How The NFC Was Won. And Lost. And Won.

In this Week 16, not-quite-Christmas edition of NFL Walkthrough:

• The Jaguars have stopped making self-destructive mistakes. Is this the start of a Super Bowl run or the end of Western Civilization?
• NFC South football: it’s limp and unsatisfying!
• Lamar Jackson goes down, Drake Maye goes ham on Sunday night.

And much more!

A Conference in Chaos

It all started when Rashid Shaheed ran a punt back for a touchdown with 8:03 to play in the fourth quarter on Thursday night.

The Rams led the Seahawks 30-14 and were thoroughly outplaying them. A first-round bye in the NFC, while not officially clinched, appeared to be secured. The conference playoff hierarchy and storylines were practically chiseled in marble. The Rams, better/faster/smarter than all challengers, were the increasingly-prohibitive favorites. Sam Darnold was once again cutting off the oxygen supply to his own brain. All the other challengers were in various states of disarray.

Then along came Shaheed with a whoosh that would blow everything away.

The Rams offense, per DVOA, was the NFL’s best entering Week 16. It’s probably still the best now, though it settled for a few too many field goal attempts on Thursday night. Their defense also ranked among the league’s top tier and played that way for three-and-a-half quarters.

But the Rams special teams? Yucky-poo. Miscues in the kicking game had already cost the Rams dearly in Eagles and 49ers losses earlier in the season.

The Seahawks special teams, on the other hand, rank second only to the Jets, whose 2025 offense has come almost exclusively from Isaiah Williams returns and Nick Folk field goals.

Shaheed, a trade-deadline acquisition, jumpstarted the stalled Seahawks offense with long returns against the Vikings in Week 13 and Falcons in Week 14. On Thursday night, he delivered a third-act plot twist to the entire 2025 season.

Rams returner Jordan Whittington muffed the kickoff immediately following the Shaheed touchdown. Bad Rams field position. Ethan Evans punted just 32 yards. Great Seahawks field position. A 31-yard Shaheed end-around. One Darnold pass, one touchdown, one fumbly-stumbly two-point conversion, tie ballgame. Then, a missed field goal by Rams kicker Harrison Mevis – his first of the year – in the waning moments of regulation.

Overtime! A Rams touchdown. But then: a kickoff through the back of the end zone by Evans. Sean McVay wanted no parts of Shaheed as a returner, before or after his touchdown. Better to give Darnold the ball on the 35-yard line than risk a long return. Right?

At around 11 PM Eastern on Thursday night, in the minutes between his second interception and Shaheed’s return, I wouldn’t have trusted Darnold to walk my dog on a January afternoon. After Darnold’s eight-point overtime drive to spark a 38-37 victory in the most important game of the year, I now trust him to borrow my car for an hour or two. I’m not eager to let him watch the house for a weekend just yet, but I’m no longer worried that I would return to laundry in the dishwasher, silverware in the microwave or a smoldering ruin.

Darnold shook off a mostly-miserable evening to lead a do-or-die comeback in a must-win game against the toughest opponent in the league. Which means, with a little help from his many friends, he could do it again. The Seahawks comeback was a narrative buster.

Meanwhile, Thursday’s loss exposed all the little cracks in the still-very-formidable Rams. They don’t play as well on the road. Or in bad weather. They are now likely to spend the playoffs on the road in bad weather. And that kicking game is still a problem. Did you see the goalposts swaying in Chicago on Saturday night?

(The Rams fired special teams coach Chase Blackburn after Thursday’s loss. At this point in the season, that feels more like a frustration reaction than a potential solution.)

One punt return in what looked like a lost cause was all it took to throw the NFC playoff situation into chaos.

Or maybe it was thrown into chaos the moment Micah Parsons got injured in Week 15.

Chicago Bears 22, Green Bay Packers 16 (OT)

The kickoff temperature in Chicago was 37 degrees and plunging. Gusting winds nearly turned the blue medical tent into a flying carpet. Yet the Soldier Field end zones were lava.

The Packers and Bears started the game by trading long drives which ended in fourth-and-short dumbassery. Jordan Love drove the Packers to the seven-yard line, then tossed a low-and-away slider to a blanketed Christian Watson on fourth down. The Bears drove to the four-yard line, only for Ben Johnson to call one of those too-cute-by-half trick plays that made Lions fans reach for the extra-strength Motrin in crucial big-game situations in 2023 and 2024. (See: Burn This Play.)

From the opening kickoff, both teams tried to turn the game into a medieval bread riot. Tom Brady kept chirping about how much he enjoyed the chippiness from the warmth and safety of the booth.

The heaters on the Packers side of the field mysteriously malfunctioned in the second quarter. Jordan Love got knocked into concussion protocol after a particularly chippy blow. Malik Willis entered the game and used a service-academy game plan to drive into field goal range, then threw two incomplete passes into the end zone, forcing the Packers to settle for a short field goal.

