NFL Week 17 winners and losers: Steelers put playoff hopes in peril
- - NFL Week 17 winners and losers: Steelers put playoff hopes in peril
Michael Middlehurst-Schwartz, USA TODAYDecember 29, 2025 at 5:09 AM
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Week 17 in the NFL reinforced that any sense of finality in the playoff picture will have to wait another week.
Much of the postseason landscape has already been tilled, with 12 of the 14 berths accounted for. But there's still a good bit of fluidity to things, with four of eight divisions yet to determine winners and each conference's top seed still unclaimed.
The schedule for the regular-season finales next weekend might be relatively light on drama. Still, more than a few teams will be under pressure to deliver strong closing statements.
Here are the biggest winners and losers from Sunday's Week 17 action:
makes a catch for a touchdown against the Green Bay Packers during the fourth quarter at Lambeau Field. The play was originally ruled an incomplete pass, but the call was overturned. Despite TeSlaa's effort, the Packers won the game 27-13.
" style=padding-bottom:56%>Week 1: Detroit Lions wide receiver Isaac TeSlaa (18) makes a catch for a touchdown against the Green Bay Packers during the fourth quarter at Lambeau Field. The play was originally ruled an incomplete pass, but the call was overturned. Despite TeSlaa's effort, the Packers won the game 27-13.
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Week 1: Detroit Lions wide receiver Isaac TeSlaa (18) makes a catch for a touchdown against the Green Bay Packers during the fourth quarter at Lambeau Field. The play was originally ruled an incomplete pass, but the call was overturned. Despite TeSlaa's effort, the Packers won the game 27-13.
">Week 1: Detroit Lions wide receiver Isaac TeSlaa (18) makes a catch for a touchdown against the Green Bay Packers during the fourth quarter at Lambeau Field. The play was originally ruled an incomplete pass, but the call was overturned. Despite TeSlaa's effort, the Packers won the game 27-13.
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1 / 4Best images of the 2025 NFL season
Week 1: Detroit Lions wide receiver Isaac TeSlaa (18) makes a catch for a touchdown against the Green Bay Packers during the fourth quarter at Lambeau Field. The play was originally ruled an incomplete pass, but the call was overturned. Despite TeSlaa's effort, the Packers won the game 27-13.
NFL Week 17 winnersBaltimore Ravens
They did their part with a romp over the Green Bay Packers on Saturday night. That outcome, however, looked as though it would end up inconsequential, with the Pittsburgh Steelers seemingly destined to be coronated as AFC North champions with a win over the hapless Cleveland Browns that would also eliminate the rival Ravens. Against all odds, however, the Ravens have a win-and-in setup next weekend thanks to the Steelers' 13-6 face plant of a loss. And with the way things are shaping up, Baltimore has to like its chances of seizing the division, even though it has to do so on the road. The Ravens surely won't waver from feeding Derrick Henry after his four-touchdown revival. And maybe there's enough time for Lamar Jackson to recover from his back ailment to return to the starting lineup. A volatile team has defied expectations all year, so there's little use trying to pin this group down one final time. But Baltimore at least have some control in determining is fate after it looked dead in the water following the Week 16 unraveling against the New England Patriots.
Philip Rivers
This is surely grading on a generous curve, but how else do you evaluate the possible finale for a 44-year-old who had been retired for five years prior to coming back in the Indianapolis Colts' time of need? Yes, the already-eliminated Colts fell to the Jacksonville Jaguars 23-17, and Rivers threw for just 147 yards on 17-of-30 passing. But the signal-caller once again at least gave a clearly outmatched team a fighting chance despite his various limitations. Assuming rookie Riley Leonard starts the season finale, Rivers' return will go down as a mere footnote on an extremely difficult season for Indianapolis, which became the first team in 30 years to start 8-2 and miss the playoffs. But at least it was a fun push. Said Rivers after the game: "If you could say, you know everything that’s going to happen, would you do it all again? I’d do it all again." He's probably not alone there.
Drake Maye's stat line
The New England Patriots' second-year quarterback likely faces too steep an uphill battle to catch Matthew Stafford in the NFL MVP race. On Sunday, however, he issued a strong statement of his worthiness for the award. With 256 yards and five scoring strikes on 19-of-21 passing, Maye became the first player in NFL history to complete 90% of his passes while throwing for at least 250 yards and 5 TDs in a single game. His output surely would have been even gaudier had he not been subbed out a little more than halfway through the third quarter of the Patriots' 42-10 dismantling of the New York Jets. Sure, calibrate for the quality of opponent here. But regardless of whether he takes home any hardware, Maye's outing went beyond mere stat-padding.
Tyler Shough and Cam Ward
Who would have thought that the New Orleans Saints and Tennessee Titans would combine for one of the more entertaining showings of Week 17? Shough again lifted an injury-ravaged Saints offense, repeatedly attacking downfield for 333 yards and two touchdowns on 22-of-27 passing. Ward's stat line — 21-of-40, 251 yards, two touchdowns — might not seem as though it measures up to his counterpart's, but the No. 1 overall pick was the driving factor keeping the Titans in the game. With a 4.07-second time to throw average that ranks as the highest single-game mark since 2016, according to Next Gen Stats, Ward continually extended plays and tried to create on his own. He didn't always deliver, but the highlights alone — go back and watch his incredible third-down escape act or his completion while falling down on fourth-and-10 — were nothing short of scintillating. Both New Orleans and Tennessee have plenty of work to do this offseason, but both franchises should be highly encouraged about their outlook behind center.
