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The two Super Bowl teams from last season took center stage in Week 12.
Will they be there in the end?
Had the Kansas City Chiefs lost Sunday and fallen below .500 instead of overcoming a double-digit deficit to beat Indianapolis, I was going to make the case that missing the playoffs would be best for the franchise in the long term.
That still might be true.
The Philadelphia Eagles are in a different spot. They were leading by three touchdowns at Dallas while finally getting unhappy receiver A.J. Brown his catches, which made their eventual 24-21 loss on a walk-off field goal all the more stunning.
The Pick Six column dives into these teams’ issues in the first two items. The full menu:
• Chiefs’ win means what?
• Eagles not in the zone
• Choose your Shedeur narrative
• Are the Raiders the next Falcons?
• Coach Kafka, meet Coach Walsh
• Two-minute drill: Predictable Bills?
1. Kansas City overcame a 20-9 deficit in the fourth quarter to beat the Colts. How excited should Chiefs fans be?
The Chiefs could use a high-end running back to convince coach Andy Reid and quarterback Patrick Mahomes to lean into the ground game, both by design and in the calls they make over the headsets and at the line of scrimmage. Kansas City could also use a high-end pass rusher to help 31-year-old Chris Jones close out games against top quarterbacks.
“At the end of the day, I think you will see that come back to bite them,” an exec from another team said of the pass rush, specifically.
Beating the Colts to barely break the surface with a 6-5 record does not change those things. But there were a couple of encouraging signs for those hoping the Chiefs might become more than a team that runs from the shotgun, and then only out of obligation.
Kansas City’s 16 carries by running backs from under center against the Colts tied for the second most in 144 total games with Mahomes in the lineup. The Chiefs averaged only 2.9 yards per rush on these — they really need a back whom defenses must respect — but that low average included three short runs for first downs with a yard to go.
After Isiah Pacheco and Kareem Hunt combined to average 3.7 yards per carry in 2024, the Chiefs brought both back and drafted Brashard Smith, a converted receiver, in the seventh round. That signaled satisfaction with the status quo. Hunt has not averaged more than four yards per carry in a season since 2021. He ranks third in success rate (minimum 100 carries) this season thanks to his effectiveness in short yardage, but Mahomes has more explosive rushes (seven) than Hunt (three) and Pacheco (three) combined.
Before Sunday, the Chiefs were famously 0-5 in games decided by eight or fewer points this season, a reversal from their 11-0 record in these one-score games last season.
For all the focus on Mahomes and the offense, the defense was culpable in those five defeats this season. Using EPA per play, the Chiefs ranked 12th on offense and 27th on defense when filtering only for one-score games entering Week 11. That was down from sixth and 17th last season, respectively.
The Chiefs’ defense held the Colts to 10 first downs and 255 yards Sunday, by far Indy’s lowest totals in both categories this season.
Why, then, might missing the playoffs be best for the Chiefs in the long run? Because that’s what it might take for Kansas City to honestly reassess its direction on offense.
“They can then have a real assessment as to who they want to be and how they want to get there,” the exec said.
The Chiefs have become increasingly dependent upon Mahomes to create explosive plays in the absence of a viable running game, with turnover at receiver and with tight end Travis Kelce aging.
The game against the Colts should be instructive even in victory.
Mahomes averaged 3.2 seconds to throw, be sacked or complete a scramble, the longest in the NFL in Week 12. That included 23 plays at 3.5 seconds or longer, second most for Mahomes in those 144 total starts.
Though the Chiefs’ rate of explosive passes has ticked up near 17 percent this season, which ranks ninth, Mahomes’ time to throw on those plays is 3.3 seconds, the longest of his career.
This reflects what we already know: Kansas City does not present sufficient run threat, through formation or personnel, to incite the hesitation among defenders that is required for creating easy explosives. The Chiefs do not punish defenses with play-action the way the most explosive offenses typically do, despite employing the core run concepts about as frequently.
