In all likelihood, this season’s AFC playoff field is going to look nothing like it has in years. No Kansas City Chiefs. No Cincinnati Bengals. And quite possibly, no Baltimore Ravens.

The Chiefs’ run of nine straight AFC West titles? Finished. Their streak of seven straight conference championship games? All but over. That’s Kansas City’s new reality following Sunday night’s 20-10 loss to the Houston Texans. The Chiefs, winners of three straight AFC titles, will almost assuredly be watching the postseason from home for the first time in the Patrick Mahomes era. Meanwhile, driven by the league’s nastiest defense, the Texans (8-5) are winners of five straight and currently in the AFC playoff field for the first time all year.

The Chiefs are not alone among expected AFC contenders. The Bengals are finished after allowing a 10-point second-half lead slip away in the Buffalo snow. The game turned on back-to-back Joe Burrow interceptions in the fourth quarter, and Josh Allen accounted for two of his four touchdowns in the final 7:41 to push the Bills to a 39-34 comeback win. Buffalo is now 9-4, Cincinnati 4-9.

And after clawing their way back to the front of the AFC North race, the Ravens have dropped two straight division games and fallen out of the current playoff seedings.

The door has opened, it seems, and the conference’s new blood — the New England Patriots, Denver Broncos and Jacksonville Jaguars — look primed to make January interesting.

One team that appeared ready to join that group throughout the first half of the season might have seen its playoff window close in the cruelest of ways Sunday. In Jacksonville, the Indianapolis Colts lost more than a divisional showdown. They also lost their starting quarterback, Daniel Jones, likely for the season with a torn Achilles. The 36-19 defeat was Indy’s fourth in five games, and the Colts are now in third place in the AFC South with a brutal schedule the rest of the way and an undrafted rookie, Riley Leonard, as their quarterback.

The Jaguars, meanwhile, have won four straight and are sitting alone atop the AFC South at 9-4. With so much of the Coach of the Year chatter focused on Mike Vrabel and Ben Johnson — deservedly so — the job Liam Coen has done in Jacksonville has been easy to overlook. It’s time to pay attention. He’s remade that franchise in a matter of months.

While Vrabel’s 11-2 Patriots were on a bye, the Broncos slid past them as the AFC’s top seed. Denver has won 10 straight after beating the Las Vegas Raiders 24-17 and owns a common opponent tiebreaker over New England.

In the NFC, the Los Angeles Rams moved back into the top spot after routing the Arizona Cardinals 45-17, while the No. 1 seed entering Sunday, the Chicago Bears, fell all the way to the No. 7 seed after a 28-21 loss to the Green Bay Packers. It was the Bears’ first loss since Halloween. The Packers, meanwhile, have rebounded nicely from that two-game skid in early November. Matt LaFleur’s team has won four straight and is back in front in the NFC North.

Both the Rams and Seahawks are 10-3, but L.A. owns the tiebreaker by virtue of a head-to-head meeting in Week 11. Seattle has been lights-out ever since. Over the past two games, the Seahawks’ defense has forced eight turnovers and allowed a combined nine points. This unit is downright scary and dominated again in an easy 37-9 win over the reeling Atlanta Falcons.

That two-point loss to the Rams in Week 11 — the game in which Sam Darnold tossed four interceptions, almost half his season total — is the only defeat for Seattle dating to Oct. 5. Mike Macdonald, now the first coach in franchise history to win 10 or more games each of his first two seasons, has his team playing like a Super Bowl contender.

In rainy Tampa, the NFC South race tightened up. The New Orleans Saints stunned the Buccaneers, 24-20, a result that had to have the Carolina Panthers smiling during their bye week. The Bucs and Panthers are both 7-6 with four games left and will meet in Weeks 16 and 18, likely with the division title on the line.

A week ago, Steelers fans were chanting “Fire Tomlin” during Pittsburgh’s listless loss to the Bills. On Sunday, Mike Tomlin’s team — and his 42-year-old quarterback — responded with their best offensive game of the year: Aaron Rodgers’ 284 passing yards were a season best, and the Steelers handed the Ravens a 27-22 loss. After all the noise in Pittsburgh all week, plenty of it centered on Tomlin’s status as his team again stumbled late in the season, what did Sunday’s result mean?

