The Athletic has live coverage of Dolphins vs. Steelers on NFL “Monday Night Football.”
Stars are hobbling, contenders are being eliminated and spots for the tournament are starting to fill up. The NFL regular season has just three weeks left.
We have our first two playoff teams of 2025, and on Sunday, the Denver Broncos and Los Angeles Rams inched a little closer to earning their respective conference’s No. 1 seeds.
Four touchdowns from Bo Nix helped the Broncos beat the Green Bay Packers 34-26 and push their win streak to 11. Denver is the league’s lone 12-win team and now a game ahead of the New England Patriots, who let a 21-point first-half lead slip away at home against the Buffalo Bills. This was a statement win by Buffalo, which trailed 21-0 in the first quarter and 24-7 at halftime, then dominated the line of scrimmage the rest of the way to finish off the Patriots 35-31.
“We don’t blink,” Josh Allen said after the win, Buffalo’s fourth in five weeks.
The Bills have now allowed opponents to score 30 or more four times this season. They’re 4-0 in those games. Their quarterback is the biggest reason why.
“I mean, that’s his superpower,” Patriots cornerback Christian Gonzalez said. “That’s who Josh Allen is.”
If Drake Maye was leading the MVP race heading into Sunday, it might now be Allen’s to lose. He’s been that good of late, and now has head-to-head wins over the following quarterbacks in 2025: Lamar Jackson, Patrick Mahomes, Joe Burrow and Maye.
In Los Angeles, another MVP contender, Matthew Stafford, helped the Rams put up 27 second-half points in a 41-34 win over the Detroit Lions. The victory keeps them in front in the NFC with a massive showdown looming Thursday against the Seattle Seahawks, who squeaked by 44-year-old Philip Rivers and the Indianapolis Colts 18-16, despite not scoring a single touchdown. Both the Rams and Seahawks are 11-3, and Los Angeles might be without Davante Adams for a few weeks after the wideout aggravated his hamstring injury Sunday.
Meanwhile, the Kansas City Chiefs are done — and so is their quarterback. A 16-13 loss to the Los Angeles Chargers officially eliminated the Chiefs from the postseason, ending their 10-year playoff streak and run of seven straight AFC Championship Game appearances. But a bad Sunday turned brutal when Mahomes injured his left knee late in the game, then needed help hobbling to the locker room. An MRI confirmed the team’s worst fear: Mahomes had torn his ACL. His 2025 season is over, and his 2026 campaign suddenly looks a whole lot different. So does Kansas City’s.
The Chargers, hammered by injuries all season, are somehow 10-4. Jim Harbaugh is just the sixth coach in NFL history to win 10 or more games in five of his first six seasons.
Another headliner went down in a loss, and Micah Parsons’ expected absence in Green Bay will loom large in the NFC playoffs. The Packers’ star edge rusher suffered a non-contact injury during the defeat in Denver. “It doesn’t look good,” coach Matt LaFleur said. “I’ll leave it at that.” The fear is it’s the same fate as Mahomes, a torn ACL, which would sideline Parsons the rest of the way.
Another expected contender — at least back in September — was officially booted from playoff contention after the Cincinnati Bengals were blanked 24-0 by the Baltimore Ravens. A week that began with some curious comments from Joe Burrow — “If I want to keep doing this, I have to have fun doing it,” he said — ended with the first shutout loss of Burrow’s career and more discouraging words from the Bengals’ franchise quarterback. “There’s not a team in the NFL that would’ve won the game today if I was their quarterback,” he said. The Bengals managed just one drive longer than 45 yards. Burrow threw two picks. Cincinnati has now missed the playoffs for a third straight year.
In Chicago, the Bears bounced back from their first loss in six weeks to roll the Cleveland Browns 31-3 and move back in front of the Packers in the NFC North. On a day Shedeur Sanders threw three interceptions, the lone bright spot for the Browns was again Myles Garrett, who is now one sack away from trying the record for a single season. Caleb Williams threw two touchdowns to DJ Moore, and the Bears have now won 10 games in Ben Johnson’s first season.
