Barnwell: What went wrong — and what’s next — for five losing teams from wild-card weekend

Five NFL teams saw their dreams of hoisting the Lombardi Trophy end over the weekend. The Panthers, Packers, Jaguars, Chargers and defending Super Bowl champion Eagles all fell in the wild-card round of the NFL playoffs, each in a game in which it seemed a play or two could have swung the outcome their way. In a postseason that promised to be wide open, we had three games decided by late touchdowns, a fourth come down to a red zone stop and the fifth stay within one score for most of the night before one team (the Patriots) pulled away late.

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Five organizations are moving on to the offseason, and we’re here to help. I’m going to break down what went wrong for each of those franchises in the wild-card round, how that might have been foreseeable and what they can do to avoid that same fate next season. Fans invariably want to fire coaches and tear up the roster after a playoff loss, but I’ll try to be more level-headed or realistic in projecting what might make sense or what these teams might be thinking.

Let’s begin with the Chargers, one of two 7-seeds going home.

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Lost 16-3 vs. Patriots

I’m not sure a Jim Harbaugh quarterback has ever been beaten up in a big game the way Justin Herbert was hit over and over again by the Patriots on Sunday. With an underwhelming run game, an offense that couldn’t diagnose New England’s coverages, a green light to scramble at the first sign of daylight and little in the way of help from his offensive line, Herbert endured 21 hits for the three points the Chargers scored in Foxborough. That number of hits was tied for Herbert’s season high and are the most for any Harbaugh-coached QB in a single game going back through his time in San Francisco.

On one hand, you can argue that Herbert put the team on his back because nobody else was capable of doing so. The Chargers struggled to separate from New England’s coverage for most of the night. Running back Omarion Hampton was active but played only two snaps with an ankle injury, ceding the backfield to Kimani Vidal, who was ineffective. Drops from the likes of Keenan Allen didn’t help matters, and Herbert didn’t have a single receiver top 32 yards. He scrambled out of duress for gains, but as a passer, Herbert went just 3-of-8 for 21 yards against pressure.

Joe Alt went down for the second time with what would be a season-ending ankle injury. Losing Rashawn Slater (ruptured patellar tendon) was one thing, but going for months without both starting tackles essentially consigned the Chargers’ offense to mediocrity. It fell from third in the league in EPA per play with Alt on the field to 26th without him, cycling through various tackles with little success. On Sunday, the Chargers made a Patriots defense that finished the season 23rd in DVOA look like the 2003 or 2016 Pats defenses, even as New England lost Carlton Davis III and Christian Gonzalez for stretches.

There’s no doubting Herbert’s capacity for greatness, and I’m not going to draw massive conclusions from three disappointing playoff games. But we’re about to hit another offseason where the Chargers’ primary job will be to fix things around their quarterback. The Tom Telesco regime (2013-23) repeatedly invested in offensive linemen, with Slater proving to be a success, fellow first-rounder Zion Johnson disappointing and free agent addition Corey Linsley making it to a Pro Bowl before having his career derailed by a heart condition. The first-round pick spent on Quentin Johnston in 2023 has fallen somewhere between obvious success and clear bust.

GM Joe Hortiz has continued adding help, and again, the results have been mixed. Ladd McConkey was a hit in the second round of the 2024 draft, although his impact was muted by the addition of Allen in 2025. Oronde Gadsden emerged as a playmaker at tight end, but Bradley Bozeman was disappointing in his second year with the team at center, and the $9.6 million invested in Mekhi Becton didn’t deliver the guard who impressed with the Eagles a year ago. The new running back room crashed out because of injuries, and it was Vidal — even after being cut by the team at the end of camp — who might have looked like their best back for most of the season.

Slater and Alt will be back in 2026, and between pass catchers McConkey, Johnston and Gadsden and running backs Vidal and Hampton, the Chargers will have young playmakers on cost-controlled contracts for another year. Hortiz’s job will be to fix the interior of the offensive line. I wonder whether he’ll look to make a big offer to center Tyler Linderbaum, a player he is familiar with from their time together with the Ravens and one who is set to hit unrestricted free agency. It’s difficult to spend big money on interior linemen with Herbert and Slater already on massive deals and Alt coming due for one next year, but the relatively low cost of the Chargers’ playmakers might allow for a big contract on the interior. It would be a surprise if Becton was back.

There’s also the question of whether the Chargers will return offensive coordinator Greg Roman, who doesn’t have many supporters among Chargers fans after Year 2 in Los Angeles. Roman and Harbaugh arrived in town excited at the idea of what Herbert would look like with a run game, but the Chargers rank 27th in success rate on designed runs over Roman’s two seasons.

