Barnwell sorts out division-race chaos: Why NFC West and AFC South could be three-team hunts

The 2025 season feels like the supreme example of NFL parity. We're somehow sitting here in Week 13 with two teams hitting double digits in the win column: the 10-2 Broncos, who held on for dear life to beat the Commanders on Sunday night, and the 10-2 Patriots, who play on "Monday Night Football" against the Giants. There are bad teams because there are always bad teams, of course, but this has been a year where we can poke a hole in any franchise with Super Bowl aspirations.

The upside in a league without many great teams is that there are a lot of pretty good teams competing for division titles. This time last season, it felt like three divisions in the AFC and one in the NFC had already been decided, and there were only seven teams in the AFC with a winning record, all of whom would eventually make the playoffs.

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This season? It feels like every division might still be up for grabs. The biggest divisional lead with five weeks to go is two games (Broncos in the AFC West and Patriots in the AFC East). Teams such as the Chiefs and Lions -- unquestioned Super Bowl contenders before the season -- are on the outside looking in for the postseason. There's still so much to be decided as we hit December, and that's going to make for some exciting playoff races down the stretch.

Let's take a look at the closest of those races and how Week 13 impacted what's to come. I'll hit the two closest races in both the NFC and the AFC. And I'll start in the NFC West, where a team that appeared set to pull away from the pack fell right back into a three-team fight for both the division title and a potential first-round bye. (I included chances to win the division for each team via ESPN's Football Power Index, or FPI.)

Jump to:
NFC West | NFC South
AFC South | AFC North

NFC West

Los Angeles Rams (9-3)

Week 13: Lost 31-28 to the Panthers
FPI chances to win the division: 47.7%

The Rams were supposed to be the team you could trust. In a league where it felt like any team was capable of losing to anyone else on any given Sunday, the Rams were the most reliable. Their two losses had come to the Eagles and 49ers, and those games required last-second heroics from two teams likely to be in the playoffs themselves. Matthew Stafford had suddenly decided at age 37 to start experimenting with perfection, and after last week's blowout win over the Bucs in prime time, the veteran made himself the betting favorite to win his first MVP award.

Things seemed to be going to plan early on Sunday. Stafford took over on a short field and threw what felt like his 47th touchdown pass of the season to Davante Adams, and while that's a slight exaggeration, the score did give Stafford the record for most consecutive touchdown passes without throwing an interception, as his mark of 28 topped Tom Brady's record of 27. The Panthers responded with a touchdown, but as the Rams marched inside the red zone, Stafford and this offense were inevitably going to race Carolina into a shootout that the Panthers couldn't possibly sustain.

And then reality struck. Stafford had a pass tipped and intercepted, ending his streak. It was bad luck, but on the next drive, he left an out too far inside and Mike Jackson returned it for a pick-six, giving the Panthers a 14-7 lead. The Rams scored again and took a 21-17 halftime lead, but the most critical mistake came later in the game. With the Rams in range for a game-tying field goal, Carolina's expensively assembled defensive tackle duo rose up. Tershawn Wharton beat Rams guard Kevin Dotson to create pressure, and Derrick Brown cleaned up from behind, strip-sacking Stafford for the third Panthers takeaway of the day. After the Rams used their timeouts, Bryce Young converted a third down to end the game, giving the Panthers a 31-28 victory.

It's easy, in some ways, to rationalize the loss as a fluke. Stafford threw as many interceptions on Sunday as he had all season. The Panthers went 3-for-3 on fourth downs, turning two of them into long touchdown passes. Those things aren't going to happen every week, and when the Rams don't shoot themselves in the foot, they're going to be the better team.

That might be true, but this game also spoke to the realities the Rams must face as they set their sights on another Super Bowl. Though Stafford has played very well this season, there have certainly been dropped interceptions and other near-picks helping to maintain that streak along the way. He throws into tight windows at the sixth-highest rate in the league, sometimes (quite famously) without needing to even look where the ball's going.

That's a testament to his talent and willingness to trust his receivers and fit passes into impossibly tight spaces, but it's also almost impossible to do that without creating turnovers. Stafford's 1.5% interception rate in 2024 was the best full-season mark of his career, and he was down at 0.5% in 2025 before Sunday. During that run to the Super Bowl in his debut season with the Rams, Stafford actually led the league with 17 interceptions, running a 2.8% interception rate. He threw two more in the Super Bowl itself. It's unrealistic to expect him to go months between picks.

The weakness in the Rams' defense, meanwhile, has always been at cornerback. The pass rush has done a great job of covering up those issues, and coordinator Chris Shula does a great job disguising coverages and muddying up the picture for opposing quarterbacks. But the losses the Rams have had typically involve teams attacking their CBs and creating big plays.

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Panthers force and recover late key fumble in win over Rams

Matthew Stafford is sacked, fumbles the ball and D.J. Wonnum recovers for the Panthers late in the fourth quarter.

Sunday was a rough day for Emmanuel Forbes Jr., who has played really well since being quasi-benched against the 49ers in Week 5. Forbes didn't play terribly or make awful mental mistakes, but he was facing a bigger, more physical group of Panthers receivers. And Carolina's big plays on fourth down came against the 173-pound Forbes.

First, on a fourth-and-3 in the third quarter, Jalen Coker beat Forbes off the line, stacked the corner and caught a 33-yard touchdown pass from Young. Then, on a fourth-and-2 with the Rams playing in what looked to be a form of Cover 3, rookie Tetairoa McMillan was able to disengage from Forbes with the ball in the air, separate and run away from the corner on a crossing route for a 43-yard touchdown.

