Are Broncos vulnerable atop the AFC? Is Todd Bowles’ job in jeopardy? Let’s overreact to Week 16

It is not an overreaction to say the pre-Sunday NFL Week 16 games were completely wild and massively consequential. Seattle came back from way down in the fourth quarter to stun the Rams in overtime and take control of the NFC playoff race. Chicago came back from way down in the fourth quarter to stun the Packers in overtime and take control of the NFC North.

Week 16 results feel weightier, mainly because there isn’t much time left to fix problems that result from them. The Rams might well be better than the Seahawks, but now all Seattle has to do is win two games to keep Los Angeles in a wild-card spot. The Packers might be better than the Bears, but Green Bay could theoretically miss the playoffs completely as a result of Saturday night’s meltdown.

On and on it goes. The only reason Tampa Bay’s loss to Carolina wasn’t completely devastating is that these teams will meet again in Week 18. But still, if the Buccaneers lose and the Panthers win next week, that rematch won’t matter. The way the Jaguars played against the Broncos put a lot of pressure on a sleepy-looking Texans team to get it together against the Raiders. (It did.) Week 16 is a serious reality check.

With all of that in mind, and with enough data to draw some strong conclusions about this season and how it’ll end, we present the Week 16 overreactions column, where we try to figure out which overreactions might hold up and which ones are mirages.

Jump to:
Broncos might not get No. 1 seed?
Metcalf should have been taken out of game?
Are Bowles’ days numbered in Tampa?
Bears a legit threat to win NFC?
Macdonald the Coach of the Year?
Fantasy-related overreactions

The Broncos aren’t going to be the AFC’s No. 1 seed after all

The Broncos’ 11-game winning streak came to an end Sunday with a stunning home loss to the surging Jaguars, who hung 34 points on Denver’s vaunted defense and looked very much like a top AFC contender. As a result, the Broncos are 12-3. That’s still the best record in the AFC as of this writing, but the Patriots can match it with a win Sunday night in Baltimore (though the Broncos hold the tiebreaker). The Bills, Jags and Chargers are all 11-4 and right behind Denver. The Broncos’ remaining games are at beleaguered Kansas City on Thursday and at home against the Chargers in a Week 18 game that could decide the AFC West title.

Verdict: NOT AN OVERREACTION

This result opened up so many things at the top of the AFC playoff race. It creates the always fun situation in which both teams in the AFC West race control their own destiny. Because the Chargers beat the Broncos in Week 3 and because these teams will play again in the finale, the Chargers will win the division (and possibly secure the No. 1 seed) if they win their final two games. The Jaguars could still get the 1-seed, and they now have the head-to-head tiebreaker over Denver in case of a tie in the standings. The Patriots can obviously still get No. 1 spot, as can the Bills if they catch New England for the AFC East title.

Denver should be able to take out the Chiefs on Christmas Day, what with Kansas City’s top two quarterbacks out because of torn ACLs. But if the Chargers get by the Texans on Saturday, Week 18’s Los Angeles-Denver game sets up as one that could relegate the Broncos to wild-card status. See? Week 16 is huge. Not an overreaction.

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DK Metcalf should have been removed from Sunday’s game after shoving a fan

The Steelers wide receiver got into an altercation with a fan who was hanging over the railing behind the Pittsburgh bench in the second quarter of Sunday’s game against the Lions in Detroit. Metcalf grabbed the fan and then quickly extended his arm upward in what looked like a shoving motion. CBS cameras caught the altercation, but apparently no officials did because none threw a flag for unsportsmanlike conduct. Metcalf reentered the game for Pittsburgh’s next offensive series and was still playing in the second half.

lost 23-20 to the Panthers on Sunday to fall into second place in the NFC South. It was Tampa Bay’s third defeat in a row — all to division opponents — and sixth in its past seven games following a 6-2 start. The Bucs now sit one game behind the Panthers with two games to play, though the fact that they will play Carolina again in Week 18 means Sunday’s loss wasn’t a season-killer. Nevertheless, the Buccaneers’ collapse is one of the most surprising stories of this entire NFL season.

They’re four-time defending division champions, and the NFC South didn’t have a team with a winning record entering Sunday. A fifth straight division title seemed like the floor for Tampa Bay’s 2025 expectations. The Bucs fought through ridiculous injury situations early in the season and won six of their first eight behind what was looking like an MVP season for quarterback Baker Mayfield.

But very strangely, as they’ve gotten healthier, they’ve played worse. Mayfield has thrown an interception in each of his past three outings after tossing just five in the first 12 games of the campaign. The Bucs are 0-7 this season in games in which Mayfield throws an interception and 7-1 when he doesn’t. Coach Todd Bowles was furious with his team after its Week 15 Thursday night loss to Atlanta, but the Bucs laid another egg Sunday despite the extra days of rest.

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Verdict: OVERREACTION

This was a tough one. Bowles’ seat absolutely could be getting hot, and this is a spot people around the league have started to watch for a potential change. But we don’t know the thought process of Tampa Bay ownership or what it will do if the collapse continues and the Bucs miss the playoffs. This would be the first season in Bowles’ four-year tenure as Bucs head coach that they didn’t win the division, which you’d think would buy him some grace. But this team had higher hopes than just another division title.

The Buccaneers believed they had a roster (before the injuries, at least) that could compete for a Super Bowl appearance. But the offense hasn’t improved with better health, and the defense isn’t generating any kind of pass rush. Just last week, Tampa Bay pulled outside linebacker Jason Pierre-Paul out of retirement to see if he could help. So, a couple of ugly games in Weeks 17 and 18 could make things very dicey for Bowles. But given his track record of success in Tampa and what seems to be viewed as a bit of a thin crop of head coaching candidates, I’m going to lean «overreaction» here and guess Bowles gets a mulligan.

