NFL playoffs: Which teams will get a bye as AFC, NFC 1-seed?

Sunday in the NFL was all about the races at the top of the respective conferences. In the AFC, the Bills finally became the first team to vanquish the previously undefeated Chiefs, with a Josh Allen touchdown run sealing Kansas City's fate. The Steelers dispatched the Ravens with a quintessential Pittsburgh performance, down to a perfectly timed Mike Tomlin timeout swinging the game in their favor. Over in the NFC, the Vikings (mostly) cleaned up their offensive operations in a win over the Titans, while the Lions delivered one of the most impressive offensive performances of the season in a blowout win over the Jaguars.

If we include the Eagles, who comfortably outplayed the Commanders for 60 minutes Thursday night to gain control of the NFC East, there are three teams in each conference that can feel like they have a realistic shot of landing the No. 1 seed and a first-round bye. Let's leave aside Philly for now and talk through the five top-seed candidates that played Sunday, what stands out about their performance and how their chances shape up.

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I'll start in Buffalo, where the Bills beat the Chiefs for the fourth consecutive time in the regular season. Was this the win that suggests the Bills might have a shot if these teams meet again in the playoffs?

AFC

Buffalo Bills 30, Kansas City Chiefs 21

On one hand, Bills fans should be used to beating the Chiefs, but that hasn't translated to the postseason: Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs have beaten Buffalo all three times they've played each other, including last January's win in front of these very fans in Western New York.

The roar after Josh Allen converted his fourth-and-2 scramble for a 26-yard touchdown to put the game out of reach, though, didn't feel like it was for just another victory. Beating an archrival is always fun, but the roar reinforced two things to me. One was that this was a more meaningful victory in the regular season than the others, given that it denied the 9-0 Chiefs a chance of pursuing an undefeated season. The other is that it felt like a statement of intent. While the Bills blew out the Chiefs early in 2021, this was a relatively comprehensive victory, a game in which they trailed for a total of only seven minutes and 36 seconds. Buffalo's fans roared because they believe they can do it again. They might be right.

The story of these games is always going to be Allen versus Mahomes, and as he has been all season, Allen was the better quarterback. This was a stereotypical example of a 2024 game from Allen, who has evolved from a quarterback who combined huge highs and game-wrecking lows to a far steadier option. His numbers as a passer weren't anything dramatic; he went 27-of-40 for 262 yards with a touchdown pass. Those are roughly in line with what he does on a weekly basis, where he ranks 13th in the NFL in yards per attempt and 12th in yards per completion.

Instead, Allen's ability to avoid sacks and propensity for avoiding interceptions have basically eliminated the negative plays from the Buffalo offense, allowing them to steadily move the ball while mixing in his occasional moment of magic. And while he did throw an ugly interception on what appeared to be a moment of miscommunication with backup tight end Dawson Knox, he didn't take a single sack on 40 dropbacks. Since the start of the 2022 season, there have been only two games in which a quarterback went an entire game without being sacked by Steve Spagnuolo's Kansas City defense. They were Allen's starts against the Chiefs in the 2023 postseason and then on Sunday.

While the Bills didn't have much success running the ball with their backs, this was one of those games in which Allen was aggressive as a runner, both on scrambles and designed calls. His 11 rushes produced 58 yards, including three short-yardage conversions and the scramble that sealed the victory. When Spagnuolo blitzed Allen, the quarterback was able to find escape routes and either scramble for yardage or get the ball to one of his receivers.

And while the Chiefs had stretches where they slowed  the offense, they never found a solution for the biggest moments of the game. Take the two touchdowns in the fourth quarter. On both plays, offensive coordinator Joe Brady called for versions of mesh, where two crossers run at each other over the middle of the field to try to pick defenders, while a receiver out of the backfield gets into the flat on a wheel route.

On the first touchdown, facing a second-and-10, Spagnuolo sent the house. He rushed six and played Cover 0 behind against five defenders. The Bills kept five linemen in to block, meaning the Chiefs were going to have a free rusher on Allen. While Chamarri Conner tried to chase down Allen, the 6-foot-5 signal-caller simply backpedaled and extended the play. With the Chiefs in man coverage, cornerback Nazeeh Johnson was picked as he tried to chase down Curtis Samuel, who was able to catch the pass and nearly slip before regaining his footing and waltzing into the end zone untouched.

