Well, Week 15 of the 2024 NFL season is in the books, and we know the entire AFC playoff picture. I mean, we don’t know the seeding or anything, but seven teams have a likelihood over 90% of making the AFC playoffs, per ESPN’s Football Power Index. That’s the first time that has happened by Week 15 in the ESPN FPI era (since 2008), according to analytics writer Seth Walder. And remember, Week 15 used to be the third-to-last week! We still have three weeks of AFC football left, and it’s basically all for seeding. Better enjoy this NFC West divisional race while you can — it’s pretty much the only suspense remaining.

Every Tuesday, I’ll spin the previous week of NFL games forward, looking at what the biggest storylines mean and what comes next. We’ll take a first look at the consequences of “Monday Night Football,” break down a major trend or two and highlight some key individual players and plays. There will be film. There will be stats (a whole section of them). And there will be fun.

This week, we dive deep on how Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell has brought this Minnesota team all the way to the playoffs with Sam Darnold under center. Is he the new Sean McVay as the NFL’s trendy offensive mastermind and quarterback guru. Are we somehow still underappreciating what he has done this season? Plus, we dissect the Lions’ chances of overcoming their slew of injuries and still winning the Super Bowl, break down the Defensive Player of the Year race and shine some light on the brilliance of Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson. Let’s jump in.

Jump to a section:
The Big Thing: O’Connell is the new McVay
Second Take: Lions can still win the Super Bowl
Mailbag: Answering questions from … you
Next Ben Stats: Wild Week 15 stats
“Monday Night Football” spin

The Big Thing: Kevin O’Connell-Sam Darnold is the new Sean McVay-Jared Goff

Every week, this column will kick off with one wide look at a key game, player or trend from the previous slate of NFL action. What does it mean for the rest of the season?

In Week 3, I wrote about Darnold, Justin Fields and Andy Dalton — three veteran quarterbacks with surprisingly strong starts. I was suspicious of the 3-0 Vikings, fresh off a statement win against the Texans, in large part because of Darnold’s history of shaky quarterback play. Here’s what I wrote then:

“The question facing Darnold and the Vikings is whether they can sustain this. It is wicked hard to outscheme every Sunday opponent for a month, for two months, three, four. Almost everyone who does it comes from this offensive tree — Sean McVay, Kyle Shanahan and Mike McDaniel. O’Connell’s offense is far more similar to McVay’s than what Shanahan’s and McDaniel’s have become, and McVay went for the big upgrade at quarterback (Matthew Stafford) to make his life easier. Winning on the chalkboard every week for 20-plus weeks is just too tall of an ask.”

Stylistically, that comparison made a lot of sense. Goff was only one year into his career when he came under McVay’s tutelage. It was a harrowing start, but McVay turned it around by sticking Goff under center, running a ton of play-action and using his excellent arm to consistently hit intermediate windows off those run fakes. Schematically, that’s similar to what O’Connell had done for Kirk Cousins for the past few years, and it’s what he was doing with Darnold again. But it also felt like something defenses had already solved.

We know the end of McVay and Goff’s story. Eventually, defenses knocked McVay’s training wheels off Goff’s bike, and he teetered his way out of McVay’s favor, which necessitated the Stafford acquisition. But the other half of that story is Goff. He wasn’t the quarterback McVay needed for his new offense, but he had smoothed over many of the rougher edges of his game with his years of experience. And when he landed in Detroit, he bloomed — better late than never — into an excellent veteran passer.

When I made the comparison after Week 3, I was thinking of the coaches — how McVay couldn’t prop Goff up for that long, and how O’Connell would run into the same roadblock. In Week 15, I’m making the comparison again — but this time, for Darnold. I think he truly can recover his career in much the same way Goff has in Detroit.

The offensive insulation that O’Connell has around Darnold right now remains extremely similar to that which McVay had around Goff in their heyday (2017-18). Darnold lines up under center on 29% of his dropbacks, which is the third-highest rate in the NFL. He also hits a play-action fake on 27% of his dropbacks, which is eighth highest. Those are the classic hallmarks of the McVay system, and they’re still used to prop up Goff (first in both metrics this season in Detroit).

But Goff runs a lot more quick game in Detroit now than he did in those early years with the Rams, as 37% of his passes are out in under 2.5 seconds, compared to 25% in his Super Bowl season with L.A. In 2018, Goff hammered the intermediate level of the field off those long play-action dropbacks and rollouts, and 37% of his passes traveled at least 10 yards downfield. This season, that’s at 29%.

