Mike Macdonald called on Rashid Shaheed to provide a spark for the Seahawks in Sunday’s game against the Falcons.
Shaheed delivered with a 100-yard kickoff return for a touchdown that broke open the game.
The Seahawks are leaning on complementary football while discovering different ways to win.

ATLANTA – With his Seattle Seahawks clearly sputtering for the first half of the game on Sunday, Mike Macdonald had a suggestion he was compelled to share in the locker room.

Or maybe it was a Nostradamus moment.

Let Devon Witherspoon, the heart-and-soul of Seattle’s big-play defense, fill in the details.

“He said, ‘Kickoff team, let’s take one to the house, ‘Shid. Do what you do, make a block and don’t let your guy make a tackle,’ ” said Witherspoon, the star cornerback, after the 37-9 romp against the Atlanta Falcons. “And then those guys went out and did that.

“Shout out to special teams.”

“‘Shid” would be Rahsid Shaheed, the electric receiver-returner, who followed the orders from the Seahawks coach and took the second-half kickoff 100 yards for a touchdown that broke open a 6-6 game – and then some.

Talk about speaking something into existence.

“Coach Macdonald, he called that for sure,” Witherspoon marveled.

The kick return ignited a magnificent second half for the Seahawks (10-3), who not only exploded for 31 points after halftime but produced what was likely their most complete game of the season.

How complete was it? On top of Shaheed’s momentum-seizing return, consider this: Sam Darnold passed for three TDs and the Seahawks rushed for 129 yards. Rookie phenom Nick Emmanwori blocked a field goal. The defense collected three turnovers – Witherspoon had a pick and a fumble recovery, Emmanwori had an interception – and a week after shutting out the Vikings ran its streak of quarters without a touchdown allowed to eight.

Sure, they pummeled the feeble Falcons (4-9), who clinched the franchise’s eighth consecutive season. But no matter. In notching a 10th victory before January for the first time since 2000, the Seahawks illustrated why they might be the team that no one wants to face in the playoffs next month.

“We feel really good,” said star receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba, who rebounded from his least productive game of the season a week earlier with seven catches, 92 yards and two TDs. “We feel confident. This is a big stretch for us. We know that. Championship football, heading into the playoffs. Just trying to keep building this mojo and win out.”

At the moment, the Seahawks hold the NFC’s top wild-card spot and fifth seed overall for the playoffs. Yet challenges await. After hosting the battered Indianapolis Colts next weekend (after a 7-1 start, the Colts have lost four of their past five games, and it is feared that quarterback Daniel Jones could be done for the season due to an Achilles injury), Seattle gets a visit from the Los Angeles Rams to likely determine first place in the NFC West. Then they close the regular season with road games at the Carolina Panthers and San Francisco 49ers – two teams locked in intense playoff bids of their own.

Yet complementary football might be Seattle’s secret sauce. The defense has been outstanding all season, with playmakers on every level. Shaheed’s punch in the return game adds to a unit that includes one of the league best kickers, Jason Myers, who booted three field goals on Sunday.

Then there’s the explosiveness. The roll at Mercedes-Benz Stadium marked the fourth time this season that Seattle has scored at least 30 points in a half. The rest of the NFL produced six 30-point halves, heading into Sunday.

Smith-Njigba, who leads the NFL with 1,428 receiving yards on 89 receptions, mentioned something else reflected with the latest triumph. He said, “We’re learning how to win different types of games.”

The sluggish start by Seattle’s offense against the Falcons should ensure that there will no complacency for coordinator Klint Kubiak’s unit. The Seahawks managed just two field goals from five first-half drives and, with a Darnold interception, were stung again by the turnover woes that have plagued them as they entered the game with the second-most giveaways (22) in the league. And another drive stalled deep in Falcons territory, leaving Darnold to lament a need to sharpen details.

“We’re able to go up and down the field,” Darnold said. “We’ve just got to finish our drives.”

Then again, when Darnold called it a “total team effort,” he was mindful of the support coming from the Seattle defense.

The past two games, the Seahawks have allowed 9 points and zero touchdowns while forcing eight turnovers.