The clock is also ticking on the defensive side of the ball, where coordinator Jesse Minter’s ascension to a head-coaching role seems inevitable. Minter and the Chargers have done a fantastic job of getting more out of players than other coaching staffs, with Elijah Molden and Morgan Fox as examples in 2024 and Donte Jackson and Tony Jefferson in 2025. The Chargers have some young talent on defense between Tuli Tuipulotu, Daiyan Henley and several standouts in the secondary, but they were also the league’s eighth-oldest defense on a snap-weighted age basis when I looked in mid-December. If Minter leaves, it’s unclear whether Harbaugh and Hortiz will be as capable of finding hidden gems around the league with the next coordinator.

All of this leaves the Chargers in a weird place. They’re unquestionably a good team with a coach and quarterback who are deservedly held in high regard. They’ve also been beaten two years in a row in the wild-card round. I’m still optimistic that there’s a higher ceiling with the tackles returning in 2026, but Herbert’s propensity for taking hits and the potential loss of Minter might cause the defense to offset any potential gains from the offense. There’s nothing wrong with being an 11-win team that doesn’t make waves in the postseason, but we know Harbaugh and Herbert are capable of more.

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Lost 23-19 vs. 49ers

If you were building a perfect example of what a frustrating 2025 Eagles loss would look like, it would basically be what we saw against the 49ers on Sunday afternoon. A couple of solid early scores before the offense completely shuts down and grounds to a halt in the third quarter? Check. Frustrating penalties that wipe away big plays? Check. An offense missing Lane Johnson? A missed kick by Jake Elliott that changed the late-game calculus? An excellent defense let down in spots by its weakest links on the back end? An end-of-game sequence in which the passing game sputters out with drops and low-percentage throws? Check, check, check and check.

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The Eagles have played variants of this game against good teams for most of the season, with a few breaks going one way or the other late to decide who wins. Things might have been different if Jalen Hurts had been able to escape the pocket and scramble for what looked to be an easy first down in the final sequence, only for 49ers midseason addition Keion White to trip him up for a loss of 1 yard. Instead of being in a first-and-goal situation with three timeouts, the Eagles were stuck in second-and-long and didn’t pick up a single yard the rest of the way.

Against a 49ers team that has been battered by injuries and lost George Kittle to a season-ending torn Achilles in the first half, it was notable how the Eagles suffered when their weaker starters and depth players were brought into focus. The 49ers hit a pair of big plays in the first half when the deep safety in the middle of the field — first Marcus Epps, then Reed Blankenship — was simply unable to slow down a receiver and allowed significant yards after the catch in the process. Those plays amounted to 106 of San Francisco’s 186 yards in the first half, setting it up for 10 points.

Blankenship simply stopped running on a trick play, with Christian McCaffrey running by him to catch a touchdown pass from receiver Jauan Jennings. Nakobe Dean couldn’t hang in coverage on McCaffrey for the winning touchdown. Fred Johnson, playing right tackle for the injured Lane Johnson, committed a false start that pushed the Eagles backward on third down and allowed the only sack of the game for Philly’s offense. When you consider what the 49ers got from guys such as Eric Kendricks, Garret Wallow and Demarcus Robinson on Sunday, the gap between the marginal players taking meaningful snaps on the two rosters and how they played was significant.

Is that on coaching? It has to be, at least in part. Kyle Shanahan and Robert Saleh did an excellent job of getting the most out of the talent they had, a job that became even more difficult for the 49ers head coach when Kittle went down early in the game and took a part of the playbook with him. The Niners were able to find answers by repeatedly targeting Adoree’ Jackson and attacking the Eagles underneath, where Philly blew coverages and couldn’t get close as it tried to tackle McCaffrey and Kyle Juszczyk at times.

Saleh’s defense leaned into the blitz, trusting that Hurts and Philly’s two star wideouts wouldn’t be able to make them pay. That plan paid off, as Hurts went 6-of-11 for just 48 yards against the blitz. Even when the 49ers didn’t send the house, the threat of the blitz caused the Eagles to question their looks and check into plays that weren’t necessarily great fits for what the 49ers ran post-snap. And after Deommodore Lenoir blew contain on the second run of the game and allowed Saquon Barkley to run for 29 yards, the 49ers limited the Philly run game to 109 yards on 34 carries, or 3.2 yards per pop.

For the majority of this season, it has seemed like the Eagles believed they were going to win on sheer talent, that their stars would make more big plays than yours. There was nothing to fix with the run game, because this had been one of the best offensive lines in football with Johnson on the field. Brown and Smith were uncoverable at their best. Hurts was a serial winner. The Eagles ran one of the most static pre-snap offenses in football and were comfortable with Hurts attacking blitzes with low-percentage throws downfield because they believed their guys were going to win.

