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Over the course of a few hours on Sunday evening, the NFC North division title was decided.*
Not mathematically. Far from that. The Green Bay Packers and Detroit Lions are tied at 7-3, and technically the Lions are in first place because of the tiebreaker. But let’s be real.
The Packers are going to win the division. Green Bay fans know it. Detroit fans probably know it too, if they’re honest with themselves.*
If you watched the two teams play on Sunday, you know. The Lions have been squeaking by teams, no matter how good or bad they are, for weeks. A very good Arizona Cardinals team (we’ll talk about them in a bit, and honestly, they likely decided a second division race Sunday) didn’t allow another miracle Lions comeback. Drew Stanton threw for 306 yards for the Cardinals. Matthew Stafford was at his worst. He was 18 of 30 for 183 yards and an interception. On most plays, he either held the ball forever or was way off when he did throw it. He targeted Calvin Johnson, one of the five greatest receivers ever, 12 times and connected on only five of them. The Lions never got in the end zone. The only thing that even kept them in the game was a couple of Stanton interceptions. Detroit isn't a bad team, but it didn't look like a contender either.
If you want to argue that it doesn’t matter if you win by one point or 30, fine. But it can help figure out future performance. And while the Lions were pulling out last-second wins, the Packers have been annihilating teams. The Packers scored more than 50 points for the second straight game, the first time in the long franchise history that has happened. Since losing to the Lions in Week 3, the Packers are 6-1 with five wins by at least three touchdowns. The 53-20 win against the previously 7-2 Eagles was absolutely tremendous. The Packers do look like a dominant football team, one of the true contenders in the NFL. And take a look at the Packers’ remaining schedule:
at Minnesota
vs. New England
vs. Atlanta
at Buffalo
at Tampa Bay
vs. Detroit
A 5-1 finish seems like a worst-case scenario. That includes the inevitable win over the Lions, who haven’t won in Lambeau Field since 1991, the year before Brett Favre showed up in Green Bay.
The Lions go to New England next week, and the rest of their schedule isn’t too bad before finishing at Green Bay. Maybe the division won’t be officially settled before Week 17. But you can see by watching the two teams that one is just on a different level right now. That shouldn’t change before the end of the season.
Here are the rest of the winners, and the rest of the losers, from Week 11:
The Cardinals’ chances of winning the NFC West: Here is Cardinals’ situation after 10 games: If they go 3-3 the rest of the season, the 49ers or Seahawks would have to go 6-0 just to tie them for the division title.
In other words, they should probably keep University of Phoenix Stadium available for all January weekends.
The Cardinals had an impressive home win against the Lions on Sunday. The defense kept the Lions out of the end zone. Stanton made enough plays to win. Coach Bruce Arians called the same aggressive game he always does. There was no sign the Cardinals will slow down at all without Carson Palmer, and even if they do down the road, their NFC West lead looks just about insurmountable. It was an impressive win for them.
Kansas City Chiefs and the AFC West race: The Chiefs are no joke this season. They have not had one bad outcome since Week 1, and after Sunday the AFC West race is pretty interesting.
The Broncos fell to 7-3 with a bad loss at St. Louis. The Chiefs beat the Seattle Seahawks 24-20 in a very entertaining game and are now tied with the Broncos at 7-3. The Chargers are lurking at 6-4 too, but for now let’s talk about the Chiefs. Winning the division isn’t out of the question.
The Chiefs, who have two games left against the 0-10 Oakland Raiders, need to win at home on Nov. 30 against the Broncos. The Chiefs probably couldn’t survive a home loss to the Broncos, which would give Denver the tiebreaker, and win the division. But there’s no reason to believe the Chiefs can’t beat the Broncos at home. Andy Reid is doing a tremendous job with this team, which does two things tremendously well: rush the quarterback, and run the ball. They rode that to a very impressive win against the defending champs on Sunday. The Broncos might need to win at Arrowhead Stadium to avoid being a wild-card team.
Ryan Mallett: The biggest story out of the Houston Texans’ 23-7 win over the Cleveland Browns was defensive end J.J. Watt making it clear he deserves the NFL MVP award (whether voters can see beyond the quarterback position to give it to the most deserving player will be seen). But it was also quite a day for Mallett.
