NFL Week 18 Takeaways: Jordan Love Is Up for the Task of Following Aaron Rodgers

The former Green Bay QB even sent his successor a text on the morning of his playoff-clinching win over the Bears. Plus, the Bills are tough, the Texans are rising, scouting college title game quarterbacks, an appreciation for Bill Belichick and more.

That’s 272 games down, 13 to go …

A full post–Aaron Rodgers regular season is in the books, and the Green Bay Packers look the same as they ever were. In saying that, I’m not telling you the Packers are about to embark on another 15 years at quarterback like the 30 they just had.

But as far as being up to the task of following a legend? Jordan Love has been all of that.

And he’s done it simply by giving the Packers a familiar feeling: normalcy. And that normalcy was reflected vividly in a text Rodgers sent Love on Sunday morning.

“It was just a little something,” Love said over the phone, a tad sheepishly, before detailing the message his predecessor sent. Go beat the Bears.

Love has the Packers back in the playoffs in his first season taking over for Rodgers :: Jeff Hanisch/USA TODAY Sports

That part was the same as it’s ever been Sunday, too. Brett Favre was 23–13 against Chicago. Rodgers was, famously, 26–5. Love is now 2–0.

Even better, the 25-year-old reached that mark while hitting a bunch of personal high-water marks in going 27-of-32 for 316 yards and two touchdowns in Green Bay’s workmanlike 17–9 win. His completion percentage (84.4%) was a season best, as were his yards per attempt (9.9) and passer rating (128.6). All of which shows two things. One, that, as the Packers expected, he’s a lot better now than when he got his first win over the Bears, at Soldier Field in Week 1. And two, that their patience with him, both through some bumps this year, and over the past four years, was well founded.

The result is a kid, if you still want to call him that, who firmly believes he’s just where he should be in his development and hasn’t really doubted that development was coming along at any point this season—even when he went three straight games with a passer rating under 70, or as the Packers had to ride out a 2–6 stretch that followed the high of that Week 1 win.

And maybe, just maybe, that’s because he got to watch the ebbs and flows of a season three times over before having to live those as a starter, which has given him the benefit that Matt LaFleur and his staff hoped he’d take from waiting—actual sustainable confidence.

“Coming into this year, I came in with no expectations,” Love says. “I wasn’t trying to put a feeling on what we could be as a team, what I could be. I really just came in with a grateful mindset and wanting to take advantage of the opportunity that I had in front of me. That’s kind of the same mindset I kept throughout the season. We had low points. We had high points. I was not trying to put a ceiling on us.”

The ceiling now looks a lot higher than it did three or four months ago.

On Sunday, that much was apparent in not just Love, but the depth of what’s around him. Again without Christian Watson, and with Jayden Reed banged up, the quarterback got six catches and two touchdowns from rookie fifth-rounder Dontayvion Wicks, who’s emerged as a contributor in a crowded group of young receivers (Watson, Reed, Romeo Doubs).

“Those two plays were just big-time plays by him,” Love says. “The first one, just the release, he had to create so much separation from the DB to get wide open and to finish the catch. The second one, just the effort, just running the slant. To get tackled, I don’t know where he got stopped, maybe at the 3, but to be able to put his head down and fight to get those yards into the end zone was huge. Big-time efforts by him.”

And as Wicks, and the other three receivers, and rookie tight ends Luke Musgrave and Tucker Kraft, have grown, Love has grown with them—with his own trust that it’d come rubbing off. The bumps have been ridden out and the steps have been taken together. The result is a bunch of guys who are pushing each other and making the offense their own.

“That's been a huge part of it,” Love says. “We came into the year knowing that it was going to be a process. It wasn’t perfect early on. We weren’t trying to be perfect. We focused on trying to get better, understand what we need to do on plays. The receivers have been putting in a lot of work just trying to get on the same page with me. I think all the work that we’ve been putting in is finally starting to show.

“It’s definitely not easy with how young we are as a team. It’s a credit to everybody around me and how much work they’ve been putting in.”

It paid off when it mattered most Sunday. When the Bears closed to within 14–9 early in the fourth quarter, a 59-yard shot from Love to Reed set up a field goal to stretch the lead back out to 17–9. And the next time the Packers got the ball after that, with 6:08 left, Love’s group churned out four first downs and never gave it back.