It shouldn’t be a surprise that Goff, six years removed from his Super Bowl run with the Rams, is playing quarterback a little differently under a totally different offensive coordinator on a totally different team throwing to totally different pass catchers. Similarly, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that McVay is moving away from that offense and staying ahead of the schematic curve. The moment Stafford stepped in for Goff, the Rams lined up in the gun a lot more, their play-action rate dropped and they relied on more quick-game concepts.

This is how innovation works. You can’t run the same stuff that worked last season — defenses are on your heels. That inescapable truth is why McVay has run from the eponymous McVay offense. It’s why Shanahan has run from the Shanahan offense (check Brock Purdy‘s play-action rate this season). It’s why Matt LaFleur’s Packers offense is a split-back gun running team now. It’s why Mike McDaniel’s Dolphins have become the fastest time-to-throw team in football. Evolve or die.

But that truth is not inescapable. One man from the tree stayed the course, played the hits and survived the changing tide. That man is O’Connell, who is doing exactly what worked for Cousins for years and exactly what McVay did for Goff more than five years ago for Darnold right now.

There is no quick-game revolution in Minnesota as there was in Detroit and Los Angeles. Darnold’s 3.09-second time to throw is below only Lamar Jackson‘s and Jalen Hurts‘, both of whom skew their time to throw with prolonged scrambling dropbacks. For Darnold, this isn’t a function of scrambles — it’s a function of those extended play-action dropbacks that allow routes to develop at the intermediate and deep levels. In fact, 26% of Darnold’s pass attempts are out in under 2.5 seconds, which is the lowest rate in the league this season by a comfortable margin. He’s as far from second-place Anthony Richardson as Richardson is from 10th place (Hurts).

In the entire NFL Next Gen Stats database going back to 2016, there is only one quarterback besides 2024 Darnold who had fewer than 30% of his pass attempts come out in under 2.5 seconds. You saw his stat earlier. It was 2018 Jared Goff.

O’Connell is treating 2024 Darnold like 2018 Goff because Darnold has the same weaknesses; he doesn’t see the field fast and can panic when pressured. But he also has the same strength — a downright beautiful arm. The Vikings need all those intermediate and deep routes (34% of Darnold’s throws go at least 10 yards downfield) to maximize Darnold’s talent for high-difficulty throws, as well as the elite route running and ball tracking of Justin Jefferson, and the similar tool kit of his sidekick in Jordan Addison.

But where the 2018 Rams could spam the same six play-action crossers and digs until the final bell rang, the 2024 Vikings have to contend with defenses that have seen McVay’s greatest hits for years and have counterpunches. That’s what makes the O’Connell-Darnold season so impressive. They are swimming against the current and still making headway.

Here’s a great example from late in the game against the Cardinals a few weeks ago. See how Darnold snaps the ball right as Addison speeds in motion into a stack alignment with Jefferson? We hadn’t really unlocked that wrinkle in 2018, but in 2024, the motion pulls edge rusher Jesse Luketa (No. 43) off the line of scrimmage and into zone coverage.

pic.twitter.com/62vgU2izOC

— Good Clips (@MeshSitWheel) December 17, 2024

O’Connell needs only two routes to put Addison on an intermediate out-breaker right behind Luketa, and the max protection allows Darnold enough time to see the route develop and deliver a beautiful teardrop over the linebacker.

Out-breaking routes have been huge for O’Connell. Darnold has a lot more velocity driving the ball than Cousins did, and when defenses overreact to in-breaking routes off play-action fakes, he punishes them by snapping outside instead. Sure, it means run-after-catch isn’t nearly as big of a part of the offense, but when you’re still ripping off explosive plays at every turn, that’s not much of a concern. Let’s go to the Tennessee game from one month ago. Look at how concerned both the corner and safety are for Jefferson to continue working inside off this deep route stem, which creates so much space for Darnold (holding his water against pressure!) to throw a ball that Jefferson can work back to against the sideline.

