AFC East: Buffalo Bills | Miami Dolphins | New England Patriots | New York Jets
AFC North: Baltimore Ravens | Cincinnati Bengals | Cleveland Browns | Pittsburgh Steelers
AFC South: Houston Texans | Indianapolis Colts | Jacksonville Jaguars | Tennessee Titans
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AFC West: Denver Broncos | Kansas City Chiefs | Las Vegas Raiders | Los Angeles Chargers
NFC East: Dallas Cowboys | New York Giants | Philadelphia Eagles | Washington Commanders
NFC North: Chicago Bears | Detroit Lions | Green Bay Packers | Minnesota Vikings
NFC South: Atlanta Falcons | Carolina Panthers | New Orleans Saints | Tampa Bay Buccaneers
NFC West: Arizona Cardinals | Los Angeles Rams | San Francisco 49ers | Seattle Seahawks
Usually, a 12-2 team in sole possession of the best record in the NFL wouldn’t have a tough time getting noticed.
The Denver Broncos have a perception problem. They don’t have any issue winning games. They’ve lost twice this season: In Week 2 with no time left on the clock at the Colts, and Week 3 with no time left on the clock at the Chargers. That’s how close they are to being undefeated. Their last loss was Sept. 21.
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Yet, it has taken a long time for Denver to get respect afforded to most 12-2 teams. They were home underdogs on Sunday. They’re not in the top two of current odds to win the Super Bowl. The narrative surrounding them has been about a lot of close wins. A wild comeback win over the Giants, in which they scored 33 fourth-quarter points, seemed to create an impression that they’re a lucky team and that has stuck. That ignores that the Broncos play a style that seems to get less respect in an offensive era. The Broncos play great defense and know how to finish games. They’re not a fantasy football-friendly team, but it’s a formula that can still work in the NFL. There has been some luck involved in winning 12 games but not as much as you’d guess, based on the lack of buzz around their fantastic season.
Denver has a coach in Sean Payton who might be locking up his spot in the Hall of Fame this season, a stellar defense, a very good offensive line and a talented quarterback in Bo Nix, who is coming off the best game of his career. The offense is inconsistent but not bad; Denver is 11th in EPA (expected points added) per play and 12th in DVOA. Perhaps you didn’t realize all of that, considering the Broncos are the most anonymous 12-2 team in recent memory. That might change when they win the AFC West, or win 14 or more games, or get the No. 1 seed in the AFC. Or maybe it will persist until they make a Super Bowl. There’s no reason they can’t.
Here are the power rankings after Week 15 of the NFL season:
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Thanks to the Raiders for validating their move to the No. 32 spot last week. They had 75 yards on Sunday. Back in Week 7 they had 95 yards against the Chiefs. There have been three instances this season of a team gaining less than 100 yards in a game, and the Raiders account for two of them. This isn’t just a bad team, it’s unwatchable. If Pete Carroll makes it to the end of the season, it might be due to respect for what he has done through his career.
Defensive tackle Jeffery Simmons had a sack, two tackles for loss and even got a receiving touchdown when he stayed alive in the back of the end zone on a Cam Ward scramble. There aren’t many bright spots for the Titans, aside from occasional Ward highlights from a mostly horrendous offense, but Simmons is one. The problem is Simmons will be 29 years old next season on a franchise that might be years away from being good.
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If the Giants want to get the first overall pick of the 2026 NFL Draft, losing at home to the Washington Commanders is a good way to inch closer to it. The Giants still hold the No. 1 pick spot with three weeks to go, according to Tankathon. The first pick might be determined in Week 17, when the Raiders host the Giants. The loser will have a good shot at the top pick. No matter where the Giants end up drafting they’re going to get another fun, young start to build around.
The Cardinals’ only win since Sept. 14? That came against the Cowboys. Four of the last six losses since that win at Dallas came by 22, 19, 28 and 20 points. The Cardinals have graduated from a team that had been losing mostly close games to one that isn’t competing anymore and looks like it wants the season to be over. That’s really bad news for head coach Jonathan Gannon.