The results spoke for themselves until they didn’t, and the core of general manager Howie Roseman’s Eagles teams — the offensive and defensive lines — wasn’t up to the task. The Eagles went 8-2 with Lane Johnson and 3-5 without him, as the legendary right tackle never made it back from his midseason Lisfranc injury. Hurts posted a 64.3 QBR with Johnson on the field and a 49.7 mark without him. The Eagles were the league’s fifth-worst rushing attack in terms of success rate without Johnson. His absence wasn’t the only issue, as Landon Dickerson and Cam Jurgens both struggled through frustrating seasons, but the Eagles simply didn’t have the same dominant O-line that they had in 2024, and they never really found a way to account or adjust for those issues.

And while Roseman hit on the midseason addition of Jaelan Phillips, who gave an inconsistent pass rush a much-needed boost of pressure, the Eagles’ offseason moves didn’t necessarily age well. Zack Baun wasn’t the same linebacker in his second season with Philadelphia and got juked out of the play several times in the loss to the 49ers. Some of the depth guys brought in to replace the departed Josh Sweat, such as Za’Darius Smith, Joshua Uche and Azeez Ojulari, struggled to make an impact amid injuries (and an unexpected retirement for Smith). First-round pick Jihaad Campbell lost his role in the lineup once Dean returned from injury and played just one defensive snap against the Niners. The next defenders off the board were Carson Schwesinger, who is a Defensive Rookie of the Year candidate in Cleveland, and Nick Emmanwori, who has been a physical force at safety for Seattle.

But at the end of the day, this has to fall on the coaching staff, specifically the offensive brain trust of head coach Nick Sirianni and offensive coordinator Kevin Patullo. The Eagles simply didn’t develop any new answers as the season went along, and while we don’t know how things would have gone if Lane Johnson had actually made it back, the Eagles’ offense wasn’t really all that great with him in the fold, either. It certainly wasn’t up to what we saw last season, when Kellen Moore was in Patullo’s role and merged the offense he ran in Dallas and Los Angeles with what the Eagles ran under Sirianni.

Should the Eagles fire Sirianni? I laid out many of the pros and cons for him in November, and there’s no arguing that his résumé through five seasons is essentially unprecedented in modern football. He deserves some credit for how well things went in 2022 and 2024, and some blame for the disappointing endings in 2023 and 2025. The Eagles could try to bring back former special teams coordinator John Harbaugh, but Ravens fans would have many of the same complaints about their former coach that Eagles fans have about their current leader.

I’d be surprised if the Eagles moved on from Sirianni. It’s tough to see Patullo returning, and given that Moore and Shane Steichen have earned head coaching gigs from running this offense, it should be an appealing opportunity for offensive minds. It would seem aggressive to make massive personnel changes, but Roseman has never shied away from making moves before. And I wonder whether the Eagles will look to potentially trade A.J. Brown, who had his least efficient season as an Eagles player, repeatedly seemed to butt heads with the organization and turns 29 in June.

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Lost 27-24 vs. Bills

After what has been an excellent debut season as a head coach in Jacksonville, I’m worried Liam Coen is going to be sick for weeks. The Jaguars let this game get away from them in a way that I would not have anticipated. On a day when Trevor Lawrence struggled with consistency and went 18-of-30 for 207 yards, three touchdowns and two interceptions, the Jags simply didn’t run the ball often enough.

It’s one thing to get away from the run when an offense doesn’t have success or is facing a team that has a solid run defense, but neither of those things were true. The Bills’ rush defense — which ranked 31st in EPA per play against designed runs — was their obvious weakness heading into the game. And the Jaguars boomed on the ground on their first touchdown drive, as Bhayshul Tuten racked up consecutive carries of 20, 14 and 13 yards. Inexplicably, the rookie got just one carry the rest of the way.

The duo of Tuten and Travis Etienne Jr. combined for just 14 carries, which they turned into 118 yards and a 71% success rate. By EPA per designed rush by running backs, this was the 13th-most-efficient rushing performance of the season in any game by any set of backs. The Jags simply didn’t get to it enough.

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Raw rush totals can be misleading. Lawrence kept on a zone-read on fourth-and-short when he would have handed the ball off if Joey Bosa hadn’t crashed down. Teams can run RPOs and throw their way out of run looks if they get the right movement. We saw the Panthers throw a pair of slants to Tetairoa McMillan that were tagged onto their run plays for easy completions. And if a defense is loading up with heavy boxes and daring teams to throw, running for the sake of running isn’t a good idea.

But the Bills weren’t doing that. The Jags didn’t run into a single loaded box with Etienne or Tuten all game. Nine of those 14 carries went into light boxes, which helped their efficiency and hinted toward how the Bills were willing to approach this game on defense. Looking at Lawrence’s first-and-10 dropbacks that weren’t near the goal line or in the two-minute drill, there were plenty of run-friendly boxes that the Jags chose not to hit.

Given how Lawrence played Sunday, that was a missed opportunity. He came into the postseason on fire and playing the best football of his career, but as I highlighted last week, that doesn’t always lead to the same success in the postseason.

