NFL Overreaction Week 17
USAT’s Prince Grimes breaks down the best games from Week 17 in the NFL and how the playoffs unfold.
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- The Steelers’ stumble against the Browns could foreshadow an ugly end to the season for Pittsburgh.
- Tyler Shaw, Cam Ward and Quinn Ewers all had strong efforts at quarterback to conclude their rookie seasons.
- The NFC South is a close game, but the results have been disappointing.
Week 17 of the NFL emphasized that no matter what the final outlook for the playoffs is, we’ll have to wait another week.
Much of the postseason landscape has already been plowed through, with 12 of the 14 spots taken. However, there is still considerable fluidity in the situation, with winners still undecided in four of the eight divisions and the top seeds in each conference yet to be decided.
The schedule for next weekend’s final regular season game may be relatively drama-free. Still, many teams will be under pressure to make a strong final statement.
Here are the biggest winners and losers from Sunday’s games in Week 17.
NFL Week 17 Winner
On Saturday night, they did their part with a big performance against the Green Bay Packers. However, the results appeared to be insignificant, with the Pittsburgh Steelers defeating the hapless Cleveland Browns and their rival Ravens seemingly destined to be crowned AFC North champions. But against all odds, the Ravens are poised for a win next weekend thanks to a 13-6 loss for the Steelers. And with the situation changing, Baltimore has to like the chance to take control of the division, even if it has to do so on the road. The Ravens will definitely be feeding Derrick Henry, who came back with four touchdowns. And there will probably be enough time for Lamar Jackson to recover from his back illness and return to the starting lineup. The erratic team has defied expectations all year, so there’s not much point in trying to corner this group one last time. But with a game inconclusive against the New England Patriots in Week 16, Baltimore at least has some control over its fate.
philip rivers
That’s certainly a generous grade on the curve, but how else to evaluate a possible final outing for the 44-year-old, who retired for five years before the Indianapolis Colts came back when they needed it? Yes, the already-eliminated Colts lost 23-17 to the Jacksonville Jaguars, and Rivers completed just 17-of-30 passes for just 147 yards. But the signal-caller, despite all the limitations, at least gave the clearly inferior team another chance to compete. Assuming rookie Riley Leonard starts the final game of the season, Rivers’ return will be treated as just a footnote in a very difficult season for Indianapolis. Indianapolis became the first team in 30 years to start 8-2 and miss the playoffs. But at least it was a fun push. After the game, Rivers said, “If I could say I knew everything that was going to happen, would I do it all over again? I would do it all over again.” Perhaps he is not alone there.
drake may stat line
The New England Patriots’ second-year quarterback will likely face too much of an uphill battle to catch Matthew Stafford in the NFL MVP race. But on Sunday, he made a strong statement saying he was deserving of the award. Maye completed 19 of 21 passes for 256 yards and five scores, becoming the first player in NFL history to complete 90 percent of his passes while throwing for at least 250 yards and five touchdowns in a game. His performance would have been even more impressive had he not come off the bench halfway through the third quarter of the Patriots’ 42-10 win over the New York Jets. Of course, adjust the quality of your opponent here. But whether he brings home the hardware or not, Maye’s outing was more than just a stat boost.
tyler shaw and cam ward
Who would have thought that the New Orleans Saints and Tennessee Titans would combine for one of the most entertaining shows of Week 17? Shaw rebuilt an injury-ravaged Saints offense, repeatedly attacking downfield for 333 yards and two touchdowns on 22-of-27 passing. Ward’s performance line (21-of-40, 251 yards, two touchdowns) may not seem to match his opponents, but the No. 1 overall pick was the driving force that kept the Titans in the game. According to Next Gen Stats, his average pitch time of 4.07 seconds ranks as the best in a single game since 2016, and Ward continually sought to extend plays and create for himself. He wasn’t always successful, but when you look back at the highlights alone, his incredible third-down escapes and his completions while down 4-10, they are nothing short of brilliant. Both New Orleans and Tennessee have a lot of work to do this offseason, but both franchises should be highly encouraged about their prospects behind center.
quinn ewers
The seventh-round rookie passer from Texas didn’t have many expectations beyond simply watching out the Miami Dolphins’ season after Tua Tagovailoa was benched. But in Sunday’s brief outburst, Ewers proved that in some way he can be an asset to the team’s quarterback room in 2026. His early spark, including a 63-yard connection with receiver Theo Weese Jr., helped lead the Dolphins to a 20-17 victory over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Ewers was otherwise relatively quiet for most of the day, but showed great composure as he sliced through the Buccaneers’ defense on short-to-medium range targets and kept the ball out of danger. While this isn’t enough to clinch a starting job next season, this performance reinforces his intriguing upside as a development option, especially for a franchise that may not need to invest heavily in a center next fall.