“Being in the gun with the back offset is not a run threat,” an opposing coach said. “They got away with it because the back (Pacheco) was pretty good for a while, and they’ve had enough pass threats that Mahomes can scramble around and make plays anyway. But the play-action, the way they do it, is not a real sell.”
Kansas City running backs are hitting explosive rushes (12-plus yards) on 3.8 percent of qualifying chances. That ranks 254th out of 256 teams since Mahomes became the full-time starter in 2018 (the 2024 Chiefs ranked 253rd).
That’s the sort of stat that hits harder when you’re watching Bo Nix and Daniel Jones in the playoffs from your couch. Inconvenient truths are easier to shrug off when your superhero quarterback gets you to the AFC Championship Game every season regardless, as the case has been in Kansas City.
“The first crack I saw in them, in my opinion, was when Andy was asked about running the ball (last week), and he basically said he was calling runs, but Mahomes was changing at the line,” an exec from another team said. “The way he said it, that the quarterback was doing it, did not feel Andy-like.”
Nothing would have felt less Andy-like, less Mahomes-like than seeing the Chiefs with a losing record through 11 games. Thanks to Mahomes and an improved defense, the Chiefs might still be on their way.
Receiver Rashee Rice, back from suspension since Week 7, could help elevate the pass game. He had eight catches for 141 yards against the Colts. The time to throw on his longest reception, a 42-yarder, was 4.4 seconds.
“I think Rashee Rice is that guy and you will see the best version of the Chiefs’ offense come to life toward the end of the season,” another exec said. “It happens every year. They’ve gotta go through it. Until they get a real running back in there, they are always going to live like this.”
2. Can a soft closing schedule save the Eagles’ offense from itself?
Unlike the Chiefs, whose offensive architect is unquestionably Reid, the Eagles project the feeling of offense by committee.
First-time coordinator Kevin Patullo operates amid strong voices.
Head coach Nick Sirianni has called plays in the past. Jeff Stoutland is the classic, highly regarded and empowered line coach.
Quarterback Jalen Hurts is a Super Bowl MVP with a $255 million contract, special abilities and limitations as a passer. Receiver A.J. Brown cuts loose with public commentary, leaving others to read between the lines. Running back Saquon Barkley, though quieter, is coming off a 2,000-yard season. He has juice.
It’s at once a great and difficult situation for a coordinator to navigate. This could be one reason the offense appears disjointed at times.
Against Dallas, the Eagles led 21-0 after only 19 minutes as Hurts completed four passes for gains longer than 15 yards, including two to Brown, one for a touchdown. Philly did not score the rest of the way. Per TruMedia, it was the first time since 2021 the Eagles failed to score on seven consecutive drives within a game, excluding drives starting in the final two minutes of halves.
It gets worse. The Eagles entered Sunday 50-0 this century in games they led by exactly 21 points. They were 90-0 in games they led by 21 or more. Make it 50-1 and 90-1 after the debacle in Dallas.
Philadelphia ranks 17th in offensive EPA per play, its worst through Week 12 since Sirianni became coach in 2021 (the offense was 16th at this point in that season, but by then, Sirianni had handed play-calling duties to Shane Steichen).
Over the past couple of seasons, the Eagles have eased off the inside zone and RPO concepts that some in the league felt hid Hurts’ relative weaknesses as a timing/progression passer. More true dropback passes, outside zone and gap runs could increase the degree of difficulty for a once-great offensive line that has suffered from attrition, most recently with right tackle Lane Johnson suffering a foot injury.
Barkley finished Sunday’s game with 10 carries for 22 yards, his lowest total as an Eagle. Only once as an Eagle has he had fewer carries: Week 5 against Denver, when Philadelphia blew a 14-point fourth-quarter lead. The Eagles’ run game has fallen from fifth in yards per carry last season to 25th in 2025.
Hurts is facing trickier zone defenses. Coordinators across the league are attacking offenses with diversified versions featuring late safety rotations and match principles. Dianna Russini’s report that Hurts’ offensive teammates have grown “frustrated” with his play against zone, and with his hesitancy throwing into tight windows, makes greater sense with this context.