Lawrence had a 15-2 touchdown-interception ratio during the final nine games of the 2022 season, then threw five picks in two playoff games, including four in the Jags’ dramatic comeback win over the Chargers. After posting a 15-1 ratio over the final six games of 2025, Lawrence threw two picks in Sunday’s loss, including one on the first play of the season-ending drive. He failed to convert on the aforementioned fourth-and-2 zone-read attempt, as well. Lawrence still made a handful of nice throws, especially when targeting slot receiver Parker Washington, but his 30.2 Total QBR ranked ninth among the 10 quarterbacks who have played in the wild-card round so far.

While the Jags led 24-20 with 4:03 to go after Lawrence found Etienne for a touchdown, the Josh Allen drive that followed felt almost inevitable. The Jaguars have a solid defense, but their secondary needs the pass rush to create problems. Instead, Allen went 9-of-12 for 144 yards under pressure, including a spectacular throw against an unblocked rusher to Brandin Cooks on a post route for 36 yards, which got the Bills into the red zone for the game-winning touchdown.

Even as Allen completed passes to nine different receivers and top target Khalil Shakir was mostly catching screens and hitches, the Bills were able to attack outside cornerbacks Jarrian Jones and Greg Newsome II in coverage. Jones also struggled with his tackling after the catch. Allen was 10-of-11 on out-breaking routes, repeatedly trusting his ability to throw the ball into places Jacksonville’s defenders couldn’t reach. And to mitigate the pass rush, Allen got the ball out in less than 2.5 seconds on nearly half of his attempts, going 16-of-17 for 173 yards and a touchdown on those throws.

This was a successful year for the Jaguars, but I’m not sure it went the way Coen and first-year general manager James Gladstone would have imagined. Gladstone swore to take big swings in his new role, and some of those swings hit. Jakobi Meyers was wildly successful after being acquired at the trade deadline, earning an extension. Slot corner Jourdan Lewis was excellent early in the season before hitting injured reserve twice. Center Robert Hainsey had a very solid year after following Coen over from Tampa Bay.

And yet, some of the more high-profile moves the Jags made didn’t really work out. Newsome, acquired in a midseason trade for Tyson Campbell, allowed a 107.5 passer rating in coverage. Dyami Brown, signed to a one-year, $10 million deal, racked up 227 receiving yards and was a healthy scratch late in the year. Really, much of the new regime’s success came in getting more out of the players who were already in the building, including Cole Van Lanen, Devin Lloyd, Etienne, Lawrence and Arik Armstead — all of whom played much better in 2025.

The biggest move the Jags made, of course, was trading two first-round picks for hybrid uber-prospect Travis Hunter. The early returns on that move aren’t looking great. Hunter didn’t play like a first-rounder at wide receiver or cornerback, although he did have 101 yards against the Rams in his final game before suffering a season-ending knee injury in practice. The Jaguars didn’t seem to have a consistent usage plan for Hunter, and while the first-rounder they sent to the Browns to acquire him will fall late in the first round at No. 24, I’m not sure that trade looks all that great after one season.

Hunter still deserves time to develop, and the Jags surely would have loved to have him at cornerback against the Bills on Sunday, but their future plans for him could determine what happens this offseason. It seems likely that the Jags will move forward with Hunter playing regularly at cornerback, where they’ll have an opening, especially if Newsome is allowed to hit free agency.

What about wide receiver, though? In Hunter’s absence, the Jaguars got their passing game going by getting two other wideouts on the field. Meyers emerged as a standout, but so did Washington, who produced a mammoth run of games down the stretch. Underappreciated frankly by both the current and prior regimes in Jacksonville, Washington was buried on the depth chart after the additions of Hunter, Brown and then Meyers this season.

Once Hunter was injured and Brown was taken out of the lineup, though, Washington proved that he belongs on the field. He had 145 receiving yards in the December win over the Broncos, then followed with a 115-yard day against the Colts and 87 yards against the Titans. Washington was then the Jags’ leading receiver on Sunday, turning a team-high 12 targets into 107 yards and a touchdown. With one more year left on his rookie deal, Washington has earned a regular role in the lineup when Jacksonville is in three-wide sets.

The investment made in Hunter also implies that he’s going to be a part of the offense, which leaves me with questions about the one player I haven’t mentioned. Brian Thomas Jr. came into the year as Jacksonville’s top wideout after an impressive rookie season, but amid early issues with drops, he seemed to fade out of that lead role in the offense. Meyers and then Washington took over as Lawrence’s top target for stretches in the second half. Thomas averaged 46.6 receiving yards per game over the final eight games of the season, and despite an early touchdown catch for Jacksonville’s first score on Sunday, he finished with only two receptions for 21 yards in the playoff loss.