pic.twitter.com/YP3uADp2cz

— Good Clips (@MeshSitWheel) December 17, 2024

Be sure to watch Darnold in the pocket on this playagainst Atlanta, too. He gives a little indication of rolling to his right, which further convinces the defensive backfield that Jefferson will break across the middle of the field. O’Connell uses plenty of rollouts to buy time in pass protection for those intermediate downfield routes, much as McVay used to roll Goff out despite his lacking mobility to get the drop on defenses expecting a stable pocket. Some of the old gags still work great, especially when you wrinkle them in with the new.

pic.twitter.com/baCgCYexMA

— Good Clips (@MeshSitWheel) December 17, 2024

If these plays feel schematically unremarkable, good. They should. O’Connell isn’t innovating the way that McDaniel did when he left Shanahan (in a good way) or Shane Waldron did when he left McVay (in a bad way). He isn’t reinventing the offense. But he also isn’t entrenched in a stale offense the league has largely solved, as the Texans are currently experiencing with Bobby Slowik. He has struck the perfect balance. He’s tinkering with the system without breaking it. It requires more than a deft touch to pull that off. It requires an unimaginable level of game understanding, play sequencing and instinct. O’Connell has to be multiple steps ahead of the opposing defensive playcaller every single week for a vast majority of the snaps. And he just … is.

I’m ready to call O’Connell the third-best offensive coach in football, just below Shanahan and McVay. I haven’t seen a coach thumb his nose so flagrantly at the opposing sideline as O’Connell is this season since McVay’s 2018 run. He’s just better than you. He has too deep of a bag. It doesn’t really matter if we all know his quarterback’s the weak point of the offense, because you can’t get through the insulation. You can’t break the armor the playcaller has built around his passer. And remember, there’s no Bill Belichick to run into in the playoff field this season (though there is Vic Fangio).

Which brings us back to Darnold. Nobody knows just where he’s going to play next season and if there will be his version of Ben Johnson waiting for him when he lands there. But he has proven that if someone lines the pins up for him, he can knock them down, over and over again. Even after all of his years suffering on an Adam Gase-coached team and seeing ghosts at the line of scrimmage, he still has a ridiculously live arm that opens up windows unavailable to other quarterbacks.

When Goff left McVay, I would have told you his career was chalked. But his success had given him both confidence and experience, which buoyed him until the next offense was built for his skill set. Why can’t the same happen for Darnold, now that Goff has proved the concept possible? You can see this season already smoothing over Darnold’s rough edges. He is attempting aggressive passes but largely avoiding interceptions. He’s holding the ball long and still taking a lot of sacks, but it’s paying off with huge completions. Darnold is finally learning how to play within himself because he has been afforded an opportunity he never got with the Jets to figure it out, where there was never enough support.

Eventually, Darnold will lose his training wheels just as Goff did — whether because defenses catch up to O’Connell, injuries hamper the offense or he wears a different jersey in 2025. It will be shaky at first, just as Goff’s first year in Detroit was. But don’t count me among those who might be surprised by a long, productive starting career for Darnold from this moment forward. The path has been blazed for him, and he just needs to follow it.

Second Take: The banged-up Lions can still win the Super Bowl

ESPN’s “First Take” is known for, well, providing the first take on things — the instant reactions. Second Take is not a place for instant reactions but rather the spot where I’ll let the dust settle before taking perhaps a bit of a contrarian view.

Here are the Lions defensive players currently on injured reserve: DT Alim McNeill, DT Kyle Peko, DT Mekhi Wingo, Edge Aidan Hutchinson, Edge Marcus Davenport, Edge John Cominsky, LB Alex Anzalone, LB Derrick Barnes, LB Malcolm Rodriguez, LB Jalen Reeves-Maybin, CB Carlton Davis III, CB Ennis Rakestraw Jr., CB Khalil Dorsey and S Ifeatu Melifonwu

You’d be a little thin in the secondary, but you could pretty much field a full defense with the players who cannot play for the Lions right now. (Maybe running back David Montgomery, who is also out for the season because of an MCL injury, could play safety for this group.)

When the Super Bowl winner is crowned after each season, there’s never an asterisk besides the team’s name. We won’t see “would have been the Detroit Lions if not for all their injuries” this season. This is an inevitability of football: Some team is going to draw terrible injury luck and see its regular-season promise fade before the postseason. By sheer probability, some very good team this season was always going to get so banged-up by playoff time that the injuries hamstrung its postseason chances, and it seems to be the Lions.

