Through this wild, up-and-down NFL season, the one reliable team that seemed to emerge was the Los Angeles Rams. After last week's blowout win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, they wereeveryone's pick as the best team in football.
What we're learning in Week 13 is that there are no reliable teams this season.
On Thursday and Friday, all four favorites lost and all the losers were exposed in various ways. TheDetroit Lions,Kansas City Chiefs,Baltimore RavensandPhiladelphia Eagles lostand none looked close to being Super Bowl contenders. It didn't matter because the Rams were rock solid.
And then Sunday happened.
The Rams, who were getting a historic run of mistake-free football from Matthew Stafford, lost 31-28 to a Carolina Panthers team that looked absolutely terrible six days earlier in a Monday night loss to the San Francisco 49ers.
Stafford threw two interceptions,including a pick 6, and lost a crucial fumble late in the third quarter with his team trailing. Stafford hadn't thrown an interception since Week 3. Stafford had thrown 28 straight touchdowns without an interception, an NFL record, before even he looked vulnerable.
Stafford's turnovers weren't the only issue. The defense let down too. Bryce Young hit a huge go-ahead 43-yard touchdown pass to Tetairoa McMillan on fourth down late in the fourth quarter, and that was a key turning point. Young had 206 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions. Everything that worked for the Rams last week against the Buccaneers vanished Sunday.
The Rams are still a good team. We're just seeing that every team this season is prone to a bad loss. There is no historically great team this season. One has to win a Super Bowl, however, even if the eventual champions won't exactly be the 1972 Miami Dolphins. Maybe it's the Rams. Perhaps it's someone like the Eagles, who figure out their issues, or the Denver Broncos, who keep flying under the radar. The key to the postseason might be who avoids playing their worst game for a month, because every team this season has shown they're capable of bad performances. Even the Rams.
Here are the rest of the NFL's winners and losers from Sunday's action of Week 13:
WINNERS
Bills' defense:Buffalo hasn't had a great season on defense. The Bills were 17th in points allowed and 13th in yards allowed heading into Sunday's game against the Pittsburgh Steelers. That's decent but not at a championship level.
The Bills might not be back to a championship level yet, but their defense came up big against the Steelers.
Pittsburgh was stuck on 90 yards through three quarters of a26-7 loss to the Bills.The Buffalo defense scored as many touchdowns as Pittsburgh's offense, as a huge sack by Joey Bosa on Aaron Rodgers led to a fumble recovery for a touchdown. Thatchanged the entire game, and 249 rushing yards by the Bills helped get the win.
Buffalo is 8-4 and has shown glimpses of being a dangerous postseason team. But until the defense makes a big improvement, it will be tough to go on a long playoff run. Maybe Sunday was a sign of a turnaround.
Robert Saleh:The San Francisco 49ers' defense has few stars on the field this season. They do have a star calling the defense.
Saleh, San Francisco's defensive coordinator, is getting the most out of a unit that lost stars Nick Bosa and Fred Warner due to injuries. A young defense is getting better as the season goes along, and that's a testament to Saleh's coaching. The49ers held Shedeur Sanders and the Cleveland Browns downin a 26-8 win with some terrible weather. It was a good follow-up to a strong performance in Week 12, when the 49ers shut down the Panthers (who looked pretty good against the Rams on Sunday).
Saleh didn't succeed as a head coach of the New York Jets, but poor ownership makes that a difficult situation. Teams might not hold his record in New York against him, especially as they see him maximizing a 49ers defense for a team that is in good shape to make the playoffs despite numerous injuries on both sides of the ball.
Baker Mayfield and Bucky Irving:The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have been surviving in spite of injuries. It's starting to look better for them on that front.
Mayfield left last week's game with a left shoulder injury and there was a lot of doubt if he would play this weekend. He played and had another strong outing in a20-17 win over the Arizona Cardinals. He had 194 yards and a touchdown. He found an old reliable target in Chris Godwin Jr., who led the Bucs with 78 receiving yards and is another Tampa Bay star rounding into form after dealing with injuries.
Even more promising was the return of Irving. The second-year back played for the first time since Week 4, having missed almost three months with foot and shoulder injuries, and he looked sharp. Irving scored a touchdown and generally looked like his old self. Irving had 81 yards from scrimmage, which was reasonable considering he was returning after a long layoff. He gives the Buccaneers another playmaker down the stretch.
Tampa Bay has a very easy schedule the rest of the season and should win the NFC South. If the Bucs keep getting healthy, they could be dangerous in the postseason too.
Dolphins defense:After seven weeks, the Dolphins' defense looked like perhaps the worst in the NFL. Miami was allowing 29.3 points per game and hadn't allowed fewer than 21 in a game. The Dolphins were 1-6.
Then, suddenly, it changed. The Dolphins' defense faced a bad New Orleans Saints team and it started pouring rain in the second half, but it was still another strong defensive performance in a21-17 win. New Orleans rallied to score a late touchdown, but when the Saints went for the 2-point conversion and the tie, the Dolphins came up with a huge play as Minkah Fitzpatrick picked off Tyler Shough and returned it for 2 points.
Then after the Saints got a rare onside kick and Miami's defense was forced to get back on the field, the Dolphins got a quick stop that culminated with a fourth-down stuff on a Tyler Shough quarterback sneak.