“When it’s man, which people like to get into against (Hurts) to get another player in the box for the zone reads, they have better players than the defense on the outside, so the first read wins a lot for them,” an opposing coach said. “When you are in zone, you can take the first reads away and make the quarterback progress to other things, which is not his comfort zone.”
A closing schedule packed with lower-ranked defenses still might save the Eagles’ offense during the regular season, although the Cowboys’ defense entered Sunday ranked 31st in EPA per play, even after dismantling the Raiders in Quinnen Williams’ debut last week.
Philly might need to lean on its own defense, which ranks second in EPA per play but had to perform significant juggling in the secondary as injuries mounted Sunday.
3. Shedeur Sanders made his first start! The Browns won! Do with it what you will
Rookie quarterback Shedeur Sanders stepped into the lineup Sunday for a Browns offense riding a 17-game streak of performances with negative EPA. If he struggled — which was likely, within the broader team context — his many doubters entering the 2025 NFL Draft would have the early confirmation that analysts with strong opinions tend to crave.
There was a little something for everyone in this first Sanders start.
Sanders became the first Browns rookie quarterback since 1995 to win his debut start. He averaged 10.4 yards per pass attempt, best for any quarterback in Week 12 through Sunday.
In classic Browns fashion, the Sanders pass completion that produced the worst result (-1.8 EPA) should have ranked among the best, except receiver Jerry Jeudy lost a fumble after a 39-yard gain.
Sanders’ short pass to Dylan Sampson for a 66-yard touchdown and his deep ball to Isaiah Bond for a 52-yard gain to the 2 are the Browns’ top two EPA gainers on offense this season.
“The nicest play was the scramble against the unblocked blitzer for the 52-yard gain,” a coach from another team said. “He felt the pressure immediately and got away to his right, threw a nice ball without getting his feet set.”
SHEDEUR SANDERS GOES DEEP FOR 53 YARDS.
CLEvsLV on CBS/Paramount+https://t.co/HkKw7uXVnt pic.twitter.com/dVqZbz0ESf
— NFL (@NFL) November 23, 2025
The Raiders’ defense played a role, but Cleveland has faced other weak defenses this season, including Cincinnati’s in Week 1. For Sanders to have a hand in the two biggest plays of the season after completing 11 of 20 passes is good for him.
On the downside, the interception Sanders threw in the second quarter could have been a killer against a good team. It was one reason Cleveland ranked ahead of only the Raiders, Vikings and Buccaneers in offensive EPA per play (-0.25) in Week 12, making it 18 consecutive games in the red for Cleveland’s offense, the fourth-longest streak since 2000, per TruMedia.
“A lot of people want to see me fail,” Sanders said after the game, “and it ain’t going to happen.”
The odds are high that Sanders, like every recent Browns QB, will struggle statistically. He did not hold the ball too long as a general rule Sunday, contrary to his reputation in college.
“They played with two open edges all the time (at Colorado) and couldn’t block,” an exec said. “That isn’t going to be the case in Cleveland.”
Cleveland finished Sunday’s game with -12.1 EPA on offense. Teams in that general range (-15 to -10) have won 24 percent of the time since 2000.
With 10 sacks from the Cleveland defense, including three more from Myles Garrett, the Browns finished Sunday with +21.4 EPA on defense. Teams in that range (+19 to +23) have won 91 percent of the time since 2000.
Football is a team game. The Browns won a game most offenses would have lost. Next up is Decision 2025, Week 13: whether coach Kevin Stefanski sticks with Sanders or goes back to fellow rookie Dillon Gabriel, whose injury cleared the way for Sanders to start.
Garrett, meanwhile, is up to 18 sacks, 4.5 shy of Michael Strahan’s and T.J. Watt’s single-season record, with six games to play. Lawrence Taylor is the only player with four three-sack games in a season (1986) since sacks became an official stat in 1982. Garrett has three such games in the past four weeks, giving him eight in his career. His 13 sacks since Oct. 26 are the most on record in a four-game span.