HOUDINI 🪄📺: #NOvsTEN on @NFLonCBS & NFL+ pic.twitter.com/6dpbD6K6nV
— Tennessee Titans (@Titans) December 28, 2025
Quinn Ewers
The seventh-round rookie passer from Texas didn't shoulder many expectations beyond merely seeing the season out for the Miami Dolphins after Tua Tagovailoa's benching. In some short bursts Sunday, however, Ewers demonstrated that he could, in some form, be an asset to the team's quarterback room in 2026. His early spark, including a 63-yard connection with receiver Theo Wease Jr., helped push the Dolphins to a 20-17 win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Ewers was otherwise relatively quiet for most of the day, but he exhibited good composure in slicing the Buccaneers' defense with short-to-intermediate targets and not putting the ball in harm's way. That's not enough to lock down the starting job for next season, but the performance reinforces his intriguing upside as a developmental option, particularly for a franchise that might be without a big investment behind center next fall.
Cody Ford
Maybe this will count as the kind of fun that's been absent for Joe Burrow this season. The Cincinnati Bengals quarterback would surely prefer, well, winning. But with his team long ago eliminated, it was time for the signal-caller to take what he could get as he and the rest of Cincinnati's offense continued on. Ford, the 345-pound offensive tackle who was celebrating his 29th birthday on Sunday, trotted out at wide receiver with the Bengals up big on the Arizona Cardinals late in the third quarter. Burrow found the big man, who hauled in a pass and shed a would-be tackler for a 21-yard gain. After the game, Ford called the play "a dream come true." What else is Week 17 for?
Big catch for the big man ‼️📺: #ARIvsCIN on FOX pic.twitter.com/dmvTg389Qx
— Cincinnati Bengals (@Bengals) December 28, 2025
NFL Week 17 losersPittsburgh Steelers
Handling a three-win Browns team with mounting injuries should have been a simple enough task for the Steelers, who were looking to wrap up their first AFC North title since 2020. But easy might no longer be in this group's vocabulary. Pittsburgh instead looked largely rudderless against a squad that only scored a touchdown on a duck from Shedeur Sanders. Think DK Metcalf's two-game suspension hindered the offense? Mike Tomlin seemingly didn't, largely waving off his star target's absence in a halftime interview by saying the offense merely needed touchdowns rather than field goals. It got neither in the second half. Outside of his last-minute surge, Aaron Rodgers struggled to get anything going outside of dumpoffs, as he completed just four of 13 passes for 35 yards when facing man coverage, according to Next Gen Stats. The Steelers now will have to find a way past the Ravens after Metcalf's season-high 148 yards propelled them in the first meeting. And the defense, which earlier surrendered 217 rushing yards to Baltimore, could be without T.J. Watt for another week. For all the times this season that reflection on the Tomlin era seemed premature, the Steelers have now invited every bit of controversy that could be awaiting the organization with another flop next weekend.
The NFC South
With the division crown likely coming down to the Week 18 finale between the Buccaneers and Panthers — unless the Falcons win out and hand it to Carolina via a three-team tiebreaker — both teams should get the opportunity to bounce back from the penultimate game of the season. But there's a good argument to be made that at this juncture, the Saints are a more formidable opponent than either outfit vying for the NFC South title. That's hardly a great look for a division that looks to be the unquestionable weak link in an otherwise strong postseason field for the conference. It'll only get worse if the Buccaneers manage to scrape in with an 8-9 mark after losing seven of their last eight games prior to Week 18. Maybe one of these two teams can surprise against a powerhouse like the Seahawks or Los Angeles Rams in the wild-card round, as Carolina upended the latter at home a month ago. Right now, though, the division's representative feels very much like an overmatched Group of Five representative that will quickly reveal itself to be outclassed.
Myles Garrett's pursuit of the single-season sack record
The Browns defensive end has brushed aside questions about when he might topple the mark set by Michael Strahan and T.J. Watt, saying it's only a matter of time. For the first time in weeks, the historic achievement doesn't look fully certain after Garrett was blanked for just the fourth time this season on Sunday. The Steelers certainly did almost everything in their power to deny the edge rusher any decent opportunities to reach Rodgers, regularly utilizing Kenneth Gainwell to chip him and getting rid of the ball swiftly on the plays in which Garrett was given a clear path. Garrett even went as far after the game to say that the Steelers "were more worried about keeping me away from (Rodgers) than getting the win, and I think that's what came back to bite him." Now, however, he'll have one last window to set the high-water mark with the finale against Burrow and the Bengals. Cincinnati's line and Burrow's proclivity for holding onto the ball might allow for a historic moment. But reaching it might still spark some conversation, given that Garrett will be afforded one more contest than Strahan and two more than Watt, who played in a 17-game season but missed two tilts due to injury.
Buffalo Bills
An end to Buffalo's five-year reign atop the AFC East was likely coming by next week, with the Patriots able to close things out against the Dolphins as they continue to claw for home-field advantage. But the Bills saw their long-shot bid come to a deflating end Sunday, when their late rally against the Philadelphia Eagles came up short in a 13-12 defeat decided on an incompletion on a two-point conversion attempt. Josh Allen simply missed an open Khalil Shakir end zone, but it's hard to blame the reigning NFL MVP given how little help he was afforded. And while perspective is needed for a contest in which Buffalo outgained Philadelphia 331-190 in a rain-soaked setting, it's plenty concerning that the offense couldn't muster enough to beat out a team that had no completions and 16 total yards in the second half. The real troubling development for the Bills: Sunday's loss sent them all the way to the seventh seed, which surely will entail a more difficult matchup than the meeting against the AFC North champion likely awaiting the five seed.
1 / 64NFL weather games: Football played in adverse conditions ❄️🌧️Dec. 7, 2025: Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen (17) communicates between plays against the Cincinnati Bengals at Highmark Stadium. Despite a heavy snowfall, the Bills and Bengals played a high-scoring game, which was won by Buffalo, 39-34.
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: NFL Week 17 winners, losers: Steelers put playoff hopes in peril
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