A Busy Time Ahead

  I’ve been watching the National Football League closely as the teams head towards Thanksgiving. And there is no clear cut favorite to win it all, let alone any team being an automatic for the playoffs. 

Going into this past weekend, Indianapolis appeared to be head and shoulders above the rest in the AFC, along with surprising New England. Not necessarily so.

The Colts ran into a determined Kansas City team which still has championship pedigree among its key players, with a coaching staff among the best on the league. Yet KC has struggled, amassing. 6-5 record and having not been able to win any close games. Until Sunday. 

Patrick Mahomes may look a little off this season. Don’t be fooled. He rallied the team when Indy took a lead that almost appeared to be insurmountable. KC got to overtime, and the defense played its role, having stymied Jonathan Taylor, the top running back in the NFL thus far and made QB Daniel Jones appear very average in the second half. The Chiefs dominated the fourth quarter and overtime—they deserved to win this game and Indy deserved to lose it.  

Look, I am far from guaranteeing that the Chiefs even make the playoffs. Denver still has a significant lead in the division. Plus the Broncos have a win versus KC under their belt. 

Yet I am hardly convinced that Denver will survive the AFC playoffs and reach the Super Bowl. They have a challenging schedule ahead, beginning with a Monday night contest at the Washington Commanders. Home games against playoff competitors like Green Bay, Jacksonville and the Los Angeles Chargers along with divisional foe Las Vegas are helpful. Circle Christmas night—the Broncos head to KC for a rematch—where the Chiefs will sorely want to exact revenge for an earlier loss and derail Denver getting home field for the playoffs.

Kansas City has to travel to play at Dallas on Thanksgiving in the marquee matchup. Not an easy game at all. Then hard-charging Houston comes in—the Texas downed an inconsistent Buffalo squad—followed by the Chargers, a road clash with a weak Tennessee team before ending the season with Denver and at Las Vegas. 

I didn’t mention the Chargers. Although the team is 7-4, they fail to overwhelm me with their play thus far. What makes me wonder if they will even make the playoffs is their remaining schedule: Las Vegas followed by Philadelphia, KC, Dallas, Houston before ending the season in Denver in a game which may hold major significance for both teams. LAC needs to step it up. 

With the loss to KC, the Colts find themselves one game ahead of Jacksonville and two ahead of Houston. The AFC South will be decided with Indy squaring off in four of the final six games against the Jaguars and Texans. Jacksonville has more breathers, as they have home-and-home games with Tennessee and host the New York Jets. 

In the AFC North, Baltimore emerged from the near-dead to take over first place with its win over the Jets on Sunday. The Ravens hardly looked formidable, with the Jets carrying the play to them and escaping real trouble when NYJ RB Breece Hall fumbled near the goal line and the Ravens recovered the ball. 

Pittsburgh gave the Chicago Bears a battle with backup Mason Rudolph replacing the injured Aaron Rodgers at quarterback. The Steelers fortunes will rise and fall on the ability of Rodgers to return to form and play to his Hall of Fame best despite the injury to his left wrist. 

The Steelers and Ravens meet twice, including for the final game of the regular season. Buffalo and Miami come in while the team travels to Detroit and Cleveland in late December. 

Baltimore has two games against division rival Cincinnati and games against AFC East leader New England and a trip to a very frigid Green Bay on Saturday December 27. Not an easy task. 

Finishing up with the AFC East, New England continues to confound, while Buffalo isn’t dominating like expected. The Patriots host the Giants on December 1, then are off 13 days before clashing with the Bills at home. Games at Baltimore and the Jets before hosting Miami on the cold of Foxborough round out the schedule. Beating the Giants while maintaining a two game lead should clinch the division for Mike Vrabel’s team. 

Meanwhile, Josh Allen and mates better get it together starting with the upcoming game at Pittsburgh. Besides playing New England away, games with Cincy, Cleveland and NYJ— all losing teams—and hosting the Eagles completes the Bills schedule. They should make the playoffs as a Wild Card.  

Sunday’s epic comeback by the Dallas Cowboys in winning the game with a field goal as time expired, showed that the Philadelphia Eagles are not the dominant defending champion their fans thought they might be. Still ahead of Dallas by 2.5 games, Philly should win the NFC East even with a game against NFC North leader Chicago on Black Friday, a trip to LA to meet the Chargers, and going to Orchard Park for what will be the penultimate regular season game in the old ballpark. 

