It was a pretty great Week 17, with big games, fun shootouts, upsets and high drama. From all the early games that determined the AFC playoff field, to late ones that determined seeding. And then there was the gut punch of a competitive battle to decide the NFC East ruined by one of the worst things I've seen in four decades of watching football. Too much? I don't think so.
Falcons at Bucs: The risk of playing starters in a minimal upside situation was highlighted by Mike Evans going down with a knee injury. The Bucs did have something at stake -- 5th seed plays a sub-.500 NFC East winner, which is the most desirable first-round matchup -- so I'm not suggesting they should have held out starters. But Week 17 injuries is why you hold out players like Ben Roethlisberger if you can. Anyway, both teams put up pretty good offensive numbers. Late in the game the Falcons were near the goal line and gave a carry to Todd Gurley. He looked like he was playing on one leg as he slow-motioned toward the line only to get dropped in his track. Hoping Evans is OK.
Cowboys at Giants: Nice game for Sterling Shepard and a credible one for Daniel Jones. Cowboys offense looked bad for a lot of the game, but Andy Dalton made some plays (including with his legs) late, getting the team in position to win. But first Dalton got sacked near the goal line, and then on third and goal, under pressure, he lobbed a rainbow up into the middle of the end zone that was easily intercepted. Nothing wrong with that play on fourth down. On third down, it was a season-ending miscue. Will be interesting to see if Dallas shells out big money to Dak Prescott or maybe thinks they can win (and save $30 million a year) with Dalton. Cowboys fans I know are split.
Jets at Patriots: Jets have wasted no time in axing Adam Gase. Tough decision coming up for the incoming coach and decision-makers. Does Sam Darnold have the promise he seemed to have as a rookie, or should the Jets draft a quarterback at No. 2 overall. It would be nice to say that Darnold showed anything good the last two seasons. Granted he was hamstrung by a lousy coaching staff. As for the Patriots, they're also kind of starting from scratch. Anybody think either Newton or Stidham is their Week 1 starter next year? Two franchises that need a lot to be different next year to seriously contend.
Vikings at Lions: I will try to remember this game next year when thinking teams with nothing to play for will go quietly into the offseason. Seems to be that's how both defenses felt, but they were also both really bad defenses that played bad all season, and the offenses benefitted. If you invested in some of the key players in this one for Week 17, you cashed in. Congratulations.
Steelers at Browns: This one was way closer than it had much right to be, with the Steelers announcing they were holding out their quarterback and some key defensive starters. The Browns had to Brown and couldn't finish things, with the result being Mason Rudolph leading some drives and getting Pittsburgh within a 2-point conversion of forcing overtime, then nearly recovering an onside kick. I've seen some people defending the Eagles' nonsense in the late game by saying, Hey, Pittsburgh sat its quarterback. Protecting the health of a key player before a playoff run is different, stop it.
Ravens at Bengals: Feeling good about having drafted J.K. Dobbins at No. 3 overall in my rookie draft last year. He looked very good down the stretch. Remember a couple of weeks back everyone thought Cam Akers was the best rookie back. Now I think it's probably Jonathan Taylor, but there were also weeks when everyone would have voted for D'Andre Swift. Good group of youngsters. Anyway, Ravens win big, as expected.
Dolphins at Bills: Pregame report that Josh Allen might not play. Somebody got taken, as Allen put up a huge half against a Miami team that got overwhelmed. Miami gets to pick 3rd overall (Houston's pick) and there will be some groundswell for them to take a quarterback. I'm in the camp that thinks Miami 1) shouldn't have benched Fitzpatrick for Tua in the first place, and 2) thinks they need to commit to Tua for 2021 and give him a chance to succeed or fail before drafting another quarterback. You draft a guy in the top 5 and you think he's your franchise guy. Which is exactly why you don't do it now, unless you're sure that Tua simply can't play. If they draft a quarterback, that's what they're saying.
Seahawks at 49ers: Kind of interesting the way Seattle's offense completely went from one of the league's best the first half of the season to one of its more painful groups to watch. I get that they wanted to stop the 40-37 shootouts they were having, but being in a life and death struggle to win with a San Francisco team that could barely field a complete roster is an unpleasant result. Now we're going to get to watch another painful Rams-Seahawks game next week, hooray.
Cardinals at Rams: Speaking of the Rams. John Wolford did his job, Arizona's offense did not. Kyler Murray playing hurt wasn't good, and his backup made a nice case for why you should have a backup quarterback. The Cardinals basically didn't play well for most of the second half of the season so no one is shedding any tears about them missing the playoff field.