“There are going to be opportunities that are representative of big plays made by defense, special teams and offense,” receiver Cooper Kupp said. “The opportunities to play complementary football. What that does in terms of momentum swings and being able to beat an opponent down….when you can do that, the psychological toll is a big deal.”

It’s a formula the Seahawks will be eager to try applying in the playoffs. Especially if they speak it into existence with undeniable action.

Contact Jarrett Bell at jbell@usatoday.com or follow on X: @JarrettBell

James Madison is in. Notre Dame is out.

The College Football Playoff saved the biggest drama for the final rankings, bumping the Sun Belt champions into the tournament over ACC champion Duke and Miami instead of the Fighting Irish for the final at-large spot.

In the end, the selection committee leaned on the Hurricanes’ head-to-head win against Notre Dame to open the season after ignoring that result throughout the rankings. This is a decision that ranks alongside Florida State’s exclusion in 2023 as the most controversial in playoff history.

The top four seeds are Indiana, Ohio State, Georgia and Texas Tech. The at-large picks are No. 5 Oregon, No. 6 Mississippi, No. 7 Texas A&M, No. 8 Oklahoma, No. 9 Alabama and No. 10 Miami. No. 11 Tulane and No. 12 James Madison round out the field.

If the favorites win at home in the opening round, the quarterfinal matchups would be Indiana against Oklahoma, Ohio State against Texas A&M, Georgia against Mississippi and Texas Tech against Oregon.

James Madison, Miami and the Irish lead the winners and losers from the bracket reveal:

Winners

Miami

The Hurricanes played their way into the field with a dominant four-game winning streak to end the regular season, which forced the committee to finally take into account the tiebreaker over Notre Dame. That they waited until this point will bring the committee under intense scrutiny, and deservedly so: Why not move Miami ahead earlier in the process to avoid this very situation? You have to think a major factor was Duke’s win and the possibility the ACC would be left out of the tournament entirely – even if the committee chairman said otherwise.

James Madison

James Madison was able to squeeze into the field after Duke beat Virginia in the ACC championship game, leading to a comparison of the one-loss Sun Belt champions against a five-loss Power Four winner. In the end, the Dukes lacked the Blue Devils’ résumé of wins, which included seven against Power Four competition, but had the record and level of game control to upend expectations and give the Group of Five two teams in the tournament.

Alabama

The Crimson Tide benefitted from the precedent set by the committee that says teams will not be docked for what happens in conference championship games. That’s obvious after Georgia handled Alabama with room to spare on Saturday night, avenging an earlier loss at home. While the Tide can exhale after a worrisome overnight wait, the bigger concern now is how this team has played since beating Tennessee early last month. Since then, the Tide haven’t looked the part of a playoff team, though the résumé was there to keep them in the bracket ahead of Notre Dame and Miami.

The Big 12

The conference couldn’t get two teams into the tournament after Texas Tech beat Brigham Young to knock out the Cougars. That’s the same as last season, when only Arizona State represented the Big 12. But this year feels very different nonetheless thanks to a deeper run of teams in the final rankings. In addition to the No. 4 Red Raiders and No. 12 BYU, the Big 12 placed No. 15 Utah, No. 17 Arizona and No. 21 Houston in the final top 25. The Big 12 had four teams in last year’s final rankings but only one inside the top 15.

Group of Five

This is a major look-at-us moment for the conferences that exist in the long shadow cast by the Power Four. While the American was assured of a playoff berth regardless of what happened in the championship game between Tulane and North Texas, there was little thought given to getting a second Group of Five team into the bracket until the final two weeks of the regular season. There needed to be a perfect storm of events to make this a possibility: JMU had to be perfect and the ACC had to be perfectly scrambled to open just the slightest path for another Group of Five team. While the Green Wave and Dukes will be underdogs in the opening round, this is a banner moment for the non-major conferences.

Losers

Notre Dame

There was almost no reason think Notre Dame would be the team left out after conference championship games, given Alabama’s pathetic showing against Georgia and the fact the Irish had been in front of Miami – as many as eight spots in front, in fact – throughout the entire ranking process. There’s also the idea that Notre Dame brings eyeballs and ratings to the playoff, making the Irish an even stronger candidate. That makes the fact they were bumped on Sunday extremely controversial, highly dramatic and definitely hard to explain. In the committee’s defense, the Irish did have a weaker résumé of wins than other at-large contenders. But Notre Dame was a powerhouse down the stretch and looked the part of a playoff team.

