CHARLOTTE -- The beautiful thing about Week 13 is that you can do the bulk of your overreacting before the weekend. Three games on Thursday. One more on Friday. All won by underdogs, with major impact on the standings and the playoff races. First-place teams wobbling, upstarts ... uh ... upstarting? Plenty of overreaction fodder on the plate before Sunday even got here.
We will have five weeks left in the 2025 NFL regular season after Monday night's game, and some of the races that didn't look like they were going to be races have tightened up. Some teams we take for granted as playoff teams are going to have to fight their way in. Fact is, some of the stuff we thought were overreactions a month or so ago are turning out not to be.
Yeah, this is the good time of year, when the weather starts to get colder and every turnover feels like it can swing a team's entire season. As we try to figure out which overreactions might hold up and which ones are mirages, they carry a little more weight this time of year because, again ... we're at the point where they might not be overreactions.
Jump to:
- Panthers, Bucs set for Week 18 NFC South showdown?
- Neither Super Bowl LIX team will make it this year?
- Ravens should hold off on new extension for Jackson?
- Cowboys are going to make the playoffs?
- Fantasy-related overreactions
The first-place Buccaneers got a much-needed victory over Arizona to stop a three-game losing streak and improve to 7-5. This was important because in Charlotte, the second-place Panthers pulled one of the biggest upsets of the season, knocking off the red-hot Rams in a game that saw them run the ball 40 times and force three Matthew Stafford turnovers.
The Rams should be fine -- everybody is entitled to a tough day. But this was a massive win for the Panthers heading into their very late bye week. They improved to 7-6, which means they're only a half-game behind the four-time defending division champion Bucs with five weeks left.
Carolina is the definition of an up-and-down team. It hasn't won or lost two games in a row since mid-October. But the Panthers were ready for the Rams, who came in on a six-game winning streak with Stafford pulling away in the MVP race, and that's enough to make you believe they'll be ready for the Bucs.
Verdict: NOT AN OVERREACTION
The Panthers and the Bucs play twice in the final three weeks. Tampa gets home games against the Saints and the Falcons the next two weeks, which they'll surely be favored to win, then plays at Carolina in Week 16, at Miami in Week 17 and home against Carolina in Week 18. The Panthers are off next week, then play the last-place Saints in Week 15 before finishing with a tough Bucs/Seahawks/Bucs stretch.
Let's say for the sake of this argument that the Bucs go into the Week 16 matchup at 9-5 and the Panthers are 8-6. If the Panthers win that game at home, the division race is tied with two weeks to go, which means Week 18 would almost certainly settle things. The Buccaneers are starting to get healthier, and once they do they should be scary. But no team looked scarier than the Rams did coming into Week 13, and the Panthers knocked them off with a tough, physical run game and an undermanned but opportunistic defense. There's no reason to think they're going away.
Week 13 was a rough one for the Chiefs, who lost to the Cowboys on Thursday to drop to 6-6 for the season, and the Eagles, who got manhandled by the Bears on Friday and dropped to 8-4. Philadelphia is still in first place, a game and a half ahead of Dallas with five games to play and looks like a solid bet to make the playoffs, if not end the 20-year streak without a repeat NFC East champion.
The Chiefs are in the extremely unfamiliar position of being on the outside of the AFC playoff picture looking in. Their nine-year division title streak is all but officially over, and they might need to win out and get some help to just get into the postseason, much less extend their seven-year streak of AFC Championship Game appearances and become only the second team ever to appear in four straight Super Bowls.
Verdict: NOT AN OVERREACTION
I'll never count the Chiefs out until I see that little "e-" next to them on the standings page, but I can understand why others would feel differently. Not only are they looking up at the entire AFC playoff field, but the three teams that entered the weekend in the conference's wild-card spots (Chargers, Jaguars and Bills) have beaten Kansas City head-to-head. So they won't even get tiebreaker help if it comes to that.
After going 12-0 in one-score games in 2024, the Chiefs are 1-6 in one-score games this season. The metrics say this is a good team -- better than last year's, even. But for whatever reason, Patrick Mahomes & Co. aren't making those game-winning miracle plays we're so accustomed to seeing from them. They can absolutely turn it around and go on a run, and it would surprise no one. But it's getting late.