Jaguars at Colts: Indianapolis got a nice gift of the Bills crushing Miami, then proceeded to have a closer than it should have been game with the Jaguars -- at one point they were up 20-14 and Jacksonville had a couple of cracks to take the lead. But Jonathan Taylor carried the offense with a big game against a laughably bad run defense in what seemed to be a season of bad run defenses. Props to Taylor and the Colts for sneaking into the playoffs, but hard to feel good about their chances in Buffalo next week.
Titans at Texans: This was a fun one to watch, with Houston and Deshaun Watson doing what they'd been doing all year and seemed plenty capable of doing against a Titans defense that simply isn't every good. It also had the rare occurrence of a 2,000-yard rushing season, probably one of the only times we've seen a team both get a player to a huge milestone like that while also needing to win to secure a division title -- personal and team goals aligning. Houston seemed to force overtime with a late drive and clutch field goal, only to have their defense give up a ridiculous completion to lose on a field goal that banked in off the upright. But an instant classic and the most fun game I watched yesterday.
Raiders at Broncos: This one was also entertaining, with Drew Lock making his case to at least be considered as the starter next year and Jerry Jeudy turning in a 92-yard touchdown highlight after one of the worst performances we've seen out of a wide receiver last week. Terrible Raiders defense of course. Bizarre ending though in which Broncos coach Fangio 1) inexplicably used his last time out to help the Raiders who seemed confused while prepping for a game-winning 2-point try, and then 2) tried a 63-yard field goal with 9 seconds left rather than running one more play to try to get a few yards closer. Granted they didn't have a timeout since Fangio wasted one a minute earlier, but still.
Chargers at Kansas City: Nice finish by Justin Herbert and company. Reportedly Anthony Lynn will be fired. I don't really have an opinion on that beyond, yeah, he seemed to make some bad decisions in close games (but that is a widespread issue around the league). Whatever other issues the Chargers have they sure seem to have a great young quarterback, something a lot of the NFL's franchises that missed the playoffs wish they could say, and can't.
Packers at Bears: Packers steamrolled the Bears, as expected, but Chicago is in the playoffs anyway. Will probably be a really brief stay. Nothing much needs to be said beyond it sure looks like Green Bay losing in the NFC would be a much bigger shock than Kansas City losing in the AFC, just because of the quality of the opposition they'll face. If I were ranking the 2-7 seeds in each conference, I think the Bills and Titans would both come in ahead of most if not all NFC teams. I realize the Bucs smoked the Packers during the year, so maybe.
Saints at Panthers: Carolina will have some interesting offseason decisions to make. I didn't think much of Teddy Bridgewater when they signed him to a good deal last offseason, and while he plays well at times, I don't think anything happened to alter that assessment. He's a mediocre quarterback in what seems to be a very good offensive system. They'll need to get better there to be a playoff team. Saints and Drew Brees are making a final run and they should take care of Chicago pretty handily, but getting to a Super Bowl looks a lot less likely than it did in either of the past two seasons where they fell short.
Washington at Eagles: Here we are at last at this one. To be clear, I don't care about the New York Giants, a 6-10 team that would have been a laughing stock as division champs. What I care about is the simple reality of an Eagles team that came into the game with players willing and able to play spoiler, undermined by a head coach's fourth-quarter decision to replace his starting quarterback with a 2016 sixth-rounder who was so unsuited for the moment that merely taking the snap from center was apparently beyond him. An exciting game of high drama on the national stage became a joke. Granted, it's not much different than what Doug Pederson did on a weekly basis with moronic plays near the goal line that involved getting his quarterback blasted on poorly conceived 2-point conversion attempts. But at least those only hurt his own team.
In short, what bugs me is the selfish decision of a coach to throw a winnable game not to protect a player from injury and not realistically evaluate a youngster (if you believe Pederson thinks five-year vet Nate Sudfeld has an NFL future that it was important to get a look at in the fourth quarter of a close, significant game in Week 17, I can't help you), but just to flaunt his power/stubbornness in some inexplicable way to, I don't know, get a higher draft pick and stick it to the Giants. Pederson himself says he was coaching to win. I wonder if any of his players agree with him.
That's a wrap on the 2020 regular season. Thanks for reading all year; we'll do the same throughout the playoffs, albeit with a lot fewer games to analyze. Hopefully there's similar drama -- and more good than bad -- along the way.