The ACC

While the ACC did get Miami into the tournament to avoid an embarrassing shutout, the conference also had just three teams in the rankings – Miami, No. 19 Virginia and No. 22 Georgia Tech – for the fewest of any Power Four league. The ACC is even lucky to a third team in the Yellow Jackets, who lost three of four in November and barely beat Boston College. Overall, Tech beat only three teams with a winning record and none with more than eight wins.

Brigham Young

The Cougars never factored into the at-large debate and were even dropped in the rankings after losing a second time to Texas Tech, even though a similar loss to Georgia didn’t move Alabama off of the No. 9 seed. BYU lost just twice, both to the Red Raiders, and had wins against East Carolina, Arizona, Utah, Iowa State, TCU and Cincinnati. That wasn’t enough to make the Cougars a legitimate contender.

Vanderbilt

The Commodores did their part, taking care of Tennessee in the season finale for the first 10-win finish in program history, but never came under any realistic consideration from the committee as an at-large candidate. Three teams would’ve earned the nod over Vanderbilt in Notre Dame, BYU and Texas. You can shift some of the blame to South Carolina, LSU and Missouri, which collapsed down the stretch after being ranked when meeting the Commodores. Still, look for quarterback Diego Pavia to be a Heisman Trophy finalist and potentially win the award, though he’s likely to finish second behind Indiana’s Fernando Mendoza.

The clock is ticking – on the year and the 2025 NFL regular season.

It will soon be ticking at the 2026 NFL Draft, but who will own that top spot when the dust settles? There are only four weeks left after the Week 14 slate to determine the final order – at least until the inevitable trades shake it up even further.

Plenty of familiar teams headline the group again this time of year. The Tennessee Titans, New York Giants, New Orleans Saints, Las Vegas Raiders and Cleveland Browns all entered Week 14 in possession of a top-five pick. Will they be able to say the same after the week is over?

Here’s a look at the 2026 NFL Draft order as Week 14 results come in.

2026 NFL Draft order

Here’s a look at the updated first-round order as Week 14 results come in, according to Tankathon, which calculates strength of schedule differently from the NFL:

New York Giants: 2-11 record; .534 strength of schedule
Las Vegas Raiders 2-11; .548 SOS
Tennessee Titans: 2-11; .573 SOS
Cleveland Browns: 3-10; .486 SOS
New Orleans Saints: 3-10; .498 SOS
Washington Commanders: 3-10; .511 SOS
New York Jets: 3-10; .541 SOS
Arizona Cardinals: 3-10; .570 SOS
Atlanta Falcons (pick belongs to Los Angeles Rams): 4-9; .502 SOS
Cincinnati Bengals: 4-9; .523 SOS
Minnesota Vikings: 5-8; .523 SOS
Miami Dolphins: 6-7; .482 SOS
Baltimore Ravens: 6-7; .509 SOS
Kansas City Chiefs: 6-7; .511 SOS
Dallas Cowboys: 6-6-1; .447 SOS
Carolina Panthers: 7-6; .516 SOS
Detroit Lions: 8-5; .498 SOS
Indianapolis Colts (pick belongs to Jets): 8-5; .518 SOS
Pittsburgh Steelers: 7-6; .511 SOS
Tampa Bay Buccaneers: 7-6; .514 SOS
Houston Texans: 8-5; .541 SOS
Los Angeles Chargers: 8-4; .466 SOS
Philadelphia Eagles: 8-4; .489 SOS
Chicago Bears: 9-4; .448 SOS
Buffalo Bills: 9-4; .468 SOS
San Francisco 49ers: 9-4; .489 SOS
Jacksonville Jaguars (pick belongs to Browns): 9-4; .495 SOS
Green Bay Packers (pick belongs to Cowboys): 9-3-1; .475 SOS
Seattle Seahawks: 10-3; .484 SOS
New England Patriots: 11-2; .376 SOS
Los Angeles Rams: 10-3; .518 SOS
Denver Broncos: 11-2; .436 SOS

2026 NFL mock draft

This is how USA TODAY Sports’ Ayrton Ostly projected the top five picks in his latest mock draft:

Tennessee Titans: LB/Edge Arvell Reese, Ohio State
New York Giants: WR Jordyn Tyson, Arizona State
New Orleans Saints: QB Fernando Mendoza, Indiana
Las Vegas Raiders: QB Ty Simpson, Alabama
Cleveland Browns: QB Dante Moore, Oregon

The CFP committee watched Georgia trample Alabama and then pretended it never happened.
CFP committee deploys chicanery to reach the bracket destination it desired.
Alabama and Miami in, Notre Dame out. That’s fine, but process so messy.