Mallett’s first three years in the NFL, he threw four passes, and one was intercepted. He didn’t appear in any games in 2011 or '13. He was traded by the Patriots to the Texans for the low price of a sixth-round draft pick before the season started. And after that long road to his first start, Mallett played quite well.
Mallett completed 20-of-30 passes for 211 yards, a pair of touchdowns and one interception in a 23-7 win at division-leading Cleveland. One win doesn’t mean the Texans have found their quarterback of the future, but there’s time to figure that out. Mallett deserves a day to just enjoy this win.
The hilarity of Bennie Logan snapping at an official who tried helping him line up right: Sometimes, officials can give a gentle shove to a player who is lined up wrong and will get a penalty if he stays there (we saw that in a Patriots-Jets game earlier this season). The Eagles’ Bennie Logan was lined up illegally on a field-goal attempt. The official tried to move him, to help him out. And Logan was NOT happy about it. This was comedy:
LOSERS
The two good NFC teams who will sit at home while the NFC South hosts a playoff game: You want to hear something that sums up the worst division in football? The Tampa Bay Buccaneers got their second win of the season on Sunday, in the 11[SUP]th[/SUP] week of the season. That puts them only two games off the division lead.
It’s true. The Atlanta Falcons lead it at 4-6, and they are 0-6 outside the division. The New Orleans Saints, who can’t even win at home anymore, are 4-6 too (the Falcons have the tiebreaker) after getting dominated in the Superdome by the Bengals. The Carolina Panthers check in at 3-7-1, and then comes Tampa Bay at 2-8. I’m not saying Tampa Bay can rip off enough wins to overcome a two-game deficit (and they can’t win the tiebreaker over anyone), but the fact that I’m typing this sentence about a 2-8 team is an indictment of the entire division.
Here’s the crime: The NFC South doesn’t deserve a playoff spot, but will get one at the expense of a really good team. There are seven teams in the other three divisions with at least six wins: Philadelphia, Dallas, Detroit, Green Bay, Arizona, San Francisco and Seattle. At least two of those teams are missing the playoffs. Unless we can petition the NFL to not recognize the South champ this year.
St. Louis Rams … not for Sunday but for being 4-6: To answer all Rams fans' gripes now – the Rams played great in a 22-7 win over the Denver Broncos on Sunday, they had a phenomenal effort against Peyton Manning, the offense played well enough, Tre Mason looks like a good find at running back, (fill in the blank praise for everything else they did well).
This is my problem. The Rams have defeated Seattle, San Francisco and Denver, arguably the three best teams in the NFL at the end of last season. How on earth are they so inconsistent that they’re 1-6 in the rest of their games?
We shouldn’t be talking about the Rams having to win out to make the playoffs after beating those three teams. It must be maddening for Rams fans that a very talented roster like St. Louis has can show off every bit of that talent in dominating the Broncos (make no mistake, the Rams looked like the better team from beginning to end) and still is 4-6, has a season point differential of minus-73 and needs a miracle to even end up as a legitimate playoff contender in December.
So yes, great job by the Rams on Sunday. One of the best 60-minute performances in the NFL this season. The Rams can feel good about that, as long as they also feel really disappointed that a team capable of that performance is two games under .500.
Bad Eli: Eli Manning has been a part of two Super Bowl championship teams, but he’ll have some days when you’re reminded why that won’t be enough to get him into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. His five-interception day against San Francisco, in a game the Giants could have won with a C-minus performance at quarterback was one of them.
Washington Redskins: Quarterback Robert Griffin III called Sunday’s loss a “travesty.” Coach Jay Gruden said it was “horrific.”
This is a low point for Washington. A 27-7 home loss to a wretched Buccaneers team, which was 1-8 coming in, has to make the franchise question everything.
Washington is 3-7, going nowhere and is there even room for optimism? The Buccaneers are terrible, but at least they can point to stud rookie receiver Mike Evans (209 yards and two touchdowns) and be excited about that. What is there to be excited about in Washington? At best, any hope left about Griffin comes with a lot of nervous concern about if he'll ever be the same player he was as a rookie. There’s not a lot to get truly excited about elsewhere on the roster.
Travesty? Horrific? That sums it up.