In San Francisco, the 49ers beat the Tennessee Titans 37-24 to remain a game behind the Rams and Seahawks in the NFC West. Kyle Shanahan hasn’t received a ton of Coach of the Year chatter, but he deserves it. The 49ers lost Nick Bosa and Fred Warner to season-ending injuries. Brandon Aiyuk never saw the field. Brock Purdy and George Kittle missed significant time. And yet San Francisco is 10-4 and a game out of first place in the NFL’s most competitive division.
A much less prolific division, the NFC South, tightened up Sunday after the New Orleans Saints upset the Carolina Panthers 20-17. Both the Panthers and Tampa Bay Buccaneers are now 7-7 with three to play, including two against each other. As for New Orleans, Kellen Moore’s team is getting better, and so is its rookie quarterback: Tyler Shough threw for 272 yards and a touchdown, and that’s now back-to-back wins for the Saints over the Bucs and Panthers.
In Jacksonville, the Jaguars stayed in front of the AFC South with a 48-20 rout of the New York Jets. After some shaky moments earlier this season, Trevor Lawrence — who had six total touchdowns on Sunday — has hit his stride under new coach Liam Coen. Lawrence has gone three straight games without a turnover for the first time in his five-year career. The Jags have won five straight after a midseason stretch that saw them lose three of four.
The team just behind them in the division, the Houston Texans, remained red hot with a 40-20 win over the Arizona Cardinals. The Texans have won six straight and, at 9-5, are closing in on their third straight double-digit win season under coach DeMeco Ryans. C.J. Stroud threw three touchdowns in his best outing since Week 5.
The Washington Commanders have just four wins all season; two have come over the New York Giants, including Sunday’s 29-21 victory. With an eighth straight loss, the Giants remained in the race to earn next spring’s No. 1 draft pick. Interim coach Mike Kafka is now 0-4.
In Philadelphia, the Eagles enjoyed a stress-free week — for maybe the first time all season? — with an impressive 31-0 rout of the Las Vegas Raiders. Jalen Hurts shook off a dismal performance in the Week 14 loss to the Chargers to throw three touchdowns and finish with the second-highest passer rating of his career.
The defense limited Raiders starter Kenny Pickett to just 64 passing yards. Philly’s three-game losing streak is over and the Eagles all but wrapped up a second straight NFC East title after the Dallas Cowboys fell to the Minnesota Vikings 34-26 on Sunday night. The loss leaves Dallas 6-7-1 on the season and with less than a one-percent chance of winning the division.
Las Vegas, currently on track for the second pick in next spring’s draft, is now the first team to be shut out twice in the same season since the 2000 Browns.
Here’s what stood out across Week 15 in the NFL:
The Chiefs’ new reality
The Chiefs didn’t merely have their playoff hopes extinguished on Sunday. Their immediate future took a serious hit, because Mahomes’ injury changes their outlook for 2026.
“Don’t know why this had to happen,” the quarterback wrote on X. “And not going to lie it hurts. But all we can do now is Trust in God and attack every single day over and over again … I Will be back stronger than ever.”
Mahomes is looking at roughly eight to 12 months of recovery, which will put his availability at the start of the 2026 season in jeopardy. His status will be among the many questions facing this team as it enters uncharted waters in the Mahomes era. For starters, the Chiefs are no longer the team to beat in the AFC, or even the AFC West. Beyond that, the roster needs work, starting with both lines. Particularly on offense, the team never found its footing in 2025. Andy Reid’s unit felt stale all year long.
Travis Kelce is 36 and seriously considered retiring after last season. Will he walk away? Chris Jones is 31. Can the team keep him on his massive contract? Reid is 67. How long does he want to keep coaching?
Hovering over all of the uncertainty will be Mahomes, who’s now facing the biggest setback of his sterling career. To date, he’s only missed two games due to injury.