With the game on the line, Young was able to seal things up by hitting Coker quickly for a 10-yard completion over the middle of the field, with no Rams defender quick enough to take away his throwing lane. Young was 9-of-11 for 122 yards, with two touchdown passes and no picks on throws within 2.5 seconds of taking the snap Sunday. When quarterbacks get rid of the ball within 2.5 seconds against the Rams and work quickly, opponent QBR is just 15th in the league. That figure jumps to fourth best for the Rams when they can get quarterbacks to hold the ball and give the pass rush enough time to get home.

Los Angeles is still in first place by virtue of a tiebreaking win over the Seahawks, but things could get messier in the weeks to come. The Rams still have a home-and-home to come with the Cardinals, but their next game against the Seahawks is in Seattle. The 49ers split with the Rams, but at 4-1, they're likely to finish with the best intradivision record of the three contenders. And in the race for the top seed, the Rams are only 4-3 in the NFC, well behind the likes of the Bears (6-2 within the conference), Eagles (7-3) and 49ers (8-2).

The Rams probably need to finish with the best record in the conference outright to ensure a first-round bye and home-field advantage throughout the postseason -- a spot they ceded to the Bears after Sunday's loss.

Seattle Seahawks (9-3)

Week 13: Won 26-0 over the Vikings
FPI chances to win the division: 25.1%

Sunday's win likely told us more about debuting quarterback Max Brosmer and the Vikings than it did about the Seahawks, who simply took advantage of a player who was not qualified to be on the field. Seattle scored one touchdown on offense, and that came on a 32-yard drive after one of Minnesota's five turnovers on the day. Jaxon Smith-Njigba essentially took the day off, as the star receiver managed just two catches for 24 yards, and it did not even remotely matter.

We already knew the Seahawks' defense was great, and Brosmer's ineffectiveness obviously played a huge factor, but this will go down as one of the best games by any defense all season. The Vikings averaged minus-0.79 EPA per play on offense, which is the third-worst mark of the season by any offense in any game. My benchmark for a hopeless offense goes back to 2020, when the Broncos lost all of their quarterbacks to COVID-19 regulations and started wide receiver Kendall Hinton under center against a great Saints team. On that day, the Broncos averaged minus-0.80 EPA per play.

The problem for the Seahawks, especially after the past few weeks, is what happens when the defense doesn't spot them a touchdown and hold the opposing offense to 162 net yards. Sam Darnold threw four interceptions against the Rams in heart-wrenching fashion, but even in games the Seahawks have dominated, he has flirted with disaster.

Darnold threw a pick that set up the game-winning score against Tampa Bay. He was strip-sacked for a touchdown against the Texans, turned the ball over three times against the Cardinals and fumbled twice against the Vikings on Sunday, losing one. It doesn't help when the offensive line lets Dallas Turner through completely free for a quick pressure, but Darnold has to mitigate his mistakes. Taking a sack is frustrating, but it's much better to take a sack and hold onto the football than it is to fumble or throw a pick.

The Seattle running game also struggles to find any semblance of consistency. The Seahawks are 22nd in the NFL in success rate and 24th in EPA per play on designed rushes this season, as a backfield led by Kenneth Walker III and Zach Charbonnet has struggled for explosiveness. On Sunday, their 27 carries against the Vikings produced 108 yards and a score, but the two backs mustered only a 41% success rate.

It doesn't appear that the Seahawks staff really has a handle on what their best solution is at running back. Walker appeared to be on a roll and had the coaching staff suggesting that he deserved more burn, but on Sunday, Charbonnet had one more carry than his teammate and the 17-yard touchdown. Playing the hot hand is fine if the running game is working, but that hasn't really been the case for the Seahawks this season, which places more pressure on Darnold in games where the defense isn't dominating.

The Seahawks get another game against a backup quarterback in Kirk Cousins next week, but things get trickier from there. They finish up their home slate with the Colts and that critical rematch against the Rams before traveling to play the Panthers and 49ers to finish up the season. Beating the Rams and Niners is essentially a prerequisite if the Seahawks want to win the NFC West, and with five games to go, Seattle controls its own destiny in the division.

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Zach Charbonnet punches in a TD for Seahawks

Zach Charbonnet uses a good block from the O-line and runs in the touchdown.

San Francisco 49ers (9-4)

Week 13: Won 26-8 over the Browns
FPI chances to win the division: 27.2%

Likewise, I'm not sure Sunday's win over a Browns team with a third-string quarterback in Shedeur Sanders told us much about what the 49ers can do against more significant competition in the NFC. It seems telling that the biggest story coming out of the game was Jauan Jennings trash-talking, to the astonishment of Browns players, while an injured Maliek Collins was about to be carted off the field.

A quiet game might have been a welcome respite for Brock Purdy, who threw three interceptions in an ugly win over the Panthers last Monday. Purdy was 16-of-29 for 168 yards and a touchdown pass against an excellent Browns defense. While he looked erratic against the Panthers, Total QBR has generally liked his work this season, as the fourth-year quarterback's 68.0 QBR would be sixth best in the league if he had enough pass attempts to qualify for the leaderboard. Mac Jones, who hasn't been quite as aggressive as his teammate, is down in 10th at 64.8.

Sunday's game against the Browns was another one, though, where the 49ers could not get their run game going. Christian McCaffrey turned his 20 carries into just 53 yards, and while the Browns are very good against the run, this has been a yearlong issue for Kyle Shanahan's team. The 49ers are 15th in success rate on designed rushes. In 2023, when a McCaffrey-led run game helped the 49ers to the Super Bowl, they were third by that measure.