I swear the SEC championship game happened. More than 77,000 fans attended it. I covered it. Millions more watched on TV as Georgia body slammed Alabama and sucked out the Tide’s soul.

If only we had known we were watching a pointless scrimmage.

The College Football Playoff committee watched that 28-7 trampling, and it didn’t move either the victor or the loser an inch in its final rankings.

It’s as if the game never happened.

I swear, it did. I swear Georgia put Alabama in a vise and limited the Tide to negative-three rushing yards.

The committee saw it, evaluated it, and decided it meant nothing.

Georgia enters the bracket at No. 3.

Alabama goes in at No. 9.

Same as they were ranked before the game.

In ranking Georgia and Alabama this way, the committee declared the SEC championship game a glorified exhibition.

SEC championship game has never meant less than it does now

The late commissioner Roy Kramer’s revolutionary brainchild of a conference championship game has never been more meaningless than it became this weekend.

It’s a cash grab. Nothing more. A once-great idea, it no longer offers utility to the current playoff structure.

You’re familiar with trophies awarded for rivalry games and bowl games. Now, we’ve got a trophy awarded to the winner of a scrimmage at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.

The committee’s seeding decision revealed that, no matter what the playoff’s rules say, the SEC receives two automatic bids to the bracket: One for its conference champion and another for its runner-up.

“We evaluated all of those conference championship games,’ CFP selection committee chairman Hunter Yurachek explained on ESPN, ‘and felt like, in the end, regardless of Alabama’s performance yesterday, their body of work in those first 12 games” was sufficient for selection.

Coincidentally — or maybe not — Yurachek is the athletic director at Arkansas, an SEC member.

Let me translate Yurachek’s quote: No matter the result, the committee never had any intention of rejecting the loser of the SEC championship game from a 12-team bracket.

Maybe, you think that’s the way it should be, but that opinion doesn’t change that the committee told you this game was a meaningless exercise, at least in terms of playoff selection and seeding.

CFP selection committee devalues SEC Championship

You’ll hear the argument that, if the committee had booted Alabama after its woeful performance, that would devalue conference championship games. That’s a false narrative.

In fact, the committee devalued the SEC championship by pretending it never happened.

Again, maybe you’re OK with that. You can make the case Alabama shouldn’t drop in the rankings for getting blown out by one of the nation’s best teams, while Notre Dame and Miami sat at home.

But, then, why did Brigham Young drop behind inactive Miami in the rankings after the Cougars were blown out by one of the nation’s best teams in the Big 12 championship?

If the committee wants to pretend the SEC championship didn’t happen and that Alabama didn’t get blown out, shouldn’t they also pretend the Big 12 Championship didn’t happen and BYU didn’t get blown out?

We know the reasoning behind this.

The committee believes the SEC’s runner-up deserves an automatic bid, even if the bracket rules don’t specify this. That preservation of a bid for the SEC’s runner-up does not extend to the Big 12.

This seeding tells us Alabama had qualified for the CFP before it stepped onto the field in a rematch against Georgia.

Alabama already had suffered two losses, one of which came against a bad ACC team that finished 5-7. The Tide advanced to the SEC championship game thanks in part to the conference’s tiebreaker rules. Reaching Atlanta required Alabama to play only 50% of the conference’s membership.

Then, Georgia carved out the elephant’s eyes in delivering a third loss.

But, presto! It never happened!

Alabama becomes the first three-loss at-large qualifier in CFP history. Two years ago, the 12-1 Tide displaced undefeated Florida State, marking the first and only time a 13-0 Power Four champion didn’t make the four-team playoff.