Fast-forward to fourth-and-2. With the Bills electing to go for it as opposed to kicking a field goal that would have put them up by five points with 2:27 to go, Brady again dialed up mesh, this time with two different players setting picks for Amari Cooper to run underneath. Spagnuolo was ready, though, with the Chiefs in zone coverage. His defenders did an excellent job passing off the route combinations.

The hope was surely that Chris Jones could do what he usually does and impact the game at the right moment, but O'Cyrus Torrence was able to block the star D-lineman out of the play. Backup right tackle Ryan Van Demark, starting for the injured Spencer Brown, was able to fend off George Karlaftis, creating a running lane between Kansas City's two top linemen. The Chiefs were in zone coverage and should have been able to get their eyes on Allen, but without a spy, there was nobody directly in position to tackle Allen. And once he gets going, well, it's hard to bring him down. He eluded a Johnson tackle, shrugged off Nick Bolton and scored the game-sealing touchdown.

The Chiefs have a burgeoning problem at that cornerback spot across from Trent McDuffie, where they're trying to replace both the departed L'Jarius Sneed and the injured Jaylen Watson. Last week, Johnson was beat off the line by Adam Trautman, which attracted safety help and opened up an opportunity for Courtland Sutton to blow by McDuffie deep for a 32-yard touchdown on third-and-short. This week, Johnson got caught up in traffic on the Samuel score. NFL Next Gen Stats suggests that Johnson allowed six catches for 77 yards as the nearest defender in coverage on Sunday, the most of any Chiefs defender.

The Bills, on the other hand, are managing to overcome missing stars on defense. While Sean McDermott's early teams in Buffalo were built around the linebacker duo of Matt Milano and Tremaine Edmunds, they have needed to rebuild. Edmunds left for the Bears in free agency in 2023, while Milano has missed the past 25 games of because of various injuries. On top of that, replacements Terrel Bernard and Baylon Spector have both missed time, while Buffalo is rebuilding its safety rotation with Taylor Rapp and Damar Hamlin.

All of this should have pointed to a big day for Chiefs star Travis Kelce, but despite running 26 routes, the tight end managed two catches for 8 yards. Noah Gray was able to score two touchdowns in the red zone, but the Bills taking away Kansas City's best pass catcher without Milano was a critical step for them to win. Bernard, who has been excellent this season when healthy, even came up with a third-down sack of Mahomes to end a Chiefs drive before snaring the fourth-and-13 throw to Kelce in the fourth quarter for a game-ending pick.

There isn't the same sort of star power we once saw in the back end of this Bills defense, but they're remarkably well-coached and don't make many mistakes. Mahomes was great on quick-game concepts, but when he held the football, the Bills were able to deny him options. He was 9-of-10 for 70 yards and two touchdowns when he got rid of the ball in 2.5 seconds or less, but when he held it for any longer, the two-time MVP went 14-of-23 for just 126 yards with two interceptions.

The first interception was all too familiar for Mahomes, an overthrown interception on a pass over the middle of the field. He had an open Gray and could have picked up a first down with a better throw, but he was falling and lofted his pass high in the air, where it was picked by Rapp. The Bills took advantage of the short field to score the first touchdown, taking an early lead and never looking back.

For the Bills, a loss to the Chiefs probably would have halted their home-field advantage hopes. Now, they could win a potential head-to-head tiebreaker with the Chiefs come January. They also hold a 7-2 record in the AFC, although the Chiefs and Steelers are both 5-1. After their Week 12 bye, McDermott's team will get a three-week stretch of NFC games against the 49ers, Rams and Lions before finishing up with two against the Patriots and a home game against the Jets.

As for the Chiefs (9-1), while they still hold first place in the AFC, they're now one more loss away from opening the door for the Bills or Steelers. They have to play Pittsburgh, although their schedule before then is easier, given that Mahomes & Co. are about to face the Panthers and Raiders over the next two weeks. ESPN's Football Power Index (FPI) gives them a 51.8% chance of landing the top spot in the AFC, while Buffalo (9-2) has a 35.9% chance. And if the Chiefs are going to play the Bills again, well, it's much better to do it in Kansas City.