One of the excuses for the run game -- and other issues throughout the lineup -- has been injuries. McCaffrey has been healthy, but elite blocking tight end George Kittle was injured earlier in the season. Purdy's absence made the passing attack less vertical. Dominick Puni, a revelation at guard as a rookie, wasn't the same in the first half as he played through a knee injury. Maybe the rush attack wasn't going to get right until the right players were all on the field together.

Well, the only starters missing on Sunday were wideout Brandon Aiyuk (who might never play for the 49ers again given the team's feelings toward him) and rookie guard Connor Colby (who struggled when he was in the lineup), and the 49ers still couldn't move the ball on the ground. Naturally, the 49ers lost guys along the way: Kyle Juszczyk was in and out of the game with a rib injury, while Ben Bartch wasn't able to play in the fourth quarter after suffering a foot injury. But this was the closest they've come to a healthy run game, and it didn't really land.

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Brock Purdy fakes out the Browns, runs in a TD himself

Brock Purdy pulls the ball on a fake, and he takes it himself for a touchdown to extend the 49ers' lead over the Browns.

Likewise, injuries have sapped what could have been a fine pass rush. Nick Bosa has been out since Week 3 with a torn ACL, and since then, the 49ers rank last in the NFL in sack rate (2.9%) and 31st in pressure rate (23.4%). It was one thing to lose Bosa, but the 49ers also lost Bryce Huff for a stretch with a hamstring injury, while first-round rookie Mykel Williams had his season ended by a torn ACL. Yetur Gross-Matos has also been on injured reserve since Week 6. And while he's not primarily a pass rusher, the 49ers have naturally felt the loss of star linebacker Fred Warner (ankle).

And yet, somehow, the 49ers keep winning. Other players have stepped up. On Sunday, it was former Raiders first-round pick Clelin Ferrell, who sacked Sanders twice. Their kicking game was excellent with Eddy Pineiro before the journeyman suffered a hamstring injury, but against the Browns, their special teams was instead buoyed by a 66-yard punt return from Skyy Moore, which set up a short field and a 49ers touchdown. The Niners lead the league in win probability added on special teams this season (1.4 wins), a more subtle factor that has helped them claim victories.

They're the clear outsiders in this three-team race because of injuries, but having split with the Rams and beaten the Seahawks in Week 1, the Niners are in reasonably good shape if they keep winning. A much-needed bye awaits them next week, and three of their final four games are at home. The Titans shouldn't offer much resistance, and a road trip to play the fading Colts might not be as tough as it seemed earlier this season. But the Niners finish with the NFC-leading Bears and a home rematch with the Seahawks. A win over the Titans and one victory over their final three games should get the 49ers back into the postseason. If they want to claim the division or even the top seed in the conference, well, they'll probably need to win out.

NFC South

Tampa Bay Buccaneers (7-5)

Week 13: Won 20-17 over the Cardinals
FPI chances to win the division: 79.2%

Sunday's win over the Cardinals ended what had been a frustrating three-game losing streak for Baker Mayfield and Tampa Bay. Since beating the 49ers to go 5-1, the Bucs had lost four of their ensuing five games, albeit while dropping games against teams whose combined records are 34-13. Sunday was a turning point for the Buccaneers. They had faced the league's eighth-toughest schedule through Week 12, but they are also projected to play the league's second-easiest schedule from Week 13 onward.

The Cardinals are better than their record, but this wasn't the sort of decisive win to make people believe that Tampa's about to stomp through inferior competition. The Bucs can be their own worst enemy at times, and they were at moments on Sunday, including a drive where two potential touchdowns were called back by penalties. That possession thankfully ended in a score when Mayfield hit star tackle Tristan Wirfs with a touchdown pass, but the Bucs missed out on a touchdown earlier in the game when Chris Godwin Jr. dropped a would-be score in the end zone.

Injuries have blighted the ceiling for the Bucs offense all season. Wirfs (knee) was out early in the season, as was fellow tackle Luke Goedeke (foot). Bucky Irving was out for two months with foot and shoulder issues, while Mike Evans (collarbone) has been limited to just 177 snaps. Godwin, returning from his fractured ankle, played two games before going back to the inactive list with a fibula injury and didn't make much of an impact after returning last week against the Rams.

As was the case for the 49ers, Sunday was the healthiest the Bucs have been in quite a while, and the results were mixed. Both tackles have been back for a few weeks, and while Wirfs didn't seem quite like his All-Pro self immediately after returning to the lineup, he has rounded back into form. Irving made his return after missing significant action, and Godwin was on the field for meaningful plays, although he's still playing only about 63% of the offensive snaps.

It wasn't a great day for the offense, but the returning players made their presence felt. Irving turned 17 carries into only 61 yards, but the second-year back did score from 13 yards out and had a second touchdown called back via penalty. Godwin had his best game of the season, with three catches for 78 yards, though he left a would-be score on the field with a drop.

It's difficult to make sense of the Bucs' offense, in part because injuries force the pieces to change so often. There are weeks where it looks excellent running the football and others where it can't sustain the run whatsoever. Mayfield will look great in a two-minute drill and even win a shootout with Darnold against a great Seahawks defense, and then struggle to move the ball for entire games. Getting the offensive line set and having healthy versions of Irving and Godwin in the lineup regularly from here on out would offer the offense some much-needed personnel stability -- and with it, perhaps more consistency.