“It means maybe you guys will shut the hell up for a week,” Rodgers told reporters. The victory moves the Steelers to 7-6 and back atop the division with four to play. They’ll see the Ravens (6-7) again in Week 18.

In Cleveland, the Tennessee Titans won for just the second time all season, beating the Browns 31-29. Shedeur Sanders threw for three touchdowns and ran for another in the loss but wasn’t on the field for the Browns’ two-point attempt that could have tied it late. More significant was the impact of Tennessee’s second win on the top of the draft board. Thanks to a strength-of-schedule tiebreaker, it’s now the New York Giants who own the No. 1 pick. If that holds, it would be the franchise’s first No. 1 selection since 1965.

Current NFL Draft Order

Pick

  

Team

  

Record

  

SOS

  

1

2-11

.537

2

2-11

.551

3

2-11

.571

4

3-10

.486

5

3-10

.498

6

3-10

.514

7

3-10

.541

8

3-10

.568

9

10-3

.523

10

4-9

.523

In Minnesota, J.J. McCarthy put together the best game of his young career in a 31-0 blanking of the Washington Commanders. McCarthy threw for three touchdowns in the Vikings’ first win in over a month. The Commanders, meanwhile, got quarterback Jayden Daniels back, but he was a rusty 9-for-20 for 78 yards and an interception before leaving with an elbow injury (coach Dan Quinn said Daniels could have returned). A year after a stirring run to the NFC Championship Game, the Commanders are 3-10. Minnesota is 5-8.

In East Rutherford, N.J., the Miami Dolphins won their fourth straight by running all over the Jets, 34-10. “It’s BS,” Jets coach Aaron Glenn said of Miami’s 239 rushing yards. “Way too many.” While the Dolphins have rallied admirably under embattled coach Mike McDaniel in the second half of the season, winning five of their last six after a 1-6 start, Glenn’s Jets have clinched another January at home. The franchise’s 15-year playoff drought is the longest in North American major sports.

Here’s what stood out from Week 14 across the NFL:

End of an era in Kansas City?

Travis Kelce, the 36-year-old future Hall of Famer, stumbled off the field in a daze, saying nothing. Two plays. Two drops. The drive that could’ve saved the Chiefs’ season ended with an interception because Kelce couldn’t hold onto the ball.

That’s how it ended Sunday night at Arrowhead. This was a slugfest, an ugly defensive battle, a 10-0 Texans’ lead at halftime that was knotted up by the start of the fourth quarter. Then came a pair of pivotal calls from Andy Reid, who elected to go for it on fourth down on his half of the field twice in the final period. Both times, his offense failed to convert.

Then — trailing by seven with 3:44 left and his team’s playoff hopes possibly hanging in the balance — Mahomes had one final shot. The drive lasted two plays. Kelce dropped one, then another, the second of which turned into an interception for Texans linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair. Houston tacked on a field goal to put the game out of reach.

Will the final days of Kelce’s career unfold over the coming month? He weighed retirement after last season, and as disappointing as this one has been, it’s not all that difficult to imagine him walking away.

Either way, the Chiefs will have to regroup for 2026 and find more answers on offense, with or without one of their longtime stalwarts. It wasn’t just Kelce on Sunday. The Chiefs dropped six Mahomes passes, the most in any game he’s ever played. On third and fourth downs, Kansas City finished 3-for-10.

The Chiefs built their dynasty by executing in key moments. All season long, they’ve found ways to screw them up.

The Texans, meanwhile, have only allowed two opponents this season to score more than 20 points, and none since early November. With the game on the line Sunday night — in the same stadium Houston’s season ended last January in the divisional round — DeMeco Ryans’ unit shut the door, over and over and over. Some of it was KC’s mistakes. Plenty more was the Texans’ pressure on Mahomes and sticky coverage in the back end. That’s what a championship defense looks like.

If Houston keeps this up, it could be a problem in the AFC playoffs. No one will want to see that defense.

LaFleur, Packers take Round 1

It was an odd jab, but one to file away. The day he was introduced as the Bears’ new coach in January, Ben Johnson lauded praise on his former boss in Detroit, Dan Campbell, as well as Minnesota’s Kevin O’Connell. Then he threw this in about the NFC North’s other head man: “I kind of enjoyed beating Matt LaFleur twice a year.”