Willis led another long drive to the four-yard line early in the third quarter. This time, Matt LaFleur remembered to hand off to Josh Jacobs instead of serving up a sampler platter of the worst red-zone passing concepts you have ever seen. Jacobs fumbled, however, then disappeared from the game plan (he has been dealing with a significant knee injury). But Willis fired a 33-yard cannonball through the wind to Romeo Doubs on the next series to give the Packers a 16-3 lead.

Every time he dropped back to pass, Caleb Williams had plenty of time to throw (no Parsons) but not many people to throw to (no Rome Odunze or Luther Burden). Brady kept describing Williams as if he were Josh Allen. Williams kept scrambling to his right and throwing the ball away, mixing in a dropped would-be interception by Xavier McKinney. Oh, Williams delivered some sharp throws and gutsy scrambles. But the Bears scored precisely three points, on a Cairo Santos corkscrew into the wind, through three quarters. And most Bears series did not end with one of Johnson’s Magic Realist Fake Tush Push fumblerooskis.

Willis led a Packers drive to the 16-yard line; it was mostly scrambles and Emanuel Wilson runs. One Sampler Platter of Rancid Red-Zone Crapola please, Coach LaFleur! Jayden Reed jet sweep right. Second-and-long handoff. Slot screen left to Reed. Field goal. Brilliant.

Rookie Warren Brinson sacked Williams out of field goal range on third-and-20 with the Packers up by 10 points and 3:15 to play. Packers win! Nope: Brinson yanked Williams’ facemask. The Bears still settled for a field goal. Onside kick time. Now, it was up to the Packers hands team …

Oh dear lord, the Packers hands team?

Just saying the words “Packers” and “hands” in the same sentence manifests a pass-dropping fiasco. It’s like saying Candyman in the mirror three times.

Of course Doubs bobbled the onside kick and the Bears recovered. Of course Williams, retreating from a jailbreak blitz and throwing while leaping backwards, found rookie Jahdae Walker all alone in the back of the end zone on fourth-and-four. Of course LaFleur then called some overcomplicated Willis boot pass that got stuffed by T.J. Edwards on third-and-1 in overtime. Willis then fumbled on fourth-and-1, though whatever the Packers were about to run looked like it was going to be slow-developing, horizontal, goofy (Bo Melton in motion! Look out!) and doomed.

If you want the Bears to beat you, put yourself in a position that allows Johnson to call a play where Williams lines up in the I-formation with two tight ends, executes play-action with seven-man protection and rifles one deep shot to his receiver to win the game. The Packers escaped a similar scenario in Week 14, when Williams’ pass to Cole Kmet came up a little short and was intercepted in the end zone by Keisean Nixon. This time, Williams’ throw to DJ Moore was perfect, Nixon couldn’t quite make a play on it, and the Bears opened up a game-and-a-half lead on the Packers with two games left to play.

If you believe in Teams of Destiny, then you believe in the Bears as a Super Bowl team. You may also be eagerly awaiting for Santa to shimmy down the chimney. Yes, the Bears have improved as the season went on. Williams’ smart-play-to-derp ratio keeps getting higher. The defense has gotten multiple starters back. But Saturday night’s victory came with the sort of gift-wrapping you used to pay extra for at department stores. This looks like a fun-’n’-done playoff team. Once they reach the playoffs, Williams will turn into Darnold.

And yet, the Bears did beat the Eagles just three weeks ago. And what if they face the Rams at Soldier Field, and someone sets Matthew Stafford’s sideline heater to “snowblower”?

As for the Packers: they cannot stop the run or rush the passer without blitzing so recklessly that it exposes their secondary. LaFleur needs to hire a “Red Zone Czar” to remind him that the goal inside-the-20 is to move forward, not sideways. Love should be back for the playoffs, but Love has thrown five interceptions in his last two playoff appearances.

The Packers, Super Bowl favorites when they traded for Parsons before the season opener and dusted the Lions with his help, now look like soggy Wild Card porridge.

Philadelphia Eagles 29, Washington Commanders 18

At the end of their three-game losing streak from Week 12 through Week 14, the Eagles had a choice: seize the opportunity or become the opportunity.

Even when they were losing to the Cowboys/Bears/Chargers, their NFC East title and playoff berth were never in serious jeopardy. But would the Eagles regain their Super Bowl luster and dignity down the stretch, or would they stagger backwards into the postseason (chant this next part like some exiled-in-Babylon biblical lamentation) just like 2023? Were the Eagles still contenders, or wounded prey for some frisky, hungry Wild Card team to pounce upon?

For two-and-a-half quarters on Saturday night, it looked like things could go either way.