My concern for the Bucs is really on the defensive side of the ball, though, and it comes with how Todd Bowles plays defense. He is one of the most creative blitz designers in football, and the Bucs have built their roster to play into Bowles' approach. Tampa Bay has a deep secondary with players who can make an impact around the line of scrimmage, creating plausible deniability about who's going to blitz and who's going to drop into coverage. Nobody in the league is more comfortable dropping multiple defensive linemen into shallow zones or even having them run with receivers than Bowles.

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Bucky Irving scores a TD in his first game back from injury

Bucky Irving runs in a 13-yard touchdown to extend the Buccaneers' lead on the Cardinals.

But Tampa's blitzes just haven't been as effective as usual this season. The Bucs are fifth in the NFL in blitz rate, but they're 16th in QBR allowed on those plays. They are fifth in pressure rate when they send extra men, but they're 25th in sack rate and 29th in pressure-to-sack rate with those blitzes. Quarterbacks are averaging 8.3 yards per pass attempt and 7.3 yards per dropback against Bowles' blitzes, both of which rank in the bottom quarter of the NFL.

With Haason Reddick and Calijah Kancey both out, Bowles has had no choice but to lean into sending extra pressure. (Reddick returned on Sunday after missing the prior four games.) The secondary behind those blitzes hasn't been consistent. Jacob Parrish has been promising as a rookie, but second-round pick Benjamin Morrison hasn't impressed, allowing a 127.1 passer rating in coverage before suffering a hamstring injury. Zyon McCollum has had some stretches, notably against the Rams two weeks ago. Tackling angles have been a problem, especially for linebacker SirVocea Dennis early in the season; he was struggling to even get close enough to miss tackle attempts.

The Bucs still feel like a work in progress, which is odd for a team that returned so many players from the 2024 division champs. The good news is that they'll be able to figure that out against a relatively easy schedule from here on out, with the Saints and Falcons coming up to finish a three-game homestand. Tampa then sandwiches a road trip to Miami between a home-and-home with the Panthers, the two games that are likely to end up deciding the South.

Carolina Panthers (7-6)

Week 13: Won 31-28 over the Rams
FPI chances to win the division: 20.8%

Was Sunday's win over the Rams the game that proved the Panthers are for real? Well, maybe, but you could understand if there were skeptics around the NFL. A month ago, the Panthers beat the Packers at Lambeau Field to jump one game over .500. They followed their statement win by promptly losing at home to the Saints, needing overtime to beat the Falcons and melting down against the 49ers on "Monday Night Football." The Panthers are a juggernaut once a month, which is better than never being one, but it's tough to trust a team that beats title contenders and loses to one of the worst teams in the league the following week.

What changes when they look good? Well, for one, they run the ball far more effectively. Stats about how teams manage to post gaudy records when they run the ball a large number of times somehow still pop up around the league, something that was disproven all the way back in 2003 by Football Outsiders, but that's not what's happening here. Instead, the Panthers are way more efficient running the ball on their good days.

Eliminate snaps where one team has more than a 90% win expectancy (essentially garbage time) and the Panthers are 14th in the league in success rate on designed runs during their victories. That figure drops all the way to 28th in their losses. Sunday, unsurprisingly, was a better day for the rushing attack. Carolina's two backs turned 35 carries into 141 yards, albeit with a 40% success rate.

What was more notable, perhaps, is who was more effective running the football. Chuba Hubbard began the season as the starter, but after he got hurt, Rico Dowdle turned into Jim Brown, racking up 389 yards over a two-game span. The two then split carries when Hubbard returned from injury, but with Dowdle outplaying the starter, coach Dave Canales publicly admitted that he needed to go with Dowdle as the lead back.

Dowdle hasn't been as effective in that role this time, and on Sunday, the job might have tilted back toward Hubbard. Dowdle had 18 carries for 58 yards, but just three of those 18 carries were successes that kept the offense on schedule. Hubbard's 17 carries produced 83 yards, and 11 of them were successes. Hubbard also took a screen pass to the house for a 35-yard touchdown on a play where Canales beat an exotic pressure look from the Rams by using motion to get four receivers out to one side of the field, overloading zone coverage and creating a numbers advantage for Hubbard to exploit.

Facing an elite defense without multiple starting offensive linemen, Bryce Young did an admirable job of hanging in the pocket. Canales got away from the empty sets Young excelled in last season to try to give his O-line more help, and Young simply carved apart the Rams when they dropped into zones, going 13-of-15 for 157 yards and two scores versus zone coverage. Facing a Rams team whose shift toward 13 personnel (one back, one wide receiver, three tight ends) has quietly been one of the on-field stories of the year, the Panthers also went to 13 personnel 12 times on Sunday, generating a 58% success rate on those snaps, almost all of which were run plays.

Without suspended safety Tre'von Moehrig, there were real concerns about the Panthers' ability to hold up in the secondary, especially when the Rams did get bigger with their personnel groupings. And while the defensive tackles got home for a big strip-sack of Stafford with the game on the line, Carolina has struggled to get pressure all season and continued to on Sunday. Its 13.3% pressure rate was the worst of any team in Week 13.

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Panthers go ahead in 4th on Young's 43-yard TD pass to McMillan

Bryce Young airs out a 43-yard touchdown pass to Tetairoa McMillan to put the Panthers ahead in the fourth quarter.

The Panthers' D survived, instead, by creating big plays. It forced two interceptions of Stafford and came away with a strip sack at a crucial moment. With the offense running the ball effectively, the underdog Panthers were able to shorten the game, limiting Sean McVay's team to eight meaningful possessions on the offensive side of the ball. The Rams averaged more than 7 yards per play and made six trips into the red zone, but when you can turn three of eight drives into giveaways and one of those three turnovers into a defensive touchdown, the splash plays make up for what goes on otherwise.

