Tennessee Titans standout running back Derrick Henry seemingly waved goodbye to the franchise and its fans in a postgame interview on the field at Nissan Stadium in Nashville on Sunday.

“Titans fans, I just want to say thank you for the greatest eight years of my life. The ups and downs. Y’all been there through everything. Through the adversity, watch me grow as a person and a player (and) always supporting me. I love ya’ll,” Henry said. “I love seeing the 22s in the stadium. Hopefully, I was an inspiration to all the young kids and everybody in the community. Just thank y’all so much, man. God is good. And Titan up baby.”

Henry’s comments came following Tennessee’s 28-20 victory over the Jacksonville Jaguars in the regular-season finale. The Titans’ win knocked Jacksonville out of playoff contention and denied the Jags an AFC South title. Henry rushed for a game-high 153 yards and one touchdown in the Week 18 game.

There’s speculation that Sunday was Henry’s final game in a Titans uniform. The workhorse running back’s contract is set to expire this season. The Titans are on the cusp of a rebuild and could move on from the eighth-year veteran and give RB Tyjae Spears more of an opportunity in 2024.

If the 2023 season is Henry’s final in Tennessee, he leaves the franchise as its all-time leader in rushing touchdowns (90) and scrimmage TDs (93). He’s also No. 2 on the franchise’s all-time rushing list with 9,349 rushing yards, including 1,014 this season.

NFL STATS CENTRAL: The latest NFL scores, schedules, odds, stats and more.

The Titans drafted Henry No. 45 overall in the second round of the 2016 NFL draft out of Alabama. Henry is 30 years old, but he’s expected to be one of the top free agents available on the open market. He was selected to his fourth career Pro Bowl last week.

Follow USA TODAY Sports’ Tyler Dragon on X @TheTylerDragon.

If this is the lasting image of Arthur Smith as head coach of the Atlanta Falcons, it would be fitting.

Smith was clearly displeased with New Orleans Saints head coach Dennis Allen as the two convened at midfield for their postgame handshake following the Saints’ 48-17 demolition Sunday. Cameras captured Smith using multiple choice words during the confrontation. Allen did not back down, as Smith jawed at him on his way back to the locker room.

Allen apologized for a Jamaal Williams’ 1-yard touchdown with 1:10 left and the game already decided, the likely source of Smith’s frustration. The TD came on what was essentially a fake kneel-down, with Allen saying after the game the players were instructed to kneel the ball.

‘That’s not who we are, not what we’re about,’ Allen told reporters.

Saints center Erik McCoy said the touchdown wasn’t with the intent to embarrass Atlanta. Instead, New Orleans players wanted to reward Williams for taking on a blocking-centric role this season. McCoy added that all 11 Saints in the huddle came to the decision.

NFL STATS CENTRAL: The latest NFL scores, schedules, odds, stats and more.

‘Like, ‘This guy deserves it,” McCoy said. ‘And if it wasn’t a collective, then we wouldn’t have done it.’

In his postgame news conference, Smith said that Allen did not need to apologize for running up the score in the second half. New Orleans kept its postseason hopes alive with the victory but needs help in the Sunday late-afternoon window.

‘Dennis is a great coach,’ Smith said.

The game was knotted at 17 at halftime, and the Saints reeled off 31 unanswered points the rest of the game.

‘Nobody wants to end the season like that,’ Smith said. ‘Credit to them. They made the plays. Certainly, second half got out of hand, they can do whatever they want. But it doesn’t take away from the fact they beat us in the second half.

‘They can do whatever they want. There are no rules against it. Like I said, we didn’t stop them in the second half. … They kicked our you-know-what in the second half.’

Smith is one of the NFL coaches whose seats will be the hottest with ‘Black Monday’ looming. The Falcons entered the day with a chance of winning the NFC South, but the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ victory over the Carolina Panthers made that impossible anyway. Atlanta has gone 7-10 and missed the playoffs in each of Smith’s three seasons at the helm.

‘We just finished the game … as I’ve said, I love doing what I do,’ Smith said when asked about his future.