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Eventually, trading Quinnen Williams and Sauce Gardner was going to cause the defense to implode. Over New York’s last three games it is allowing an average of 395 yards and 35.3 points. The last time they allowed fewer than 20 points was Oct. 19. On Sunday, they allowed 48 points to the Jaguars, who hadn’t scored more than 36 points in a game this season. Defensive coordinator Steve Wilks paid the price, as he was fired on Monday morning. With games left against New England and Buffalo, it’s not going to get a lot better for the Jets defense.
The Browns were beyond bad in a 31-3 loss to the Bears on Sunday. According to Aaron Schatz of FTN Fantasy, the Browns posted the 11th worst DVOA score in any game since 1978. Shedeur Sanders was a big part of the problem. He had a poor game on Sunday. That doesn’t mean we should make sweeping judgments on Sanders’ career. He’s a fifth-round rookie on a bad team. He’ll have good days, like Week 14, and some bad days. It’s OK to let it all play out slowly, with realistic expectations.
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Rookie quarterback Tyler Shough had 272 yards in a comeback win over the Panthers on Sunday, and his 110.4 passer rating was the second-best of his career (his best mark came in the first meeting vs. Carolina). The Saints might knock themselves out of the top-five pick but if Shough continues to show growth, New Orleans won’t feel the need to draft a quarterback anyway. There are positive late signs in what had been a miserable season.
In a featured role due to Chris Rodriguez Jr.’s injury, rookie running back Jacory Croskey-Merritt had 96 yards and a touchdown. He’s the type of player Washington should want to get a long look at down the stretch. A win over the Giants, after an embarrassing 31-0 loss to the Vikings the previous week, indicates Washington won’t sleepwalk to the finish.
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Sunday was weird. Joe Burrow had perhaps the worst game of his career, days after wondering aloud what he’s doing playing football if he’s not having fun. He said that had nothing to do with playing for the Bengals, but his mindset and how football fits into it. On Sunday, he looked like a player who had other things on his mind. Whatever is going on, the Bengals better do whatever they can to make it right, and soon.
Tua Tagovailoa never plays well in the cold, and he was terrible on Monday night. But it’s not a one off. Tagovailoa hadn’t thrown for more than 173 yards in a game in the four games leading up to Monday night. He was minimized in the offense as the Dolphins dug themselves out of a big hole, but he somehow still leads the NFL in interceptions. Who knows if the Dolphins will have a viable replacement option at quarterback, but running it back with Tagovailoa next season seems unrealistic.
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It will be interesting to see what happens with Kirk Cousins the rest of the season. A 373-yard, three-touchdown game in a win over the Buccaneers should offer some renewed hope that maybe there’s a trade market for him. Or, the Falcons keep him around because Michael Penix Jr. is far from a sure thing. It’s also possible that game was an outlier and Cousins falls apart. Regardless, Atlanta must be glad it held onto Cousins and has options.
The Colts nearly beat one of the two best teams in the NFL on the road with a 44-year-old quarterback who hadn’t played in five years and was signed less than a week earlier. That also made the last-second loss at Seattle tougher to take. Give credit to everyone involved, including Philip Rivers, for battling so hard on Sunday. It reflects very well on coach Shane Steichen. But it will be interesting to see how they rebound from such a crushing loss.
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J.J. McCarthy’s passer rating in his first six games: 57.9. McCarthy’s passer rating in his last two games: 120.3. This is why it’s dangerous to bury a young player after six games, even though McCarthy was unquestionably bad. He still missed plenty of passes against Dallas, but he also looks much better. The Vikings’ season isn’t going anywhere, but three more solid performances by McCarthy would give Minnesota good vibes going into the offseason.
The Saints are 2-0 against the Panthers and 2-10 against the rest of the NFL. Carolina losing a 17-7 lead to get swept by the Saints, when they had a great chance to take a game lead in the NFC South, was one of the worst losses of the season. The Panthers probably have to sweep the Buccaneers in their two games over the next three weeks to make the playoffs. The only good news for Carolina is the Buccaneers are also frustratingly inconsistent.