That doesn’t make it feel any better. It feels awful. The Lions were a great team last season and an even better one this year, and the defensive improvements were a huge part of that jump. Even now, after giving up 31 points to the Packers and 48 points to the Bills in consecutive weeks, the Lions are still a top-10 defense by both success rate and expected points. Defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn has done an admirable job riding the carousel of injuries and finding solutions week over week.

But there’s only so long the team can put out fires until the blaze becomes too much. For much of the season, Glenn’s solution to the Lions’ undermanned front seven was to blitz. Since Week 7, the Lions have led the league in blitz rate, sending heat on 41% of opposing dropbacks. But by Week 14, when the Lions ran into Packers quarterback Jordan Love, the blitzing left the secondary too exposed. Love went 9-for-14 against the blitz for 160 yards and a touchdown pass.

In Week 15, Glenn changed tactics, dialing the blitz down to protect his secondary from getting shredded by Josh Allen‘s big arm and playmaking ability. No matter. With Davis off the field at cornerback, there were just too many players to attack in coverage. Rookie corner Terrion Arnold gave up four catches for 80 yards on six targets. Linebacker Jack Campbell, the last healthy starter at the spot, gave up four catches for 59 yards on five targets. Even star slot Brian Branch struggled against Allen to the tune of four catches allowed for 40 yards on six targets.

That even Branch got attacked in coverage is a brutal reminder that every opponent is good in playoff football. Maybe you can get through one round by blitzing Sam Darnold into oblivion, but getting through two (or three, as the No. 1 seed is far from secured) NFC opponents with duct tape all over the defense? The quarterback caliber in the NFC doesn’t match that of the AFC, but fielding this unit against some combination of Darnold, Love, Matthew Stafford, Geno Smith, Baker Mayfield and Jalen Hurts doesn’t feel great at all.

If I throw the rose-colored glasses on, I can find a path, though. Securing the top seed would be big, as that would mean another week for Anzalone to return (expected back sometime around the playoffs). Now the Lions would have to win only two games to make the big dance, and with Anzalone and Melifonwu (his practice window opened this week) back on the field, they can eliminate some of the Ben Niemann and Ezekiel Turner snaps. Detroit could also experiment with playing Melifonwu at linebacker or at box safety, kicking Branch to the slot and getting some outside reps for nickel corner Amik Robertson.

None of that seems perfect — these are big positional shuffles late in the season — but Detroit can at least get the drop on some opponents with wild-card alignments and personnel groupings. The overall weight of three, maybe four wins seems like too much for this defense to withstand given its injury luck, but I wouldn’t count Glenn out of a one-off game.

As such, the bulk of the playoff run would have to rest on the offense, and this is where things get interesting. The Lions’ defensive injuries appear overwhelming, but the real question isn’t about the defense — it’s about the offense. Is the Lions’ offense good enough to win three or four shootouts in a row against playoff-caliber defenses? Because that’s precisely what it would take for the Lions to win a Super Bowl this season.

The answer is obviously yes, right? Again, it doesn’t seem great. We’d see a lot of Jared Goff in pure dropback situations, and he’s much better when the running game and scoreboard allow him to feast in play-action pass environments. That running game will likely be a little worse, too, in that Jahmyr Gibbs must now play the lion’s share of the snaps with Montgomery out.

But we just saw the Lions pour points on the Bills on a negative game script the whole way. Again, that’s not how they want to play, but they’re capable of it. We also saw the offense manage the clock and protect the defense with late-game execution against the Packers. While stylistically, the Lions don’t have the personnel to become a shotgun, four-wide, spread’ em and shred ’em team, they’re still good enough in their base offense to pass their way into a victory.

I’ll put it like this. If you had to carry this Lions defense to the Super Bowl, and I gave you the choice to swap the Lions’ offense with the Bills’ offense, you’d probably take that deal. (The Bills have scored 30 points in eight consecutive games, which ties an NFL record.) But would you take the Chiefs’ offense over the Lions’ offense? Probably not — Kansas City is not that explosive. The Eagles? They are even more run heavy than the Lions. I think you’d take the Bills, Ravens and maybe Packers.

That’s how good this Lions offense has been, and that’s how good it needs to be. If they have three or four lights-out games — the sort of games that a red-hot coaching candidate such as Ben Johnson is capable of orchestrating and that a big-contract veteran quarterback such as Goff is capable of delivering — then they can still win this thing.