Is that sustainable? Not really, although the Bears are trying to build an entire defense on that and riding it to the top of the NFC. The Panthers are now 4-1 when they force at least two takeaways, so those turnovers are generally going to be a prerequisite for them to look solid on defense. There are a few talented players here between Moehrig, Jaycee Horn and the defensive tackle duo of Tershawn Wharton and Derrick Brown, and a much-maligned run defense from past years now ranks eighth in success rate this season. But teams don't have trouble throwing on the linebackers and away from Horn in coverage.

If the Panthers want to get people believing in Young and Carolina, they'll have their chance. They come back from a bye with a road game against the Saints and a chance to wipe away the frustration from an ugly loss earlier this season. From there, the Panthers will have a season-deciding home-and-home with the Bucs and a home game against a motivated, dominant Seahawks defense. It's a much tougher run-in, which is why the Bucs are deservedly the favorites to win the division. But Sunday was a reminder that the Panthers are capable of beating the very best the NFC has to offer.

AFC South

Jacksonville Jaguars (8-4)

Week 13: Won 25-3 over the Titans
FPI chances to win the division: 39.7%

Back in first place on a tiebreaker, the Jaguars might not have proved much by blowing out a hapless Titans team Sunday. It's better to win by 22 points than prevail in a nail-biter or lose outright against inferior competition, of course, but the Jags did exactly what they were supposed to do against one of the league's worst teams.

What might have been refreshing, though, was getting exactly what we expected out of the Jaguars heading into a game. Describing the 2025 Jags as a roller coaster doesn't really show the full picture. It has been a series of rolling hills with spike strips and oil slicks to maneuver past and through on a weekly basis.

After the Jaguars' statement victory over the Chiefs on "Monday Night Football" took them to 4-1, they immediately responded by losing to the Seahawks and Rams. After getting back from England, Liam Coen's team has gone 4-1 again, but that has included a 29-point blowout of the best team they've faced (the Chargers), a last-minute comeback to tie the game and an overtime win over the worst (the Raiders), another overtime win over the Cardinals and a capitulation from 29-10 up against the Texans -- who scored 26 points in the fourth quarter to beat their division rivals.

The Jags could be in the middle of a five-game winning streak or trying to save face in a 2-3 stretch, which makes them the perfect team for 2025. Look at Jacksonville in the right moment, and it seems unstoppable. Look an hour later, and the Jags might qualify as a danger to themselves. Just being normal for 60 minutes on Sunday must have felt blissful to overstimulated Jags fans.

The mistakes that plagued the Jags earlier this year, even through their victories, haven't entirely disappeared. Some of the pre-snap procedural penalties on offense have gone away, but in the win over the Cardinals, other issues were still costing the Jags dearly. Trevor Lawrence and the offense turned the ball over four times, with a pressure causing Lawrence to fumble the ball into Walter Nolen III's arms for a short touchdown. A blown pass protection allowed Josh Sweat, Arizona's best pass rusher, to run completely free at Lawrence for a third-down pressure. Cornerback Christian Braswell jumped at a double-move in the final minute of the game and nearly allowed a game-shifting touchdown. And a wide-open Tim Patrick never turned around for what could have been a touchdown catch in overtime. All this in a game the Jags won!

So much of what can or will happen to the Jags leans on whether those problems fade. The Jaguars were able to overcome the procedural issues on offense to win early in the season, but that was more a product of the defense forcing turnovers at an unsustainably high rate. The margin for error on offense went away once the takeaways disappeared on defense, and the Jaguars were overmatched against better competition.

The turnovers haven't quite spiked since, but Anthony Campanile is fielding a very fun defense, even amid injuries in the secondary to the likes of Travis Hunter, Jourdan Lewis and Eric Murray, each of whom were acquired to start this offseason. It has been an up-and-down start to Greg Newsome II's career in Jacksonville after the Jags traded for the former Browns corner at midseason.

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Trevor Lawrence slings it to Jakobi Meyers for a Jags TD

Trevor Lawrence throws short to Jakobi Meyers for a touchdown to put the Jaguars ahead 7-3 over the Titans.

Campanile is compensating with impressive, creative sim pressures and blitz packages, including a pair that helped win the game against the Cardinals in overtime last week. On Sunday, Cam Ward was just 5-of-8 for 24 yards against Jacksonville's blitzes and 4-of-10 for 19 yards against pressure.

And while the Jags are only 28th in sack rate, they're 12th in pressure rate and 11th in that same metric when they don't blitz. Josh Hines-Allen has been dominant at times this season, including Sunday against the Titans when he generated two sacks and seven pressures. His 60 pressures rank fourth in the league this season per NFL Next Gen Stats. He has been physically overwhelming offensive tackles in recent weeks. And while Travon Walker's production hasn't been up to those standards this season, we know he has that ability when healthy. The Jaguars have the sort of front that can keep them in games against anyone.

Three of Jacksonville's five remaining games are against likely playoff teams, including a home-and-home with the Colts that starts next week. I'd argue that they're catching the Colts at the right time, and sweeping Indy would give the Jags pole position in the race to win the AFC South. More than anything, though, the Jaguars need to make sure they're not beating themselves.

