Week 12 in the NFL offered a classic early-window finish. In just a few minutes:

• The Texans missed a 28-yard tying field goal and then took a safety, ultimately losing to Tennessee by five points.

• The Cowboys ran back two kickoffs against the Commanders (one of which they shouldn’t have had!) to win a game by 41 points in the fourth quarter.

• The Bears recovered an onside kick and (finally!) made a field goal to send the game against the Vikings (where they lost) into overtime.

• The Panthers scored a touchdown and a two-point conversion to tie the Chiefs, although they ultimately lost on the next drive.

I had a whole bunch of overreaction angles planned around 3:30 PM ET, and by 4:15 PM they were almost all out of date. Yes, the football is going to be good this time of year. And while the 12 weeks of data is enough to draw solid conclusions about this season, it’s not enough to stop us from overreacting. So let’s judge a few possible conclusions as legitimate or irrational.

Go to:
Commanders missing the playoffs?
Return of Buccaneers for NFC South?
The top NFC seed comes down to Lions, Vikings?
Packers should crack down on free agency more often?
Young plays much better in Carolina?

The Commanders will miss the playoffs

The Cowboys tried to hand this game to Washington a hundred different ways, but the Commanders wouldn’t take it. The Commanders scored a miraculous 86-yard touchdown with 21 seconds left to cut the lead to one point, but then missed the PAT. They punted onside, and the Cowboys’ Juanyeh Thomas recovered the ball and ran it all the way back for a touchdown (which objectively wasn’t a good call because Washington was out of timeouts, and going in with the ball would have changed the game ended).

The Commanders got close to midfield on the ensuing drive, but ran out of Hail Mary magic. Dallas came away with an upset win and Washington lost its third straight game, falling to 7-5 for the season.

Verdict: NO OVERREACTION

The Commanders are three games behind Philadelphia for first place in the loss column in the NFC East (before the Eagles’ game on Sunday night) and occupy the seventh and final spot in the NFC playoff field – tied with the Cardinals. , Rams, Falcons and Seahawks. So yes, Washington is really in trouble here.

The Commanders get the Titans in Week 13, which certainly seemed like a winnable game before Tennessee beat Houston on Sunday. Washington has its bye in Week 14, which offers a chance to regroup for a final stretch that looks like this: at New Orleans, against Eagles, against Falcons and at Cowboys. The Commanders need a win against the Titans next week to stop their freefall, or what once seemed like a special season could very well end in disappointment.

The Buccaneers will catch the Falcons and win the NFC South

While the first-place Falcons got a week off to lick their wounds after a loss in Denver, the Buccaneers got to play Tommy DeVito and the Giants – and did exactly what they had to do. The Bucs crushed the Giants 30-7. The win snapped a four-game losing streak and improved the Bucs’ record to 5–6, putting them one game behind 6–5 Atlanta in the division race.

The Falcons have three games remaining against teams with winning records, while the Buccaneers have one. Tampa Bay has won this division three years in a row and would love to beat Atlanta this offseason, whose surprisingly inconsistent offense and complete lack of pass rush have kept it short of high preseason expectations thus far can meet.

Verdict: OVERREACTION

I’m certainly not suggesting that the Falcons are invincible, or that a one-game deficit is too big for Baker Mayfield & Co. to overcome. Full respect for the Bucs, their fight and their three-season title run.

But the problem with trailing is very specific: Tampa Bay doesn’t play Atlanta anymore, so it can’t make up ground by beating the Falcons head-to-head. Furthermore, the Falcons won both games they played against the Buccaneers earlier this season and own the tiebreaker, meaning that simply tying Atlanta wouldn’t be enough to give Tampa Bay the division. The Falcons would need to come back from their bye rested and able to win three of their last five games, which would mean the Bucs would have to go 5-0 the rest of the way to make this happen.

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Baker Mayfield trolls Giants fans with Tommy DeVito TD celebration

Baker Mayfield scrambles, finds the end zone and celebrates Tommy DeVito’s touchdown.

The Vikings-Lions game in Week 18 will decide the No. 1 seed in the NFC playoffs

The Lions won again on Sunday, although the 24 points they scored over the Colts in Indianapolis seemed a bit trite compared to some of their recent offensive performances. They have won nine straight, are 10-1 on the season and look like the best team in the league. However, the Vikings are right behind them at 9-2, having blown an 11-point lead to the Bears in the fourth quarter before escaping with an overtime victory.