The road to a Lombardi Trophy in Detroit is far, far thinner than we thought it would be even a month ago. But just because it has diminished doesn’t mean it has disappeared. The chance — however slim — remains.

From y’all

The best part of writing this column is hearing from all of you. Hit me on X (@BenjaminSolak) or by email (benjamin.solak@espn.com) anytime — but especially on Monday each week — to ask a question and potentially get it answered here.

From Rui:“MVP talk is exhausting, but how are you feeling about the DPOY race?”

Conflicted.

Steelers edge rusher T.J. Watt is the favorite for Defensive Player of the Year at -155 (per ESPN BET), which I think is more a reflection of his great seasons that didn’t win the award than anything Watt has done this year. It has been one of his worst seasons as a pro! His 10% pressure rate is the lowest of any season in his career, and his 2.6% sack rate is below his career average. Watt has 11.5 sacks and will likely end the season somewhere around 13 or 14 — again, one of his worst totals as a pro. He leads the league in forced fumbles (six) and tackles for loss (18), though, which is a nice snapshot of his high-impact play in key moments and lends some credence to his case.

The leader in pressures this season is Texans edge rusher Danielle Hunter (86). He also has 12 sacks, just 0.5 behind league-leader Trey Hendrickson. But Hunter’s impact is cheapened a little by his teammate Will Anderson Jr., who has 10.5 sacks and 55 pressures to his name. It’s tough to give Hendrickson the award, even for how well he has played, because the Bengals’ defense is just that bad.

Of course, the award doesn’t have to go to a defensive lineman. It just usually does (nine of the past 10 years) because it’s easier to measure the impact of defensive linemen statistically than the impact of other positions. Broncos cornerback Pat Surtain II, who is second in the current odds, has snagged four picks and broken up eight passes — good numbers but nothing eye-popping. But the counting stats fail Surtain because he has been targeted on only 10.2% of his coverage snaps this season, the lowest among 75 qualifying corners. Surtain’s strength is his ability to deny targets, but that also denies him those counting stats that a DB typically carries when they win this award.

I think the best two defensive players in the NFL this season have comfortably been Surtain and Cowboys edge rusher Micah Parsons, who missed time and is lagging in total stats accordingly. I’d vote for Surtain based on his film and availability, but I’m not convinced the field will cast that same vote. It sure would be nice if he could secure another interception or two to pad his numbers.

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From someone on Bluesky whose name is unclear to me from their username:“What do you think is the reason the Packers’ offense can get so hot and so cold in very short stretches? They seem to be the best offense in the league or a three-and-out machine from one drive to another.”

There are two things going on here. The first is that we are always biased to the extremes. It’s much easier to remember how frustrating a three-and-out is relative to a five-play drive that ended with the same net result (a punt). The Packers with quarterback Jordan Love on the field have a three-and-out on 20% of their drives (league average is 20.9%) and score on 42% of their drives (league average is 38.5%). From a per-drive basis, they aren’t particularly mercurial.

However, with Love at quarterback, the Packers average 5.5 plays per drive, which would be 25th in the league. Love is so good at ripping off explosive plays — and not just explosive plays, but massive downfield strikes — that when the Packers score, they score fast. Even the running game, with all its receiver-involved trickery and Josh Jacobs rumbling, is great in explosive play rate. So we experience these Packers drives as extremely fast, either to a good result or a bad result. And therefore, they seem polarized.

Green Bay isn’t really built to salt away leads late in the fourth quarter; we saw that in how many times it gave the ball back to the Sam Howell-led Seahawks on Sunday night. But I don’t think the Packers’ offense is hot and cold so much as it is highly, highly explosive.

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From Austin:“Give me your power rankings if the NFL outlawed the forward pass tomorrow.”

1. Eagles
2. Ravens
3. Bills
4. Packers
5. Commanders
6. Lions
7. Cardinals

… a bunch of teams …

32. Dolphins

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From Kenny:“When it’s all said and done, how will this generation’s ‘big three’ (Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson, Patrick Mahomes) compare to previous generations’ top QBs? (Hope this makes sense.)”

It does, Kenny.

Best ever. The only issue is that only one of the three can go to the Super Bowl each year because they’re all in the same conference. History will perhaps look back on this era in a flawed lens because of the lack of championships, but I’m very confident that Jackson/Allen/Mahomes is a level of elite quarterback well on its way to exceeding that set by Peyton Manning/Tom Brady/Drew Brees/Aaron Rodgers.