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The Buccaneers got lucky with that Panthers loss at New Orleans. They should have been penalized more for losing to the Falcons at home, blowing a 28-14 lead. Coach Todd Bowles was obviously fed up after the loss, calling it inexcusable. “You gotta f***ing care enough where the sh** hurts. Gotta f***ing mean something to you,” Bowles said. “It’s more than a job, it’s your f***ing livelihood. How well do you know your job? How well can you do your job? You can’t sugar coat that sh**. It was in-f***ing-excusable. And there’s no f***ing answer for it.”
Jerry Jones said after the Cowboys fell under .500 with a home loss to the Vikings: “We certainly didn’t think we’d be here in this kind of shape with three games to go and be behind the eight ball the way we are.” The troubling part is that he didn’t see it coming. The Cowboys are a mediocre team. That hasn’t changed all season. You can’t properly build a roster if you don’t have self-awareness to know where you stand. Jones is the last to know his team isn’t very good.
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It was reasonable to think that the Chiefs could have rebounded right away next season and continued their dynasty. One bad season with many close losses wasn’t the death of the Chiefs, regardless of how everyone proclaimed it so. But Patrick Mahomes’ torn ACL changes the math. We don’t know how Mahomes will rebound from that injury, especially since he suffered it so late in the season. The Chiefs aren’t in as bad of shape as you might hear, but now it all centers around Mahomes’ recovery.
A 24-0 win over the Bengals isn’t proof the Ravens are back. But it was their best performance in many weeks, and perhaps the whole season. Baltimore hosts the Patriots, plays at the Packers and then finishes at the Steelers. Baltimore takes the division title if it wins out, but it’s tough to expect that from this Ravens team. Unless what we saw on Sunday at Cincinnati is a sign of a late-season surge.
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It seems like we spent more time talking about 44-year-old Philip Rivers last week than we have about Aaron Rodgers all season. But what Rodgers is doing at age 42 is very rare. If we remove Tom Brady, who was a historical outlier, the highest passer rating for any quarterback at 42 years old or older (minimum 100 attempts) was 76.6. Rodgers, who turned 42 this month, entered Monday’s game with a rating of 96.2 and had a very good game in a win over the Dolphins. It doesn’t seem like a vintage Rodgers season due to his track record, but it’s remarkable for his age.
For 3 1/2 months, the Lions have alternated wins and losses. They haven’t had a two-game winning streak or two-game losing streak since the start of October. This is just what Detroit is. It’s an inconsistent team. The defense is not good enough after taking on key injuries. The Lions have a 96% chance to make the playoffs if they win out, according to The Athletic’s playoff simulations, but can a team that can’t win two games in a row be trusted to do that?
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The headline was the Chiefs being eliminated from the playoffs and Patrick Mahomes’ injury, but the Chargers deserve plenty of credit for that 16-13 win at Arrowhead Stadium. The Chargers are becoming a defensive force under coordinator Jesse Minter. They’ve allowed 46 points in three games since the bye. In a wide-open AFC, the combination of an elite head coach, superstar quarterback and top defense makes the Chargers dangerous.
It’s hard to tell how good the 49ers are. The last time they beat a team that currently has a record over .500 was when they knocked off the Rams back in Week 5. The only other victory over a winning team was against Seattle in the opener. But it’s hard to get to 10-4 regardless of the strength of schedule, and the 49ers deserve credit for fighting through injuries. We’ll learn more: The 49ers don’t have another remaining game against anyone under .500 (they finish the season at Colts, vs. Bears, vs. Seahawks), including any potential playoff foe.
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The Jaguars get a bit of a move up, and it’s because of Trevor Lawrence. Over Jacksonville’s last three games, he has nine touchdowns and no interceptions. Is it possible that Lawrence is finally clicking with first-year head coach Liam Coen? It looked like it Sunday, when he became the first player in NFL history with five passing touchdowns, one rushing touchdown and 50-plus rushing yards. If Lawrence can maintain this level, the Jaguars will be a factor in the playoffs.