He later added: ‘It’s been such a privilege to work with these guys. They’ve worked extremely hard all season. We clearly came up short. But I appreciate the hell out of them. I love coaching this team.’

HOUSTON — In the afterglow of Michigan’s breakthrough Rose Bowl win over Alabama, Jim Harbaugh casually tossed a comparison that most coaches would be too cautious to invoke and most players would be too intimidated to accept. 

‘I think the last quarterback to win in overtime against Alabama was none other than Tom Brady,’ Harbaugh said. ‘I’ve said it before, but right here, this is the greatest quarterback in University of Michigan history.’

Harbaugh is so full of hyperbole on a regular basis that he will sometimes say outlandish things that go largely unnoticed. But it should probably be a little bit more of a conversation piece when Michigan’s coach (who was also a great Michigan quarterback) puts current Michigan quarterback J.J. McCarthy in the same sentence as a former Michigan quarterback who happens to be the most accomplished football player of all-time. 

And the crazy part is he might be right – at least in the way Harbaugh is framing the argument. Though his passing statistics are rarely spectacular and may not resonate 30 years from now when people look back at this Michigan team without the proper context, McCarthy may well be at the top of the list if the Wolverines beat Washington on Monday to win the school’s first national title since 1997.

With a 26-1 record as a starter, a pair of Big Ten titles and a legendary drive to tie the Rose Bowl, McCarthy’s credentials in terms of college accomplishment would be historically unimpeachable if he can deliver one more win. 

But the discussion about the best quarterback in Michigan history is complicated by two factors. The first and most important is Brady’s presence. The second is that Michigan rarely asks McCarthy to do more than what’s necessary to win football games. 

Either way, it’s highly unusual for a coach to put that kind of praise on a player, especially in the midst of a season. It would be one thing to compare McCarthy to Elvis Grbac or Todd Collins, names who recall fuzzy memories of a different era in Michigan football. But Brady? A seven-time Super Bowl champion? A three-time NFL most valuable player? 

‘I think he loves the pressure,’ said Michigan running backs coach and former player Mike Hart. “He loves being compared to that because he knows he has to show up to work every day. That’s just who he is. Really, really special kid.’

Harbaugh may be an oddball, but he’s not completely crazy. When he puts McCarthy in the same category as Brady, he is clearly referring to what they did in college. 

Brady, famously, did not play much his first three years at Michigan and spent much of his final two seasons battling with Drew Henson for the starting job and even platooning on occasion. In his two years as the starter, Brady completed a smidge above 61% of his passes, threw for 30 touchdowns against 16 interceptions and led Michigan to final rankings of No. 12 and No. 5.

By that standard, there are a lot of college quarterbacks in the last quarter-century who were ‘better’ than Brady. That’s a large part of why he fell to the sixth round of the NFL draft. Nobody expected him to become a legend.

‘Tom Brady is the the greatest football player of all time,’ Harbaugh said Saturday. ‘He’s lapped the field. He’s lapped the field a full lap. J.J. has a long way to go to get to that. But in terms of who I think is the best college quarterback in the 144-year history of Michigan football, I’m nominating J.J. McCarthy. I’m not the maker of that list, but that’s my opinion.’

Still, it’s hard to make a nuanced point when you bring a name like Brady into the mix. Harbaugh surely understands that. It would be easy for him to phrase his point differently or put McCarthy into a historical context without naming Brady at all. 

Instead, Harbaugh deliberately puts them side by side – and one can only assume it’s because he sees some of the same traits and an NFL future in which McCarthy eventually becomes one of the best quarterbacks in the league. And it’s a message that rings loud and clear through the entire organization.

‘I don’t like comparing people because, you know, Tom Brady is Tom Brady and J.J. is J.J.,’ Michigan running back Blake Corum said. “But I see it. When I watched Tom Brady growing up, he was always just like no matter what happened in the game or the season he was always calm, cool, collected. He knew how to bring a team back and win. He knew how to face adversity. J.J. does the same thing. He knows how to handle tough situations.’

