Tom Henigan
Week 11 of the NFL provided us with some of the best fixtures we’ve seen this season, but week 12 may have topped it in terms of drama. In the latest addition of games in the 2024 season, we had game-winning field goals, onside kick recoveries, late touchdowns, upsets and a snow game in there as well. Here is Impact’s review of the craziest week of the NFL season so far.
Last week, we skipped past the “less relevant” games, but this week there doesn’t seem to be any of those. The only one some may point to is the New York Giants losing 30-7 to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, but at 5-6, Tampa Bay has a real chance at winning the NFC South. They sit in second place in the division, behind the 6-5 Atlanta Falcons.
Even the Miami Dolphins game against the New England Patriots seems to carry relevance now. The Dolphins came away winners by a score of 34-15, with Tua Tagovailoa throwing for over three-hundred yards and four touchdowns. The Dolphins are now 3-2 since Tua’s return, with three wins in a row. Overall, they sit at 5-6 with a real chance at a late season chase for a spot in the playoffs. Meanwhile, the Patriots have dropped to 3-9 under first-year head coach, Jerod Mayo.
A game seemingly played in a shaken snow globe
Let’s rewind quickly to Thursday Night Football where the Pittsburgh Steelers travelled to face the Cleveland Browns. With the Steelers sitting at 8-2 and the Browns sitting at 2-8, this looked like an easy win on paper for the visitors. But, if anyone knows anything about the AFC North, they would have said different, and right they would have been. On the road, on a short week, having just had their most physical game of the year against the Baltimore Ravens, the Steelers were facing another divisional opponent. Those circumstances were always going to make it tough and the 24-19 win for the Browns proved that. In a game seemingly played in a shaken snow globe by the second half, the Browns did enough to win despite both teams looking like they were trying to lose at times. Myles Garrett picked up three sacks and a forced fumble all in the first half to help his team to the win.
Back to Sunday and the Houston Texans were upset by their divisional rival. The Tennessee Titans went into Houston at 2-8 and as big underdogs but Will Levis did enough to lead his team to a win, despite throwing a pick-six. He threw two touchdowns as his defense also intercepted C.J. Stroud twice as the Texans dropped to 7-5 in what has been a disappointing season for them despite still being top of the division. Their attitude to the season so far shows how much the culture has changed already in what is only C.J. Stroud’s second year.
The Indianapolis Colts missed out on a chance to put more pressure on the Texans in the AFC South, but they can be forgiven as they lost to the now 10-1 Detroit Lions by a score of 24-6. The loss for the Colts means they are 5-7 so a comeback within the division will be tough. As for the Lions, they remain the number one seed in the NFC, but their division continues to remain hot on their tail with the Minnesota Vikings and the Green Bay Packers winning.
The Vikings beat the Chicago Bears 30-27 despite a late scare. Leading 27-16 with just over ninety seconds remaining, the Bears converted a 4th and 3, scored a touchdown with twenty-two seconds left, had a successful two-point attempt, converted an onside kick, got in field goal range, made the field goal, all to send it to overtime at 27-27. Unfortunately for Chicago, though, they couldn’t do anything on offense in overtime and punted the ball away to the Vikings who, despite a muffed punt, eventually drove down the field to kick a game-winning 29-yard field goal. A positive for the Bears was Caleb Williams having the best game of his career with over 300 yards and 2 touchdowns against a strong defense.
Green Bay’s record would have them top of three other divisions and tied for first in another
That means the Vikings are 9-2 and second in their division, and the Green Bay Packers are 8-3 and third in their division. The Packers beat the San Francisco 49ers, who were without quarterback Brock Purdy, 38-10. Green Bay’s record would have them top of three other divisions and tied for first in another. Unfortunately for them, they are in the only division where 8-3 means you sit in third place. But they still face the Vikings and the Lions once more each to try and mix up the standings before the playoffs begin.
Heading away from the incredible NFC North, the 49ers’ division, the NFC West, is just as absurd, but in completely opposite fashion. The 49ers dropped to 5-6 with that loss to the Packers. They now sit bottom of their division but aren’t too far off the top spot which belongs to the Seattle Seahawks who beat the Arizona Cardinals 16-6 to knock Kyler Murray’s team out of first place. The Seahawks and Cardinals are now both 6-5 with the Los Angelese Rams in third place, at 5-6 like the 49ers, after they lost to the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday Night Football. That division may be twisting and turning until the last week of the season with plenty more matchups between the four teams still to come.