The new regime inherited Thomas, and he didn’t appear a natural fit in Year 1 with Coen. Would the Jaguars consider trading him? The 2024 first-rounder is the most natural fit as the «X» receiver in Coen’s offense, and I’m not sure any of the other guys are obvious replacements for him in that role. Plus, Thomas was so talented as a rookie that I’d want to try to make it work for another season.

If the Jags can recoup the first-round pick they sent away for Hunter, though, trading Thomas might be worth serious consideration. And the obvious landing spot, coincidentally enough, would be with the team that just beat them. Buffalo doesn’t have that young playmaker who can win against man coverage at wide receiver, and Thomas would be a major upgrade on what already appears to be a failed experiment in Keon Coleman. The Bills will also have their first-rounder fall toward the end of the round, which would probably be a fair price for Thomas. It’s an unlikely move, of course, but Jacksonville has four starters for three wideout spots, and Thomas is the player who would have the most trade value and who the current regime has seen the least out of in 2025.

A notable starter whose future is more likely to be elsewhere in 2026 is Walker Little. The prior front office signed the 2021 second-round pick to a three-year, $40.5 million deal after just a handful of starts at left tackle. Little began the year on Lawrence’s blind side, but when he suffered a concussion in a November win over the Titans, the Jags installed Van Lanen at left tackle. The utility player was enough of an upgrade that the Jags both signed him to a three-year, $51 million deal and kept him at left tackle when Little returned. (Little moved to right guard to take over for the injured Patrick Mekari.)

Van Lanen missed Sunday’s loss with a knee injury, with Little back to his old spot and committing two false starts. The commitment to Van Lanen suggests that the Jags see him as a left tackle candidate in 2026. With Little’s $11 million base salary guaranteed next season, it would hardly be a surprise if the Jaguars traded him to both clear out a starting spot and get some cash to put toward free agent additions this offseason.

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Lost 31-27 vs. Bears

Sunday’s loss brought an end to a five-week collapse for the Packers, who walked off the field after Keisean Nixon’s interception sealed a win over the Bears in early December with hopes of winning the NFC North. That dramatic victory was their last of the season, as the Packers lost their final five games, including the wild-card matchup Saturday. Along the way, they lost Micah Parsons to a knee injury, lost (then regained) Jordan Love to a concussion and blew two different games with a 95% or better win expectancy in the fourth quarter to the Bears. The first pushed the NFC North back to Chicago, and the second might have ended Matt LaFleur’s run as Green Bay’s head coach.

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There has been smoke around the coach’s future in Green Bay over the past few weeks, and there are plans to talk after the season about extending the contracts of LaFleur and general manager Brian Gutekunst, both of whom are entering the final year of their respective pacts. I’d argue that they’re two of the best at their respective roles. I’m just not sure Packers fans would agree with that sentiment at the moment.

At halftime of Saturday night’s game, of course, LaFleur looked like he might earn a new deal in the locker room. It seemed like the Packers had outprepared, outschemed and outplayed the Bears, who were flailing on fourth downs and struggling to live up to the moment. Chicago coach Ben Johnson wasn’t able to get his ground game going, had dialed up just one play-action pass for Caleb Williams and couldn’t rely at all on his defense to slow down the Packers. Love and the Green Bay offense scored touchdowns on the first three drives, and while Brandon McManus missed a 55-yard field goal to end the half, the Packers were up 21-3 and getting the ball to start the third quarter. One missed kick wasn’t going to matter. Right?

Well, three missed kicks mattered, as McManus missed another field goal and an extra point, costing the Packers seven points in a game they lost by four. He was a savior for the Packers last season when the 34-year-old produced an outlier season in terms of accuracy, but the Packers brought McManus back for 2025 with underwhelming results; he had the fifth-worst field goals made over expectation (per NFL Next Gen Stats) of any kicker, even before his postseason disappointment. Would he have had a better chance of making those kicks at home?

The Bears found their rhythm on offense, as they scored on five of their six possessions in the second half, racking up 333 net yards and 28 points. The Packers, decidedly, did not. The offense went to sleep for its first four possessions in the second half, as Green Bay amassed 29 yards and one first down across a four-drive stretch.

Much of that owed to a rushing attack that simply stopped. Josh Jacobs was solid early in this game, but the 2023 free agent addition and the offensive line could not conspire to threaten the line of scrimmage for most of the contest. Jacobs finished with 19 carries for 55 yards, but his final 14 totes produced just 16 yards and one first down. Jacobs was stopped on a second-and-3, a third-and-1 and two carries from the 1-yard line. And pressed into action as a kickoff returner, he fumbled, with the Packers fortunate to fall on the football. Jacobs was returning from a knee injury, but if he wasn’t 100 percent, it was on LaFleur to find other solutions, either by using other backs or leaning into the pass on early downs.