Evaluating quarterbacks is probably the most difficult thing in sports, but you can squint and see a possible future in which McCarthy looks better in the NFL than his production at Michigan would suggest.

The way Michigan’s team is built, you can’t just look at the numbers with McCarthy. Because he only threw for 300 yards once this season – while throwing for less than 200 yards on six occasions – it’s easy to put him in the dreaded ‘game manager’ category.

That seems unfair when you consider that Michigan won most of its games in blowout fashion, and Harbaugh’s coaching style is always going to emphasize running the ball, getting the lead and killing the clock rather than goosing statistics. Against Penn State, for example, McCarthy was asked to throw the ball just eight times because that’s all he needed to do. 

Instead, with McCarthy, it’s probably more instructive to look at his 73.2% accuracy rate while throwing just four interceptions this season along with his physical profile and intangibles. He’s not as big as Brady, but he’s 6-foot-3 and athletic with the polish and poise that NFL teams want to see out of a leader.

It also may say something about him that he handles those comparisons quite easily and without any trepidation, underscoring the confidence Harbaugh has in him to handle the moment and the pressure of the job.  

Asked about it Saturday, McCarthy naturally said he was flattered. Though he has never met Brady in person, they’ve built a text message relationship that McCarthy says has been valuable for the detailed advice he’s received.

‘Everything about Tom, like every aspect of his life, every aspect of his game, you want to aspire to be like it,’ McCarthy said. ‘Personally, I don’t like comparisons because we’re unique and have different traits and aspects that makes us special. But just hearing that just gives you that reassurance that you’re on the right path and doing the right things.’

When it’s all said and done, odds are the only thing that will connect them in the future will be that they both went to Michigan. Getting anywhere close to Brady’s level is an almost impossible and unfair task. 

But when the chips were down in the Rose Bowl, you could almost squint and see a No. 12 in the Maize and Blue rather than McCarthy’s No. 9 leading the Wolverines down the field against the vaunted Alabama defense.

If he can do it one more time, greatest quarterback in Michigan history may not be a stretch after all.

In a spectacular start to his NFL career, Los Angeles Rams wide receiver Puka Nacua has set the all-time rookie records for catches and receiving yards in a season.

Nacua, a fifth-round pick out of BYU, tied former AFL star Bill Groman’s benchmark of 1,473 yards on a 19-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Carson Wentz in the first quarter of Sunday’s game against the San Francisco 49ers.

He broke the yardage record on his next catch on a 7-yard reception early in the third quarter — in the process tying Jaylen Waddle’s two-year-old rookie receptions record of 104.

And Nacua completed the task on the next play, a 6-yard catch, for his 105th of the season.

Nacua may not see much more playing time to add onto those rookie records. The Rams, having already clinched a playoff spot, are resting most of their key players, including starting quarterback Matthew Stafford, running back Kyren Williams and wide receiver Cooper Kupp.

NFL STATS CENTRAL: The latest NFL scores, schedules, odds, stats and more.

Groman set the record in 1960 with the AFL’s Houston Oilers. More recently, the Vikings’ Justin Jefferson (1,400 yards in 2020) and the Bengals’ Ja’ Marr Chase (1,455 in 2021) have come close but come up just short.

A week after the Chicago Bears clinched the No. 1 overall pick in the 2024 NFL draft due to the ineptitude of the Carolina Panthers, the Washington Commanders, New England Patriots, Arizona Cardinals and Los Angeles Chargers secured top-five selections.

In order to join the Bears in mock draft relevance, the Commanders, Patriots, Cardinals and Chargers each had to lose their respective Week 18 games.

The draft order is determined by record and uses strength of schedule as a tiebreaker (record and strength of schedule are official tiebreakers to determine the draft order). 

The final 14 first-round spots will be determined by playoff results. For now, those teams will be ordered based on playoff seed.

The 2024 NFL draft is scheduled to be held in Detroit from April 25-27.

NFL STATS CENTRAL: The latest NFL scores, schedules, odds, stats and more.