A loss at Denver wouldn’t have downgraded Green Bay much. It’s Micah Parsons’ season-ending torn ACL that knocks the Packers back a few spots. It’s not impossible to win a championship after the loss of a star player, but Parsons was by far the biggest difference-maker on defense. It’s not the Packers’ only major injury, either. Sometimes very good teams get sidetracked due to bad injury luck. We get a test of how good the Packers are without Parsons on Saturday, when they face the Bears in Chicago.
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The Bills got a really nice win at New England. They also fell behind 21-0, and allowed 385 yards at 7.5 yards per play. They needed Josh Allen to bail them out, and he did. He’s capable of that, but it’s hard to rely on that as a core strategy for multiple games through the playoffs. However, it’s somewhat plausible when Allen is your quarterback. He might be even more deserving of NFL MVP this season than he was last season, when he won.
It’s hard to even know what Sunday’s 31-0 win meant, because it came against a Raiders team that doesn’t even resemble a professional operation lately. But the defense does get credit for allowing only 75 yards, the fewest allowed in any game this NFL season. The offense had its best game in a long time. They’ll have to repeat that against an actual professional team, but at least the win wasn’t in doubt.
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Sunday provided a glimpse of a championship upside for the Texans. Their defense, still No. 1 in points allowed and yards allowed, is clearly at a championship level. The offense was the question. Then, on Sunday, C.J. Stroud had his best game of the season, with three touchdowns and a passer rating of 137.1. That came against a Cardinals team that is fading fast. But we know Stroud has talent. If the offense is just above average the rest of the way, look out for Houston.
Are the Bears the fifth-best team in the NFL? Probably not. But nobody behind them has shown enough to move into the top five. And Chicago, which built a nice record on close wins against bad teams, has played much better the past three weeks and had those wins banked. The injury to Micah Parsons clearly hurts Chicago’s biggest threat in the division. If Chicago beats Green Bay on Saturday night, they’ll justify this ranking.
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The Patriots lost after leading 21-0 to the Bills, and that’s not great. Let’s not overreact though. New England is 10-1 in their last 11 games. The Patriots have a quarterback in Drake Maye who can still win MVP if they win the division. New England did out-gain Buffalo on Sunday, it just couldn’t close out the win. The loss wasn’t great, but every team behind them in the rankings has lost more than one game over their last 11. Don’t give in to recency bias.
There are now three distinct tiers at the top. The top two teams in the NFC West are practically 1a and 1b. Next it’s the Broncos, and then a gap to everyone else. DVOA has Denver with an 81.5% chance to get the No. 1 seed in the AFC. The Broncos have a strong home-field advantage in the altitude, a coach who is likely going to the Hall of Fame and a defense that is comfortably in the top five. Underrate them at your own risk.
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Losing to the Colts would have been horrendous. But they avoided a disaster and won in the final minute, and it’s OK to chalk up the bad performance to looking ahead to the Rams and looking past a Colts team that everyone had left for dead. Here’s what it boils down to: If the Seahawks beat the Rams on Thursday, they’ll be No. 1 next week and have the inside track at the NFC’s No. 1 seed with two games to go. That’s all that matters.
The Rams’ win on Sunday was impressive. It would have been easy to look past a capable Lions team and start thinking about Thursday night’s game in Seattle. But the Rams kept focus, put up 41 points and won. The Rams are already a significant Super Bowl favorite, and that’s despite them being just 55.6% to win the NFC West (via DVOA). If the Rams win Thursday, they’d be a near lock to win the division, get the No. 1 seed and they’d be an overwhelming favorite to win it all. Lose on Thursday and the Rams might end up as a wild-card team playing a cold weather game in Green Bay, Chicago or Philadelphia. The stakes are enormous.
This news was originally published on this post .
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