As such, the game ended on a pair of kneeldowns that gave Love something that Rodgers and Favre didn’t have—a playoff berth in his first season starting. For what it’s worth, Love also has thrown for more yards, more touchdowns, and fewer picks than Rodgers did in 2008 or Favre did in 1992.

And, again, that’s not to say Love is headed toward the rarefied air those guys would wind up ascending to.

But what we can safely say now is that he definitely didn’t shrink to the tough task put in front of him last April, after Rodgers was traded, one that was, in so many ways, the football version of taking Derek Jeter’s spot on the infield dirt at Yankee Stadium.

“Pressure’s a privilege,” Love says. “I’m grateful for the opportunity that I have and just want to make the most of it. Blocking out all the noise and not even thinking about how much pressure it might be, just going out there and playing, having fun and taking advantage of the opportunity that I have, that’s just what everybody in the locker room has done. Pressure’s a privilege. We’re blessed to be here. We’re not focusing on the pressure.”

That, by now, is pretty clear.

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The Falcons moved on from Smith after three straight 7–10 seasons :: Stephen Lew/USA TODAY Sports

The signs are there that Falcons owner Arthur Blank is about to take a big swing. And that, to me, would explain the 180 that the 81-year-old Home Depot founder did over the past month—with it seeming to be a certainty that Arthur Smith would be back four or five weeks ago.

That the Falcons finished 1–4 after heading into December at 6–6 didn’t help. Nor did the fact that the quarterback situation, as Smith set it up, continued to undermine the team.

All of it came to a head when the team returned from New Orleans late Sunday. After arriving home, Blank called a meeting with Smith and team president Rich McKay. At the end of it, and with a third playoff-less season in the rear view, he fired Smith.

In the end, it does feel like that, and the blowout loss to the Saints (punctuated with the midfield squabble between coaches), simply gave Blank the out to do what he really wanted to and act on the urgency he’s displayed privately, as a guy who doesn’t have an endless string of shots at getting it right coming. And as such, there have been plenty of signals in league circles that Blank was readying to pick up the bat and aim for the fences.

No less than a half dozen people I’ve talked to over the past week have linked the Falcons to Patriots coach Bill Belichick. And I’ve heard that Blank has at least looked into the concept of hiring Belichick or Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh. (One connected source said, “I wouldn’t sleep on Atlanta” with Harbaugh to replace Smith.)

Until now, though, the thought was he’d probably fire Smith only if he felt confident he’d land one of those big fish. Maybe he will. Or maybe Sunday really did send him over the edge with Smith.

Either way, a team with a young, fast-improving roster needs a coach. And a really sharp offensive coach is now out there on the market. Which isn’t how many—myself included—saw this going just a few weeks ago.

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Allen and the Bills captured a fourth straight AFC East crown in the final game of Week 18 :: Sam Navarro/USA TODAY Sports

The Bills may not be quite as spectacular as the 2021 team, who staged the epic prize fight with the Chiefs at Arrowhead—but I do think this group is tougher. It wasn’t long ago that eulogies were being written not for Buffalo’s season, but for the program that Sean McDermott and Brandon Beane have built over the past seven years.

To be fair, there was reason to believe things had gotten stale.

The Bills were aging at tackle and receiver, and in a bunch of spots on defense, and fell to 6–6 with the overtime heartbreaker in Philadelphia. Tre’Davious White and Matt Milano weren’t coming back, Josh Allen had been a little loose with the ball, the team wasn’t running it very effectively and there were simply too many teams to leapfrog in the AFC to get into decent position for a playoff run.

Nobody would have believed then, a few days after Thanksgiving, that the Bills would finish 11–6, win the AFC East for a fourth straight year and not just make the playoffs for the sixth time in seventh years, but qualify as the conference’s second seed. But after Buffalo’s gutsy 21–14 win over the Dolphins on Sunday night, that’s where they are.

And here’s why I said what I did about the team’s toughness: They overcame a lot to get here, even on this one night.

Allen turned the ball over three times, throwing two picks in the end zone and adding a backbreaking fumble deep in Miami territory. Allen lost it on the 13th play of a drive that had covered 59 yards, for good measure. James Cook dropped a would-be touchdown pass. The Bills fell behind twice in the first half and went into the fourth quarter down by seven.