2024 NFL draft first-round order

(as of Jan. 8; * denotes wild-card team and # denotes division leader)

Chicago Bears (from Panthers) — Carolina Panthers’ record: 2-15 (strength of schedule: .522)Washington Commanders — Record: 4-13 (.512)New England Patriots — Record: 4-13 (.522)Arizona Cardinals — Record: 4-13 (.561)Los Angeles Chargers — Record: 5-12 (.529)New York Giants — Record: 6-11 (.512)Tennessee Titans — Record: 6-11 (.522)Atlanta Falcons — Record: 7-10 (.429)Chicago Bears — Record: 7-10 (.464)New York Jets — Record: 7-10 (.502)Minnesota Vikings — Record: 7-10 (.509)Denver Broncos — Record: 8-9 (.488)Las Vegas Raiders — Record: 8-9 (.488)New Orleans Saints — Record: 9-8 (.433)Indianapolis Colts — Record: 9-8 (.491)Seattle Seahawks — Record: 9-8 (.512)Jacksonville Jaguars — Record: 9-8 (.533)Cincinnati Bengals — Record: 9-8 (.574)*Green Bay Packers — Record: 9-8 (.474)*Los Angeles Rams — Record: 10-7 (.529)*Pittsburgh Steelers — Record: 10-7 (.540)*Miami Dolphins — Record: 11-6 (.450)*Philadelphia Eagles — Record: 11-6 (.481)*Houston Texans (from Browns) — Cleveland Browns’ record: 11-6 (.536)#Tampa Bay Buccaneers — Record: 9-8 (.481)#Arizona Cardinals (from Texans) — Houston Texans’ record: 10-7 (.474)#Buffalo Bills — Record: 11-6 (.471)#Kansas City Chiefs — Record: 11-6 (.481)#Dallas Cowboys — Record: 12-5 (.446)#Detroit Lions — Record: 12-5 (.481)#San Francisco 49ers — Record: 12-5 (.509)#Baltimore Ravens — Record: 13-4 (.543)

Teams without a first-round pick: Carolina Panthers, Cleveland Browns

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Buffalo Bills receiver Stefon Diggs was asked by a team personnel member if he wanted to take home his AFC East championship shirt. But he waved it off.

It’s not like Diggs was unappreciative. There are grander things on the horizon.

The Bills just won their fourth straight AFC East title with a 21-14 win over the Miami Dolphins at Hard Rock Stadium on Sunday night to secure a home game in the playoffs next week.

Buffalo will host the Pittsburgh Steelers in the wild-card round of the playoffs on Sunday at 1 p.m. ET, while they sent the Dolphins to Kansas City for a battle with the defending champion Chiefs on Saturday night.

“It’s crazy. It’s tough. It’s a place you don’t want to be. We get to be home with our families. At 1 p.m. And it might snow. Come to us,” outspoken Bills left tackle Dion Dawkins said of Buffalo’s home-field advantage after the game.

NFL STATS CENTRAL: The latest NFL scores, schedules, odds, stats and more.

“We want to be home and we want to be in control.”

The Bills might say they believed they could reach this moment when their season was hanging in the balance at 5-5 on Nov. 14 and 6-6 on Nov. 26, even when the Dolphins held a three-game lead in the division. But it doesn’t matter anymore.

They not only began the Dolphins game with a playoff spot in hand. They rose all the way to the No. 2 seed where a matchup down the line against the No. 1 seed Baltimore Ravens could force them to leave Western New York in the postseason.

Suddenly, the Bills are in position for a deep playoff run that could last into February. And that could be a scary sight for the rest of the NFL. But the Bills aren’t feeling themselves, even ahead of their fifth straight postseason trip.

“I think any team that’s in the playoffs is scary. Regardless how we did it, we won five games – cool. Like we did it and like that, but I think any team that’s crossed that threshold, that punched their ticket in the playoffs, they’re scary,” Dawkins said.

“We’re all in the dance. Every team that’s in this position is scary. I don’t want to say ‘Oh, the Buffalo Bills are scary now.’ Like nah, every team that’s in the playoffs is scary. Every team has a chance.”