cody ford
Perhaps this counts as the kind of fun Joe Burrow has lacked this season. The Cincinnati Bengals quarterback would certainly prefer to win. But his team was long gone, and it was time for the signal-caller to take what he could get while the rest of Cincinnati’s offense carried on. Ford, a 345-pound offensive tackle who celebrated his 29th birthday Sunday, trotted out as a wide receiver as the Bengals took a big lead against the Arizona Cardinals late in the third quarter. Burrow found the big man, took the pass, and shook off a would-be tackler for a 21-yard gain. After the game, Ford called the play “a dream come true.” What else is Week 17 for?
NFL Week 17 Losers
pittsburgh steelers
Dealing with a 3-win Browns team loaded with injuries should have been an easy enough task for the Steelers, who were looking to win their first AFC North title since 2020. But the word easy may no longer be in this group’s vocabulary. In fact, Pittsburgh appeared to have little control over a team that only scored a touchdown on a duck from Shedule Sanders. Do you think DK Metcalf’s two-game suspension hampered the offense? Mike Tomlin didn’t seem to do that, largely shaking off the absence of his star target by saying in a halftime interview that the offense just needed touchdowns, not field goals. Neither team scored in the second half. Other than a last-minute surge, Aaron Rodgers completed just 4 of 13 passes for 35 yards when facing man coverage and struggled to get anything done outside of dump-offs, according to Next Gen Stats. The Steelers, whose Metcalf rushed for a season-high 148 yards in the first game, must find a way to get past the Ravens. And the defense, which previously allowed 217 rushing yards to Baltimore, could be without TJ Watt for another week. It has seemed premature to reflect on the Tomlin era this season, but the Steelers are now inviting all the controversy that could await the organization with another failure next weekend.
NFC South
The division crown will likely come down to the final game of Week 18 between the Buccaneers and Panthers, and unless the Falcons win and concede the three-team tiebreaker to Carolina, both teams should have a chance to bounce back from the penultimate game of the season. But there’s a good argument at this point that the Saints are a tougher opponent than both teams competing for the NFC South title. That’s not a good outlook for a division that will undoubtedly be the weak link among the conference’s strong postseason teams. Even if the Buccaneers, who had lost seven of their last eight games prior to Week 18, manage to escape with an 8-9 record, things will only get worse. Maybe one of these two teams can surprise a powerhouse like the Seahawks or Los Angeles Rams in the wild card round. Just like Carolina upset the latter at home a month ago. But for now, the division’s representatives feel like representatives of an underdog Group of Five that will soon prove to be the underdogs.
Myles Garrett aims for single-season sack record
The Browns defensive end dismissed questions about when he would surpass the mark set by Michael Strahan and TJ Watt, saying it was just a matter of time. For the first time in weeks, a historic feat doesn’t seem entirely certain after Garrett was sidelined for just the fourth time this season on Sunday. Indeed, the Steelers did almost everything in their power to prevent their edge rushers from having a decent chance of getting to Rodgers, regularly utilizing Kenneth Gainwell for chips and quickly removing the ball on plays where Garrett was given a clear pass. Garrett went so far as to say after the game that the Steelers were “more worried about getting me away from (Rodgers) than they were about winning, and I think that’s what stuck with him.” But now he has one final reprieve to set the bar in the final game against Burrow and the Bengals. Cincinnati’s line and Burrow’s penchant for holding onto the ball could make a historic moment possible. However, reaching that goal could still generate some buzz, considering Garrett will be eligible for one more game than Strahan and two more than Watt, who appeared in 17 games on the season but missed two games of the tilt due to injury.
Buffalo’s five-year reign atop the AFC East will likely come to an end by next week, with the Patriots potentially shutting out the Dolphins as they continue to grab home-field advantage. But that long-term goal came to a disappointing end for the Bills on Sunday when they couldn’t make a late comeback against the Philadelphia Eagles, losing 13-12 on a failed two-point conversion. Josh Allen simply missed Khalil Shakir’s open end zone, but it’s hard to blame the reigning NFL MVP considering how little help he was given. And while Buffalo’s 331-190 win over Philadelphia in rain-soaked conditions requires some perspective, it’s concerning enough that the offense couldn’t muster enough to beat a team that gained 16 total yards on zero finishes in the second half. The real troubling development for the Bills is that Sunday’s loss drops them to the No. 7 seed, which is sure to involve a tougher matchup than the AFC North champions that the No. 5 seed probably has in store.
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