Pittsburgh Steelers 18, Baltimore Ravens 16

In trying to think about comparables for these Steelers, one team kept coming to mind: the Pat Riley-era Knicks from the mid-1990s. Nobody would argue that those New York teams were as exciting or entertaining to watch as the Michael Jordan-led Bulls or the Hakeem Olajuwon-led Rockets, but the Knicks specialized in playing their style of basketball and making their opponents join them.

The 2024 Steelers are equally as efficient in forcing teams to play their preferred style of football, which I would respectfully characterize as a slog. Most Ravens teams of the past two decades would have no hesitation or inability to get into that sort of game, but the 2024 Ravens aren't exactly that kind of team. And forced to play Pittsburgh's game, Lamar Jackson's Baltimore team wasn't able to pull out a victory.

It's not difficult to enumerate the Steelers' formula. As we've seen this season, it's almost impossible for teams to stay out of the muck and mire, and that's where Pittsburgh excels. It beat the Ravens with a classic 2024 Steelers combination:

They won the turnover battle. While they picked up a couple of victories without winning the turnover battle earlier this season after failing to do so in 2022 and 2023, Sunday marked the seventh time they have forced more takeaways than their opponents in 2024, which is one behind the Bills for the most instances of any team. Unsurprisingly, the Steelers have won six of those seven games, with their lone loss coming to the Cowboys, who nearly handed them a victory with a fumble inside the 5-yard line late in the game.

And like the Bills, Mike Tomlin's defense got out to a fast start, with Nick Herbig stripping Derrick Henry on the second play of the game. Former Ravens defender DeShon Elliott recovered the fumble, giving Pittsburgh a short field. It managed only 28 yards on its ensuing drive, but that was enough to jump to a 3-0 lead.

At the end of the half, another former Ravens player struck, as Patrick Queen forced a fumble from Isaiah Likely with 38 seconds to go. That fumble both ended Baltimore's hopes of scoring before the half and set up the Steelers in the red zone. Again, Russell Wilson and the offense managed only 5 yards, but another Chris Boswell field goal restored a 9-7 Steelers lead.

The third turnover was the most spectacular of the bunch, as a well-thrown ball from Jackson to Justice Hill was ripped out of the receiver's hands by Payton Wilson for what will unfairly go down on Jackson's record as an interception. The Steelers took over with good field position again on their own 36-yard line, and after netting two first downs on their ensuing drive, a 50-yard Boswell field goal gave them an 18-10 lead with 3:40 to go.

While Wilson threw a terrible interception in the end zone that cost the Steelers three points, those turnovers were critical pieces of the puzzle to get the win. The Steelers turned those three drives with excellent field position into nine points, which means considering their nine other meaningful possessions generated only nine points.

The Steelers average 3.4 points per drive when they take the ball over after a turnover or a blocked kick this season, the eighth-best mark in football. When they get the ball back after a punt or a kickoff, that drops to 1.6 points per drive, which ranks 25th. While they don't have a defensive touchdown, the opportunities created from short fields by their defense and special teams have helped an inconsistent offense stay afloat.

They won on special teams. Speaking of the game's third phase, the Steelers routinely manage to find ways to gain advantages on special teams. They rank fifth in win probability added on special teams. That would be even higher if a wide-open James Pierre hadn't dropped a fourth-and-15 pass on a fake punt last week, although they then responded by recovering a muffed punt deep inside Washington territory to set up a Pat Freiermuth touchdown catch.

On Sunday, the advantage was clear: The Steelers won the kicking battle. Boswell went 6-for-6 on field goals, becoming the second player in league history to go 6-for-6 on field goal tries twice in a season. NFL Next Gen Stats track a measure called field goals over expectation, which adjusts for the degree of difficulty of each kick. Boswell made 1.6 more field goals than an average kicker would have hit in the same situations Sunday, the best mark of the week and the third-best performance of the season, just behind his prior 6-for-6 performance in Week 1.

Baltimore's Justin Tucker did not go 6-for-6. He went 1-for-3, and while the Steelers can't control whether opposing kickers make or miss their field goals once they get up in the air, his struggles helped swing the game. On a rough day for kickers, only Cincinnati's Evan McPherson and Cleveland's Dustin Hopkins did more to hurt their team's chances on scoring tries than Tucker.