And from there, they pulled every lever to get out of Miami with a win. Deonte Harty ran a punt back 96 yards for the tying touchdown. Allen hit shots to Dalton Kincaid for 26 yards and Khalil Shakir for 28 yards to set up a five-yard throw to Dawson Knox on a swing pass to take the lead. The Bills’ defense forced a three-and-out, then a turnover (Tua Tagovailoa was picked by Taylor Rapp) to close an explosive Miami offense out.

So no, this team doesn’t have the aesthetic appeal those old Bills did. But they’re more resourceful, with more ways to win—and usually that goes a long way in January.

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This is a good place to give the Buccaneers a little recognition. This was supposed to be the reset year in Tampa Bay. Tom Brady’s gone. The Bucs took on more than $80 million in dead cap to pay the credit card debt for the relentless (and correct) win-now approach they employed through the Brady era—meaning more than 35% of their allotted cap dollars were dedicated to guys no longer on the team. They were younger in some spots and a year older in others.

Now, it’s January and the Buccaneers are in the playoffs for the fourth straight year, which matches a franchise record. They are division champs for a third straight year, for the first time.

And with all that came confirmation of what the guys there knew all along: Brady’s the greatest of all time, but he was never all the Bucs had, which is why the legendary quarterback chose to go there in the first place. Sunday was another good example of the help Brady had and the foundation he left behind, with Tampa Bay’s AFC South clincher coming with the defense allowing fewer than 100 yards passing in a 9–0 shutout in Carolina.

Bottom line, the Bucs knew what they had all along.

“We don’t really listen to outsiders,” linebacker Lavonte David, the 12th-year Buc, told me postgame from the locker room. “Coach [Todd] Bowles does a great job of keeping us away, just trying to make sure everything that happens in the locker room stays in the locker room, and won’t get out of the locker room. That’s who we’re rocking with. We know the guys we got, and we know what we’re capable of. We were able to seize that moment today.”

They did, and in the same sort of way they got through the season—by adapting to changing surroundings and circumstances.

Tampa’s previous three wins came with Baker Mayfield and the offense scoring 29, 34 and 30 points, but it quickly became apparent that the Panthers were intent on turning this one into a rock fight behind a proud, talented defense. And so it was that the Bucs didn’t let the Carolina offense cross its own 40-yard line on five of six first-half possessions, while forcing and recovering a fumble on the other one.

Meanwhile, the offense got past midfield five times. On three of those occasions, the Bucs kicked field goals. On the final one, they converted three consecutive third downs to get to victory formation.

“We just stayed the course for four quarters, stayed disciplined, stayed doing what we do, especially defensive-wise, and were able to get a shutout and win the division,” David says. “It was our end goal to come out here today and play four full quarters. We were able to accomplish that.”

And so it was that as the clock wound down, David gave himself a minute to think what’s happened over his long tenure as a Buccaneer.

At one bleak juncture, he says, the team brass came to him promising things would soon change—he started his career with eight straight playoff-less years. Soon, they would, and David sure was glad, looking back Sunday, that he listened.

“The past four years, it’s been that way, and I’m loving it,” he says. “It’s been the best to be with one team this whole time. It just shows the respect they have for me and my craft and how I am in the locker room. I’m definitely proud to be a part of it and to see the change.”

In a lot of ways, he and guys such as Mike Evans and Vita Vea were the change, before Brady showed up to put all that change over the top.

On Sunday, once and for all, the rest of us got to see it.

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Stroud has made an instant impact on the franchise that picked him No. 2 in the draft :: Marc Lebryk/USA TODAY Sports

Buy all the stock you can in the Texans. And I’ll say that for a few reasons. Coach DeMeco Ryans clearly is a big one. GM Nick Caserio is another. A core made up of guys including Will Anderson Jr., Jonathan Greenard, Derek Stingley Jr., Tank Dell, Nico Collins and Laremy Tunsil is certainly a big part of that, too.

But if we’re being honest, a lot of this is about a single player: C.J. Stroud.

And Saturday, he checked another box in a rookie season full of checked boxes: showing up in the biggest way in a big spot.

