NFL scores Week 16: Live updates on playoff picture, news, analysis, stats, highlights and more from Sunday's games (2024)

The playoff picture continues to shape up after Week 16’s results.

Some of today’s highlights: The Bills reclaimed control of the AFC East, Joe Burrow lit up the Ravens, the Rams are in the playoffs and the Eagles control their playoff fate, too.

Also, the Cowboys clinched the NFC East while the Chiefs won the AFC West.

The Athletic also has updates on the playoff picture league wide.

This all-day live experience follows The Athletic's coverage and more from Sunday's early-window and afternoon games.

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The Athletic will also have a live blog surrounding Sunday Night Football's game between the Cowboys and Washington.

Week 16

All times ET

Dec. 23

Tennessee 20, San Francisco 17 | Recap | BOX SCORE

Dec. 25

Green Bay 24, Cleveland 22 | Recap | BOX SCORE

Indianapolis 22, Arizona 16 | Recap | BOX SCORE

Dec. 26

Atlanta 20, Detroit 16 | BOX SCORE

Cincinnati 41, Baltimore 21 | BOX SCORE

L.A. Rams 30, Minnesota 23 | BOX SCORE

Buffalo 33, New England 21 | BOX SCORE

N.Y. Jets 26, Jacksonville 21 | BOX SCORE

Philadelphia 34, N.Y. Giants 10 | BOX SCORE

Tampa Bay 32, Carolina 6 | BOX SCORE

Houston 41, L.A. Chargers 29 | BOX SCORE

Chicago 25, Seattle 24 | BOX SCORE

Kansas City 36, Pittsburgh 10 | BOX SCORE

Las Vegas 17, Denver 13 | BOX SCORE

Dallas 56, Washington 14 | BOX SCORE

Dec. 27

Miami at New Orleans, 8:15 p.m.

TV: ESPN | Odds | BOX SCORE

(Photo: Jay Biggerstaff / USA Today)

In a six-day period, the Chiefs worked in an environment in which one of the week’s biggest themes was uncertainty.

The Chiefs were uncertain if some of their best players — such as star receiver Tyreek Hill, star tight end Travis Kelce and star defensive tackle Chris Jones — would be available for Sunday’s game against the Pittsburgh Steelers. They were uncertain as to when their first COVID-19 outbreak since the pandemic began would end. The uncertainty also forced head coach Andy Reid to alter the Chiefs’ practice schedule, reusing the one he put together last season to help players, coaches and staff members practice social distancing as best they can.

Throughout the week, Reid, a future Hall of Fame coach, didn’t change his demeanor as he worked with 42 players from the team’s active roster on what was necessary to defeat the Steelers. Patrick Mahomes, the Chiefs’ superstar quarterback, didn’t change his routine either. Surrounding Reid and Mahomes was a collection of players who were eager and ready to seize on their moment to help keep the team’s impressive winning streak growing.

Read the full story below:

If the Bears fire Matt Nagy on Monday to take advantage of the new two-week interview window for new head coaches during the season, who is doing the actual interviewing? General manager Ryan Pace? President Ted Phillips?

Chairman George McCaskey must consider the true value of the Bears’ near-miraculous 25-24 victory against the Seahawks in snowy, cold Seattle on Sunday. The Lions defeated the Clausen-led Bears en route to finishing 11-5 in the 2014 season. Nagy’s Bears now have the same record (5-10) as the same team it just beat in Week 16 this season.

Read the full story below:

Before this season, the Seahawks had missed the postseason only once in the Russell Wilson era. It was 2017. Seattle limped to a 9-7 finish in part because the Legion of Boom slowly began to deteriorate. It appeared time for a rebuild.

Seattle chose not to. Instead, the buzzword that offseason was “retool,” which proved to be a fitting description since the team didn’t change the quarterback, head coach or general manager. A rebuild typically means changing at least one of those three people, and there was an argument to be made at the time to keep those three in place.

The Seahawks can’t make that argument now. They need change. Significant, franchise-shifting change.

Read the full story below:

The Eagles returned from their bye week two weeks ago. The postseason was a possibility, albeit an ambitious one. They were 6-7 with their final four games against NFC East opponents all spaced one week apart. They were rested. The injury report was less crowded. It was not yet known that the omicron variant would ravage NFL rosters.

The Eagles will come up for air on Monday morning in a more enviable position after a 34-10 win over the New York Giants that improved their record to 8-7.

But it didn’t happen as expected. They’re here because of how they navigated a six-day stretch that even the most meticulous planners could not have foreseen.

Here's how they did it:

Even before the season, the Raiders had their skeptics. They haven’t made the playoffs since 2016, so who could blame them? And that was before Jon Gruden’s resignation, Henry Ruggs’ tragic car crash, Damon Arnette’s release and significant injuries to Darren Waller and several other starters. Despite all that, the Raiders can still make this season a success.

“We’re finishing stronger than we have,” quarterback Derek Carr said. “We still have two games left against two really difficult teams and it’s going to take everything we have. … But we’re doing what we want to do right now: We’re winning football games. … I’ve been praying for moments like this. We find ways to win at the end of the year so we can just get in the tournament. That’s all we’re trying to do.”

The Raiders head to Indianapolis to face the Colts in their Week 17 matchup Sunday. Here are five takeaways from the Raiders’ rivalry victory.

Las Vegas considered the result a teensy upset, although the obstacles Buffalo overcame were colossal.

Isaiah McKenzie, a healthy scratch just three weeks ago, had the game of his career to compensate for sidelined receivers Cole Beasley and Gabriel Davis. The offensive line was different for the third time in three weeks and suffered a season-ending injury in the second quarter, forcing left tackle Dion Dawkins into emergency action the Bills preferred to avoid. Backup guard Ryan Bates entered Sunday having played 62 offensive snaps but took 79 for a unit that didn’t allow a sack for the first time in two months.