While this is a Steelers discussion, Tucker's performance has to be worrying the Ravens. He has missed six field goals in 11 games, more than he has missed in any full season of kicks since 2015. A lot of variance can happen in a 21-kick sample -- and the difference between a good kicker and a great kicker over 11 weeks worth of kicks probably isn't enough from which to draw serious conclusions -- but the difference is noticeable. Consider Tucker's field goal percentage over expected (FGPOE), another Next Gen Stat, which has dropped precipitously over the past two seasons:

Even great kickers have hiccups, but Tucker's calling card has been his consistency. He hasn't been his usual self for a while now, and it hurt the Ravens here. This entire endgame is different if they have six points on the board.

They dominated with pressure. While the Steelers having great pass rushers is hardly new, a secondary that has improved after the arrival of Joey Porter Jr. in the 2023 draft is doing much more with that pressure. T.J. Watt continues to be excellent, but Herbig and Alex Highsmith have both been extremely productive when healthy across from him on the edge. While the goal of pressure is obviously to rack up sacks and takeaways, plenty of defenses create pressure and still get beat.

When the Steelers get pressure, the play's over. They're allowing a QBR of 2.2 -- not a typo -- when getting home with pressure this season. Opposing quarterbacks are 23-of-79 for 104 yards with one touchdown and five picks against Pittsburgh pressure this season. Throw in sacks and they're down to 1.0 yards per dropback in those spots.

Jackson has been fantastic in just about every situation this season, but he wasn't able to solve the Steelers under duress on Sunday. While they sacked him only twice for a total of 2 lost yards, he was 4-of-13 for 34 yards with a minus-21.6% completion percentage over expected (CPOE) under pressure in the loss. They contained him within the pocket, where the MVP favorite averaged 5.1 yards per attempt. He was up to 11.5 yards per attempt on throws outside the pocket.

Tomlin calls something at the perfect time. On Sunday, Tomlin's moment of magic manifested itself as a game-altering timeout. After Baltimore scored a touchdown with 1:06 to go to make the score 18-16, Jackson and the Ravens lined up for the potential game-tying 2-point conversion. It looked like they were calling for Jackson to run on the interior on a quarterback power run, only for Tomlin to call timeout just as the play began, costing them their preferred 2-point play.

What they came back with wasn't very appealing or well-executed. Hill had been on the field throughout the final drive, and even after the timeout, the Ravens chose not to bring back Henry, who hadn't been on the field since the 8:46 mark of the fourth quarter. They called for a designed counter run from Jackson, but it wasn't well-blocked. Nelson Agholor wasn't able to prevent Herbig from shooting into the backfield, which slowed down the pulling linemen. Nobody was able to kick out Porter, who easily tackled Jackson to end the play.

They took advantage of opponent mistakes. The Ravens are a great team, but they lead the league in penalty margin, committing a league-high 110 penalties this season. The Steelers, on the other hand, have the eighth-best penalty margin.

Guess what the Ravens did Sunday? They committed 12 penalties for 80 yards, while the Steelers came in at seven for 45. Holding calls wiped away two Wilson sacks, hurt Baltimore's field position on special teams and set the Ravens back on early downs. Two different illegal man downfield penalties on offensive lineman Patrick Mekari wiped off pass plays of 15 and 34 yards in the fourth quarter. Some of the blame there falls on Jackson for holding the ball, but the Ravens were too sloppy and were punished as a result.

The win bumps the Steelers to 8-2, and with two games against the Browns sandwiching a trip to Cincinnati to play the Bengals, their hot streak could continue. Their chances of landing the top seed -- currently projected to be 8.2% by ESPN's FPI -- will likely come down to a three-game sequence in December, where they'll face the Eagles in Philadelphia and the Ravens in Baltimore before hosting the Chiefs on Christmas Day. That game looms as the most important remaining contest on the calendar in the AFC.

NFC

Detroit Lions 52, Jacksonville Jaguars 6

Let's get the obvious qualifier out of the way: Beating a 2-8 Jaguars team with Mac Jones at quarterback isn't going to win any team a Super Bowl. If Doug Pederson's job was on the line heading into Jacksonville's bye week, his players sure didn't seem to notice or care. I'm not sure this particular win tells us a ton about what the Lions are going to do against the league's top competition in January or February.