Not mathematically. Far from that. The Green Bay Packers and Detroit Lions are tied at 7-3, and technically the Lions are in first place because of the tiebreaker. But let’s be real.
The Packers are going to win the division. Green Bay fans know it. Detroit fans probably know it too, if they’re honest with themselves.*
If you watched the two teams play on Sunday, you know. The Lions have been squeaking by teams, no matter how good or bad they are, for weeks. A very good Arizona Cardinals team (we’ll talk about them in a bit, and honestly, they likely decided a second division race Sunday) didn’t allow another miracle Lions comeback. Drew Stanton threw for 306 yards for the Cardinals. Matthew Stafford was at his worst. He was 18 of 30 for 183 yards and an interception. On most plays, he either held the ball forever or was way off when he did throw it. He targeted Calvin Johnson, one of the five greatest receivers ever, 12 times and connected on only five of them. The Lions never got in the end zone. The only thing that even kept them in the game was a couple of Stanton interceptions. Detroit isn't a bad team, but it didn't look like a contender either.
If you want to argue that it doesn’t matter if you win by one point or 30, fine. But it can help figure out future performance. And while the Lions were pulling out last-second wins, the Packers have been annihilating teams. The Packers scored more than 50 points for the second straight game, the first time in the long franchise history that has happened. Since losing to the Lions in Week 3, the Packers are 6-1 with five wins by at least three touchdowns. The 53-20 win against the previously 7-2 Eagles was absolutely tremendous. The Packers do look like a dominant football team, one of the true contenders in the NFL. And take a look at the Packers’ remaining schedule:
at Minnesota
vs. New England
vs. Atlanta
at Buffalo
at Tampa Bay
vs. Detroit
A 5-1 finish seems like a worst-case scenario. That includes the inevitable win over the Lions, who haven’t won in Lambeau Field since 1991, the year before Brett Favre showed up in Green Bay.
The Lions go to New England next week, and the rest of their schedule isn’t too bad before finishing at Green Bay. Maybe the division won’t be officially settled before Week 17. But you can see by watching the two teams that one is just on a different level right now. That shouldn’t change before the end of the season.
Here are the rest of the winners, and the rest of the losers, from Week 11:
The Cardinals’ chances of winning the NFC West: Here is Cardinals’ situation after 10 games: If they go 3-3 the rest of the season, the 49ers or Seahawks would have to go 6-0 just to tie them for the division title.
In other words, they should probably keep University of Phoenix Stadium available for all January weekends.
The Cardinals had an impressive home win against the Lions on Sunday. The defense kept the Lions out of the end zone. Stanton made enough plays to win. Coach Bruce Arians called the same aggressive game he always does. There was no sign the Cardinals will slow down at all without Carson Palmer, and even if they do down the road, their NFC West lead looks just about insurmountable. It was an impressive win for them.
Kansas City Chiefs and the AFC West race: The Chiefs are no joke this season. They have not had one bad outcome since Week 1, and after Sunday the AFC West race is pretty interesting.
The Broncos fell to 7-3 with a bad loss at St. Louis. The Chiefs beat the Seattle Seahawks 24-20 in a very entertaining game and are now tied with the Broncos at 7-3. The Chargers are lurking at 6-4 too, but for now let’s talk about the Chiefs. Winning the division isn’t out of the question.
The Chiefs, who have two games left against the 0-10 Oakland Raiders, need to win at home on Nov. 30 against the Broncos. The Chiefs probably couldn’t survive a home loss to the Broncos, which would give Denver the tiebreaker, and win the division. But there’s no reason to believe the Chiefs can’t beat the Broncos at home. Andy Reid is doing a tremendous job with this team, which does two things tremendously well: rush the quarterback, and run the ball. They rode that to a very impressive win against the defending champs on Sunday. The Broncos might need to win at Arrowhead Stadium to avoid being a wild-card team.
Ryan Mallett: The biggest story out of the Houston Texans’ 23-7 win over the Cleveland Browns was defensive end J.J. Watt making it clear he deserves the NFL MVP award (whether voters can see beyond the quarterback position to give it to the most deserving player will be seen). But it was also quite a day for Mallett.
Mallett’s first three years in the NFL, he threw four passes, and one was intercepted. He didn’t appear in any games in 2011 or '13. He was traded by the Patriots to the Texans for the low price of a sixth-round draft pick before the season started. And after that long road to his first start, Mallett played quite well.