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The Bears are a legitimate threat to win the NFC

Chicago’s 22-16 overtime victory over the Packers on Saturday night was by far the craziest NFL game since, well, two days earlier, but you get the idea. The Bears trailed 6-0 at halftime, 13-3 entering the fourth quarter and 16-6 with less than three minutes left in the game. But a field goal, a recovered onside kick and a Caleb Williams touchdown pass sent the game to overtime, when Williams won it with one of the gutsiest, most brilliant throws of the season.

Chicago is now 11-4 — a game and a half ahead of the second-place Packers in the NFC North and only a game behind Seattle in the race for the top seed in the NFC. The Bears’ only loss since October came in Week 14 at Green Bay, and they avenged it Saturday to seize control of the division. Home playoff games in the Windy City seem to be more of a likelihood than a possibility at this point.

Verdict: NOT AN OVERREACTION

Are the Bears as good as the Rams on paper? Probably not. Do the Bears play defense as well as the Seahawks do? Definitely not. But Ben Johnson’s bunch is never out of a game. The Bears’ run game is one of the NFL’s most creative and effective, ranking second behind only Buffalo in yards per game and yards before contact per rush. That’s the kind of thing that travels in January and should enable the Bears to keep games close.

And if the games are close, the Bears have shown a remarkable and consistent ability to win them. Williams is a flawed second-year quarterback, but he has the arm talent to make throws other people would never try and seems to have a knack for performing in the clutch. The two teams atop the NFC West have earned the right to be considered the conference’s favorites, but the Bears aren’t going to be an easy out.

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Mike Macdonald is going to win Coach of the Year

The former Ravens defensive coordinator is 22-10 in his head coaching career, and the Seahawks are obviously a team to take seriously. They came back from 16 points down in the fourth quarter Thursday to eventually beat the Rams 38-37 in overtime. The comeback was aided by a zany 2-point conversion play that initially looked like an incomplete pass but was reversed to a backward pass and a successful conversion because Seattle running back Zach Charbonnet picked up the ball in the end zone.

In overtime, a Seattle defense that had forced four fourth-quarter punts let Matthew Stafford go right down the field and score, but the Seahawks responded with a touchdown drive of their own. Macdonald then made the call to go for two instead of kicking the tying extra point: Quarterback Sam Darnold found tight end Eric Saubert in the front of the end zone for the conversion. Now, Seattle is in the driver’s seat for not just the NFC West title but the No. 1 seed and a first-round bye in the NFC playoffs. If the Seahawks win their final two games, they get the first week of the postseason off no matter what anyone else does.

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Verdict: OVERREACTION

Oh, Macdonald totally could win it. He is a worthy candidate, and giving him the award wouldn’t be a surprise or a mistake. The problem is, you could say that about at least a half dozen other coaches this season.

Johnson has the Bears in first place in their division during his first season. Mike Vrabel has the Patriots in first place in his first season, and so does Liam Coen in Jacksonville. Jim Harbaugh’s Chargers and Kyle Shanahan’s 49ers have weathered a ridiculous number of key injuries to put themselves in playoff contention. Sean Payton’s Broncos helped end a nine-year Chiefs run atop the AFC West and could be the best team in their conference. Coach of the Year is an extremely close and cluttered race this season, and what happens in the final two weeks could help break some ties in the minds of the voters.

Quick-hitter fantasy overreactions

• Omarion Hampton will be a first-round fantasy pick in 2026: NOT AN OVERREACTION. Hampton had 85 rushing yards and a touchdown in the Chargers’ 34-17 victory at Dallas on Sunday. He missed two months of the season because of a left ankle fracture, but the silver lining is that he might be fresher than most rookies at this point in the campaign. He told me after the game that this was the best he’d felt since returning in Week 14. Kimani Vidal left Sunday’s game because of a neck injury, and Hampton is set up for the kind of finishing stretch that people will remember come next August.

• Cam Ward will be a starting fantasy quarterback in 2026: NOT AN OVERREACTION. He has played better as the season has gone along, and it’s fair to expect the Titans’ next head coach to be an offensive/QB specialist who can help Ward take a leap forward in 2026 the way Ben Johnson has with Caleb Williams and Liam Coen has with Trevor Lawrence this season.

• Justin Jefferson is back, and you can start him next week in your championship round: OVERREACTION. Still no touchdown, and J.J. McCarthy got hurt in Sunday’s game. So, it could be Max Brosmer time again on Christmas. How’d that go the first time for Jefferson? I’d be careful, even against that banged-up Lions secondary. Of course, if you’ve been rolling with Jefferson all this time, odds are you don’t have a championship game next week.

• Kenneth Gainwell will be a starting fantasy running back in 2026. NOT AN OVERREACTION. Gainwell has been a revelation for the Steelers after signing a one-year contract this past offseason. More than just a third-down, pass-catching back, he has shown an ability to be the guy an offense relies on in key spots. He’s only 26 years old. Running backs don’t get huge free agent deals, but Gainwell should do better than he did in free agency last year and could end up as someone’s starter in 2026.

• Chris Olave is a WR1 with Tyler Shough at QB. NOT AN OVERREACTION. Olave is a WR1 in real life if he’s healthy, and the concussion issues from last season and the Derek Carr issues from the past couple of years perhaps made us forget that. Shough is getting him the ball, and Olave is performing the way a WR1 performs.