At the same time ... scoring 52 points is cool! This was a truly dominant performance against a Jaguars defense that kept the Vikings out of the end zone for 60 minutes a week ago. And one week removed from a five-interception game against the Texans, Jared Goff was back to the cool, collected quarterback we saw in October, going 24-of-29 for 412 yards with four touchdowns. Hendon Hooker even got to come in and convert a fourth down in garbage time before Detroit kneeled deep in Jaguars territory.

This was the ultimate get-right game for Detroit, which scored touchdowns on each of its first seven possessions on offense. To put that in context, the last team to do that in the regular season was the 2007 Patriots, who did it almost 17 years to the day earlier in a 56-10 win over the Bills. (Buffalo got its revenge by essentially repeating that feat against the rival Pats in the 2021 postseason, although it technically had a zero-play drive at the end of the first half when it fielded a kickoff with one second left.) The Lions converted more than 47% of their plays into first downs or touchdowns, the fourth-highest rate for any team in any game since 2007.

Even without an injured Sam LaPorta on Sunday, the number of game-changing playmakers the Lions have simply exhausts opposing defenses. There's no concept or player opposing coordinators can build their defensive game plan around stopping. Detroit is capable and comfortable running or throwing in any situation, extending drives anywhere on the field into four-down territory and has explosiveness throughout its playmaking corps.

Sunday was the ninth time since the AFL-NFL merger in 1970 that an offense has had four different players each rack up at least 90 yards from scrimmage and score a touchdown. The last time it happened was 2018, when both the Rams (with Goff) and Saints (playing Pederson's Eagles) pulled it off. David Montgomery and Jahmyr Gibbs combined to run for 146 yards and added 74 receiving yards, while both Amon-Ra St. Brown and Jameson Williams topped 120 receiving yards through the air. The Lions came five Montgomery scrimmage yards away from having four players with 100-yard games, something that has happened three times since the merger.

That big four might also accomplish something never pulled off before. No offense has produced two 1,000-yard rushers and a 1,000-yard receiver in the same season. The Lions might end up with two of each! While acknowledging they get the benefit of a 17th game, Gibbs and Montgomery are on pace to become the eighth duo in league history to top 1,000 rushing yards in the same backfield. St. Brown is well ahead of the 1,000-yard pace, and while Williams missed two games via suspension, he would narrowly top 1,000 receiving yards if he continues at his current game-by-game rate.

As dominant as the offense has been, the defense might be the bigger story in Detroit. While the offense has developed into one of the league's best, the defense had been holding it back in recent seasons. Aaron Glenn's unit ranked 31st in expected points added (EPA) per play in 2021 and 2022 and improved to 23rd in 2023. It couldn't hold a 24-7 halftime lead against the 49ers in the NFC Championship Game, with San Francisco scoring on five consecutive possessions in the second half to keep the Lions out of the Super Bowl.

The Lions loaded up on additions this offseason, drafting cornerback Terrion Arnold in the first round, signing edge rusher Marcus Davenport in free agency and trading for former Bucs cornerback Carlton Davis. Arnold has played solid football, but he has racked up a league-high 165 penalty yards. Davenport went down with a season-ending triceps injury in September. Even worse, the Lions then lost Defensive Player of the Year candidate Aidan Hutchinson to a gruesome leg injury, putting a team that was already thin on the edge behind its star defender into an impossible bind. How were the Lions going to survive without a recognized top edge rusher?

Since the Hutchinson injury, they rank third in points allowed per drive (1.43). Unsurprisingly, their pressure rate is below league-average over that stretch, and when they do get pressure, they only convert those opportunities to sacks at the eighth-lowest rate in the league. The ideal is to get lots of pressure without blitzing, but the Lions have to blitz at one of the higher rates to generate reasonable amounts of pressure. That's just the reality post-Hutchinson, even after acquiring pass rusher Za'Darius Smith, who played 36 snaps in his team debut on Sunday.

Instead, the Lions have tightened up in the situations that end drives and win games. Over their five games since the Hutchinson injury, they've allowed offenses to convert 31% of their third-down opportunities, the third-best rate in football. They've also allowed five touchdowns in 13 trips inside the red zone, the fifth-best mark over that stretch.

