NFL Week 17 Recap: Adapt or Perish

As a result of the first six games of Week 17 airing on some form of national TV, 10 games were played on Sunday and Monday. Nine of them were on Sunday, and only eight aired in regional coverage--and one of those eight was nationally televised. This resulted in a very light load on the final Sunday of 2024, but even a light load helped provide a lot in this year's playoff picture.

Let's start with the NFC South, shall we? The Tampa Bay Buccaneers entered this week in a peck of trouble. They fell into a tie for first place with the Atlanta Falcons, and Atlanta swept them this year. Luckily, the Bucs were at home against the lowly, lowly Carolina Panthers, who--like last year--just wanted this season to end. The Bucs blasted the Panthers, 48-14, Baker Mayfield went scorched Earth on Carolina, and TB sat and waited for the results of Atlanta's game in Landover against the Commanders.

So how did that go, BTW?

It's always a tale of two halves when it comes to the Falcons. They had a great first half, but they let the Commanders get back in it during the second half. Even so, Atlanta did get the ball back with a chance to win it in regulation. They had barely over a minute and two timeouts. Michael Penix, Jr. made a huge first down pass, but a funny thing happened: Raheem Morris didn't call timeout! He had two in his pocket, but didn't call one after that catch. It wasn't called until they got down farther and there were seven seconds left. Riley Patterson had to kick a long field goal, but because he's not Younghoe Koo, it was short. We had overtime, and Washington won the toss and never looked back. A touchdown to win it for the Commanders.

As a result:

I repeat, see what happens when you get rid of a racist name and a toxic owner? This is actually the second time the Commanders have reached the playoffs after finally getting rid of their original name, and their first under the ownership of Josh Harris. They are having quite the amazing season, and time will tell how this season will end for them. As for the Falcons, they now enter the final week of the season with no control of their quest to win the NFC South. They will need to win and have the Bucs lose to get in. If Atlanta misses out, I fear Morris may be one and done as their head coach.

No Hurts, no problem. The Philadelphia Eagles made mincemeat out of the Dallas Cowboys, 41-7, and with the win, the Eagles won the NFC East and are locked in as the #2 team in the NFC. The main story is Saquon Barkley, who reached 2000 yards this season, and he has one game to go. To be exact, Barkley has 2005 rushing yards this season, putting him 101 away from surpassing the hallowed record held by Eric Dickerson. I've seen Jamal Lewis and Adrian Peterson come very close to getting that record, and with 101 being the magic number, it does look like he'll get it. Even crazier, the Eagles' regular season finale is against Barkley's former team, the New York Giants. Philly has nothing more to play for, but we'll see if they put Barkley out there for a chance to make history.

The Buffalo Bills also clinched the #2 seed in the AFC with their big win over the New York Jets, 41-10. However, I want to talk about a game involving MetLife Stadium's other franchise, the aforementioned Giants. So they hosted the Indianapolis Colts, who were looking to stay alive. Should be easy, right? After all, this is a Giants team who a) lost 10 straight, b) hadn't won at home, and c) was trying to keep their cushy position in the draft. However, fate had other plans. Fate decided to make this year's Giants look like the 2011 team. They put up 45 points and had a big lead early in the game. Colts had no chance at all. They were dismantled by a team who hadn't won a game since MLB was in the early stages in the postseason.

As a result:

A huge descent. Going from narrowly missing out last year, to having a very terrible year and getting eliminated by losing a team who was tanking. The crazy thing: of the three AFC teams who were behind the playoff line, they were the leaders. They had all of the advantages over the other two. All they had to do was win out and hope Denver slips, and they'd be in. Instead, their season ended a week earlier than last year did. This is four straight years without playoffs. They have still not recovered from what they did to Andrew Luck, and they are definitely still suffering from blowing it late in 2021.

There were only two games in the late window, but the main one was between the Minnesota Vikings and the Green Bay Packers. This was our first game after clinching a playoff spot, and I had a good feeling entering this game. That feeling went away after about an hour. We were down big, but made a game out of it, but could not stop the Vikings to get the ball back. 27-25 was the final score in Minnesota's favor. You know, what's worse than being swept by the Vikings, is the fact that the Vikings' whole season is their first without Kirk Cousins. When they let Cousins go, I was prepared to laugh at the Vikings. "They'll miss him," I said. 14 wins. With Sam Darnold. Cousins is leagues better than Darnold, but they never played like this with Cousins, who pretty much lost his starting job in Atlanta.

The other game featured the Miami Dolphins in Cleveland facing the Browns, the last of the three "bubble" teams in the AFC to play. The Bengals won a day before, Indy lost and got eliminated, and as for the Dolphins, they managed to easily beat the Browns and stay alive in the race. 20-3 was the final score, and the Dolphins still have a pulse in what has been quite an up and down season. So if you look, I mentioned that the Bills won, the Vikings won, and the Commanders won. Why is that relevant? Here's why:

The Rams won on Saturday, but in order to lock up the NFC West, they still needed to clinch the Strength of Victory tiebreaker. They needed a combined 3.5 wins from the Bills, Vikings, 49ers, Commanders, and both Ohio teams. Bengals won before the Rams took the field, and in the early window, the Bills won, bringing their total down to 1.5 wins. When the Vikings won, they needed so much as a tie from either the Commanders or Niners, and when the Commanders won in overtime, that completed it. The Rams returned to the playoffs, this time as champions of the NFC West, a huge boost after a 1-4 start.

As for the Seattle Seahawks:

Amazing, isn't it? When this team started 3-0, it looked like they would really show out. Then they lost four of their next five. Even so, they bounced back with more wins, but fell off again at the wrong time. The Seahawks have lost seven games this season, and six of them were at home. That's not good. Even worse, one of their home losses was against the Giants--in fact, they were the last team to lose to the Giants until this week. Losses like that and slumps like that can definitely be a team's undoing.

Week 17 ended with Monday Night Football's regular season finale, an NFC Championship rematch between the Detroit Lions and the San Francisco 49ers. The Lions entered this contest actually behind the Vikings in the division, and they were actually behind the Niners by a lot in this game, but Detroit bounced back big time. Lions put up a 40-burger in Santa Clara, handing the Niners a dominant beatdown and keeping their #1 seed hopes alive. As for the Niners, their home finale ended in more disappointment, as their aspirations of returning to the Super Bowl were destroyed a week prior.

So that's that. 256 games have been played. Only 16 remain. The 18th and final week of the 2024 regular season will kick off with a Saturday doubleheader filled with AFC North representation; Cleveland Browns @ Baltimore Ravens, followed by Cincinnati Bengals @ Pittsburgh Steelers. The remaining 14 games will be played on Sunday, with the final game being the Detroit Lions hosting the Minnesota Vikings for the #1 seed in the NFC.

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Check out my other Week 17 recaps below: