What to know from NFL Week 17: Browns stun the Steelers to save Week 18

Never bet against the NFL’s capacity to produce drama. As the weekend dawned, it looked like the final week of the regular season would be a dud. After an unpredictable series of results, Week 18 will be chocked with high stakes: two winner-take-all division showdowns, a handful of teams playing for a first-round bye and another handful jockeying for playoff seeding.

Here's what to know.

The Curse of Shedeur kept the Ravens alive

In April, with a vacant future at quarterback, the Pittsburgh Steelers had three chances to select Shedeur Sanders in the NFL draft. They declined at each juncture. The Baltimore Ravens reportedly wanted to take Sanders in the fifth round, but Sanders’s camp asked the Ravens to pass because he didn’t want to apprentice behind Lamar Jackson with little path to a starting job. They obliged.

Sanders instead went to the Cleveland Browns with the 144th pick, the Ravens eventually landed back on Tyler Huntley as their backup quarterback, and the Steelers signed Aaron Rodgers and added defensive tackle Derrick Harmon, running back Kaleb Johnson and linebacker Jack Sawyer in the draft.

Eight months later, those machinations shaped Week 17. They allowed for a startling rejuvenation, a stunning upset and a revived showdown. A day after Huntley led the Ravens to a season-preserving victory in Green Bay, Sanders quarterbacked the Browns to a 13-6 shocker over the Steelers in Cleveland. On Christmas morning, it seemed likely Ravens-Steelers in Week 18 would be moot. Now it will decide the AFC North and determine whether Rodgers and Mike Tomlin or Jackson and John Harbaugh will salvage their uneven season.

Sanders led a field goal drive on Cleveland’s opening possession, and on their second he lofted a 28-yard touchdown pass to rookie tight end Harold Fannin Jr. Myles Garrett and coordinator Jim Schwartz’s ferocious defense handled the rest, holding the Steelers without a touchdown and limiting Rodgers to 168 yards on 21-for-39 passing.

Rodgers suffered without DK Metcalf, who served the first of a two-game suspension for his altercation with a fan in Detroit last week. He led the Steelers to the Cleveland 7-yard line on Pittsburgh’s final possession, but his final four passes — all to well-covered wideouts — fell harmlessly.

The Ravens stayed alive the night before with a 41-24 throttling of the Packers in which Huntley completed 16 of 20 passes and threw for a touchdown. After a week of withering criticism about his shelving of Derrick Henry in the fourth quarter of a pivotal home loss to the New England Patriots, Harbaugh both corrected his mistake and proved the criticism justified. Henry rushed for 216 yards and four touchdowns on 36 carries, furthering his dominance in the season’s final month: Henry has averaged 108.8 rushing yards in December games since 2019, the highest total in the NFL by more than 11.

And so the Steelers-Ravens rivalry will receive an unlikely chapter next week in Pittsburgh. A Ravens victory next week would even their records at 9-8, each with a head-to-head victory, and Baltimore would hold the tiebreaker in division games 4-2 to 3-3. Metcalf will remain sidelined. Jackson’s health after he missed Saturday night with a bruised back is in question, as it has been for most of the season. T.J. Watt may be able to return from a lung injury he suffered receiving a dry-needling treatment.

Both quarterbacks have fared poorly in recent postseasons. Both coaches need victories to settle uneasy fan bases. The storylines have been building for years, including a detour at April’s draft that echoed Sunday afternoon.

Don’t forget Kyle Shanahan in the coach of the year race

The coach of the year ballot is unusually loaded. Liam Coen, Mike Vrabel and Ben Johnson have led remarkable turnarounds in Jacksonville, New England and Chicago during debut seasons. All three have achieved the type of success voters typically recognize. Kyle Shanahan’s performance has been less obviously transformative, but he deserves the same consideration.

The San Francisco 49ers’ 42-38 victory over the Chicago Bears was a pyrotechnic delight. Brock Purdy tossed a pick-six on the opening snap, and then he and Caleb Williams — arriving in full as a franchise quarterback — heaved grenades back-and-forth all night until Williams’s final pass from the 2-yard line skipped in the end zone. The score was tied at 7, 14, 21, 28 and 35. Purdy’s third touchdown pass (he also rushed for two) — on an exquisitely designed play to Jauan Jennings — pushed San Francisco ahead with 2:15 remaining, and the 49ers became the rare team to snuff out Williams’s late-game magic.

When it ended, the 49ers maintained their chance to claim the NFC’s top seed. The 49ers played in the Super Bowl two years ago and have contended for years, which makes Shanahan easy to overlook. But his combination of offensive mastery and ability to rebuild a defense on the fly in the face of extreme attrition gives him a worthy case as the NFL’s best coach.

The 49ers played half their season without quarterback Purdy. Brandon Aiyuk, ostensibly Shanahan’s No. 1 wideout, went AWOL. Fred Warner and Nick Bosa suffered season-ending injuries. They might have been San Francisco’s most indispensable players given the defensive turnover and cap casualties the 49ers suffered over the offseason. Defensive end Mykel Williams, their first-round pick, has been on injured reserve for more than a month. Tight end George Kittle missed Sunday night, and left tackle Trent Williams exited after one play.

Through it all, Shanahan has crafted an offense in which receivers roam through wide-open spaces and a hard-hitting defense that makes enough plays to overcome its talent deficit. The 49ers have won six consecutive games, averaging 35.7 points during the streak. Their showdown with the Seahawks in Week 18 will determine the top seed in NFC, with the Los Angeles Rams resigned to a wild-card spot no matter what.

Shanahan is still looking for his first Super Bowl title. He achieved a more personal milestone Sunday night: The victory raised his career winning percentage from .551 to .554, which nudged him just past his father, Mike, a Hall of Fame candidate who retired at .552.

The Eagles’ defense is good enough to overcome their offense

The Philadelphia Eagles have a Super Bowl defense. They also have an offense prone to frequent frustration and outright disappearance. They displayed both in a 13-12 victory over the Buffalo Bills, a game between flawed teams that could meet again in February because of extreme strengths. The Bills have Josh Allen. The Eagles have defensive coordinator Vic Fangio and a confluence of defensive stars. Either might be enough.

On Sunday in soggy, foggy Buffalo, they collided for a brutal football game that knocked Buffalo out of the AFC East race, giving the division to the New England Patriots. The Eagles gained 17 yards in the second half — 17! — but Philadelphia’s defense overcame its offense (barely). After shutting out the Bills for three quarters, the Eagles’ defense finally started wearing out in the fourth. The Bills scored twice in the final 5:15, including Allen’s tush push with five seconds left.

But the Bills needed a two-point conversion to take the lead because Jalen Carter, in a dominant return from injury, blocked an extra point after Buffalo’s first touchdown. Allen misfired to wide-open Khalil Shakir in the back of the end zone, and the Eagles escaped.

The Eagles won the Super Bowl last season because in late December and January they became a defensive monster. The Eagles are again coalescing into one of the nastiest defenses in the NFL. They may not be the best team in the NFL, and their offensive flaws may be difficult to conceal for four games. But there’s no opponent Philadelphia cannot beat because of its overwhelming defense. In their last 15 quarters and an overtime period, the Eagles have yielded four touchdowns.

With the division out of reach, the Bills’ priority in Week 18 will be protecting Allen. The reigning NFL MVP hurt his ankle last week in Cleveland, and it seemed to affect him Sunday. He couldn’t escape with his usual force or speed, although he scored twice on quarterback sneaks and wiggled free of Eagles pass rusher Jaelen Phillips on a crucial scramble that set up Buffalo’s second touchdown. After a few tackles, he grimaced and reached for his ankle. The Bills’ defense is not remotely capable of carrying their offense. Their Super Bowl hopes rest almost entirely on Allen, and he needs to get back to as close to 100% as possible.

The NFC South is up for grabs

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers got smoked by seventh-round rookie Quinn Ewers and the Miami Dolphins, closing the final gap to 20-17 only after a last-minute touchdown that became irrelevant after Tampa Bay couldn’t recover an onside kick. The embarrassing loss meant nothing to their playoff chances, though. They can still win the NFC South with a victory at home next week against the Carolina Panthers, who missed their chance to clinch in a 27-10 loss to the Seahawks in Charlotte.

Tampa Bay’s loss may not have knocked the Bucs out, but it reinforced their season’s death spiral. They have lost seven of eight and four in a row. Their lone victory during that slump came against the Arizona Cardinals, who are on an eight-game losing streak, by the score of 20-17.

Whether owing to injury or ineffectiveness, Baker Mayfield has become one of the worst quarterbacks in the NFL. Mayfield ended up with big stats Sunday, but 76 of his 346 passing yards came on Tampa Bay’s last drive, and his two interceptions were backbreakers. Since mid-October, Mayfield owns the sixth-worst expected points added per dropback in the NFL, better than only Cam Ward, Geno Smith, Max Brosmer, Sanders and Brady Cook. That’s the company Mayfield has kept for more than two months.

The Panthers beat the Buccaneers, 23-20, in Charlotte two weeks ago. The Panthers have had a resurgent season in Coach Dave Canales’s second season, climbing back into contention for the first time in years. The rematch will determine whether they can wrest control of a division the Buccaneers have won four straight seasons.

Drake Maye is making a convincing MVP charge

One week after the first 300-yard passing game of his career, Drake Maye played a flawless game in the New England Patriots’ 42-10 destruction of the New York Jets. The Patriots scored touchdowns on all six of the possessions Maye played, building a 42-3 lead that allowed Maye to exit one possession into the third quarter, removing any injury risk with the playoffs looming. On Maye’s 48 plays, the Patriots gained 26 first downs.

Maye completed 19 of 21 passes for 256 yards and five touchdowns. His 157.0 quarterback rating fell 1.3 points shy of perfect, which makes you doubt the validity of quarterback rating. He improved his completion percentage to 71.7, which would rank sixth all-time in a single season.

Sitting out the final 23 minutes left Maye third in the NFL with 4,203 passing yards on the season, just ahead of Matthew Stafford, with whom he’s in a two-horse race for MVP. Stafford can answer Monday night against the Atlanta Falcons. But Maye, albeit against a hapless opponent, played the position as efficiently as it can be played Sunday.

The Patriots clinched the AFC East later Sunday when the Bills lost to the Eagles. They’re still alive for the AFC’s No. 1 seed — if the Broncos lose to the Chargers and they beat the Dolphins at home, they will earn the bye. The Patriots may not get much help from the Chargers, who are locked into a wild-card spot and will be incentivized to rest a banged-up roster.

The Jaguars have control of the AFC South

The Jacksonville Jaguars had been one of the NFL’s most impressive teams for the past two months, a fact they finally began to receive credit for after last week’s dominant victory at the Denver Broncos. They nearly squandered their momentum, trailing in Indianapolis for most of Sunday afternoon before Trevor Lawrence rallied the Jaguars for their seventh consecutive victory, a 23-17 win that moved them to 12-4.

The Jaguars have already won 12 games for the first time since 2005. Their victory Sunday meant that Jacksonville can clinch its first division title since 2022 with a home victory next week over the 3-13 Tennessee Titans.

They have yet to fully shake the surging Houston Texans, who held on against the Los Angeles Chargers on Saturday and won, 20-16, for their eighth consecutive victory. The Texans have the best defense in the NFL by any tangible measure, and quarterback C.J. Stroud has been playing better as rookie wideouts Jayden Higgins and Jaylin Noel have emerged. Even if the Texans settle for a wild card, they’re a dangerous team.

There’s shakiness beneath Seattle’s dominance

With a victory next week, the Seahawks will claim the No. 1 seed in the NFC. They have been dominant this season behind Coach Mike Macdonald’s ruthlessly complex defensive system. Wideout Jaxon Smith-Njigba has become one of the best offensive skill players in the NFL. Even with a victory, though, the Seahawks would enter the playoffs with two queasy questions hovering. Can they rely on big plays and defensive takeaways over three rounds against the NFC’s best teams? And can Sam Darnold be trusted?

The Seahawks may not have enough offense to compete among the NFL’s elite. That may seem like an overstatement two weeks after they scored 38 points against the powerhouse Los Angeles Rams, but upon inspection that performance rings fluky. They scored eight of those points on a punt return, seven on a 55-yard run and eight in overtime. Eight of their 13 possessions ended with a punt or turnover.

Seattle’s offense hits lulls even at its best. The Seahawks scored 37 points against the Falcons in Week 15 but had just six at halftime. In their 27-10 victory over Carolina, the Seahawks were tied at 3 at halftime. It’s impressive they can wear opponents down and create advantageous situations for their offense with their defense and special teams. But Darnold, who has 14 interceptions and 10 fumbles this year, faltered last year in the postseason. Teams can’t expect to manage around their quarterback in the playoffs. At some point, the Seahawks will need to rely on Darnold. It’s an open question whether they can.

It’s also worth noting that Rashid Shaheed, a midseason trade acquisition who has been a special teams weapon, suffered a concussion in the first half Sunday, an injury to watch when the playoffs arrive.

The Raiders ‘won’ the Mendoza Bowl

One of the higher-stakes games of Week 17 was played between two 2-13 teams. The Las Vegas Raiders lost to the New York Giants, 34-10, which moved them one loss from clinching the worst record in the NFL and the first pick of the 2026 draft. The likely top pick is Indiana quarterback Francisco Mendoza, a passer with NFL size and smarts who played in a prostyle offense in college. With Geno Smith leading the NFL in interceptions, the Raiders have motivation to find a new quarterback.

The Raiders may own the prize of the 2026 draft, but their future is far from bright. They have to decide whether they want to keep a 74-year-old coach, Pete Carroll, who just led the worst season of a dismal Raiders era, or pay yet another fired coach not to coach. They may have to mend fences with Maxx Crosby, the best and most admirable player in recent franchise history. Crosby said he wanted to play Sunday, then posted videos to social media this weekend of himself playing basketball and jumping on a trampoline after the Raiders ruled him out with a knee injury, which many interpreted as the Raiders’ effort to lose their way into the top of the draft.