And of course, the other thing a defense can do to generate big plays is create turnovers. The Lions have forced takeaways on just over 16% of opposing drives since the Hutchinson injury, the fifth-highest rate for any unit. Most of those turnovers have come from safeties, with Kerby Joseph picking off his league-high seventh pass Sunday.

Joseph might have the gaudy interception totals, but Brian Branch is the safety who makes it all work. Glenn experimented with different roles for hybrid defenders in the secondary earlier in his time in Detroit, but Branch actually has the talent and the range to play everywhere from slot corner to safety to linebacker and do so effectively.

The addition of Amik Robertson over the offseason has freed up Branch to play safety as his primary role, and his ability to wipe away passes that seem open has seemingly become a weekly occurrence. The only defensive back with more passes defensed this season is Browns cornerback Denzel Ward. Branch is the only player who primarily plays safety in the top 10.

While most great defenses are built from the defensive line out, the Lions are thriving by winning from the secondary in. Glenn trusts his guys and has them playing man coverage 52.2% of the time since the Hutchinson injury, the highest rate for any defense. They play press man coverage nearly 32% of the time, which is a league-high and more than double the league average of 12.6%. And when they get to third down, Glenn has been blitzing a whopping 58% of the time, 10 percentage points more than any other defense over the past five weeks.

Can the Lions continue to play great defense by winning on third downs, in the red zone and creating gobs of takeaways, all without a great pass rush? It won't be too easy. It's hard to find a recent Super Bowl winner that didn't have at least one star pass rusher in its lineup, if not more. Then again, with Detroit having the most explosive offense in its conference, it doesn't need a great defense to win the top seed.

After a road trip to play the Colts in Indianapolis, the Lions get three straight games at home, including the Thanksgiving Day matchup with the Bears and home games against the Packers and Bills. They still have a road trip to play the 49ers and another home game against the Vikings to finish. With the best record in the NFC, the 9-1 Lions control their own destiny. Winning their remaining divisional games might be enough to get them the first-round bye and home-field advantage they crave, as ESPN's FPI gives them a 69.1% chance to take the 1-seed

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Minnesota Vikings 23, Tennessee Titans 13

It wasn't exactly as emphatic of a victory for the Vikings as it was for their divisional rivals. While the Vikings led 16-3 at halftime and were never really in danger in the fourth quarter, the game on the field looked and felt more stressful than that. While a win is a win, this one felt a little more like the Titans managing to beat themselves.

In the second quarter, a Vikings drive that appeared to have failed on fourth down was extended when what appeared to be a legal hit by Titans defensive back Mike Brown was flagged for unnecessary roughness. Sam Darnold scored on the ensuing play. After an ugly first half, the Titans sparked to life with a 98-yard touchdown pass from Will Levis to Nick Westbrook-Ikhine. On the next drive, Jeffery Simmons came up with a third-down strip-sack of Darnold, only for an illegal contact penalty to extend the drive, which produced a Minnesota touchdown. Levis then threw a 51-yard touchdown to Calvin Ridley, only for that to be wiped off by an illegal formation call. The Titans kicked a 47-yard field goal and didn't score the rest of the way.

From the 1,000-yard view, the Vikings look great. They're 8-2, and one of those two losses is a two-point defeat to the Lions that required a game-winning field goal with 19 seconds left. They have the league's fifth-best point differential and ranked fourth in DVOA heading into their trip to Nashville. Brian Flores' defense has been excellent. The Vikings are one of the league's best teams. 

Does it really feel that way watching them on a week-to-week basis? I'm not so sure. Perhaps it's latent skepticism toward Darnold, whose results have gotten worse as the season has progressed. The Vikings turned the ball over three times in back-to-back wins over the Colts and Jaguars, and while he didn't throw an interception in the Tennessee game, the Vikings did lose a fumble on a botched pitch to Aaron Jones.

Darnold has thrown interceptions on 3.4% of his pass attempts this season, the highest rate for any passer who has started every one of his team's games. While he has thrown more recently, that's partly a product of passing more often and partly down to luck. From what I've seen, he was lucky to get away with some extremely bad throws during the first month of the season, but he hasn't been quite as lucky during the second half of the campaign. I'm not sure his underlying performance has been appreciably different.