A constellation of supporting stars emerged from the darkness of Buffalo’s roster depth.

Read the full story below:

There’s confidence bordering on co*ckiness. There’s reveling in the enjoyable wake of a decisive, 41-21, monumental victory over the Baltimore Ravens.

And then there’s Joe Burrow in a postgame press conference after throwing for a franchise-record 525 yards with a wry smile admitting he was thinking about comments made by the opposing defensive coordinator while wearing a Santa hat and red SpongeBob SquarePants Krusty Krab sweatshirt.

People ask what makes Burrow such a galvanizing leader in the locker room since his arrival in Cincinnati. Talk revolves around his intangibles, but what does that specifically mean? What is it about his personality that makes believers out of everyone?

Find out below:

There was no curtain call for Cam Newton, only boos from the BoA crowd when Matt Rhule replaced Newton for the first time early in the second quarter. Neither Panthers quarterback played particularly well, though Darnold had the better numbers while attempting twice as many passes as Newton.

It was a beautiful, 73-degree day in Charlotte, but the most interesting part of the afternoon took place in a windowless interview room in the bowels of the stadium.

That’s where Rhule talked for nearly 19 minutes in what seemed like a stump speech to keep his job, and where Newton went for 17 minutes, sounding like a quarterback who knows he’d played his last game in the city where he was drafted No. 1 overall 10 1/2 years earlier.

Read the full story below:

You really did not expect the Steelers to upset the Chiefs in Kansas City and move into position for the third and final AFC wild card, now did you?

Their 36-10 loss was not unexpected, and after falling behind 23-0 in the first half, there was no second-half magic this time to pull it out or even make things close. Pittsburgh may have used up all the magic it had left in this season.

Their performance was as undisciplined as it was lopsided. There were many dropped passes, a fumble without being hit, a taunting penalty, missed tackles. Their best player on offense, Diontae Johnson, had a performance meltdown with drops and that hitless fumble.

Read the full story below:

In an age when many professional athletes are trained to answer questions with drab euphemisms and catch-all, ring-around-the-rosie press releases, there stood Devin McCourty late Sunday afternoon, delivering the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

The Patriots had just finished a mistake-prone, heads-not-in-the-game 33-21 loss to the Buffalo Bills at Gillette Stadium. McCourty, a 12-year Patriot and member of three Super Bowl-winning teams, made it so that you can skip this week’s talk-radio broadsides if you’d like. Because his hot takes have more sizzle than anything else you’re going to hear.

“It’s too late in the season not to play your best football, and I’ll say these last two weeks have come down to that,” he said. “We’re playing against teams not the way we’re supposed to be playing in December. We gotta play better … in both games, it’s not one thing that needs to be fixed. It’s overall, everybody just playing a little better, units playing better, and we’re not doing it.”

He continued with this: “When we need to make a play, we’re not making those plays. It’s just not good enough. We’re starting slow, falling behind … ”

And so on.

Before getting into some of the specifics, it might be a good idea for Pats followers to heave a couple of storylines overboard.

One of those storylines has been making the rounds. The other bubbled to the surface following Sunday’s game.

Back when this season was still in its infancy, head coach Mike Zimmer and general manager Rick Spielman sat high above the four lush practice fields that span across the team’s headquarters and discussed their shared vision for the Minnesota Vikings.

In a league trending toward passing and high-flying offenses, they saw a different path. They wanted this team to be built on stopping the run and a balanced offense. They sought “complementary football,” a term they’ve repeated often. Let the offense put together long drives that give the defense rest. Let the defense make opportunistic plays to set the offense up for easy scores. When one side struggles, let the other pick up the slack.

It’s unclear what the opposite of complementary football is called, but it surely would look a lot like Sunday’s Vikings performance, a 30-23 loss at home to the Rams that puts a massive dent in their playoff chances.

When Foye Oluokun snagged the game-sealing interception Sunday at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, he took three fast steps upfield before sliding to the turf to protect the football. He credited the heads-up play to his Ivy League education.

“When I was in college, I had a similar type of play, and I returned it and I was stiff-arming guys,” Atlanta’s fourth-year middle linebacker said. “The receiver came behind me. Nobody’s blocking. Everybody’s celebrating. He didn’t knock it out, but he could have. … Yale taught me to get down in that situation.”

Oluokun’s interception at the goal line saved the Falcons in a 20-16 victory over Detroit.

“Foye’s got hands,” Falcons outside linebacker Brandon Copeland said. “He’s my Ivy League brother. Don’t really give Yale too much credit, but I’ll give Foye some credit. The whole sideline was inflated. The stadium got into it. It was a great way to seal the game.”

Read more below.

It’s not snowing as much as it was earlier but it’s still cold in Seattle.

On the day that the Lions introduced him as their head coach, Dan Campbell told everyone not to get hung up on what sort of scheme or system he might run.

“There’s concepts that I know work, that we did well, that I’m going to implement and want to implement,” said Campbell, coming off his time in New Orleans. “But other than that, let’s put our guys in the best position to have success — that’s what I’m about.”

For a player like Jalen Reeves-Maybin, that had to be absolute music. A fourth-round pick of the Lions in 2017, Reeves-Maybin spent his first four NFL seasons hustling to become a standout special-teams player. But, “undersized” at 6-feet-1 and 230 pounds, he just could not crack the linebacker rotation on a regular basis. Last season (Matt Patricia’s final one in Detroit), Reeves-Maybin played all of 38 defensive snaps.