Jeff Hafley has earned head coaching consideration for his work with the Packers’ defense over the past two years, but this also wasn’t his best showing. The Packers were able to get off the field on fourth down against the Bears in the first half, but frankly, that was more a product of Chicago clumsiness than great defensive play. Bears center Drew Dalman fired a snap wide of Williams to throw off the timing on one failed fourth-down play, while Dalman and right guard Jonah Jackson failed to block defensive tackle Karl Brooks on another, allowing the Packers lineman to run totally unbothered up the A-gap at Williams for a drive-ending pressure. Williams finished the first half 8-of-17 for 78 yards with an interception, and it seemed like Hafley might finish the night with a head coaching offer or two.

After the break, Hafley’s defense wasn’t able to consistently slow down the Bears. The Packers weren’t able to create post-snap problems for Williams and the passing game. There’s nothing wrong with rotation safeties and trying to show a different post-snap look, but it led to snaps in which the Packers weren’t in position to succeed. On the first third down of the third quarter, the Packers showed a two-high look before the snap and then blitzed safety Xavier McKinney from 11 yards off the line of scrimmage. McKinney never got close to Williams, and the Packers were outnumbered on a flood combination to that side of the field, producing an easy 19-yard completion to tight end Colston Loveland.

Loveland picked up another big play on the same drive when the Packers spun their safeties before the snap and nobody ran with his crossing route. The rookie tight end was a mismatch when the Packers did get somebody on him — Loveland was simply too athletic for Quay Walker — but the Packers made their own mistakes. On a critical third-and-4 before the winning touchdown, the Packers responded to an empty formation by dropping their defensive backs past the sticks and asking edge rusher Kingsley Enagbare to get into the flat to cover running back D’Andre Swift. Williams went right to him for an easy 23-yard gain. One play later, the Bears had the lead.

That final play saw the Bears take advantage of the position that has been the weak spot on the Packers’ roster going all the way back to the start of the season. Carrington Valentine was supposed to be booted out of the starting lineup by the arrival of free agent slot corner Nate Hobbs, but Hobbs was ineffective and injured for most of his debut season in Green Bay. Valentine has allowed a 121.2 passer rating in his stead, and he came up lacking on the last snap of the Packers’ season.

For the complaints about Ben Johnson’s playcalling being too cute, this was an example of the details selling the right lie to the right player. The Bears lined up with trips to the left and an unbalanced line, giving them an extra blocker to the side of the field in tackle Darnell Wright. The look screamed some sort of screen, and early in the game, the Bears had thrown a screen on third-and-8 out of that same bunch for a first down.

This time, though, the Bears were taking a shot downfield. Williams fired his hips toward the tunnel screen without ever really throwing the ball, but that was enough. Valentine drove on the screen, and by the time he turned around, the ball was already coming out. DJ Moore had dropped a spectacular throw from Williams earlier in the drive, but this time, the wide-open veteran brought in a fade for the winning touchdown.

Edgerrin Cooper leaving in the third quarter because of an ankle injury cost the Packers arguably their best remaining player on the defense. Isaiah McDuffie filled in and wasn’t able to tackle Bears running back Kyle Monangai on a critical checkdown that turned into a 22-yard completion and set up a touchdown. Linebacker Nick Niemann, who hadn’t played a single defensive snap all season, was isolated in coverage against Loveland on the two-point try that made it a three-point game.

And the Packers sorely missed Parsons, the player for whom Gutekunst broke tradition and sent two first-round picks to acquire. They pressured Williams on 25% of his dropbacks, but the Packers had just two quick pressures on 48 opportunities, meaning that most of the times they bothered Williams came late in the play. Parsons averaged more than two quick pressures per game on his own this season. Could those pressures have helped swing this game toward Green Bay?

The Packers did have a chance to win the game after the Moore touchdown, but sloppy game management from LaFleur limited what they could do. It’s always easier to evaluate timeout usage after the fact, when we know how the game ends, but it’s impossible to suggest that LaFleur got anything close to full value for the three he had in the second half.

Green Bay used its first on offense with 3:02 left, a stopped clock and a three-point lead to avoid a delay of game penalty. That’s fine, but the Packers promptly went back to the line after the timeout and took a delay of game penalty, costing them 5 yards. After an incompletion on third down, LaFleur had the impossible choice between kicking a field goal to go up six (often seen as a net negative by win expectancy models, because it incentivizes the other team to go for a touchdown) or attempt a fourth-and-15. He got neither, and the Bears scored a touchdown anyway.

LaFleur had to use his second timeout on defense with 2:08 to go, this time because the Packers couldn’t get the right players on the field. The timeout stopped the clock for the Bears and gave them the ability to open up the playbook to call a run just before the two-minute warning, which they took advantage of to pick up 5 yards.