Next Ben Stats

NFL Next Gen Stats are unique and insightful nuggets of data that are gleaned from tracking chips and massive databases. Next Ben Stats are usually numbers I made up. Both are below.

4: That’s how many career games Baltimore quarterback Lamar Jackson has with five or more passing touchdowns and 50-plus rushing yards. It’s also how many games the rest of the NFL — in the history of the league — has with five or more passing touchdowns and 50-plus rushing yards.

Patrick Mahomes has one. Josh Allen has one. Cam Newton has one. And — I swear I’m not making this up — Mitchell Trubisky has one.

Jackson has all of the rest, with two coming during his 2019 MVP season and two coming this season (Week 7 against the Buccaneers and Week 15 against the Giants). I know it’s tempting to discard all results against the Giants, but again, this kind of game had happened only seven times before in NFL history. And it’s the first time it has ever happened with the quarterback thinking he was losing his pants on one play. (Probably.)

Wading into the MVP debate between Allen (a huge favorite and likely to win it) and Jackson (a two-time MVP posting his best season) is a tricky thing, because every take is correct. Jackson should absolutely and incontrovertibly win it. Allen should also absolutely and incontrovertibly win it. And whoever doesn’t win it will be well and truly hosed.

But to sidestep that conversation altogether, I’ll say this: Let’s use this astonishing statistical season from Jackson as a postdated justification for his win last year. Plenty of folks took umbrage with his 2023 MVP win, in that his gross passing stats weren’t all that impressive up against previous MVP winners. That 2023 Ravens defense was so good that Jackson simply didn’t accumulate yardage and points in the way he has this season.

But we knew then, just as we know now, that Jackson is the engine behind every snap of offensive success for the Ravens. He is an irreplaceable keystone in one of the league’s best offenses and one of the most valuable players in all of football. Sometimes he has a ton of shiny stats, sometimes his team has a ton of wins. But we knew in 2019, in 2023 and now in 2024 that Jackson should be in the MVP conversation every season, almost independent of his statistical output. He’s just that unique of a player.

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2.53: That’s how many seconds this Allen pass to receiver Keon Colemanagainst the Lions was in the air. There are 70 completions of at least 50 air yards in the NFL Next Gen Stats database, and this was the fastest such completion from throw to catch.

KEON IS SO BACK.

📺: @paramountplus & @NFLonCBS#ProBowlVote | @keoncoleman6 pic.twitter.com/0d8KkW84TS

— Buffalo Bills (@BuffaloBills) December 15, 2024

This is a one-play explanation of what we mean when we say “arm talent.” Firstly, Allen is idling behind the line of scrimmage on a three-man route concept because his arm allows him to do so. He is one of only a few quarterbacks on the planet for whom that downfield route is still technically accessible.

Secondly, Allen does not get to really drive into this throw. A lot of downfield completions come with multiple hitches, with the quarterback climbing upfield to get more oomph on the football. We can see Allen hitch here as he’s preparing to launch this throw to Coleman, but as the Lions close in, Allen has to throw this without a good base. It’s all arm.

But the absolute best part of this play is that Allen has to tell Coleman to keep going downfield. He’s at his own 25-yard line waving a receiver at the opposite 35-yard line to gain some depth. That’s absurd. But Allen can actually hit that throw.

He can drive it, too, getting this ball upfield on Coleman so the receiver can run away from coverage and catch it without having to “Moss” the opposing cornerback. Look at the incoming safety! For most other quarterbacks, the concern would be getting this throw there with enough time to beat the defender. Allen gets it there so quickly and pushes it away from coverage such that the safety isn’t even a consideration. Ridiculous football player.

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2: That’s how many drives the Steelers had in the second half Sunday against the Eagles. It’s the first time in 15 years that a team has had only two second-half drives.

I like touchdowns. I like points, deep passes and explosive gains. I like 90 total points in Bills-Lions. I like watching it, how it looks on film and how it looks in the metrics. But if you bring any football coach from any level in here and ask them what they like, they’d say they like having the ball in the second half with a lead. They’d also say they like absolutely breaking the spirit of the opposing team by sitting on that football and bleeding the game clock bone dry.