By not dropping Alabama after this blowout loss, the committee avoided the blowback that would have erupted from Greg Sankey’s powerful “It Just Means More” pulpit.

Do ends justify means of reaching this CFP bracket?

I won’t argue the committee’s selections of Alabama and Miami or its omission of Notre Dame.

Alabama touted the best strength of schedule metrics of that bubble trio. It also owns the best win, by beating Georgia on the road in September.

Alabama possessed the same record as Miami and Notre Dame through 12 games. The Hurricanes and Irish didn’t play a 13th game. So, I understand the Tide’s case, bad though they looked Saturday.

I also understand choosing Miami over Notre Dame. They own identical records, nearly identical metrics, and Miami won a head-to-head matchup.

But, my goodness, the chicanery deployed to achieve this destination was all so ridiculous and unnecessary, and it makes this whole process look like a clown act.

Yurachek is no magician deftly operating smoke and mirrors to pull the wool over fans’ eyes. He’s just an awkward AD. He’s fooling nobody.

Alabama stayed at No. 9 because the committee wanted to preserve a spot for the SEC’s runner-up. Meanwhile, BYU dropped one spot, because the committee decided to push Notre Dame and Miami next to each other in the rankings and finally acknowledge Miami’s head-to-head advantage.

Selecting Miami gave the ACC a playoff representative after five-loss Duke won the conference and foiled the ACC’s automatic bid. In an odd twist, Virginia losing to Duke probably delivered a fatal blow to the Irish. The committee couldn’t justify taking Duke, so it created a spot for Miami and booted Notre Dame.

Here’s how it should have went down, to avoid this messy eyesore: The committee should have ranked Alabama No. 9 and positioned Miami at No. 10 in the penultimate rankings. That would have given advance notice that the committee no longer would pretend the Irish didn’t lose to Miami.

Then, after Georgia trounced Alabama, the committee could have moved Miami up to No. 9, dropped Alabama to No. 10 and not acted as if the SEC championship game didn’t occur.

Instead of doing that, the committee head-faked for a month that it preferred Notre Dame to Miami, only to realize the stupidity of that, because Miami beat Notre Dame and they owned matching 10-2 records and similar metrics.

There’s logic in the final at-large choices, but there’s no lucidity in the path the committee charted to reach this destination.

Facing a tough decision, the committee chose to pretend the SEC championship game didn’t happen. In doing so, it devalued a once-revolutionary contest that used to mean so much.

Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network’s senior national college football columnist. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on X @btoppmeyer.

The bowl system around which the college football postseason has been built for decades has encountered a bit of a problem this year.

It’s having trouble finding teams that want to participate.

On Sunday, Dec. 7, one day after conference championship weekend officially wrapped up, the College Football Playoff revealed its 12-team field while the non-playoff bowl games began announcing what teams had accepted invitations.

The matchups have been set for all the bowl games — all of them but one, that is.

The Birmingham Bowl is still looking for a team to play Georgia Southern in the game on Monday, Dec. 29 in Birmingham, Alabama, with a number of potential suitors having turned down the bowl’s overtures.

Several bowl-eligible teams have turned down the opportunity to continue their seasons. Shortly after being surprisingly left out of the playoff field, Notre Dame opted against taking part in a bowl game. Iowa State and Kansas State, both of which are undergoing coaching changes, have also declined the chance to play in a bowl, with the Big 12 fining each school $500,000 for their decisions.

Shortly after the inception of the four-team playoff during the 2014 season, bowl games have taken on a decreased importance and are now widely viewed as glorified exhibitions. Previously, their diminished role was largely limited to high-profile, NFL-bound players opting out of the games to focus on their draft preparation and avoid the risk of a serious injury.

Now, that trend is extending to teams choosing not to play, often due to player defections to the transfer portal, a coaching change, some combination of both of those factors or, as Notre Dame showed Sunday, a lack of a desire to play in a game with no path to the national championship.

Here’s a look at the teams that have turned down bowl invitations this season:

Which college football teams declined to play in a bowl?

With every bowl eligible team with a 6-6 record already accounted for, the Birmingham Bowl has had to turn to 5-7 teams to play against Georgia Southern.

Unfortunately for the bowl and its representatives, several of those teams with losing records have said no to the opportunity.