4. The Falcons have arguably committed organizational malpractice. Are the Raiders next?
The Falcons have bucked conventional team-building principles since hiring Terry Fontenot as general manager before the 2021 season.
They used top-10 draft choices for a tight end (Kyle Pitts at No. 4 in 2021, the highest-drafted TE ever) and running back (Bijan Robinson at No. 8 in 2023) before building out their offensive and defensive lines. Using a top-10 pick for a receiver (Drake London at No. 8 in 2022) was also more of a luxury addition for a team in the early stages of roster building and without an established quarterback.
We’ve seen other teams in the building stages make jumps after securing pass rushers (San Francisco with Nick Bosa in 2019, Cleveland with Garrett in 2017) or other cornerstone pieces (Detroit with Penei Sewell in 2021) and, of course, with dynamic QB talents (Buffalo with Josh Allen in 2018, Cincinnati with Joe Burrow in 2020).
The Falcons became notorious last year for using a top-10 pick for quarterback Michael Penix Jr., who had significant durability concerns, only weeks after signing Kirk Cousins, who was coming off a torn Achilles tendon, to a deal with $90 million fully guaranteed. This complicated their quarterback timeline without delivering a top one to Atlanta.
Finally, the Falcons’ decision to trade their 2026 first-round pick to the Rams for a 2025 first-rounder (used for pass rusher James Pearce) assumed the team would be picking much lower in the 2026 order, but that pick could very well be in the top 10 yet again (even after the Cousins-led Falcons beat the Saints on Sunday).
“They thought they were getting the last piece of the puzzle,” an exec from another team said of the trade to land Pearce. “Now, your quarterback (Penix) is having his third ACL surgery. He lumbers already, and he’s going to have to be a pocket passer and he’s got the slowest delivery I’ve seen.”
Which franchise-altering cornerstones have the Falcons added with all those high picks since 2021?
That brings us to the Raiders.
Like the Falcons, they’ve used recent high first-round picks on a tight end (Brock Bowers, chosen No. 13 in 2024) and a running back (Ashton Jeanty, No. 6 in 2025, right before the Jets selected offensive tackle Armand Membou). Bowers is exceptional, but he was also a luxury pick for a team that badly needed to build along its lines (the eight players taken immediately after Bowers’ selection were all trench players: Taliese Fuaga, Laiatu Latu, Byron Murphy II, Dallas Turner, Amarius Mims, Jared Verse, Troy Fautanu and Chop Robinson). Bowers is a fancy hood ornament on a broken-down car.
Also like the Falcons, the Raiders invested in an older quarterback, signing Geno Smith to a deal with $66.5 million fully guaranteed. Smith has played about as poorly as Cousins played for the Falcons before Atlanta benched him. The Raiders could have a top-five pick in the 2026 draft. Will they follow Atlanta’s lead by selecting a flawed quarterback in the misguided belief they might not be picking this high anytime soon?
“Who is the next Atlanta?” another exec said. “It’s probably the Raiders.”
The difference for Las Vegas is that the Raiders have a seasoned coach in Pete Carroll who, for all his struggles this season, knows how to build programs and is consistent in his approach. The Raiders also have a first-year GM in John Spytek who was college teammates with minority owner Tom Brady at Michigan and worked in Tampa Bay’s personnel department when Brady played for the Bucs.
It’s tough knowing who has advocated for what in Las Vegas. Carroll drove the decision to acquire Smith, his former quarterback in Seattle, but who wanted Chip Kelly, fired after the disaster against Cleveland, as offensive coordinator? Who thought it was a good idea to have holdover defensive coordinator Patrick Graham calling Carroll’s defense? What is Brady thinking?
“There are so many things we do not know,” the second exec said. “All we see is the result. We don’t know what the Raiders’ vision was when they hired 74-year-old Pete Carroll and gave him a three-year contract. This might have been part of it, to instill culture and learn how to run a football team. This might be a two-year learning process.”
5. Coach Kafka, meet Coach Walsh and Coach Brown (or at least Dan Campbell)
The Giants blew a double-digit lead and lost for the fifth time in 11 games this season, but if that was your takeaway from a 34-27 overtime defeat at Detroit, my condolences.