Philadelphia’s running back may be on his way to becoming the first non-quarterback MVP since Adrian Peterson in 2012
Speaking of the Eagles, their 37-20 win in L.A. moved them to 9-2, keeping them right behind the Lions as the number two seed in the NFC. Saquon Barkley had 255 rushing yards and 2 touchdowns. He also added on 47 receiving yards for good measure, meaning he had over 300 scrimmage yards on the night. The pace Barkley is on this season is historic and Philadelphia’s running back may be on his way to becoming the first non-quarterback MVP since Adrian Peterson in 2012. Here are some of the best stats from Barkley’s season so far, per CBS Sports.
That win for the Eagles may secure them the NFC East division after the Washington Commanders lost their third straight game to drop to 7-5. In maybe the craziest game of the craziest weekend, Jayden Daniels and his team trailed by ten points with less than two minutes to go against a 3-7 Dallas Cowboys team, who were playing with a backup quarterback in Cooper Rush. Austin Seibert made a 51-yard field goal with one minute and forty seconds left to give his team some hope after he missed a kick from a similar distance earlier. The Commanders had two timeouts left so had a chance to get the ball back on offense and that’s what they did but only with the ball at their own 14-yard line with no timeouts remaining and thirty-three seconds left on the clock.
McLaurin made one of the plays of the year
They had a miracle earlier this season against the Bears but now Jayden Daniels and his team needed lightning to strike twice, and it did, at least it seemed that way at first. As the Cowboys dropped eight players into coverage, Daniels found Terry McLaurin deep by the right sideline at around his own 41-yard line with several defenders around him. Cutting inside, McLaurin made one of the plays of the year, taking the ball all the way for an 86-yard touchdown. Noah Brown, who had the Hail Mary catch against the Bears last month, led the way with a block and the Commanders were an extra point away from sending the game to overtime. Seibert, who missed an extra point earlier in the game, stepped up and kicked wide of the left post, meaning Dallas kept a one point lead. Going into the game, the Washington kicker had not missed a PAT all season, but missed two in this matchup. The Cowboys then took Seibert’s onside kick back for a touchdown, which actually gave Washington an eventual Hail Mary opportunity, but there was no miracle this time and the Cowboys won with an upset by 34-26 despite McLaurin’s late heroics.
The Chiefs moved to 10-1, surviving a late scare from the now 3-8 Carolina Panthers. With the game tied at 27-27 late on, Patrick Mahomes escaped for a 33-yard run, putting the Chiefs in field goal range where backup kicker Spencer Shrader made the game-winning kick. Quickly on the Panthers, Bryce Young has looked much better since regaining his starting role and looked good against a great defense.
Elsewhere in the Chiefs’ division, the Denver Broncos beat their division foe, the Las Vegas Raiders, 29-19 to move to 7-5 and maintain their cushion in the final playoff spot.
Finally, on Monday Night Football, the Baltimore Ravens defeated the Los Angeles Chargers 30-23 in a battle between John Harbaugh and Jim Harbaugh, two brothers who were coaching on opposite sidelines. The win puts the Ravens within half a game of the AFC North top spot. Lamar Jackson bounced back from his disappointing game against the Steelers in week 11 with a 3 touchdown performance to get back on track in what has been a historic season for him, individually. Baltimore is now 8-4, with the Steelers still leading that division at 8-3. The Chargers, meanwhile, fell to the number six seed after that loss and will likely just be fighting for the fifth seed for the rest of the season as, with a record of 7-4, catching the Chiefs in their division now looks an impossible task.
It is hard to see week 12 being topped but there is so much still to be decided this season that the drama is guaranteed to continue, and before these latest slate of games began, no one would have expected the chaos they were going to cause.
Week 13 sees games on Thursday, Friday, Sunday and Monday due to it being Thanksgiving, so NFL fans rejoice!
Tom Henigan
Featured image courtesy of Steve DiMatteo via Unsplash. Image use license found here (Unsplash). No changes were made to this image.
In article image 1 courtesy of @clevelandbrowns via Instagram. No changes were made to this image.
In article image 2 courtesy of @nfl via Instagram. No changes were made to this image.
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