At least seven teams that finished 5-7 have declined a bowl bid, per college football insider Brett McMurphy. That group includes:

Florida State
Auburn
UCF
Baylor
Kansas
Rutgers
Temple

Teams opting out of bowl games

Three bowl-eligible teams — Notre Dame, Iowa State and Kansas State — have opted against playing in a bowl game this season.

All three teams finished the season with at least a 6-6 record, with Iowa State at 8-4, Kansas State at 6-6 and Notre Dame at 10-2. 

The Cyclones and Wildcats have lost their coaches in the past week, with Matt Campbell leaving Iowa State for Penn State and Kansas State’s Chris Klieman retiring. The Fighting Irish chose not to play in a bowl game after being left out of the College Football Playoff. Coach Marcus Freeman’s team dropped a spot to No. 11 in the final playoff selection committee rankings, making it the first team to miss the 12-team cut (No. 20 Tulane and No. 24 James Madison automatically made it as conference champions).

Can 5-7 teams play in bowl games?

If there aren’t enough teams with a 6-6 record or better to fill out all of the available bowls, then those games turn to teams with 5-7 records to try to complete their matchups.

The order in which 5-7 teams are given opportunities to accept bowl invitations is based on a program’s Academic Progress Report (APR) score. This year, Auburn, Florida State and Rice had the highest APR scores of 5-7 squads. Florida State and Auburn have reportedly turned down bowl bids, while Rice has accepted a spot in the Armed Forces Bowl, where it will take on Texas State.

College football bowl schedule 2025

The Los Angeles Lakers’ starting lineup was back at full strength with the return of LeBron James and Luka Dončić. And the superstar duo played a big part in the team’s 112-108 road win against the Philadelphia 76ers.

James was back on the court after missing the Lakers’ previous game due to his ongoing sciatica and a new injury: left foot joint arthritis. He had already missed the first 14 games of the season and all of the preseason while dealing with the sciatica.

James entered Sunday’s game averaging 14 points, 7.8 assists and 4.3 rebounds per game in his first six games played this season. With the win in Philadelphia, he moved ahead of Robert Parish (1,014) for second place on the NBA’s all-time list for regular-season career wins.

Dončić became the eighth player in the Lakers’ history to record a 30-point, 15-rebound, 10-assist triple-double performance.

He returned to the team following a trip to Slovenia for the birth of his second daughter. Dončić was originally listed as out earlier in the week and missed the last two games due to ‘personal reasons.’

LeBron James stats vs. 76ers

Points: 29
FG: 12-for-17 (4-for-6 from 3-point line)
Free Throws: 1-for-2
Rebounds: 7
Assists: 6
Steals: 1
Blocks: 1
Turnovers: 2
Fouls: 1
Minutes: 34

Luka Doncic stats vs. 76ers

Points: 31
FG: 9-for-24 (2-for-9 from 3-point line)
Free Throws: 11-for-14
Rebounds: 15
Assists: 11
Steals: 0
Blocks: 2
Turnovers: 5
Fouls: 1
Minutes: 39

This marks the longest active playoff absence among all major men’s sports leagues in North America.
The Jets lost 34-10 to the Miami Dolphins after starting quarterback Tyrod Taylor left the game with an injury.

The New York Jets’ new regime now officially finds itself in the same spot where so many of the franchise’s other recent leadership groups have ended up.

With a 34-10 loss to the Miami Dolphins on Sunday, the Jets were officially eliminated from playoff contention, extending their NFL-worst active postseason drought to 15 seasons.

New York broke its tie with the Buffalo Sabres (14 seasons) for the longest ongoing playoff absence among the major men’s sports leagues in North America. The Carolina Panthers and Atlanta Falcons are the next closest NFL teams with seven consecutive years without a postseason appearance.

On Sunday, there was little doubt as to whether the Jets would meet the same fate as they did in previous years. The Dolphins raced out to a 21-0 advantage in the first quarter, when New York also lost starting quarterback Tyrod Taylor to a groin injury. Undrafted rookie Brady Cook took over leading the offense, which would post just 207 total yards on the day.

“I didn’t have them ready to play,’ Jets coach Aaron Glenn said after the game. ‘That was obvious.”