The Vikings visit Detroit in the final week of the regular season, and if they are just one game apart at that point, that game could very well be for the division title – or more. These teams met back in Week 7, and it was a thriller, with the Vikings scoring 12 straight points in the fourth quarter to take a 29-28 lead, but lost on a Jake Bates field goal with 15 seconds left .

Verdict: OVERREACTION

Only three of the Lions’ nine wins in their current streak have been by fewer than 10 points, and three of those have been by more than 37 points. The Vikings are playing well, but the Lions are on a different level than them or anyone else. in the competition.

Let’s not forget the Packers in the same division either; they simply beat the 49ers to get to 8-3. The same goes for the Eagles, who are 8-2 entering Sunday night’s game against the Rams. One or both teams could still spoil things for the two teams at the top of the NFC North, especially since the Packers still have games left in Minnesota and Detroit.

It sure would be cool if the Lions and Vikings kept winning and that Week 18 game ended up being divisional. But the Lions have a head-to-head win and haven’t lost a division game yet (so they also have the second tiebreaker in their hands). And honestly, their lead just feels more important than a single game. In my opinion, the Vikings are more likely to make a mistake somewhere along the way to Week 18 than the Lions. And if they do, that’s about all Detroit needs to make this academic.

The Packers should use free agency more often

Green Bay isn’t widely known as a big free agency team in March. It leans as much toward the draft-and-develop model as any other team in the league, building from within. But last March, the Packers made some big splashes.

They joined the free agent running back party and signed Josh Jacobs to a four-year, $48 million contract, and they signed safety Xavier McKinney away from the Giants for four years and $68 million. The idea was to expand their young core with free agents who were still relatively young and in their prime. Jacobs is 26 years old and McKinney is 25.

Verdict: NO OVERREACTION

In Sunday’s 38-10 win over the undermanned 49ers, Jacobs rushed for 106 yards and three touchdowns on 26 carries, and McKinney intercepted his seventh pass of the season. The offense leaned on Jacobs from the start – he had 19 carries in the first half alone – because he knew the Niners had some key players behind them and wanted to make sure they were in physical control of the game. Nevertheless, it was only 17–7 Packers when McKinney picked off 49ers quarterback Brandon Allen in the third quarter to shut down a potential San Francisco scoring drive.

According to ESPN Research, Jacobs became the third Packers player in the past 35 seasons with more than 100 rushing yards and three rushing TDs in a regular-season game, joining Aaron Jones (2019 at Cowboys) and Dorsey Levens (1999 vs. Cardinals). And this was the Packers’ sixth game this season with three or more points, the most in the NFL and the most by the Packers in a season since 2011 (six).

The Packers believe both players have contributed high-level leadership in the locker room and outstanding performance on the field. And while no one is suggesting that the Packers abandon what has worked for them for decades in terms of drafting, developing and re-signing their own, it should be good for Packers fans to know that the team can be this good at free agency if it decides to try.

Bonus: this week’s underreaction

This is the part where we flip the script and throw away something that is humans underreaction to this moment – something that doesn’t get the attention we think it should.

The first overall pick of the 2023 draft, who was benched for Andy Dalton earlier this season, was given the starting job in Week 8 thanks to a Dalton injury. And since then, Young has shown enough improvement that he’s been able to keep it healthy even with Dalton. Young hasn’t set the world on fire by any means, but his QBR has improved in each of the past three games.

On Sunday he came face to face with Patrick Mahomes and a very tough Chiefs defense. He led a pair of touchdown drives in the second half, the second of which tied the game and forced Mahomes to drive for a game-winning field goal (which he did, of course). Young finished 21-for-35 for 263 yards, a touchdown pass and no interceptions against one of the best defenses in the league. He looked especially good against the blitz, completing 11 of 13 attempts and averaging 10.4 yards per attempt.

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Panthers tie Chiefs late with TD, 2-PT conversion

Chuba Hubbard punches in a short touchdown and also runs in a two-point conversion to tie the Panthers with the Chiefs late in the fourth quarter.

Again, the numbers don’t surprise you. But Young looked confident and in charge, which is a far cry from where he was last season or even in September. Sunday marked his 21st career start, all of which came against one of the worst supporting casts in the NFL. The Panthers might end this season feeling better about Young’s future prospects. If nothing else, he writes a weekly reminder that it’s a mistake to give up on talented young players too quickly. The Dalton injury might have been a stroke of luck for Carolina, if there’s any chance Young can be the player he thought he was when he moved up to No. 1 overall.