The Packers were left with one timeout for their final drive, which they used after a short competition to Romeo Doubs. They were then forced to run 10 seconds off the clock after an injury to center Sean Rhyan. In the end, they never even got an opportunity to run a play within the red zone before time expired, coming closest when Love nearly squeezed a pass between three Tampa 2 defenders to Christian Watson inside the 5-yard line.

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It’s a frustrating loss at the end of a frustrating losing streak. It’s the third straight year the Packers have entered the postseason as the 7-seed, and LaFleur has a grand total of one playoff win over the past five seasons. Should what Packers fans saw from their coach Saturday serve as proof that Green Bay needs to go in a different direction?

I would say no. LaFleur has gone 76-40-1 as a head coach despite fielding what were often underwhelming defenses over that stretch, an issue I would blame more on Joe Barry than him. There have been a couple of rough losses in the postseason, and I’m not sure I’ll ever understand LaFleur kicking a field goal down eight late against the Bucs with the greatest red zone offense in league history in the 2020 playoffs, but there’s a real value in having a coach who gets you to the playoffs just about every year. LaFleur’s work with Malik Willis and building a functional offense around a quarterback who looked unplayable in Tennessee is a testament to his offensive mind.

The story seems the same for the Packers because it is the same. They’re a good team stuck in a tough division. They’re the youngest team in the league on an annual basis, as Gutekunst strips the oldest players from the roster and loads up on draft picks. The difference was supposed to be Parsons, the true superstar who would elevate the rest of the defense, help mask the weaknesses at cornerback and come up with big plays when the Packers need them most. And for three-plus months, Parsons lived up to expectations. There’s no good time to tear an ACL, but Parsons doing so one month before the playoffs was always going to have a dramatic impact on Green Bay’s ceiling. I wouldn’t fire LaFleur or Gutekunst because their most important addition tore an ACL.

Instead, I suspect it will be an offseason of retooling. This offseason might be the end of the line in Green Bay for 30-year-old lineman Elgton Jenkins, who has a $24.8 million cap hit next season. Hobbs and 28-year-old guard Aaron Banks, who was in and out of the lineup because of injuries, could be one-and-done in Green Bay, although I’d be surprised if Banks was released. Doubs, who had a fantastic catch in a key moment, is likely to leave in free agency, which will help the Packers recoup some of the draft capital they lost as part of the Parsons deal via compensatory picks. The Packers were also 26th in special teams win probability during the regular season, which might create problems for coordinator Rich Bisaccia.

Outside of the very top teams in football, a lot of organizations would and should look enviously at what the Packers have built. I think we need to see what that looks like in the postseason with a healthy Parsons before making any sort of snap judgments about whether Green Bay is better off with another head coach.

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Lost 34-31 vs. Rams

There are no moral victories in the playoffs, but for the Panthers, this might have been the closest thing to one imaginable. They were massive underdogs at home even after beating the Rams in Carolina this season, and expectations of repeating that feat in the rematch were low. When the Panthers quickly went down 14-0 after a failed fourth-down conversion and a Bryce Young interception handed the Rams a pair of short fields, a blowout victory for Los Angeles coach Sean McVay appeared to be on the horizon.

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Instead, the Panthers came all the way back to take the lead with 2:39 to go before the defense allowed a winning touchdown drive to Matthew Stafford. The veteran quarterback reportedly told receiver Davante Adams he was going to «snatch [the Panthers’] hearts'» on the final drive. A cold line, no doubt, but one you save for the Super Bowl when you know the NFL Films microphones are on the sideline, right? Stafford had to pull out his best material late in the wild-card round, both on and off the field, to get the Rams to the next round.

I’m weirdly more optimistic about the Panthers after the playoff loss than I was after the regular-season win. The November win was obviously more satisfying, but the factors that led to it were unsustainable. The Panthers converted all three of their fourth-down tries, including two for long touchdown passes. With a Mike Jackson pick-six leading the way, the Panthers posted a plus-three turnover margin in the win; the last time that happened was in the Matt Rhule era with Baker Mayfield at quarterback, more than three years ago. Those plays matter and are meaningful, of course, but I’m not sure they’re particularly sustainable as a formula for beating the Rams.

And in those same spots Sunday, the Panthers’ timing wasn’t quite as impeccable. They went 0-for-3 on fourth down. Young threw an early pick to the Rams on a play in which Panthers receiver Jalen Coker, who otherwise had a breakout game, seemed to be on the wrong page after some pre-snap adjustments and stopped his route. Carolina rookie Trevor Etienne muffed a punt to give the Rams another short field, and while the Panthers got another Jackson interception and blocked a punt in the fourth quarter, the turnover margin for this game went down in Los Angeles’ favor. (Should blocked punts count as turnovers?)