When the Jets hired Glenn in January, the former franchise standout told fans to ‘expect a winning team that you will be proud of.’ Tensions grew after an error-filled 0-7 start, which left New York as the last team in the league to register a victory.

After scoring their first win, the Jets opted to trade two-time All-Pro cornerback Sauce Gardner (to the Indianapolis Colts) and three-time Pro Bowl defensive tackle Quinnen Williams (to the Dallas Cowboys). The moves significantly altered the organization’s outlook for both the near and long term, as they returned three first-round picks over the next two years while stripping the roster of two of its top performers.

‘I want this to be a team that the fans are proud of, but again, I never said they were going to be proud of them right now,’ Glenn said in November after the trades.

The Jets would go on to win two additional games after their Week 9 bye that preceded the trade deadline deals, helping them remain alive longer than five other teams that had already been eliminated entering Sunday. But with the defeat against the Dolphins sealing their fate, New York crept closer to the New Orleans Saints’ mark of 20 seasons for the longest NFL playoff drought in the Super Bowl era.

NFL’s longest active playoff droughts

1. New York Jets – 15 seasons
2t. Atlanta Falcons – 7 seasons
2t. Carolina Panthers – 7 seasons
4t. Chicago Bears – 4 seasons
4t. Indianapolis Colts – 4 seasons
4t. New Orleans Saints – 4 seasons

The Baltimore Ravens lost to the Pittsburgh Steelers 27-22, dropping them a game out of first place in the AFC North.
A controversial replay review overturned a potential go-ahead touchdown catch by Ravens tight end Isaiah Likely.
Baltimore had several missed opportunities, including a dropped pass by Mark Andrews and inefficient clock management.

The Baltimore Ravens had their dreams of leading the AFC North title race ripped away like Isaiah Likely had his go-ahead touchdown taken off the board in a 27-22 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers on Dec. 7. 

Likely, the Ravens’ tight end appeared to catch a pass from quarterback Lamar Jackson in the end zone that would have put Baltimore up 28-27 with 2:47 remaining. But officials ruled after a replay review that Likely did not possess the ball long enough before Steelers cornerback Joey Porter Jr. wrapped him. As Likely tried to extend the ball away from his own body and away from Porter, the ball jarred loose. 

The result left the Steelers alone at the top of the division with four games remaining. The Ravens still have a chance to even the season series in two weeks at Pittsburgh, but they are currently outside of the AFC playoff picture. 

NFL vice president of instant replay Mark Butterworth said ‘we quickly looked at the play,’ according to the postgame pool report.

‘The receiver controlled the ball in the air, had his right foot down, then his left foot down. The control is the first aspect of the catch. The second aspect is two feet or a body part in bounds, which he did have,’ he said. ‘Then the third step is an act common to the game and before he could get the third foot down, the ball was ripped out. Therefore, it was an incomplete pass.’

Asked to elaborate on ‘an act common to the game,’ Butterworth replied: ‘For this play, it would be him completing the third step.’

That tracked with what Ravens head coach John Harbaugh told reporters.

‘The explanation was that the third foot didn’t get down before the ball came out,’ Harbaugh said. ‘That’s what they said.’

Earlier in the game, in which Steelers quarterback Aaron Rodgers appeared to throw an interception and was ruled as such on the field. But replay ruled that Rodgers had possessed the ball with his knee on the ground amid the commotion following his pass that was batted at the line of scrimmage.

Harbaugh disagreed with the notion Rodgers had a knee down and possession of the football amid the mangle of limbs all trying to corral the pigskin.

‘It’s not an officiating issue. It comes from New York. But when you’re making a catch, you have to survive the ground. He didn’t survive the ground. He’s not down by contact. He was catching the ball on the way down with another person, so you gotta make a catch there and survive the ground,’ Harbaugh said. ‘I don’t know why it was ruled the way it was on that one. All of those things I’m sure they’ll explain it to us, but they had plenty of time to look at it and they’re the ones that are the experts on the rules.’

The Ravens could blame the officials, who turned a Steelers’ field-goal drive into a possession that ended in a touchdown, for saying Travis Jones rushed the long-snapper, which is against the rules, on Chris Boswell’s attempt.