In a de facto playoff game, the No. 2 pick did just that, starting the night with a 75-yard bomb to Collins for a touchdown and ending it with a 12-play, 73-yard, game-winning drive. He finished with 264 yards, a 134.1 passer rating and a ticket to the postseason for a Texans team that hasn’t been there in four years. So yes, the 23–19 win was about a lot of people. No one more than the QB who, one staffer gushed, “played a special game.”

Of course, it didn’t take Bill Walsh to see just how good Stroud was under the bright lights in Indianapolis. But I still figured it’d be good to see what, from the Texans’ perspective, made the performance so good. And after some digging, there were three throws—none of them, interestingly, the 75-yarder to Collins—that blew the staff away. Those were …

• A five-yard completion to Eric Saubert on a second-and-3 in the second quarter did little else than get a drive going, with its initial first down near midfield. But the call, and how Stroud handled it, said more to the coaches. The call was an aggressive one, bordering on risky. A lot of rookies would’ve forced the ball downfield. Instead, Stroud calmly read the coverage and got to his third progression, keeping the Texans on schedule, and where they needed to be to take a 14–3 lead six plays later.

• The second one you will remember—the 14-yard, scramble-play connection with Collins, where Stroud escaped and executed what looked like a simple throwaway, but was actually an unbelievable effort to get the ball to a spot where he knew only his receiver would have a shot at it. The ball probably traveled 40 yards in the air, somehow, with Stroud backpedaling from two free rushers, and was an example of the special connection the two have.

• The third came three plays after that, and after Devin Singletary was buried for a loss that put the Texans in second-and-13 on the Colts’ 30, tied at 17, with 6:45 left. The Texans’ protection broke down. Stroud stood in, anyway, and made a throw around a defender that he couldn’t step into, to a receiver he couldn’t see, to a spot he had to have faith his guy would get to. It took trust, awareness, confidence and arm talent. Stroud has all those things in spades, and the result was a 23-yard dart to Collins over the middle of the field.

Houston scored the game-winner on the next play and now, for the first time, a rookie head coach and rookie quarterback have won a division title together. Obviously, it’s about more than those two guys. But those two are an awfully big reason to feel good about where the Texans are headed. And especially Stroud.

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The game that gave the Texans that division title—Titans over Jaguars—could be a pivot point for both teams. And we can start with the team that won it, Tennessee, because as much character was shown in the gutsy 28–20 win, an old identity that’s faded away came through, too.

If you squinted, you could probably see 2019 again, with Derrick Henry running over and through the Jaguars for 153 yards, and Ryan Tannehill making enough plays—including a six-yard touchdown throw to DeAndre Hopkins that provided the scoring difference—and the defense bowing up when it needed to.

That’s something that the older Titans talked about, too, with this game seeming like a capstone on an era. And while they aren’t going to the playoffs, they were able to prevent someone else from going and give themselves one last memory in Nashville. Tannehill’s in a contract year. So, too, are Henry and the receiver rental Hopkins. They’ve got, in Ran Carthon, a first-year GM and a lot of speculation on Mike Vrabel’s future, and all the uncertainty that goes with that.

“It wasn’t like a long sit-down conversation or anything,” Tannehill told me postgame. “A lot of the veteran players that have been here, myself and Derrick included, realize what the business is and what the situation is, and acknowledge that this would probably be the last time taking the field together as Titans. We wanted to go out in the right way, go out with the win. Thankful for the opportunity to be able to go out and do that. We had a lot of fun doing it.”

The win got them to 6–11—which isn’t anything anyone will look back on fondly. “It’s been rough,” Tannehill concedes. But, the quarterback continued, as he and Henry and Jeffery Simmons (the one player from the old core who’ll almost certainly remain) have seen guys such as Taylor Lewan and Kevin Byard ushered out, there’s been a dignity in how those who’ve stayed have tried to maintain what they built.

And Sunday, with a 69-yard run from Henry setting up the Hopkins score, and the defense forcing a four-and-out to end the game, the traces of that past were everywhere.

“It felt like an old-school, vintage 2019, ’20, ’21 Titans game—hard-fought, back-and-forth a little bit, defense making a big stop, offense answering, big runs from Derrick, plays in the play-action pass game, all of that,” says Tannehill. “For that and a lot of other reasons, it was a lot of fun.”