While those other collapses contributed to Brian Daboll losing his job as coach, the way the Giants played against Detroit should improve interim coach Mike Kafka’s standing.
The Giants, with nothing to lose as 13.5-point underdogs in their second game with Kafka in the interim role, jumped to a 7-0 lead with a trick-play touchdown pass on the fourth play from scrimmage. The Giants scored another trick-play touchdown in the fourth quarter. That was largely how, for only the sixth time in their history, they had at least 500 yards, at least 25 first downs and at least a 50 percent conversion rate on third down in the same game, per Pro Football Reference.
The trick plays represented a major-league pantsing that Lions coach Dan Campbell should respect, given his own history in this area.
The first trick play, a flea-flicker ending with Jameis Winston’s 39-yard touchdown pass to Wan’Dale Robinson, was critical in keeping the Giants competitive (they led 20-17 at halftime).
The early strike also recalled the trick-play psychology Bill Walsh (Pro Football Hall of Fame class of 1993) and Paul Brown (class of 1967) espoused.
“One of the interesting things about Paul Brown football is that he would always be terribly upset if someone would run a reverse before we did, or a run-pass before we did,” Walsh wrote in the 1980s. “He would grab the phone and scream in my ear, ‘They did it before we did!’ This was very distressing because it sounded so dated.”
Walsh came to agree with his former boss.
“If you run your reverse first, and you can make 5 yards or more, the other guy won’t run his,” Walsh explained. “If you have a special play of any kind, get it into the game quickly. … It affects your opposition.”
There remains no practical way to check such things when Walsh and Brown were coaching. There appears to be no such effect in recent seasons (teams are slightly less likely to try trick plays after their opponents scored touchdowns that way).
The rarity Sunday was in the Giants scoring long touchdowns on two trick plays in the same game.
The second one, a 33-yard touchdown pass from receiver Gunner Olszewski (zero career pass attempts before Sunday) to Winston (zero receptions before Sunday), gave the Giants a 27-17 lead early in the fourth quarter.
These were the Giants’ two most productive trick plays involving laterals to the eventual passer since 2022, when Daboll became coach.
Kafka cannot meet Walsh or Brown, who died years ago, but meeting Campbell for the postgame handshake wasn’t a bad substitute.
Campbell’s Lions were the last team to score two long touchdowns on trick plays in the same game, burning Green Bay for scoring passes of 75 and 36 yards during the final game of the 2021 season, a 37-30 victory as four-point underdogs (the Packers had already locked up the NFC’s top seed). That game ended Campbell’s first season as Lions coach and was a prelude to a breakout second season under his leadership.
6. Two-minute drill: Bills’ predictable offense?
Bills quarterback Josh Allen took eight sacks, and his offensive coordinator, Joe Brady, took criticism from some analysts for overusing mesh concepts on third down in a 23-19 defeat at Houston.
What’s the truth?
On the sack front, the Bills have empowered Allen to handle free rushers instead of leaning on intricate protection schemes to do the job, according to coaches familiar with Buffalo.
Allen can make defenders miss and break away from their grasp as well as just about any quarterback. He can also play freer without directing more of his energy and preparation toward setting protections. But with Allen taking sacks at a higher rate this season (7.9 percent) than in any since he was a rookie (eight percent), that’s an area the team might be wise to revisit. The Bills have also led the NFL in rate of plays using five-man protection, the minimum number possible, in each of Brady’s two seasons as coordinator, per TruMedia.
The answer is nuanced regarding Brady’s love for mesh concepts, which deploy receivers running shallow crossing routes to create natural rubs against man coverage in particular.
Critics had a point Thursday night when Brady called mesh concepts on failed third-down plays with 1, 3 and 6 yards to go for a first down. Houston played Cover 3 Seam and Cover 1 defenses on these plays, ideal schemes for either defending crossing traffic (Cover 3 Seam) or making tackles immediately before the sticks (Cover 1).
