Expert Analysis
12/24/23
10 min read
Biggest Winners, Losers From Sunday's NFL Week 16 Games
Following an action-packed Sunday slate, we're going through the biggest winners and losers, including team that clinched its first division title in 30 years, a spectrum of team performances and more.
Winner: Detroit Lions
With a win over the Minnesota Vikings on Sunday, the Detroit Lions are your 2023 NFC North champions. Hang the banner.
It will be the first time the Lions have put up a banner in 30 years. The Lions haven't won their division since 1993, when the division was the NFC Central.
They've never won the division since the NFL expanded in 2002, and the NFC Central became the NFC North. The closest they ever got was an 11-win season in 2014, a year where they still fell short by one win to the Green Bay Packers.
It's got to feel so sweet for this particular Lions team. Think about everything that was said about them two and a half years ago when they assembled the core of this team.
Head coach Dan Campbell was thought to be a mindless meathead, and quarterback Jared Goff was cast off from an organization that no longer thought he was good enough. The rest of the roster had been scrapped for parts at various points leading up to the Campbell-Goff offseason, most notably when the team shipped starting cornerback Darius Slay to Philadelphia. New GM Brad Holmes had a massive undertaking on his hands.
That's all flipped on its head. Campbell is as forward-thinking as any head coach in the league, and he's been able to connect with his players in a visible and open way, a rare sight for an NFL head coach. Goff has earned a new lease on his football life with the way he's grown in Detroit.
The rest of the roster, while still imperfect, has been slowly built up with homegrown talent, ranging from studs in the trenches like Penei Sewell and Aidan Hutchinson to game-changing skill players such as Amon-Ra St. Brown, Sam LaPorta and Jahmyr Gibbs.
Even with a 3-13-1 record in Year 1, the Lions never strayed from the course. They trusted the core they brought in from the jump and continued to put the right pieces around them. Slowly but surely, they've gone from the laughing stock of the NFL to a team clinching their division with two weeks left.
We can save the Super Bowl talk for a different date. For now, this Lions squad and its fans should embrace making history. Soak it all in and enjoy the ride.
Loser: Sam Howell, QB, Washington Commanders
It's time to bid farewell to the Sam Howell experience in Washington.
For the second week in a row, Howell was benched for veteran Jacoby Brissett. The benchings are telling in and of themselves, but Brissett's play has rubbed salt in the wound. Brissett immediately gave the offense new life on both occasions. He mounted a potential comeback each time, even giving the Commanders a lead late against the Jets on Sunday before the defense collapsed in the final minute.
Howell has deserved the bench in both games. Howell went 11 of 26 for 102 yards against the Rams before Brissett was thrown into the fire a week ago. Against the Jets on Sunday, Howell somehow fared even worse, going 6 of 22 with 56 yards and two interceptions.
The Rams game wasn't an all-time meltdown, but the Jets game absolutely was. There's a case it was the worst start by any quarterback this season. According to TruMedia, Howell's 21.7 percent success rate versus the Jets was the third-worst of any game this season (min. 20 attempts). Only Mac Jones versus the Saints and an ankle-less Joe Burrow versus the Browns in Week 1 was worse.
By EPA per dropback, though, Howell's -1.12 was the worst start by any quarterback all season. Not even Clayton Tune randomly being sacrificed to the Browns in Week 9 was worse than what Howell did on Sunday.
There's probably no way for Howell to come back from this, at least from the lens of returning as the team's starter. Howell had some promising moments this year, no doubt, but having his worst stretch of games towards the end of the season, in which you can see his confidence and creativity waning, will give the Commanders an easy jumping-off point.
Washington can officially throw its name into the 2024 quarterback market.
Winner: Tampa Bay Buccaneers
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers just keep stacking statement wins.
Two weeks ago, they knocked off the Atlanta Falcons, who were leading the putrid NFC South at the time. Then they bludgeoned the Green Bay Packers in Lambeau, a game where Baker Mayfield posted the first perfect passer rating of his career. And on Sunday, the Bucs blew the Jacksonville Jaguars out of the state of Florida with a resounding 30-12 win.
>>READ: The Reincarnation of Baker Mayfield
The Jaguars game captured their little formula perfectly.
Defensively, the Buccaneers got after it by pressuring the quarterback and betting on turnovers. They got two interceptions out of Trevor Lawrence before he left the game with a shoulder injury. Lady Luck gave them a bit of help, too. The Bucs' defense recovered two fumbles in this game, one from Lawrence and another from TE Evan Engram.