What the Eagles did to the Steelers in the second half — and especially in the fourth quarter — was a high school coach’s fever dream. Philadelphia strung together a 21-play, 88-yard, 10:29 drive to burn the entire fourth quarter out of their 27-13 win over the Steelers. By time of possession, that is the longest drive to end with the clock expiring since the Seahawks killed 11:53 in a 2009 win over the Jaguars. And by total number of plays, the Eagles’ drive is the second longest to kill the clock in league history, per Elias Sports Bureau.

The teams that play in high-scoring games — the Bills, the Lions — are an avalanche on offense. The Eagles are … quicksand. You get stuck in a game against them and just sink, slowly and inevitably. There’s nothing to do about it. You can grab at branches and struggle against the pull, but eventually they just bleed the game away. It is as valuable of an advantage as any team has entering the playoffs; once the Eagles get the ball with the lead, they finish the game like nobody else in the league.

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28th: That’s where the Chargers’ defense ranks in success rate since Week 9. From Weeks 1 to 8, the unit was third.

The Chargers’ defense is going through a little bit of a “they are who we thought they were” arc. The early-season success of the unit wasn’t all smoke and mirrors. New defensive coordinator Jesse Minter had a clear, effective philosophy of playing light boxes and limiting big plays. Young contributors such as cornerback Tarheeb Still and linebacker Daiyan Henley are legitimate players, as are known contributors Khalil Mack, Tuli Tuipulotu and Derwin James Jr.

But in the preseason, nobody had lofty expectations for this defense given the personnel deficiencies, and those gaps have become too glaring to ignore in recent stretches. The Chargers’ light boxes are giving up the third-best success rate to opposing rush offenses since Week 9, as the defensive tackle rotation of Poona Ford, Teair Tart, Otito Ogbonnia and Morgan Fox has been exposed. At the cornerback position opposite Still, veteran Kristian Fulton has become a target for opposing passing attacks. Against the Buccaneers on Sunday, Fulton gave up five catches on five targets for 77 yards and a score.

The arrow is still generally pointing up on Minter and the defense for the long-term view in Los Angeles. But for the 2024 postseason, this defense has gone from the catalyst of the team’s success to the reason to fade it down the stretch. Thursday night’s game against Bo Nix and the Broncos — an offense the Chargers flummoxed early in the season that has since improved dramatically — will tell us a lot about the teeth remaining in this defense.

Monday Night Muck

Each week, we will pick out one or two of the biggest storylines from “Monday Night Football” and break down what it means for the rest of the season.

Two “Monday Night Football” games. Surely, there will be something interesting to talk about! But with the Vikings as our feature for the column this week, Falcons-Raiders gets relegated to our Monday night breakdown.

Here are the most exciting things that happened in that game, ranked by order of excitement:

• Falcons wide receiver KhaDarel Hodge blocked two punts on the exact same rush, which is a good single-sentence encapsulation of this Raiders season.

• The 40 seconds in which it seemed Las Vegas quarterback Desmond Ridder might actually lead a game-winning drive against his former team.

• The Falcons blocked an extra point, which means they had three special teams blocks in one game, which is also a good single-sentence description of the Raiders’ season.

• The Raiders also gave up a safety, which means that in one game, the Raiders had two punts and an extra point blocked and also gave up a safety.

• Falcons running back Bijan Robinson had a cool run.

The Falcons secured a win and stayed in the NFC South race accordingly, but this was the worst Kirk Cousins game in a while. The zero-touchdown, four-interception game against the Chargers sure looks worse, but Cousins actually averaged 0.02 EPA per dropback and a 50% success rate in that game. On Monday, he had 0.00 EPA per dropback and a 28.6% success rate. In fact, by success rate, that was Cousins’ worst game since Week 2 of the 2020 season.

Cousins is trying his best out there, and it’s hard to watch a player who is still so mentally sharp at the position but physically incapable. But the proof is in the pudding, and Cousins simply doesn’t have enough good quarterbacking left in him. He cannot reset the pocket, extend plays or find throws off-platform. He was even struggling to get to handoff landmarks again. The physical issues aren’t going away and will only get worse as the season progresses — if it progresses beyond the regular season at all.

If there were not a top-10 pick sitting behind Cousins, a benching would be reasonable. In that Michael Penix Jr. is indeed on the back-burner, a benching feels inevitable — whether in this season or the next, when Cousins is still under contract. As coach Raheem Morris said of Cousins at his postgame news conference, “He’s got to play better.”