Mallett completed 20-of-30 passes for 211 yards, a pair of touchdowns and one interception in a 23-7 win at division-leading Cleveland. One win doesn’t mean the Texans have found their quarterback of the future, but there’s time to figure that out. Mallett deserves a day to just enjoy this win.
“It made the four years, the wait worth it. I couldn’t ask for a better start to my career,” Mallett said, according to the Houston Chronicle.
The hilarity of Bennie Logan snapping at an official who tried helping him line up right: Sometimes, officials can give a gentle shove to a player who is lined up wrong and will get a penalty if he stays there (we saw that in a Patriots-Jets game earlier this season). The Eagles’ Bennie Logan was lined up illegally on a field-goal attempt. The official tried to move him, to help him out. And Logan was NOT happy about it. This was comedy:
LOSERS
The two good NFC teams who will sit at home while the NFC South hosts a playoff game: You want to hear something that sums up the worst division in football? The Tampa Bay Buccaneers got their second win of the season on Sunday, in the 11[SUP]th[/SUP] week of the season. That puts them only two games off the division lead.
It’s true. The Atlanta Falcons lead it at 4-6, and they are 0-6 outside the division. The New Orleans Saints, who can’t even win at home anymore, are 4-6 too (the Falcons have the tiebreaker) after getting dominated in the Superdome by the Bengals. The Carolina Panthers check in at 3-7-1, and then comes Tampa Bay at 2-8. I’m not saying Tampa Bay can rip off enough wins to overcome a two-game deficit (and they can’t win the tiebreaker over anyone), but the fact that I’m typing this sentence about a 2-8 team is an indictment of the entire division.
Here’s the crime: The NFC South doesn’t deserve a playoff spot, but will get one at the expense of a really good team. There are seven teams in the other three divisions with at least six wins: Philadelphia, Dallas, Detroit, Green Bay, Arizona, San Francisco and Seattle. At least two of those teams are missing the playoffs. Unless we can petition the NFL to not recognize the South champ this year.
St. Louis Rams … not for Sunday but for being 4-6: To answer all Rams fans' gripes now – the Rams played great in a 22-7 win over the Denver Broncos on Sunday, they had a phenomenal effort against Peyton Manning, the offense played well enough, Tre Mason looks like a good find at running back, (fill in the blank praise for everything else they did well).
This is my problem. The Rams have defeated Seattle, San Francisco and Denver, arguably the three best teams in the NFL at the end of last season. How on earth are they so inconsistent that they’re 1-6 in the rest of their games?
We shouldn’t be talking about the Rams having to win out to make the playoffs after beating those three teams. It must be maddening for Rams fans that a very talented roster like St. Louis has can show off every bit of that talent in dominating the Broncos (make no mistake, the Rams looked like the better team from beginning to end) and still is 4-6, has a season point differential of minus-73 and needs a miracle to even end up as a legitimate playoff contender in December.
So yes, great job by the Rams on Sunday. One of the best 60-minute performances in the NFL this season. The Rams can feel good about that, as long as they also feel really disappointed that a team capable of that performance is two games under .500.
Bad Eli: Eli Manning has been a part of two Super Bowl championship teams, but he’ll have some days when you’re reminded why that won’t be enough to get him into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. His five-interception day against San Francisco, in a game the Giants could have won with a C-minus performance at quarterback was one of them.
Washington Redskins: Quarterback Robert Griffin III called Sunday’s loss a “travesty.” Coach Jay Gruden said it was “horrific.”
This is a low point for Washington. A 27-7 home loss to a wretched Buccaneers team, which was 1-8 coming in, has to make the franchise question everything.
Washington is 3-7, going nowhere and is there even room for optimism? The Buccaneers are terrible, but at least they can point to stud rookie receiver Mike Evans (209 yards and two touchdowns) and be excited about that. What is there to be excited about in Washington? At best, any hope left about Griffin comes with a lot of nervous concern about if he'll ever be the same player he was as a rookie. There’s not a lot to get truly excited about elsewhere on the roster.
Travesty? Horrific? That sums it up.
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Frank Schwab is the editor of Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @YahooSchwab