It’s unlikely Kansas City can keep the pillars of its dynasty intact. To regroup and make another run at a championship, this franchise will have to add some new pieces. Who those pieces are, and where they come from, remains to be seen. But this is going to be a very different offseason in Kansas City.
Rivers nearly pulls off the unthinkable
It felt absurd, a desperate attempt to salvage a season that looked to be sinking fast. Seven days after Daniel Jones slipped on a sloppy field in Jacksonville and tore his Achilles, the Colts trotted out what they felt like was their best option to keep them in the AFC playoff hunt: a 44-year-old father of 10 (and grandpa of one) who hadn’t started a game in nearly five years.
But Philip Rivers was, before being elevated to the active roster Saturday, a Pro Hall of Fame semifinalist, not to mention a close friend of Shane Steichen from their eight years together with the Chargers. To Rivers, the comfort mattered. So did the challenge. He wasn’t gonna stay home and miss the opportunity to play some more football.
“I’m not trying to save the day,” he said this week.
He didn’t. But he came pretty daggum close. Rivers gave the Colts a chance Sunday, playing about as well as anyone could have been expected considering he was watching this team play from his couch in Alabama just a week ago. When he hit Josh Downs for a touchdown near the end of the first half, it looked like Indianapolis had the early makings of a memorable upset. Down three of its best defensive players, Lou Anarumo’s unit was playing lights out, never letting Seattle’s high-powered offense reach the end zone.
Steichen constructed a shrewd game plan for Rivers, leaning heavily on the run game and quick throws for his quarterback, who finished 18-for-27 for 120 yards, a touchdown and a late-game interception when the Colts were forced to push it down the field. The problem was the Colts’ lack of verticality. Rivers simply doesn’t have the arm he used to. They couldn’t test Seattle deep.
A 60-yard field goal from Blake Grupe gave the Colts a 16-15 lead with 47 seconds left. Then the Colts softened their coverage in the secondary, and Sam Darnold and the Seahawks took advantage. Jason Myers’ sixth field goal of the day helped the Seahawks — a legitimate Super Bowl contender — avoid an embarrassing upset.
Rivers grew emotional after the game, reflecting on his whirlwind of a week and his first NFL game since January 2021. “Sometimes there is doubt and it’s real,” he said. “The guaranteed safe bet is to stay home and not go for it. I hope in that sense it can be a positive to some young people.”
The Colts, now 8-6 after starting 8-2, are fading in the AFC playoff picture. The 49ers visit Indianapolis next Monday, then the Colts will finish with division games against the Jaguars and Texans.
Buffalo’s best chance?
If the first half felt like the changing of the guard — the upstart Patriots riding a 10-game win streak and looking to end the Bills’ five-year reign atop the AFC East — the second half offered a stern reminder: Buffalo can beat anyone, anywhere.
Down 21-0 in the first quarter, then 24-7 at halftime, the Bills rallied for the biggest comeback victory by a visiting team in the 23-year history of Gillette Stadium. Buffalo opened the second half with four straight touchdowns, then on the Patriots’ final drive, edge rusher Joey Bosa — a terrific offseason addition for the Bills’ defense — deflected a fourth-down pass from Drake Maye to wrap up the win.
While Buffalo has had some head-scratching losses this season — Atlanta by 10, Miami by 17 — Sean McDermott’s team has started to look like a contender again, ripping off three straight wins and six in their last eight. With the coming AFC playoffs featuring no Mahomes and no Burrow, the door feels like it’s as open as it’s ever been. Buffalo now has its seventh straight 10-win season and is just a game back of New England in the AFC East.
Allen looks primed to make a deep run.
“(I’m seeing) the same thing everybody else sees: 6-5, 250 pounds, runs fast, hard to tackle, hard to get down on the ground, accurate, strong arm,” Patriots coach Mike Vrabel said. “I’m giving you a dissertation on a league MVP. Just watch all the games … that’s why they pay him $60 million (a year).”
Is this the year the Bills make it back to the Super Bowl for the first time since January 1994?