Instead, this Panthers performance shined through the full 60 minutes, as they went toe-to-toe with the Rams on a down-by-down basis. They struggled early on defense, with Rams receiver Puka Nacua moving around the formation and flummoxing Carolina’s zone coverage looks, but defensive coordinator Ejiro Evero and his cornerbacks held up against Nacua and Adams and forced Stafford into what seemed like an endless run of contested throws to either sideline. They rode their luck a bit when Nacua dropped a would-be touchdown just before halftime, but the Panthers were able to limit explosive rushing plays and didn’t allow a single drive over 50 yards before the fourth quarter.

And on a day when Chuba Hubbard and Rico Dowdle combined for 55 yards on 18 carries and the Panthers trailed by 14 points midway through the first quarter, so much of the game fell on Young’s shoulders. His offensive line was a mess. Guard Robert Hunt tried to return early from a pectoral injury and clearly wasn’t his usual self. The third-year pro lost left tackle Ikem Ekwonu to a ruptured patellar tendon early in the game, and replacement Yosh Nijman allowed four of the 14 quick pressures generated by the Rams, per NFL Next Gen Stats. That’s tied for the fifth-most quick pressures by any defense in any game all season.

Under the circumstances, I thought Young was excellent. The raw numbers aren’t going to wow anyone, with the 2023 No. 1 draft pick completing 52.5% of his passes and averaging 6.6 yards per attempt, but Young’s 74.4 Total QBR attests to how well he played given the pressure rate. He was repeatedly able to buy time and create out of structure, looking almost Tony Romo-esque as he spun his way out of interior pressure and got out of the pocket to find receivers.

When Young wasn’t pressured, he went 17-of-24 for 223 yards with a touchdown and that pick. He threw with anticipation to set up two chunk plays to Coker, who finished with nine catches for 134 yards and the touchdown that gave the Panthers their fourth-quarter lead. Young is never going to have the strongest arm, so he needs to anticipate voids before they come open, throw accurate passes to create YAC and alternately create out of structure. He did all three Saturday.

I’m not suggesting that Young’s fifth-year option was on the line in this game, because the indications were already that the Panthers were going to pick up the $26.5 million guarantee for Young to be on the roster in 2027. If Young had suffered through a disastrous game (think Sam Darnold’s final start with the Vikings), though, that pickup might have come through gritted teeth. This was Young’s most important start in a Panthers uniform, and he came through impressively.

This is the first offseason in many years in which the Panthers won’t have to make fixing the offense their primary focus. Acquiring a quarterback was problem No. 1, of course, and they’ve spent the past two offseasons desperately trying to get the right players around Young. Some of those moves haven’t hit, but enough have to leave the offense in solid shape. Coker and presumptive Offensive Rookie of the Year Tetairoa McMillan are the two young wideouts the Panthers have been hoping to find. They’ll also have Jonathon Brooks as the second back alongside Hubbard to replace Dowdle next season.

There’s still work to be done, of course. Ekwonu is likely out six to 12 months, and the Panthers are on the hook for his $17.6 million fifth-year option in 2026. Nijman, a pending free agent, was a turnstile when forced into the lineup at left tackle. The Panthers probably need a short-term stopgap at left tackle if Ekwonu is not ready to go. Adding a tight end might also be on the docket if the Panthers weren’t impressed by Ja’Tavion Sanders’ second season.

But really, this should be an offseason finally devoted toward adding defense. The Panthers signed Tershawn Wharton and Tre’von Moehrig in free agency, but when they used a second-round pick on edge Nic Scourton, it was the first time Carolina had used a first- or second-round pick on a defensive player since selecting Jaycee Horn in 2021.

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The Panthers like their young talent on defense, but this would be about finding more significant solutions for some of their veterans on short-term, low-cost contracts. Ironically, two are former Rams in safety Nick Scott and linebacker Christian Rozeboom, both of whom were targeted by L.A. in coverage Sunday. No Carolina defender managed more than five sacks, so finding a veteran (or a first-round pick) on the edge who can create more pass pressure alongside Scourton and Princely Umanmielen would be a welcome addition.

It’s important to be realistic about where the Panthers are and what they’ve shown. This team finished 25th in DVOA and ESPN’s Football Power Index. It was 8-9 against one of the league’s easier schedules, the same performance that led the Falcons to fire Raheem Morris after two seasons in Atlanta. And after no-showing a win-and-in game against the Buccaneers last week, the Panthers needed Morris and his Falcons to beat the Saints, something Carolina wasn’t able to do with two chances, to push coach Dave Canales’ team into the postseason.

And yet, there are meaningful signs of growth. The Panthers finished 21st in weighted DVOA, and while that’s not going to push Canales into the Hall of Fame, it’s a sign that they were improving as the season went along. They beat the Packers and Rams and came within a defensive stop of beating what might be the league’s best team a second time. If they can stack a second effective offseason in a row, the Panthers might be in position to take over Tampa Bay’s spot as the presumptive favorite in the NFC South in the years to come.