NFL Analysis
12/28/24
10 min read
5 Biggest Takeaways from NFL Week 17: Broncos-Bengals Thriller, Chargers Clinch Playoff Spot
Saturday featured three NFL games, one of which might be the game of the year between the Broncos and the Bengals. It was a huge day for the playoffs as the Chargers clinched a spot in the tournament while the Bengals kept their postseason hopes alive. It was quite a wild day of action, and here are our five biggest takeaways from the games:
It’s Hard To Justify That Jerod Mayo Should Get Another Year In New England
The transition from Bill Belichick to any head coach was going to be a tough one. But it’s hard to think that anyone expected it to be quite this bad. The Patriots have had an extremely tough season,n and it came to a head in Week 17. In a stand-alone game on Saturday afternoon, the Patriots were embarrassed by the Chargers at home.
The Chargers scored 40 points and racked up over 400 yards of offense despite most of the first-string players resting for the entire fourth quarter. New England’s defense couldn’t get off the field, and the effort level drastically decreased in the second half. The offense was as bad as expected, but totaling only 181 yards at home is quite embarrassing.
It’s hard to stay what the Patriots do well at this point. Their rookie receivers have given them less than 100 total yards the season. The offense line has been arguably the worst in the league. And the defense has now allowed 24 or more points in six straight games.
The most important part for the Patriots moving forward is that Drake Maye continues to develop and that they put a functional offense around him. Is Jerod Mayo the right coach to do that? It certainly isn’t his specialty and we’ve seen nothing from the sidelines this year that indicates he knows how to accomplish that.
Robert Kraft certainly won’t want to fire the first coach to replace Belichick after just one season, but he might not have a choice. The locker room clearly isn’t buying in, and the team is one of the worst-coached in the league. Giving Mayo another chance in 2025 seems like a massive mistake.
No Quarterback In The NFL Is Playing Better Than Joe Burrow
Joe Burrow doesn’t have the size of Josh Allen. He is nowhere near the athlete of Lamar Jackson. And he certainly doesn’t have Patrick Mahomes' overall arm talent. But you can make the case that no quarterback in the league plays the position better than Joe Burrow. Despite having a major surgery on his throwing hand this offseason, Burrow is playing the best football of his career.
Burrow has now thrown at least three touchdown passes in eight straight games. Against the Broncos, he threw for over 400 yards and scored four touchdowns in a must-win game for the Bengals. It was the second time since Week 10 that Burrow has thrown for over 400 yards with four or more touchdowns without a turnover. That’s only happened two other times this season by the rest of the quarterbacks in the NFL.
Burrow has now thrown 42 touchdowns this season and has added two more on the ground. He needs 359 passing yards in Week 18 to throw for 5,000 yards on the season, and there is a good chance he will finish the year with a completion percentage of over 70 percent. Burrow has nearly mastered the quarterback position and is one of the league’s deadliest passers that we have ever seen.
The Bengals still need a lot of help to make the 2024-2025 postseason, but the fact that they will play in a meaningful Week 18 game is pretty amazing, considering how slow they started the year. Burrow just turned 28 years old and has improved in every season in the NFL. He might not be the most physically gifted quarterback in the league, but you would be hard-pressed to say that anyone is playing better than him right now.
Marvin Mims Jr. Needs To Be Featured More In Denver’s Offense
Denver’s offense has been solid this season, considering they are starting a rookie quarterback with one of the NFL’s least-exciting skill position groups. And if they get a win next week against Kansas City’s backups, they’ll be in the postseason. However, the offense has had too many weeks where it gets off to a slow start, costing them. Against the Bengals, they never held the lead once after the offense scored just 10 total points in the first three quarters.
The offense didn’t start to click until Marvin Mims Jr. got more involved, and that’s when the fireworks started. With the Broncos down 17-10 with less than 10 minutes remaining in the game, Bo Nix connected with Mims on a beautiful 51-yard touchdown to tie the game.
Mims was one of the most explosive receivers in the country coming out of Oklahoma, but Denver’s rarely used him down the field. Most of his offensive touches have come near the line of scrimmage, but we saw more targets from him down the field here in Week 17. But that wasn’t the only great play he made on Saturday.