Bills safety Micah Hyde said the franchise has been in playoff mode since the month of December began, and it’s paid off.

The Bills finished the 2023 season winning five straight games, and in position to host two playoff games this postseason if they beat the Steelers next week.

Bills fans will certainly rejoice at the fact they finally won’t travel to face Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs in Kansas City. Both teams will meet in Buffalo if they advance next week.

“This group is coming together, and here we are,” Bills safety Micah Hyde said.

“We punched our ticket with a home game on Sunday, and I’m proud of this group. It’s amazing – where we’re at and were we got to.”

Quarterback Josh Allen, who fueled the Bills in Miami despite three turnovers on Sunday night, believed this group was capable when they were .500.

But instead of thinking of how far the Bills could go this season, he maintained perspective that should help Buffalo when the playoffs begin.

“We knew what was in front of us, had a lot of internal talks. Trusted the guys in this locker room. At the end of the day, this is fun, this is cool, I’ll never say no to winning a division. But the only thing that it solidifies is a home game and one more game,” Allen said.

“So, doesn’t mean anything if we go out there next week and don’t do our job. We’ve got to find a way to put our best foot forward – go find victory next week.”

As Canadian supergroup Rush pithily stated in Tom Sawyer, ‘He knows changes aren’t permanent, but change is.’ So it is that amid the sweeping changes about to overtake the college sports landscape, we nevertheless have a football championship to decide. That decision day has arrived.

We should enjoy the final game of the season for what it is, a head-to-head contest between the nation’s last undefeated teams that will determine a true and undisputed champion. But one can’t help but observe that it’s more than a little ironic that it took the sport more than a century to reach this point only for the mechanisms to be altered as the entire infrastructure of the sport is remade.

But never mind all that. Let’s get to the game.

How to watch CFP championship game

The game will be televised on ESPN with Chris Fowler and Kirk Herbstreit on the call; Holly Rowe and Molly McGrath on the sideline, and Bill Lemonnier as rules analyst. Kickoff is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. from NRG Stadium in Houston.

Additionally, ESPN will offer a variety of alternative broadcasts on its other channels: Field pass with ‘The Pat McAfee Show’ (ESPN2), Command Center (ESPNU), Skycast (ESPNews), Spanish language (ESPN Deportes).

CFP championship game: No. 1 Michigan vs. No. 2 Washington

Part of the aforementioned irony stems from the fact that by coincidence, the last time both schools claimed the title it was shared – Michigan’s with Nebraska in 1997 and Washington’s with Miami in 1991. Of course there will be no splitting of this title, which will be a first for either program in the BCS/playoff era.

The marquee matchup pits the Wolverines’ lights-out defense, statistically the stingiest in the nation, against the high-powered Huskies’ aerial attack, the most productive passing game in the Bowl Subdivision putting up 350 yards a game. We got a good look at the kind of creative blitz packages Michigan can unleash in last week’s Rose Bowl semifinal win against Alabama, but Washington QB Michael Penix might be more difficult to rattle. He has mastered the team’s complex offensive scheme, making use of a variety of targets. Outside threats Rome Odunze and Ja-Lynn Polk get most of the attention, but Jalen McMillan and TE Jack Westover are equally important to sustaining drives. Huskies’ RB Dillon Johnson, already playing through a foot injury that he appeared to aggravate late in the Sugar Bowl win against Texas, is expected to play, though finding real estate on the ground against the likes of Wolverines’ LBs Junior Colson and Michael Barrett would be difficult enough even if he were at full speed.

The other side of the ball is just as vital, however, as the Wolverines figure to use their potent ground game to control the clock and keep Penix and Co. off the field. RB Blake Corum leads the country with 25 rushing TDs and added his first receiving score of the campaign last week. Keeping him in check will be the top priority for LB Edefuan Ulofoshio and the rest of the Huskies’ front. SS Dominique Hampton might have to provide backup for them, which could create openings for Michigan QB J.J. McCarthy and WR Roman Wilson to exploit through the air.