Indianapolis Colts (8-4)

Week 13: Lost 20-16 to the Texans
FPI chances to win the division: 41.0%

Sunday was a series of nightmares for the Colts. In addition to losing a critical divisional game and falling out of first place in the AFC South, Indy watched star addition Sauce Gardner go down with a calf injury. His status is presently unclear. Quarterback Daniel Jones played through his fractured fibula and frankly did so admirably against a brutal Texans front, going 14-of-27 for 201 yards and two scores. But he wasn't able to run, and that bit the Colts when Tyler Warren had to motion under center for a fourth-down quarterback sneak and couldn't bring in the snap, costing Indy a possession.

I wrote at length about what happened with the Colts last week in their loss to the Chiefs and won't focus too much on them again this week, but it has now been a month of something less than a historically great offense. Through Week 8, the Colts were averaging 3.5 points per possession, which was one of the best figures of the past 25 years. Since then, Indy is down to 2.0 points per drive, which is 16th in the NFL over that span and behind the likes of the Giants and Falcons.

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Sauce Gardner helped off field early in first quarter

Sauce Gardner is injured on the Colts' first defensive drive and exits the game.

Some sort of downturn was inevitable. The Colts turned the ball over four times across eight games to start the season. They were dominant on fourth down, took sacks 3.4% of the time and had nine plays of 40 yards or more (most of any team). It was always going to be difficult to sustain that sort of production. Over this four-game stretch, Shane Steichen's team has eight turnovers, has run an 8.4% sack rate and has just two gains of 40 yards or more. The Colts have still run one of the best success rates in the league, but the offense has fewer splash plays and more drive-altering negative plays than it did over the first two months of the season.

Perhaps owing to the workload or Jones being unable to impact games as a runner, Jonathan Taylor has also slowed down. His average run during the first two months came with 2.9 yards before initial contact, one of the best marks in the NFL. Over the past four weeks, that's down to 2.3 yards before first contact, which is good but not at the top of the leaderboard. Taylor is still averaging 5.2 yards per carry over this four-game stretch, which is obviously excellent, but he has dropped from being an MVP candidate into merely being one of the best backs in football.

The Colts must have known an offensive slowdown was coming, and that surely encouraged them as they decided to trade two first-round picks for Gardner, whose arrival allowed defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo significant creative freedom with his coverage and blitz choices. Any sort of meaningful absence for Gardner would handicap him once again. On Sunday, with Gardner sidelined for most of the contest and the game plan already installed during the week, C.J. Stroud went 9-of-11 for 132 yards against man coverage.

Indy's bye in Week 11 gave the Colts a week to rest, but it also kicked off a brutal stretch. After losing to the Chiefs, each of Indy's final six games (including the Week 13 Houston loss) are against teams with winning records. Steichen's team still has a home-and-home with the Jags, a road trip to Seattle, another meeting with Houston and a home game against the 49ers to come. The Colts will be doing that potentially without Gardner for some or all of that span and with a quarterback playing through a broken fibula. It's not at all what the Colts imagined when they were trying to pin down the top seed in the AFC at the trade deadline. Two wins would probably be enough to get the Colts into the postseason, but this organization had much higher hopes after its first half.

Houston Texans (7-5)

Week 13: Won 20-16 over the Colts
FPI chances to win the division: 19.3%

Football is a funny game. One month ago, the Texans were 3-5 and facing a short-term future without a concussed C.J. Stroud after a loss to the Broncos. With Davis Mills entering the lineup and games against the Bills and Colts on the horizon, it was fair to wonder whether they might consider trading some veterans away at the deadline and start retooling and adding extra draft capital in advance of making another run with a healthier team and a better offensive line in 2026.

Instead, a comeback win over the Jags seems to have saved Houston's season. The Texans beat the Titans the following week, albeit after blowing a lead late in the fourth quarter, then physically overwhelmed the Bills on a short week. Now, after beating the Colts in Indy, the Texans are absolutely back in the thick of the divisional race.

They've done it, in part, by working their way into a shockingly efficient offense. Through that 3-5 start, the Texans ranked 25th in EPA per play and 30th in success rate. They were battling many of the same consistency and run-game issues we saw sink the offense in 2024, and Stroud was ending up in third-and-long far too often, exposing a weak offensive line in pass protection.

Over the past four games, even with Mills at quarterback for most of the span, the Texans have been smooth on that side of the ball. Houston's success rate over the past month has jumped to 47%, behind only the Rams and Cardinals. A lack of big plays has led to the Texans ranking 14th in EPA per play over the past four games, which might be a more realistic indicator of where their offense sits, but that's still a major step forward from where they were.

One way the Texans have made life easier for their backfield is by getting more linemen on the field. Like the Rams (who have adopted 13 personnel) and the Cardinals (who were the league's most prominent 13 personnel offense before this year and have leaned into jumbo packages as a product of injuries at tight end), the Texans were aggressive in getting a sixth offensive lineman onto the field in November. Across 55 snaps, the Texans have run a success rate of nearly 55% with that six-linemen grouping, trailing only the Lions among teams that use it regularly. That's partly a product of teams leaning into it in short-yardage situations, but the Texans are using it more often than just about anybody else in the league.

The six-lineman sets force defenses to make tough decisions. Do they match with their base defense and open up the threat of the play-action pass, or do they stay in a nickel sub package and run the risk of being outmanned by bigger bodies? It can create longer rush lanes for edge rushers and limits the defensive playbook, as most defenses simply don't have as many exotic or quick-hitting pressures out of their base groupings these days.

