It’s Thanksgiving week, which means as quickly as Joe Flacco went from Cleveland starter to traded earlier this season, the NFL has already entered its stretch run. With six weeks to go, even with so much still to be sorted out, we can start to retire some of the narratives that shaped the league in its earliest days, and which now look tired and (gulp) laughable.
Everybody needs safe conversation fodder this week, and nothing brings families together like arguing over whether A.J. Brown is a diva or a truth-teller.
Consider this -- our personal wish list for storylines we’d like to put to bed -- our cheat sheet for a happy holiday season.
1) The AFC East will certainly go through Buffalo. When the Bills started the season 4-0, including a thrilling opening-weekend win over the Ravens, this looked inevitable. But their fifth game of the season told a different story and one we’d see repeated later -- that was the Bills’ home loss to the New England Patriots, in which they turned the ball over three times, were hit with 11 penalties, didn’t get enough from the receiver group and were generally sloppy. Their Thursday night loss to the Texans, which included three Bills turnovers, combined with the Patriots’ win over the Bengals Sunday, leaves the Bills’ three games behind the Patriots in the win column, with the Patriots having the easiest remaining strength of the schedule in the NFL. That post-Tom Brady stranglehold the Bills have had on the AFC East may be slipping.
2) The Vikings know what they are looking at and made the right decision to go all in on J.J. McCarthy this season. Maybe McCarthy will be much improved after another offseason of work, but this season -- his first as starter after he lost his entire rookie season to a preseason torn meniscus -- has been extremely worrisome. Among other issues, his mechanics have required rebuilding, he has struggled with accompanying poor accuracy, he doesn’t seem to see the field well and, finally, his elite receivers are frustrated, all of which was on display Sunday, in the Vikings’ loss to the Packers. He has thrown 10 interceptions (two in three straight games) and is completing just 54.1 percent of his passes, and it certainly looks like even coaches don’t fully trust him. There isn’t much question at this point the Vikings would have been better off in 2025 if they had kept Sam Darnold or Daniel Jones as the starter. The bigger issue for the Vikings is how they go forward from this lost season -- do they have to be in the quarterback market again this offseason?
3) The Ravens dug themselves too big a hole early in the season. Um, no. They are mostly healthy (Lamar Jackson keeps appearing on the injury report), they’ve won five in a row despite offensive struggles, and they’ve turned a 1-5 start into a 6-5 record and first place in the AFC North over the Steelers, who had seemed to build a nearly insurmountable lead when they started the season 4-1. The Steelers have lost four of their last six games and Aaron Rodgers has a fracture in his non-throwing wrist. These rivals still have to face each other twice, in Weeks 14 and 18, and those games will likely determine the division winner.
4) The Bears are a mirage. Until Sunday, the Bears had not beaten a team with a winning record. The rest of their schedule will be a much tougher test, starting with the Black Friday game in Philadelphia, and including two games against the Packers. But on Sunday, in beating the Steelers -- albeit with Mason Rudolph starting instead of the injured Rodgers -- the Bears toppled a winning team, and did it without six defensive starters. And with six games to go, the Bears are in first place in the NFC North with no dominant team in the division.
5) Joe Burrow will return to save the Bengals’ season. Burrow will return -- perhaps on Thanksgiving night -- but it is getting very late for the Bengals to save 2025. At 3-8, the Bengals are three games behind both the Steelers and Ravens in the division, and they are well outside the AFC wild-card field. To be fair, it hasn’t been Joe Flacco’s fault that the Bengals have won just one game in Burrow’s absence. The Bengals defense continues to be abysmal and that may have been a problem even if Burrow was healthy all season. Still, having Burrow back is good for the NFL and definitely good for the Bengals, who have a much better chance of winning out -- which would get them to nine wins -- with Burrow on the field.
6) The Indianapolis Colts can be on cruise control in the AFC South. Not quite yet, not after they blew a 20-9 lead at the start of the fourth quarter in Kansas City to lose in overtime. The problem was the offense, which leads the league in scoring and in yards, which went three-and-out on four straight drives in the fourth quarter and overtime, forcing a gassed defense back onto the field to contend with Patrick Mahomes' heroics. Coach Shane Steichen repeatedly said after the game that he has to be better with his play-calling. But after starting 7-1, the Colts have lost two of their last three, which has kept the Texans and Jaguars alive for the division title. The Colts face both of them twice in the final six games, with the Seahawks and 49ers the other foes. The Colts may still prevail, but they are not making it easy on themselves.
7) The Eagles’ offensive squabbles are nothing to worry about. We might still be talking to A.J. Brown about offensive inconsistencies during Super Bowl week. But it’s indisputable that, despite their 8-3 record, the Eagles offense has not been running as smoothly or as explosively this season as it has in past seasons. On Sunday against the Cowboys, the Eagles raced to a 21-0 lead and then the offense essentially shut down for almost three full quarters, allowing the Cowboys to come all the way back and kick and game-winning field goal as time expired. On the bright side, everyone inside the Eagles' locker room will finally have to reckon with the offensive issues that were easy to gloss over when the wins were piling up. A loss like this -- in a game that looked like it was on its way to being a blowout -- should serve as a wake-up call for a team loaded with talent that will almost certainly still win its division and be in prime position to get a top seed in the NFC field.
8) Shedeur Sanders has no chance in Cleveland. Named the starter and with a week to prepare, and with an offense designed to take advantage of his skill set, Sanders had a solid outing in the Browns’ win over the Raiders. He moved well, threw deep while on the move (SEE: 52-yard completion to Isaiah Bond), and was mostly in control of the offense. He threw one bad interception in the first half, but largely limited how much he drifted out of the back of the pocket and had good touch on passes. He got his first career touchdown pass on a swing pass that Dylan Sampson took for 66 yards, and he finished 11-for-20 for 209 yards, one touchdown and one interception. And he brought energy to the offense, in a game in which the Browns defense blew up the Raiders for 10 sacks. After the game, head coach Kevin Stefanski wouldn’t say Sanders would get another start even if Dillon Gabriel is cleared from the concussion protocol, but Sanders certainly gave Browns brass something to think about.