The offense is kind of feast-or-famine as well, but when they feast, they absolutely go to town. While the run game is worse than useless, Mayfield and the passing offense have something. The scheme is designed to uncork Mayfield's arm down the field, and he's taken to it well.
According to Next Gen Stats, Mayfield went 5 of 7 beyond 10 yards in this game. Mike Evans, of course, was the guy on the other end of a lot of those passes, but Mayfield has shown an unwavering confidence in all of his receivers down the field. When it works, the results can be overwhelming.
None of this is to say the Buccaneers are secret contenders or anything. At the end of the day, Mayfield still is what he is, and their overall team build is too fragile to make a real run through the NFC.
Nobody expected the Bucs to be here, though. It felt like a lame duck season for head coach Todd Bowles and another team for Mayfield to waste away on as a journeyman before bouncing around again. The fallout of losing Tom Brady was supposed to sink this team entirely.
Instead, they are in the driver's seat to win the NFC South. All they have to do is beat the Saints next week or the Panthers in Week 18, or both if they really want to drive a point home.
That's an underdog story worth celebrating.
Loser: Dallas Cowboys
Close, but no cigar.
After getting beat up in the trenches and trailing for most of the match, Dak Prescott and the Dallas Cowboys offense engineered a go-ahead scoring drive. It was a 17-play drive that dragged on forever, sustaining itself with a blend of sweet throws from Prescott and penalties by the Dolphins' defense. Prescott finally got the hay in the barn with an eight-yard touchdown throw to Brandin Cooks to give the Cowboys a 20-19 lead with three minutes to go.
LET BRANDIN COOKS 🏹
— NFL (@NFL) December 25, 2023
📺: #DALvsMIA on FOX
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Dallas' defense couldn't hold up their end of the bargain.
The Dolphins ran all over them each time they handed it off on the final drive. On passing plays, the Cowboys insisted on playing off coverage and giving the Dolphins' receivers all the space in the world. Predictably, that backfired and led to a ton of easy completions. The only incomplete pass on that drive was just a miss from Tagovailoa in which Tyreek Hill was wide open.
Miami eventually got the ball down to the 11-yard line and sealed the deal with a game-ending field goal.
The Cowboys are now 3-5 on the road this season. That's not so bad on its face, but their only three road wins are against the Giants, Chargers and Panthers. On the flip side, they have lost to the Cardinals, 49ers, Eagles, Bills and Dolphins. They haven’t been able to stack up against the best teams outside of Jerry World.
More than anything, it’s the offense that’s hurt them. The defense is volatile and prone to shaly performances as well, but that’s true at home and on the road. Location doesn’t matter. For the offense, however, it does.
Dallas’ offense is a fireworks show at home. That’s not by coincidence either. When the Cowboys are at home, it’s a lot easier for them to communicate and incorporate all the shifts and motions they like to use.
Handling all of that is sort of Precott’s “super power,” but it’s harder to do in loud, chaotic road environments. When paired with the generally difficult schedule the Cowboys have faced on the road, you can get these games where the Cowboys offense never quite gets into their comfort zone.
The Cowboys played the Dolphins much closer on the road this week than they did against the Bills last week, but it’s worrying they continue to lose these games. Beating Miami was their chance to get closer to a division title and clinch at least some home playoff games before facing, presumably, the 49ers in the title game.
Instead, they’re one step closer to having to make a postseason run entirely away from the comfort of their home dome. That’s a scary place to be if you’re the Cowboys.
Winner: Miami Dolphins vs. Winning Teams
The Miami Dolphins had been the barometer all year long for which teams were good and which were not. They won all but one game against teams with losing records and were winless against teams above .500. While there's merit in constantly beating up on the bottom half of the league, the stark split raised the question about whether or not the Dolphins could beat a serious team.
Every other time they've had the chance, they have fallen short. They got blown out by the Buffalo Bills in Week 4. The Philadelphia Eagles beat them by two scores three weeks later. Two weeks later, the Kansas City Chiefs sat on the Dolphins to win, 21-14.
Beating the Cowboys on Sunday proved they can beat a serious team. The Cowboys have questions of their own when it comes to road games — and this game was in Miami — but they are one of the best handful of teams in the NFL. The Cowboys' offense can erupt at any moment, and the defense, while inconsistent, can beat you up on passing downs if you let them.
Getting that monkey off their back should serve the Dolphins well as we ramp up to the playoffs. There's no wonder whether they can beat a good team anymore. They've proven it to themselves, and they've proven it to the rest of the league. The road through the AFC is still treacherous, but at least the Dolphins finally have a win that says, "Hey, they can do this."