Referee Alex Moore said the snapper is a defenseless player, and contacting him triggers an unnecessary roughness flag. Although Jones contacted a different member of the offensive line first, it appeared, he can still be flagged.

‘You cannot make any forcible contact to that player.,’ Moore said. ‘The calling official felt like the contact rose to the level of being unnecessary against a defenseless player.’

But blaming the stripes wouldn’t be a proper accounting of accountability. 

‘You can’t blame it one way or the other. we know even with those calls, we still should have made enough of a difference to win this game,’ left tackle Ronnie Stanley said.

Three plays after Likely’s non-catch, on a 4th-and-5 from the Pittsburgh 8-yard line, Jackson stepped up and had tight end Mark Andrews open with a step on the defender. The throw was not ideal but catchable, and the freshly paid, favorite target of Jackson could only paw it chaotically with his left hand.

Jackson had another chance to lead a go-ahead touchdown drive with no timeouts and 1:56 left. He got the Ravens to the 30-yard line, but he took a sack on a play that began with nine seconds remaining. Instead of having two shots at the end zone, Jackson lay on the ground as the clock hit zero. 

‘We have to finish and find a way to put some points on the board,’ Jackson told reporters in the locker room. ‘They beat us by five points. We have to find a way to get a touchdown on that last drive.’

Jackson was largely inefficient through the air, going 19-for-35 with 219 passing yards, a touchdown and an interception. 

The Ravens’ defense, for all of its improvement since the beginning of the season, had two free runners for walk-in touchdowns on what ended up being Jaylen Warren’s 38-yard touchdown dash. 

Pittsburgh’s offense is a known commodity by this point in the season. Rodgers, who looked every bit the 42-year-old he turned last week over the past month or so of the season, put up a gaudy stat line – 23-for-34, 287 passing yards with a rushing touchdown and passing score. 

Even with Jackson appearing to be a more willing runner (seven carries, 43 yards), Baltimore could not muster much against a Pittsburgh defense that was embarrassed by the Buffalo Bills in the rushing category a week ago. Derrick Henry (25 rushes, 94 yards) averaged 3.8 yards per carry. 

Rookie kicker Tyler Loop missed a kick. Harbaugh opted for field goals down the stretch at times a fourth-down conversion presented itself as the more analytically sound option. 

The list of reasons why the Ravens lost Sunday is plentiful. They are a game back in the division race because of it and remain alive to make the playoffs if they can retake the division lead and host a playoff game. They can pretend all of this was a blip on the radar. But the reasons why they trail in the division have plagued them all year. 

And that should encourage them to look beyond blaming the refs for their current stock.

Franz Wagner and the Orlando Magic suffered a 106-100 road loss to the New York Knicks on Sunday, Dec. 7. But the biggest loss for the Magic may have come when Wagner left the game with a lower left leg injury.

The German forward was attempting an alley-oop on a fast break but was fouled by Ariel Hukporti with 4:43 left in the first quarter.

Wagner’s knee appeared to buckle upon landing, and he lay on the court before he was helped off. He was seen limping back to the locker room and did not return to the game.

Franz Wagner injury update

Wagner is expected to undergo an MRI once the team returns to Orlando, according to the team.

‘You never want to see anybody go down, but that hurt my heart, watching him hit the floor,’ Magic coach Jamahl Mosley told reporters after the game. ‘Now I’m just praying that everything is going to be OK with him, but we just don’t like to see that happen to him, especially (Wagner), who does everything the right way at all times he’s on the floor.’

Franz Wagner stats

Wagner has averaged 23.4 points, 6.2 rebounds, 3.8 assists and 1.2 steals in 23 games this season, while shooting .487 from the field and .354 from 3-point range. He leads the team in scoring, field goals made (8.0 per game), field goals attempted (16.4 per game) and minutes (34.5 per game).

He has spent his entire career with Orlando after the Magic selected him with the No. 8 overall pick in the 2021 NBA Draft. He made the All Rookie first team at the end of that season.

In 4-plus seasons in the league, Wagner is averaging 19.4 points, 4.9 rebounds, 3.7 assists and 1.0 steals, while shooting .475 from the field, .324 from 3-point range and .852 from the free throw line.