On the one mesh rep against zone Thursday night, Allen found no one open and tried running up the middle, only to have Texans linebacker Denzel Perryman slam him to the ground from behind with great force.
Mesh was a successful go-to concept for the Bills last season, but Buffalo’s effectiveness on those plays has plummeted in 2025.
How Brady adjusts will be important for Buffalo.
• Rams best in league? With a 34-7 victory over Tampa Bay, the Rams lead the league in point margin (+127). That includes +111 since Week 6, far ahead of New England (68) and Seattle (66), who are next. They rank second on offense and first on defense in EPA per play over that 6-0 stretch.
• Smith-Njigba’s incredible run: Eight catches for 162 yards and two touchdowns against Tennessee moved Seahawks receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba into even more exclusive company with 1,313 yards through 11 games.
He has already broken DK Metcalf’s full-season franchise yardage record (1,303, set in 2020). He’s the only receiver in league history to reach 75 yards in each of a season’s first 11 games. And he’s third on the single-season yardage list through 11 games behind 2013 Josh Gordon (1,400) and 2023 Tyreek Hill (1,324).
• Bengals’ big, bad defense: The Bengals, playing what should be one last game before Joe Burrow’s return at quarterback, wasted their best defensive performance of the season (+0.2 EPA per play) in falling 26-20 at home to New England.
The Cincy defense, worst on record through 10 games since at least 1978, per Aaron Schatz’s DVOA archives, stopped New England four times from the 1-yard line in the same drive.
No defense has made more stops from the 1 while holding a team without a touchdown since Detroit against Tampa Bay in 2000, per TruMedia.
But with Burrow’s backup, Joe Flacco, tossing a pick-six, the Bengals slipped to 3-8 and all but out of the AFC playoff picture.
• Ravens clear low bar: The Ravens beat the Jets, 23-10, with 241 total yards, 98 rushing yards, 13 pass completions, zero passing touchdowns and two third-down conversions. That made Baltimore the sixth team since 1970 to win by at least that many points without exceeding any of those benchmarks, per Pro Football Reference.
The victory and Pittsburgh’s loss at Chicago left the Ravens atop the AFC North for the first time this season.
• Bears oh so close: The Bears are 8-3, their best record through 11 games since starting 9-2 in 2006 and 2001. That includes 4-1 in games decided by three or fewer points, including their 31-28 victory over Pittsburgh in Week 12. It’s the first time since 2013 that Chicago has had a winning record in those games to this point in a season (they were 3-1 in them in 2013, and 0-3 last season).
The close victories are buying time for new coach Ben Johnson to implement his program without those nettlesome questions about what he should have done late in games, or whether there’s still a losing culture. Denver (5-2), Tampa Bay (4-0) and Carolina (4-0) are the other teams with at least four victories in games that close this season.
Since losing to the Tyler Huntley-quarterbacked Ravens in Week 8, the Bears have won four in a row against teams with Mason Rudolph, J.J. McCarthy, Jaxson Dart and Joe Flacco in the lineup. They also beat teams with Spencer Rattler, Jayden Daniels, Geno Smith and Dak Prescott behind center.
Next up: Jalen Hurts in Week 13, followed by Jordan Love.
• Vikings can’t change subject: There’s no point in breaking down J.J. McCarthy’s performance for the Vikings every week, other than to mention the fact that, alas, former Vikings starter Sam Darnold had the NFL’s second-highest passer rating of Sunday (118.1), while McCarthy had the second-lowest (34.2).
A trip to Seattle for a date with the Seahawks’ defense isn’t going to help
• Cardinals let them off the hook: NFL teams are 350-12 since 2000 when finishing games with a plus-4 turnover differential.
Arizona became one of the 12 during its 27-24 home loss to the Jaguars, who won with quarterback Trevor Lawrence tossing three interceptions and losing a fumble, which the Cardinals returned for a touchdown.
The Cardinals own one of the other defeats on that dubious list. If you don’t remember it, there’s a good chance you remember hearing about it, or have watched then-coach Dennis Green’s iconic rant afterward.