As for the Eagles, it's not the fact that they lost to the Cowboys and Bears in a five-day stretch as much as it's about the way they looked in those losses. The offense has been dreadful, and a defense that was on the field for 68 plays last Sunday in Dallas looked absolutely gassed while the Bears ran 85 plays and piled up 281 rushing yards against them Friday in Philly. This is starting to feel a lot more like the 2023 Eagles, who started 10-1 but never could get the offense on track, than the 2024 Eagles, who solved their issues early in the season and went all the way.
After this season, Jackson will have two years left on the extension he signed in the 2023 offseason. He's scheduled to earn $52 million in each of those two remaining seasons; though only $29 million of that is currently guaranteed. Jackson's deal averaged $52 million per year; which made him the highest-paid quarterback in the league when he signed it. But since then nine others have passed him in terms of average annual salary; and there's been an expectation that the Ravens would work to extend Jackson again this coming offseason.
Baltimore started this season 1-5 and Jackson missed three games with a hamstring injury; but the Ravens rebounded to win five in a row to climb into first place in the AFC North prior to Thursday night's loss to the Bengals. Even during that win streak though; the Ravens' offense has looked off; and Jackson isn't performing at his customary high level. He's been on the injury report with three different lower-body ailments the last three weeks. He's averaging 29.3 rushing yards per game; and the only game in which he's reached 50 this season was the Week 1 loss to Buffalo; when he ran for 70. Jackson's career average for rushing yards is 57.5 per game. His QBR is 57.4; which would be his lowest for a season since 2021; the last season the Ravens missed the playoffs. He has zero touchdown passes and three interceptions in his last three games; and hasn't run for a touchdown since Week 1.
Verdict: OVERREACTION
Jackson turns 29 in January; and as banged up as he appears to be; there’s no real reason to think he doesn’t have high-level seasons still ahead of him. Whenever he’s been healthy and played a full season; he’s been an MVP candidate (who’s won it twice) and the Ravens have been one of the best teams in the league. There are five games left for Baltimore to show it can still be the team so many of us expected it to be when the season began; and a Jackson turnaround is certainly not out of the question.
Overreacting to an injury-plagued season when he's shown an ability to bounce back from those and still perform at a high level would be a mistake, especially since the Ravens really don't have any kind of succession plan in place. Jackson can be mercurial, but he also can be brilliant in ways that other quarterbacks cannot, and he clearly gives the Ravens their best chance to continue winning at a high level, even if this season doesn't turn out the way they expected.
This would have sounded ridiculous four weeks ago, after Dallas lost that Monday Night game to Arizona and headed into its bye with a 3-5-1 record. But they’ve won three games in a row since, including beating the Eagles and Chiefs in a five-day stretch this past week. Dallas departed Sunday’s action 1.5 games behind NFC East-leading Eagles—who lost to Bears on Friday afternoon—and two games behind 49ers—who hold final NFC wild-card spot.
Dallas’ defense—one of worst in league over first half of season—looks completely different since bye. Linebacker DeMarvion Overshown has returned from injury that kept him from making season debut until few weeks ago; and he’s making a difference. So has rookie cornerback Shavon Revel Jr., who also didn’t play first half due to injury. Add in defensive tackle Quinnen Williams and linebacker Logan Wilson—both acquired in trade-deadline deals—and Matt Eberflus’ defense has taken on entirely different look and played much more competently. The offense—with quarterback Dak Prescott playing as well as ever and unstoppable wide receiver duo CeeDee Lamb and George Pickens—is one of best in league.
Our discussion regarding the Cowboys’ defense all season was that it didn’t have to be great; it just had to stop being absolutely terrible to support high-octane offense. That appears to be what’s happened; and Dallas suddenly looks dangerous. A win Thursday in Detroit would put Cowboys in excellent position to run down those back-end NFC wild-card teams. And with Eagles’ offense suddenly in a ditch; I know I don’t have to remind anyone that NFC East hasn’t had a repeat champion in 21 years ...