Even if the Texans just have an average offense, combining that with one of the league's top defenses makes for a scary proposition. Will Anderson Jr. continues to dominate opposing offenses, including in the win over the Colts, where Houston used him as a "spinner" and stood him up directly over Tanor Bortolini before he drove Indy's center back into Jones for a pressure.

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Nico Collins runs in a go-ahead TD for Texans

Nico Collins gets the ball and finds the end zone for a 7-yard touchdown.

DeMeco Ryans' defense leads the league in points allowed per drive (1.4), three-and-out rate (31%) and EPA per play (minus-0.8). The defense was inexplicably fooled by a fourth-and-26 trick play from the Bills for a first down to extend the game last week, but Danielle Hunter & Co. simply made up for it by bludgeoning Buffalo's offensive line into submission.

The Texans have turned the ball over three times on offense over their past five games. With the defense they have, even a league-average offense is going to win games if it can protect the football. While the Texans won't be thrilled to see a Chiefs team that beat them twice last year in Kansas City next week, they follow that up with home games against the Cardinals and Raiders before finishing up with crucial games against the Chargers and Colts. For a team whose playoff odds were down to 10.5% a month ago, merely being back in the hunt must feel like a victory.

AFC North

Baltimore Ravens (6-6)

Week 13: Lost 32-14 to the Bengals
FPI chances to win the division: 61.4%

Well, that wasn't fun. Playing on Thanksgiving with a chance to strike a claim on first place in the AFC North, the Ravens turned the ball over five times in an 18-point loss to the Bengals and returning quarterback Joe Burrow. Some of it was bad luck, as the Ravens lost all four of their offensive fumbles, but there's no excuse to be made for a team that was facing arguably the worst defense in the league.

It has now been five games since Lamar Jackson returned to the lineup from his hamstring injury, and while the two-time MVP has battled other issues over that span, he swears that he's healthy and not dealing with the sort of injuries that would materially impact his play. There hasn't been the same sort of explosiveness or willingness to scramble that we've seen from Jackson in the past, but let's take what the star QB says at face value.

Unfortunately, even if that's true, his actual performance simply hasn't been close to his usual standards of play. As recently as the first quarter of 2025, Jackson was still playing at an MVP level. While he's not the only person responsible for the struggles on offense, Jackson's 23rd in Total QBR since returning to the lineup, sandwiched between Joe Flacco and Tyler Shough.

Jackson is just not playing well enough as a passer. His completion percentage over expectation is minus-6.9% over this span, per NFL Next Gen Stats, and while that can be influenced by drops, his off-target pass rate is nearly 21%. Between 2023 and the first month of 2025, Jackson ran a positive CPOE, and his off-target rate was just over 15%. Things can happen in a small sample, but Jackson has been a totally different quarterback since he returned from his injury.

He also hasn't made his usual impact in the run game. Going back to the start of 2023 through the first month of 2025 again, Jackson averaged exactly 26 rush yards per game on scrambles and 26 more on designed runs. The threat of Jackson as a runner also created holes for his backs in the run game, as teams needed to account for his ability to keep the ball, which changed their numbers on the ground and limited how creative they could get with coverages and pressure packages through the air.

Since returning from the hamstring injury, though, Jackson is averaging 15 scramble yards per game and just 6.2 yards per contest on designed runs. And while the Ravens have spiked big plays on the ground here and there, they continue to be a much less consistent rushing attack this season. Baltimore is 24th in success rate on designed runs, down from second a year ago.

The combination of Henry and Jackson seemed to signal terror for opposing offenses in the red zone, and last year, the Ravens converted a league-high 74.2% of their red zone trips into touchdowns. This season, that's all the way down to 46.5%, which is 30th in the NFL. Some of that is the Jackson injury, but the Ravens have converted only 47.4% of their red zone possessions into touchdowns since Jackson came back into the lineup.

There are positives. The defense has been much improved since its brutal start to the season, as it ranks third in EPA per play since the Week 8 bye. After the Ravens turned things around by moving Kyle Hamilton into a deep safety role last year at midseason, they've curiously managed to flip that script and succeed by pushing Hamilton closer to the line of scrimmage and playing Alohi Gilman and Malaki Starks deeper in three-safety sets this season. I'm not always sure on correlation and causation, and Gilman has had his rough moments in coverage since joining the team, but watching Hamilton take on and shed offensive linemen on gap runs is certainly fun. There aren't many safeties on the planet who can do what Hamilton does for this team.

I'm a little concerned that what the Ravens have done isn't exactly sustainable. They've started winning in the exact moments on defense where things matter most. They're second in the NFL since the bye week in third-down conversion rate (30.1%) and are allowing opposing offenses to convert only 26.3% of their red zone trips into touchdowns. That's best-defense-in-football territory, and I'm not sure the Ravens are really playing that way outside the 20-yard line or on first and second down, which would make their performance in key spots more realistically sustainable.

In terms of the AFC North, it's right to feel as though all of this might not matter. The Bengals picked up a crucial win and got Burrow back, but they're still way outside the playoff picture at 4-8 and have the Bills and Ravens to come over the next two weeks (7.2% to win the division, per FPI). I'll get to the Steelers in a second, but nobody's playing great football here.

The Ravens are yet to really even put together more than a game or two where they were great on both sides of the ball. The offense was spectacular early in the season, but the defense was a disaster. By the time Jackson came back, the defense had resolved, but now the offense is struggling. They masked the offensive woes in wins over teams such as the Vikings, Browns and Jets, but the loss to the Bengals was a wake-up call.