While Darnold has made some spectacular throws this season, QBR hasn't been a fan of his performance. He ranked 15th among passers from Weeks 1 to 5, and that has dropped to 22nd from Week 6 onward. In this case, QBR doesn't love that he hasn't made much of an impact with his legs relative to other signal-callers, has fumbled seven times and takes sacks at one of the league's highest rates. Only Caleb Williams, Jalen Hurts and C.J. Stroud have gone down more often, and those negative plays are drive killers. The Vikings have scored a touchdown just once across the 26 drives in which Darnold has taken at least a sack, and that came on a sack when Brandon Powell picked up a loose ball and gained 7 yards.

The season-ending injury suffered by left tackle Christian Darrisaw last month won't help Darnold stay upright, as the Vikings briefly went with David Quessenberry before trading for benched Jags tackle Cam Robinson, who has been inconsistent since joining the organization. Coach Kevin O'Connell also benched 2022 second-round pick Ed Ingram on Sunday, replacing him at guard with Dalton Risner, who started for Minnesota last season.

At the same time, I'd argue that the criticism surrounding Darnold might understate his positives this season. When he hasn't been taking sacks or throwing interceptions, he has been really good.Take the game against the Colts, where he threw two picks. He was otherwise 28-of-31 for 290 yards with three touchdowns. That's great! The negative plays count and are painful, but if a quarterback is completing more than 90% of his passes and averaging more than 9.0 yards per attempt, that's going to make up for a couple of picks.

Darnold is converting just under 39% of his pass attempts into first downs, which ranks fifth in the league, wedged between Brock Purdy and Mahomes. His 5.6% completion percentage over expected is the second-best mark behind that Hurts. O'Connell understandably protects him with the NFL's third-highest play-action rate, but that doesn't mean he isn't productive within the context of this offense.

In the big picture, Darnold has been a league-average quarterback this season. League-average has the connotation of unexciting and unspectacular game managers, but he achieves his league-average performance by not being average in anything. He's a high-risk, high-reward quarterback. At $10 million, that's a perfectly reasonable performance if he can keep that up the rest of the way.

Darnold doesn't need to be great for the Vikings to win games, given that this defense ranks in the top three in EPA per play and points allowed per possession. While the 2023 defense was like Darnold and fluctuated between dominant and disastrous, the 2024 unit has been much more consistent. Losing pass rusher Danielle Hunter after years of contract frustration might have been a plus for the Vikings, as the combination of Jonathan Greenard and Andrew Van Ginkel has been excellent on the edge.

The secondary has been much better after bringing in Stephon Gilmore and Shaq Griffin in the offseason, and while Flores is still generating a ton of pressure, it isn't blitz-or-bust. The 2023 defense ranked 17th in QBR allowed when it failed to get home with pressure. The 2024 team ranks second in the same category. The threat of the blitz might be even scarier than the actual thing for opposing quarterbacks; the Vikings are giving up a league-best 27.1 QBR when they don't blitz this season.

Flores' defense, which shows more Cover 0 looks before the snap than any other team and then all-out blitzes at the third-highest rate, is still an outlier. The Vikings continue to drop defenders off the line of scrimmage and into coverage more than 52% of the time, which is about double the leaguewide rate of 26% and more than 14 percentage points ahead of the second-ranked Patriots. The downside of those exotic looks is that Minnesota's defenders can occasionally end up out of position or give up big plays when teams have the perfect play called, as the Titans did when they hit that 98-yarder to Westbrook-Ikhine for a score. The Vikings were able to thrive early in the season by showing blitzes and correctly anticipating the answers opposing offenses would try to hit in response. One big play a game is fine, but the Lions were able to hit multiple big plays against heavy pressure looks, which ended up helping to decide the first game between these two teams.

The Vikings will almost surely need to beat the Lions in their Week 18 rematch if O'Connell & Co. want to have any hope of winning the division, let alone landing the top seed in the NFC. With a 3-2 record in the conference so far, the Vikings also aren't in great tiebreaker shape relative to their competition, given that the Lions are 6-1 and the Eagles are 5-2. With two games against the Bears and matchups against the Lions and Packers still to come, they probably need to sweep their NFC North games to have a shot at the top seed.