Obviously, things will look differently next year—and Vrabel’s future is a part of that. But even after a tough year personally, Tannehill advocated for the team to do all it can to keep him aboard.

“He’s a heck of a coach obviously,” Tannehill says. “Learned a lot of ball from him. He educates the team in a way that I’ve never had any other coach do as far as the other side of the ball, teaching offense, teaching defense, situations on tape every week, things that come up throughout the week, nuanced rules that can be used to your advantage, if you know the rules. He does a good job with all those different types of things. If they get the right people and players in place, I think they can have a lot of success here.”

So that’s Tennessee.

As for Jacksonville, well, this isn’t how the Jags saw the season ending—with Trevor Lawrence posting an 81.5 passer rating and throwing for 38 yards in the fourth quarter of a division game. Word is that there have been internal questions about Doug Pederson making staff changes. Pederson and GM Trent Baalke will go through meetings this week, and it’d be interesting to see what happens if Baalke tries to push some moves on a coach who’s always been fiercely loyal to his assistants. Stay tuned on that.

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Somehow, Mason Rudolph has made the Steelers a different team. It’s hard to explain how it is that the sixth-year pro, who’d been third-string for most of the past two years, is now in this spot.

Calling him a savior might be a little strong. But saying he’s made a difference isn’t.

All you have to do is check the numbers. When Rudolph got in the lineup, the Steelers were 7–7 and their playoff hopes were fading after a brutal blowout loss in Indy. Since then, they’re 3–0, which has put them in the AFC bracket as the seventh seed. And for his part, Rudolph has posted three straight passer ratings topping 110, which happen to be the three highest single-game passer ratings posted by any Steelers quarterback all season.

All that from a guy who, by his own admission, had to subjugate his ego to return for a sixth year with the team back in May, when he decided that a contract, and a promised roster spot behind Kenny Pickett and Mitchell Trubisky, were enough to get him to give it one more go with the team that drafted him back in 2018.

“They told me, We’ll guarantee you’ll be the three and make our roster,” Rudolph says. “It’s hard to turn down from a common-sense standpoint and just knowing that we had a great roster. … I’m confident every year. Free agency is different, my agent tells me, but when you haven’t played in three or so years, your phone’s not going to be lighting up.”

And so he took the one-year deal they offered, knowing he didn’t need the reps a third-string guy won’t get, because he knew the offense and the receivers, which would give him the best shot to play in whatever preseason or spot duty he got. To stay sharp, he’d keep practice squad receivers late to repeat the practice script, and put in classroom time, which also allowed him to be a better resource to the starter.

After six years, you know some tricks, too. One, in fact, came in handy Saturday in terrible conditions—the Pittsburgh equipment guys have taught him to use footballs fresh out of the box, that weren’t worn in, in the rain. Others were less obvious.

When it mattered most, Saturday in Baltimore, all of it counted. In fact, the background and relationship he has with play-caller Mike Sullivan led to his texting his coach during the week and asking to add a couple of routes to a concept they had to attack a Ravens combination coverage, that was quarters to one side of the field and Cover 2 to the other. And one wound up being Diontae Johnson’s eventual game-winning 71-yard score in the fourth quarter.

In the end, all that added up to a 17–10 win, and one from a team that’s looked energized by Rudolph. How real that is might be up for debate. But how seamlessly he’s slid back into the lineup isn’t—to the point where you wonder, and even he’s wondered, what might’ve happened if he’d gotten in earlier.

“Human nature, we all wonder what-ifs of life,” he says. “There are so many what-ifs that I sort of write it off. I do believe God has a plan, and he orchestrates things for a purpose. I didn’t really think I’d be back here. If you asked for this last year, I was motivated—maybe you could say slightly disgruntled—to be in a new environment. God had other plans. And I’m so glad that the Steelers brought me back.”

Pretty safe assumption that the feeling is mutual.

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If your team needs a quarterback and isn’t picking in the top five of the upcoming draft, you should watch Monday night’s College Football Playoff title game. Because Michigan’s J.J. McCarthy and Washington’s Michael Penix Jr. probably won’t go that high—but both have plenty to play for beyond just, well, winning a national title and going down as legends as their schools.