Johnson was referring to his time with the Lions. His first test with his new team arrived Sunday. And by the end of this one, the Packers’ faithful at Lambeau Field were chanting a familiar refrain: “The Bears still suck.” The tally? LaFleur 1, Johnson 0. The handshake between the two head coaches was noticeably icy.

“We’ll see them again in two weeks,” LaFleur said later, downplaying any personal satisfaction after beating Johnson. “It’s Packers-Bears.”

The engine behind this one was a Packers’ offense that has come to life in recent weeks. Jordan Love threw three touchdowns, including two to Christian Watson, and running back Josh Jacobs scored the go-ahead TD in the fourth quarter.

Caleb Williams had a shot to tie it late, but he underthrew a fourth-and-1 pass from the Packers’ 5-yard-line that was intercepted by Keisean Nixon. Ever since that ugly seven-point outing against the Eagles a month ago — which now feels like the low point of the Packers’ season — Green Bay has responded with games of 27, 23, 31 and 28 points. This offense is finding itself just in time for a playoff run.

The win moves the Packers to the top of the NFC North, a division they haven’t won since 2021. After stumbling to a 1-5 mark in division games last season, the Packers have started 4-0 this year. Meanwhile, the Bears’ five-game win streak is history, and they are now 1-12 in their last 13 against the Packers.

Are the Colts finished?

This was a worst-case scenario unfolding in real time, a playoff contender watching its postseason chances fade to black in one brutal sequence. There was no hit from the Jaguars’ defense, just Daniel Jones crumbling to the grass in Jacksonville after a first-half completion, grabbing his lower right leg in agony. A moment later, while the Colts’ training staff surrounded him, the quarterback unstrapped his helmet and twice slammed it on the field. It was about as much emotion as Jones has shown all season.

The 36-19 defeat, the Colts’ 12th straight road loss to the Jaguars, feels less consequential than what Jones’ injury will mean for the franchise moving forward. Simply put: this muddies everything. It has been a stunning turn of events for a team that had the best record in the league just five weeks ago.

Back in late October, Indianapolis was 7-1 and steamrolling opponents every week. Jonathan Taylor was running over and around every defense he saw. Jones was scripting a stunning second act. First-year coordinator Lou Anarumo was revitalizing the defense and Shane Steichen had worked his way into the Coach of the Year conversation. General manager Chris Ballard, emboldened by his team’s hot start, made an ambitious move at the trade deadline, sending two first-round picks to New York in exchange for cornerback Sauce Gardner.

The Colts were going for it. Now they are 8-5.

They’ve dropped four of their last five. And indications are that Jones tore the Achilles in his right leg, an injury that will jeopardize his availability for the start of the 2026 season. The QB was already playing through a left fibula injury, which played a significant role in the offense’s regression over the last few weeks. Now, a nightmare injury comes at one of the worst times. With a brutal stretch coming up — at Seattle, home against San Francisco and Jacksonville, at Houston — Indianapolis is staring at some long odds to make its first playoff trip since 2020.

Furthermore, Jones’ future in Indianapolis now becomes a different conversation. The trade for Gardner was a clear indication this team felt comfortable moving forward with Jones beyond this season; you don’t send away two first-round picks if you don’t believe you have your quarterback of the future already on the roster. Jones will be a free agent in the spring, and the Colts preferred locking him up before he hit the open market. How much does the injury change that? And how much pause does it give an organization that has cycled through six Week 1 starters dating to 2019?

Complicating matters is the uncertain status of Anthony Richardson, the No. 4 overall pick in 2023, who lost the starting job to Jones in August and has been on injured reserve for over a month after suffering an orbital fracture in his eye during a freak stretching incident in the locker room in October. Steichen has said recently that the team remains “hopeful” that Richardson can return this season, but he’s still regaining vision in his eye. It doesn’t sound like he’ll be ready anytime soon.

Richardson will be entering his fourth NFL season next year, and the Colts have publicly vowed not to trade him. If Richardson is able to return this season, it’ll be another opportunity for the young quarterback to overcome the rocky start to his career. And maybe his last opportunity in Indianapolis.