With nearly no time left on the clock, Mims caught another incredible touchdown to take the game to overtime. He was able to wrestle the ball away from two defenders and manage to complete the catch in bounds. It was arguably his best play since being drafted and a massive one for the Broncos to stay alive in the game.
Mims has now surpassed 40 yards from scrimmage in five of his last six games, but he needs to be even more involved in the offense. Courtland Sutton is the clear No. 1 for Sean Payton, but Mims has the speed and dynamism that the offense severely lacks.
He’s not a complete receiver (yet), but he’s the most talented player in the group. As the Broncos inch toward the playoffs, Payton would be wise to increase his snaps and his role in the offense. They will need to score 27+ points if/when they take on the Bills in Round 1 of the playoffs.
The Bengals HAVE To Sign Tee Higgins To A Long-Term Contract
There is no doubt that Tee Higgins is a flawed player. He’s missed nearly 35 percent of his career games in the NFL. He’s not a burner, and he is far from being a great separator. However, the Bengals have to make him their No. 1 priority this offseason.
Higgins is set to become an unrestricted free agent, and there are a dozen teams in the NFL that would love the chance to pay him $30+ million in free agency. Teams like the Patriots, Chargers, Steelers, and Raiders all have the cap space to make him one of the highest-paid receivers in the league and could feature him as the No. 1 receiver in their respective offenses.
However, Higgins is one of the top five players on the roster for the Bengals and they rely on him so much in critical situations. Look no further than Week 17, when Higgins caught three touchdowns in the win against the Broncos. On the final drive of the game, Higgins caught a 31-yard pass down the sideline to give the ball to the Bengals at Denver’s three-yard-line. On the next play, he caught the game-winning touchdown to keep Cincinnati’s playoff hopes alive.
It will be tough for the Bengals to pay two receivers $30+ million a year on top of one of the most expensive quarterback contracts in the league. But it shouldn’t even be a discussion for Duke Tobin and the rest of the front office. Higgins is a difference-maker, and he is a big reason why Cincinnati’s offense has been so difficult to stop since he’s returned to the lineup.
The Bengals have historically been cheap when it comes to giving out big deals, but they can’t screw around here. He’s too good of a player to let go, and he’s only 25 years old. Competent franchises don’t let elite players walk in their prime. And neither should the Bengals.
The Chargers Are Still Hard To Figure Out
Every part of me wants to believe in the 2024 Los Angeles Chargers. They have all the makings of a Super Bowl sleeper. They have one of the NFL’s best head coaches in Jim Harbaugh, and he’s paired with an elite quarterback in Justin Herbert. Heading into Week 17, they had the No. 2 ranked scoring defense, and that should only improve after holding the Patriots to just seven points.
And yet, it’s still hard to trust them. They were completely dominant against the Patriots, and that game was over after about 20 minutes. They looked like the high school varsity team scrimmaging against the JV squad. It was an incredible performance, and you could tell that Harbaugh had his team ready to go after the nine-day break. That win occurred after they beat the Broncos in a huge Thursday Night Football game in Week 16.
But the loss to the Buccaneers (40-17) in Week 15 remains a puzzling one. They showed no fight in that game, and Baker Mayfield torched the secondary. The offense was just as bad and it's been an issue for several weeks prior to that game. The offense scored just 17 points in three straight weeks (Falcons, Chiefs, Buccaneers), and they’ve struggled against most of the top contenders in the conference (0-4 against the Chiefs, Ravens, Steelers). They’ve been competitive in all four games, but they’ve been unable to finish those games out.
Will they be able to do that in the postseason after not really being able to do it in the regular season? That seems like a tall task, but they do have the infrastructure to make a run in the postseason. In any given week, they look like a legit Super Bowl contender. But against better opponents, they look like a Wild Card seed that should be a 7-point underdog on the road.
Are the Chargers the type of team that can go into Buffalo or Baltimore and win in the playoffs? It’s hard to know. But nothing we saw on Saturday against the Patriots should swing your thoughts one way or another. Harbaugh's teams have been known to peak at the end of the season, and maybe that is what is happening here in Los Angeles.