I called around on both and came up with some bullet points to give you on them.

• The consensus I came up with (and it’s an inexact science at this early juncture) was that there’s a first tier at the position, and these two aren’t in it. The three there would be USC’s Caleb Williams, North Carolina’s Drake Maye and LSU’s Jayden Daniels. If I had to peg a next tier right now, it’d probably have Penix, McCarthy and Oregon’s Bo Nix in it.

• I had one evaluator compare Penix to a basketball player. Follow him on this. “He’s got an awesome deep ball, one of the better deep balls I’ve ever seen,” says the AFC scout. “The positives, he consistently makes big plays. It’s a good scheme to get the ball downfield, and the ball placement, accuracy, poise, it’s there facing pressure or in a clean pocket. But I gave him the comp to a three-point shooter. Great deep. Struggles short to intermediate.”

• The prevailing thought goes that Penix’s funky, low, left-handed release contributes to that, though he’s tightened up what was a long wind-up and improved in a ton of different areas since transferring from Indiana. “The guy has gotten better and better,” says an AFC college scouting director. “It’s pretty cool. It speaks to his ability to embrace coaching and learn and work on his game. … His mechanics, timing, accuracy—he’s improved in all areas as a passer.”

• Part of that is that he basically had to evolve after tearing his ACL twice (and tearing up his shoulder along the way). But that also will make how team doctors see him physically, after getting a chance to check him out at the combine in Indy and at their home facilities, a factor in where Penix gets drafted. The flip side is that a better player has emerged from the struggle, still good enough to move efficiently and get yards, with big improvements throwing the ball.

• With McCarthy, it’s almost the inverse—he looks very capable of making big plays, but isn’t often asked to pull that lever. So whether he can is an open question. “He’s interesting—their offense isn’t explosive, so he’s just really efficient,” says another AFC college scouting director. “He has the tools. He can really throw it, he’s a really good athlete, he takes care of the ball, other than the Bowling Green game. He checks boxes in all areas; he’s just not a playmaker within the context of their offense.”

• For their part, the Michigan coaches have explained it to scouts as being more of a matter of what the team needs from him than what he’s capable of. “The way they play, with some of the competition they’ve faced, it’s never been about him—and you worry about that a little,” says an NFC exec. “It’s never been being behind, and needing to make big-time throws. They also don’t have a great outside guy, and they can lean on the run game. They’d tell you they played Penn State like they did because they couldn’t block the Penn State edge guys. There is an explanation for it.”

• So you have an athlete whom Michigan people are saying will run 4.5 in the 40 in Indy, and can make all the throws, but has never had to carry a team—and is a bit thin for the position. He’s likely to come in at 6'2", and he’s listed by Michigan at 202 pounds. “I get taken aback by seeing him in person because he’s so slight,” says the first AFC college scouting director. “He looks like a stretched-out Bryce Young. Now, that said, he’s as tough and competitive as they come.”

Add all that together, and my early feeling is that if the draft were today, McCarthy would probably go before Penix, but it’s pretty close. And that, again, should add a little something Monday night for onlookers with an NFL interest.

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Belichick set all sorts of records in his 24 seasons leading the Patriots :: Isaiah J. Downing/USA TODAY Sports

I can’t write the column this week without an appreciation for Bill Belichick (who is not officially through in New England as of this writing late Sunday night, though most of the football world expects that news to come soon). It sure looked like a weird day at Gillette Stadium. The Patriots lost 17–3 to the Jets, which, logically, is good for the franchise. It was snowing sideways. When it was over, the coach had his mask up to combat the cold (and maybe hide his expression), said his goodbyes to Robert Saleh and Aaron Rodgers and then made his way over to the exit behind the New England bench.

There was no video tribute. There was no final wave to a crowd that had mostly emptied out. It was, in certain ways, even stranger than Tom Brady’s last game in Foxborough as a Patriot, which ended with a pick-six that officially knocked New England from the playoffs.

All that’s a shame, because Belichick did deserve better than that.

My frame of reference in how long the guy has been around is my memory of researching him and filling out a bio box for the MetroWest Daily News, when I was working the desk at the suburban newspaper as a college sophomore. The box went inside a column written by my buddy/mentor Tom Curran, a column that, as I remember it, defended a hire that was very unpopular at the time. I was a teenager. Most folks didn’t think Belichick would last long.