And now, as the alarm blares, the Ravens have real issues to face. They have to head to Cincinnati to face the Bengals again and have a home-and-home with the Steelers. Win those games and they probably win the North, but if they don't sweep the divisional matchups, they would need to beat the Patriots or Packers (in Green Bay) to get to nine wins. Unless the Steelers plan on breaking the Mike Tomlin rule, it's going to require nine wins to claim the AFC North. And while the Ravens are the team most likely to get there in this division, it's not feeling like a very fun trip.

Pittsburgh Steelers (6-6)

Week 13: Lost 26-7 to the Bills
FPI chances to win the division: 31.4%

Well, the Steelers lost by 19 points to a Bills team that didn't have either of its starting tackles on offense and hasn't been able to stop the run on defense. Aaron Rodgers returned to play through his wrist injury, spent the entire game in the pistol, had to leave the game after a big hit, returned to finish the contest with a 6.2 Total QBR and then blamed his receivers for not running the right routes after the game. Oh, and in addition to booing "Renegade," the home fans chanted "Fire Tomlin" at their longtime head coach in the fourth quarter of a brutal home loss. Otherwise, things were great in Pittsburgh on Sunday afternoon.

I can't really blame the fans. While the Steelers converted a short field after a Josh Allen interception into a touchdown, Rodgers & Co. mustered up only 10 first downs and 165 yards across 10 possessions. Pittsburgh finished the game averaging minus-0.33 EPA per play on offense, its worst performance in a game since 2019, when Mason Rudolph started in a loss to the Browns. Before that, the last time the Steelers were this bad on offense in a game under Tomlin was 2012, on a day when their quarterback was a 38-year-old Charlie Batch.

Batch is now 50 years old, but I suspect Steelers fans might be trying to find him to take some snaps next week. The Rodgers experience has grown increasingly painful for all parties involved, as the offense increasingly looks the way it did during the last days of Ben Roethlisberger under center. Rodgers is averaging just 2.7 seconds with the ball in his hands, the second-fastest rate of any quarterback in the NFL. His average throw is traveling just 5.7 yards in the air, tied with Dillon Gabriel for the shortest of any QB.

The goal is obviously to get the ball out of Rodgers' hands and avoid hits on a 41-year-old quarterback. When that doesn't happen, though, Rodgers has simply been unable to find alternatives. As ESPN's Mina Kimes noted on Bluesky, pressure on Rodgers has basically been a play-ending phenomenon. Over his past three games, a pressured Rodgers has gone 1-of-12 for 5 yards. Rodgers still has his arm, but this offense is almost entirely predicated upon the quick game and screens right now.

That's just not a realistic fit for what the Steelers need to be. They want to be a heavy run team out of 13 personnel and/or six offensive linemen looks and run play-action to hit shots off those groupings, like the Titans did with Ryan Tannehill and A.J. Brown in Tennessee under Arthur Smith. DK Metcalf has been marginalized by the offense shrinking. He hasn't topped 60 receiving yards in a game since Week 5 and has averaged 1.4 yards per route run since, which ranks 78th in the NFL.

The run game has been better than I would have expected, but when it's not working, the Steelers don't really have much of an ability to generate lengthy drives. They are 25th in down set conversion rate, which measures how often a team turns a series on first down into another first down or a touchdown. The only teams that fail to pick up at least a single first down on a higher percentage of their drives are the Titans and Raiders, who have each fired their primary offensive architect.

On the defensive side of the ball, meanwhile, there's another prerequisite: turnovers. The Steelers have improved a bit in coverage since moving Jalen Ramsey to safety, and they're not quite as turnover-intensive as the Bears, but this isn't the same defense that dominated teams in recent years drive-in and drive-out. Great defenses force a ton of takeaways and stifle offenses even when they manage to hold on to the football.

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Joey Bosa’s strip sack leads to a Bills TD

Joey Bosa forces Aaron Rodgers to turn the ball over and Christian Benford recovers for a Bills touchdown.

Last year's Steelers forced a league-high 33 turnovers, but when they didn't force one, the defense still managed to hold its own, ranking 12th in points allowed per drive among possessions that ended in something other than a fumble recovery or interception. This year? They're 26th in the same measure. The only teams allowing points more often on drives that don't end in turnovers are the Commanders and Bengals.

On Sunday, the Steelers picked off Allen and recovered a James Cook III fumble, but even that wasn't enough. The Bills scored on each of their final four drives and picked up multiple first downs on every possession but one. With the Bills down two of their best players in offensive tackles Spencer Brown and Dion Dawkins, the Steelers were not able to sack Allen once on 27 dropbacks, although they did manage to pressure the reigning MVP.

Even worse, injuries are becoming more of an issue for Pittsburgh. Rodgers looks banged up and frankly miserable to be out there at times. Broderick Jones, the team's starting left tackle, hit injured reserve over the weekend with a neck injury. And Patrick Queen, who has struggled since joining in free agency on a massive deal last year, left the game with a hip issue and did not return.

On paper, the Steelers have a relatively friendly schedule to close out their slate. There's a huge game next week against the Ravens before the two rivals reunite in Week 18 for a rematch in Pittsburgh. In between, the Steelers host a Dolphins team that surely won't enjoy traveling to Pittsburgh in December, travel to play a Lions team that hasn't been playing its best football of late and then go to play the Browns in Cleveland. Beating the Dolphins and Browns and splitting with the Ravens would get the Steelers to their Tomlin mandate of nine wins.

Right now, it feels as though Pittsburgh's best argument for winning the division is looking at Baltimore and saying that the Ravens are not very good. Then again, Baltimore's best argument for winning the division is doing the same thing with the Steelers.