The Green Bay Packers secured the top seed in the NFC playoffs, while making an excellent argument for Aaron Rodgers as the NFL’s MVP. The Buffalo Bills got the No. 2 seed in the AFC, while effectively ending the Miami Dolphins’ season. And the Cleveland Browns, after 17 seasons that ended in frustration, are back in the playoffs. It was an exciting Sunday even by Week 17 standards, and the playoff field is now set.
Here’s what we learned:
The road through the NFC playoffs goes through Green Bay.
Perhaps the finest regular season of Rodgers’ career — one that has included two MVP awards — finished with a 35-16 win over the Chicago Bears and an NFC-best record of 13-3. That gives the Packers home-field advantage throughout the playoffs, forcing opponents to come to Lambeau Field, which won’t have its raucous fans but will still have the frigid weather in which Rodgers has always thrived.
Rodgers added four more touchdown passes Sunday, giving him a career-high of 48, which is tied with Dan Marino for the fifth-most in a season. Over the past three seasons, Rodgers, who seemed miffed when the Packers drafted his potential replacement in April, has 99 touchdown passes and just 11 interceptions.
The Bills weren’t taking any chances — and the Dolphins suffered for it.
The Bills had already clinched the AFC East title — their first since 1995 — two weeks ago, while Miami would have guaranteed itself a wild-card spot with a win Sunday. Despite that, the Bills began the day with Josh Allen at quarterback, let the MVP candidate power them to a 28-6 lead at halftime, and then had their defense and backup quarterback Matt Barkley take care of the rest of the game in a 56-26 laugher that never felt remotely close. The Bills captured the No. 2 seed in the AFC with a 13-3 record — their best finish since 1991 — while the Dolphins were eliminated from playoff contention thanks to their own loss and Indianapolis’ victory over Jacksonville.
You can’t end a 17-season playoff drought without a little drama.
Despite topping 10 wins for just the second time since 1995, the Cleveland Browns entered the final day needing a win, or some help from other teams, to reach the postseason for the first time since 2002. Pittsburgh’s decision to rest Ben Roethlisberger was helpful, but some doubt was introduced when a coronavirus outbreak closed Cleveland’s facilities and left the team without three of its four starting defensive backs. The Browns took a 24-9 lead early in the fourth quarter, but then had to sweat after Pittsburgh’s Mason Rudolph threw two touchdown passes to close the gap. An onside kick attempt after the second touchdown nearly succeeded, but the Browns, shaking off years of bad breaks, recovered and held on for a nail-biting 24-22 win. The teams face off again next week in Pittsburgh, with Roethlisberger expected to return.
Adding a six-time Super Bowl-winning quarterback is helpful.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers occasionally tantalized last season, but recognized they needed some stability on offense to complement their terrific defense. They replaced enigmatic Jameis Winston with Tom Brady, who was coming off a difficult season in New England but was seen as a player who could accentuate the team’s strengths. Good call. Brady had a few hiccups along the way, but he finished the year with 4,633 yards passing and a franchise-record 40 touchdown passes. More important, Sunday’s 44-27 victory over the Atlanta Falcons gave the Buccaneers an 11-5 record and made them the No. 5 seed in the NFC for their first trip to the playoffs since 2007.
The Titans are far from a one-man show.
Derrick Henry rushed for 250 yards and two touchdowns, becoming the eighth player in NFL history to rush for 2,000 yards in a single season. But it was a few crucial plays from quarterback Ryan Tannehill late in the game that finished off a thrilling 41-38 win over the Houston Texans and gave Tennessee the AFC South title. With the Titans trailing by 4 with less than two minutes to play, Tannehill sold a play-fake to Henry before running in a 5-yard touchdown. Houston tied the game with a field goal, but Tannehill got the ball back with just 18 seconds remaining and immediately completed a 52-yard pass to A.J. Brown that, along with a 4-yard run by Henry, set up Sam Sloman’s game-winning 37-yard field goal.
Some teams get more help than others in making the playoffs.
The Indianapolis Colts took care of business in a 28-14 win over the Jacksonville Jaguars, but they made the playoffs because of Miami’s loss to Buffalo. Thanks, Dolphins!
The Baltimore Ravens got one of the other AFC wild-card spots by winning a fifth consecutive game — four of which came against teams with losing records. Thanks, schedule makers!
And the Chicago Bears, despite a midseason lull and a trouncing by Green Bay on Sunday, earned an NFC wild-card berth thanks in large part to an ankle injury sustained by Kyler Murray of the Arizona Cardinals. Without Murray for much of the game — and with the second-year quarterback hobbled even when he did return — Arizona lost to the short-handed Los Angeles Rams, 18-7. Thanks, football’s brutal nature!
The NFC East was bound to end in a weird way.
Washington’s 20-14 win over the Philadelphia Eagles clinched a division title for the Footballers despite the team’s fairly pathetic 7-9 record. But there was plenty of mediocrity along the way. The day started with the New York Giants pushing their way past the Dallas Cowboys, 23-19, by way of a brutal Andy Dalton interception in the game’s final two minutes. That opened the possibility of Big Blue making the playoffs with a 6-10 record, but the Eagles effectively handed the Footballers the division by benching quarterback Jalen Hurts in the second half despite Philadelphia trailing by just three points at the time. The Eagles had already been eliminated from playoff contention, but using a game with major playoff implications for a division rival to get backup quarterback Nate Sudfeld some playing time did not seem to be popular among Eagles players, many of whom looked remarkably frustrated on the sideline.
The game was effectively decided by a neutral zone infraction on a fourth down play with two minutes left in the game, a perfect ending to a season in which none of the NFC East’s four teams seemed to have any interest in winning.
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