I’m 43 now. It was legitimately a generation ago.

Belichick lasted 24 seasons because he spent the majority of those years, plain and simple, building a case for being the greatest football coach of all time. He won six Super Bowls, two more than any other coach has. He went to nine Super Bowls, three more than any other coach has. He won 30 playoff games, pushing his career total to 31 (he won one playoff game in Cleveland), which is nine more than any other coach has.

Yes, Tom Brady had a huge hand in all of it. But in a certain way, they enabled each other—with Belichick helping to maximize Brady’s football brilliance and vice versa, and both combining to forge an old-school program that players could buy into in a decidedly new-school world. And Belichick’s fingerprints are all over the way the Patriots played, manipulating every last situation and circumstance to gain an edge. That New England so consistently owned the margins in a sport that forces teams to win on the margins is perhaps the best tribute to Belichick there is.

I’d expect he’ll coach again, because people who know him well have consistently told me that they believe he still wants to coach—he’s holding, for example, in-season draft meetings with the scouts Friday mornings with all the energy he did 20 years ago.

And I hope he does. Because the way Sunday felt, that couldn’t be it.

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With a busy week ahead, we’re going to try to keep the quick-hitters, well, quick. Especially because I didn’t do that last week (Sorry to my editor, Mitch!) …

• Browns-Bengals was one of a bunch of games Sunday that probably shouldn’t be taken seriously. But I think the Cincinnati staff and players deserve credit for finishing 9–8. Not many teams would’ve kept swinging like that with Jake Browning in to finish the year at quarterback. And Browning, who played great again Sunday, probably earned himself a decade in the league as a backup, which is pretty good work if you can get it.

• Loved Dan Campbell trolling the league by throwing to Dan Skipper on Sunday. Skipper, you’ll remember, was the player whom referee Brad Allen identified as eligible on the negated game-winning two-point throw to Taylor Decker against Dallas. Officially now, that call wound up costing the Lions the second seed in the NFC bracket.

• I find this mind-blowing: This is just the second 12-win season in the 94-year history of the Detroit Lions. The other one came in 1991, which was also the last year the Lions won a playoff game. That year, they beat Jimmy Johnson’s Cowboys to advance to the NFC title game, where they lost to Mark Rypien and Washington.

• Derek Carr was off-the-charts for the Saints on Sunday, throwing for 264 yards, four touchdowns and a 145.5 passer rating against the Falcons. He’s played hurt through a lot of this year and has rebounded nicely from a rough 2022.

• Carr might have some new offensive coaches next year, and one interesting name that’s bubbled up as a potential candidate to go there is Buffalo’s interim coordinator Joe Brady. Brady worked for Sean Payton as a quality-control coach in 2017 and ’18 in New Orleans. And if the Bills keep winning, they may have to work to keep him.

• The Seahawks ended up getting the win, but give the Cardinals a ton of credit for going toe-to-toe with another really good team. Jonathan Gannon’s crew fought their asses off all year, and the team now has a nice foundation and goes into the offseason with a pair of first-round picks and more than $50 million in cap space, plus added confidence in Kyler Murray, which most people didn’t see coming.

• What’s wrong with the Eagles? Lots of things. The defense is old, with a front that needs to be a lot better—Philly has to get more from youngsters such as Jordan Davis and Jalen Carter. And on offense, you’d just have to hope a lot of it is attributable to Jalen Hurts’s finger injury.

• On the flip side, the Giants’ progress after a rough start has been pretty steady. They’re setting up to take a step back up next year. Big unanswered question for me: What does the staff trying to take that step with Brian Daboll look like? And is Wink Martindale a part of it? If not, there’ll be a market for the DC, who runs a system lots of teams are enamored with (and one run in Baltimore by Mike Macdonald and at Michigan by Jesse Minter).

• CeeDee Lamb is worth a lot of money.

• Happy trails to Ron Rivera. I know it’s not official yet, but I hope he gets to leave holding his head high, knowing he led that franchise through an impossible situation three and a half years ago, and a lot of folks there are better for having crossed paths with him.