The Dolphins have won four of five, perhaps saving head coach Mike McDaniel's job in the process. They probably have saved defensive coordinator Anthony Weaver's job, too.
Since that awful start on defense, the Dolphins allowed 10, 28, 13 and 13 points in their four games heading into Week 13. The 28-point game was the only loss in that stretch, to Lamar Jackson and the Baltimore Ravens. The Dolphins have turned it around despite dealing pass rusher Jaelan Phillips to the Eagles before the trade deadline. It's an impressive transformation, and it came out of nowhere.
LOSERS
Pete Carroll:As the season goes on, it gets harder to make a case for Carroll to get a second season with the Las Vegas Raiders.
Last week there was a big shakeup, as Carroll fired offensive coordinator Chip Kelly. Nothing got better. Ashton Jeanty was quiet again, Geno Smith had another mediocre day and even though Brock Bowers was great with two touchdown catches (including a fantastic one for his second score), the Los AngelesChargers beat the Raiders soundly, 31-14. The Raiders had 156 yards of offense.
Once a coach starts firing coordinators, it's a sign he's in trouble. You have only so many coordinators to blame your problems on. The Raiders have fired their offensive coordinator and special teams coordinator over the past few weeks. With the Raiders at 2-10, and having lost 10 of their last 11, Carroll's future will be a big topic of discussion over the next few weeks.
Max Brosmer's moment of infamy:We knew the most likely outcome for Brosmer, an undrafted rookie making his first NFL start, was he would struggle against a tough Seattle Seahawks defense.
He just had to avoid a blooper that would be replayed a million times. Nope.
Brosmer had one of the most embarrassing plays of the season in theMinnesota Vikings' loss on Sunday. On a fourth down, Brosmer was stumbling down when he tossed away the ball, without looking, praying for a positive result. Instead, his pass went right to Seahawks linebacker Ernest Jones IV, who went 85 yards for a pick 6.
That might have been OK if Brosmer had otherwise played well in place of J.J. McCarthy. He didn't. He looked very much like an undrafted rookie making his first start against one of the NFL's best defenses. Brosmer had 126 yards and threw four interceptions. His passer rating was 32.8. The Vikings were shut out for the first time since 2007. The Seahawks didn't play particularly well against the Vikings' defense, but Jones' pick 6 was really all they needed.
Nothing is saving the Vikings this season. And now they're embarrassing themselves.
Indianapolis Colts' hold on AFC South:A few weeks ago, there was chatter that the Colts were the best team in football. They might not even end up winning their division.
The Colts took a damaging loss Sunday. The Houston Texans continued their hot streak, with their defense making several big plays and their offense doing enough tobeat the Colts 20-16. The Texans failed to convert a tush push on third and fourth downs late in the game, giving the Colts a chance. Daniel Jones got the Colts into Texans territory but the drive stalled and Jones' fourth-down pass was knocked down to give Houston a huge stop.
Jones' fractured fibula was reported this past week, and that has to be a reason the Colts' offense has taken a step back. Indianapolis has lost three of four and the only win was an overtime victory over a bad Atlanta Falcons team in Berlin.
The Colts are now 8-4. TheJaguars are also 8-4 after they beat the Titans on Sundayand the Texans are back in the race at 7-5. A dream start to the season is evaporating quickly.
Tennessee Titans and their coaching search:The bad part about the Titans firing head coach Brian Callahan so early in the season is it allowed the top candidates in the 2026 head-coaching cycle ample opportunity to watch Tennessee play.
The job is beyond a fixer-upper. The Titans are a horrible team, and aside from having Cam Ward (which might not be the draw we think it is) and an inside track at the top overall pick in next year's NFL Draft, there's not a lot to sell any candidate with multiple options. The Titans were uncompetitive at home in a25-3 loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars. The Titans are 1-11. An incredibly lucky win over the Arizona Cardinals has saved them from weeks of talk of the 0-17 possibility and being one of the worst teams ever.
Ward is a conundrum. The top overall pick of this year's draft has some impressive highlights but the body of work is not great. The Titans have scored 14 or fewer points seven times this season. You can blame the infrastructure around Ward for his struggles, but it's hard to deny he has struggled. He had just 141 yards on 38 attempts Sunday. The new head coach would have to buy into turning Ward into a franchise quarterback, which is possible but he doesn't have the post-rookie promise of someone like Caleb Williams a year ago.
The Titans will hire a decent candidate. It's one of 32 jobs and the franchise does have Ward and likely the top pick. But it needs to be built from the ground up, and that's a scary proposition for a candidate with other offers.
Raheem Morris:It's the time of year in which coaches have to worry about what will happen after the season. Another bad loss for the Atlanta Falcons won't look good on Morris.
The Falcons were facing a New York Jets team that was 2-9 coming in and using Tyrod Taylor at quarterback after benching the ineffective Justin Fields. The Falcons blew a late 24-17 lead, allowing the Jets to tie it and then drive for a game-winning field goal as time expired.
TheFalcons lost 27-24 and are now 4-8 this season. They've been a big disappointment. Even worse, their first-round draft pick in 2026 was traded to the Los Angeles Rams during this year's draft.
Morris might pay the price for the poor record. Atlanta went 8-9 last season, Morris' first full season leading the team, and this season has been even worse. A young Falcons team hasn't made progress. Over the rest of the season the Falcons will have to ask themselves if they're seeing enough to justify running it back with Morris for another season.
