive and defensive DVOA. Dak Prescott is third in the NFL in passing yards and completion percentage, second in Total QBR, sixth in yards per attempt, and leads the league in passing touchdowns.
The Cowboys are most certainly not a perfect team, especially with Trevon Diggs not available until next season and Tyron Smith battling through a torn plantar fascia in his foot. They also were throttled by the 49ers in September, but since that night, they have played much better football. The 49ers had better not take them lightly if the two should meet in the NFC Championship Game.
Somehow, the Cleveland Browns were resting players in Week 18
Joe Flacco did not take the field against the Cincinnati Bengals for rest purposes. He is one of four quarterbacks to start for the Browns this season and was not signed until Nov. 20. Flacco started his first game on Dec. 3. Cleveland has gone 4-1 during that stretch.
Currently, the list of Browns players on IR is long. Deshaun Watson, Nick Chubb, both starting offensive tackles — Jack Conklin and Jedrick Wills Jr. — backup offensive tackle Jawand Jones, starting safety Grant Delpit and starting middle linebacker Anthony Walker Jr. are all currently unavailable for the postseason. Still, the Browns were able to comfortably make the playoffs with their division being the only in the NFL in which all of the teams finished over .500 since 1935 — per RedZone.
They have pieced together a running game with Jerome Ford, Kareem Hunt and Pierre Strong Jr., while starting reserve offensive tackles. Amari Cooper and David Njoku are playing some of the best football of their NFL careers with Flacco throwing them the football. Also, the defense is one of the best in the league and will be a menace to any opponent in January.
The Detroit Lions are going to host a playoff game
Going into the season, this was an expectation. A franchise with a divisional-round win during the 1991 season being their only playoff victory since 1957 was considered one of the best teams in their conference. The NFC North was weak and the Lions were supposed to bite off the kneecaps of all of their rivals en route to their first-ever home playoff game at Ford Field.
That first division title in more than 30 years has not been reasonably in doubt at any point this season. They knocked off the defending champion Chiefs in Week 1. During the 2023 season they never lost consecutive games. If not for an egregious error by the referees in Week 17, they would have the No. 2 overall seed.
There was not much for the Lions to play for in Week 18 while their opponent, the Minnesota Vikings, were clinging to faint postseason hopes. Following that disappointing loss to the Cowboys, the Lions tore into the Vikings. They gave up 192 yards and a touchdown to Justin Jefferson and also did not trail for a single second.
The Lions are plenty flawed. Jared Goff is lucky that he is playing behind one of the best offensive lines in the NFL, because his numbers under pressure are not good. Also, defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn is performing wizardry with his undermanned unit. They have one standout pass rusher in Aidan Hutchinson and are hugely vulnerable in the air. The Lions gave up 396 passing yards to the Vikings in Week 18 and still won, 30-20.
With a defense that is punching above its weight and an offense equipped with both speed and power, the Cowboys and 49ers will have their hands full with the grit of Detroit.
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