The other divisions all have tight races which will go down to the end of the season to set up playoff seedlings. I was impressed with how the Los Angeles Rams mauled NFC leader Tampa Bay. QB Matthew Stafford has been playing unreal thus far—it is likely that he and Indy RB Taylor are the M.V.P. front runners. I give Stafford the edge as he has thrown 30 TD passes with only 2 interceptions. 

What remains for LAR are four away games at Carolina, Arizona. Seattle and Atlanta, with Detroit and Arizona coming to Inglewood. Except for a blocked field goal attempt in Philadelphia and a goal-line fumble against San Francisco, the Rams might have been 11-0. Are they that good?

The NFC West could send three teams to the playoffs: Rams, Seahawks and 49’ers. Then again, so could the NFC North. 

That division is tight, with Chicago clinging to a .5 lead over Green Bay and a 1.0 game margin over Detroit. Outside of a home game with Cleveland, the Bears meet the Packers twice in three weeks and end up with games at San Francisco and home versus Detroit. Starting with the Black Friday game, we will learn how much Chicago has improved, 

Nothing is close to decided in the NFC South. Tampa Bay and Carolina are tied atop the division standings. Atlanta looms just two games back. With QB Baker Mayfield suffering a left shoulder strain, the Bucs chances might be fading. Carolina has the opportunity to overtake the Bucs. It would not surprise me if the winner of the division is at best 9-8. 

I want to talk about the first team eliminated from playoff contention. That would be the New York Giants. They fought hard against the Lions in Detroit. Interim Head Coach Mike Pafka pulled out trick plays. The team’s downfall was that Detroit RB Jahmyr Gibbs was unstoppable, repeatedly roaring through the over-matched Giants defense. 

As a New York Jets fan on the verge of playoff elimination, having secured a 10th straight losing season with the loss at Baltimore, I feel the pain in East Rutherford. It is remarkably similar in Florham Park. 

Another player worth mentioning is Shedeur Sanders’ debut as the Cleveland starting QB. He performed well in the win in Las Vegas. He was the first Browns rookie QB to win in his debut since 1995. 

The Browns defense, led by all-NFL Myles Garrett, who made five tackles, sacked Raiders QB three times (the team recorded ten sacks in the game) and forced two fumbles. Maybe there is some hope for the future along Lake Erie. 

I want to briefly note that two teams in the NBA are really rolling to start the season. Defending champion Oklahoma City went out to a 17-1 mark, after opening the season with two back-to-back double overtime victories. The Thunder has been rolling. Their only loss was by two points in early December at Portland. Could they actually be better than when they won it all last season?

The other team on a roll is Detroit. The Pistons gave the New York Knicks a ton of trouble in their 2024-25 playoff series. They are currently riding a 13 game winning streak. Detract is young and hungry. There still remain a lot of games to be played. The Eastern Conference will be no picnic. BTW—OKC and Detroit don’t meet up until late February in Detroit with the return match at the end of March. 

College football devotees should know that the run to the FCS playoffs will be a mad scramble. The three unbeaten, Ohio State, Indiana and Texas A&M face traditional rivals to end the regular season. Can OSU reverse the apparent jinx they have when meeting Michigan in Ann Arbor? Will Indiana not stumble versus Big Ten doormat Purdue? And will A&M hold up enough to prevail over in-state rival, #17 Texas? 

The rest of the teams in the hunt for the playoffs have at least 1 loss and a few have lost three contests. None of these schools can afford another loss, as the rankings could shuffle dramatically as a result. 

I watched OSU host Rutgers. RU fought valiantly in Columbus but succumbed by a score of 42-9. While the talent gap is there, the Buckeyes didn’t play a real sharp game. That has to be rectified once they play Michigan and then face Indiana before heading to the playoffs. Otherwise, there will not be a repeat champion. 

And I checked on Penn State hosting Nebraska. The Nittany Lions dominated the Cornhuskers. The interim head man at PSU, Terry Smith, downed his close friend Matt Rhule’s team. Both had roots in Happy Valley. 

Smith has the team back on track. He has the support of his players. With a win at Rutgers on Saturday, the Lions will be bowl eligible in a tumultuous year which saw former head man James Franklin canned mid-season (Franklin has re-emerged as the new Head Coach at Virginia Tech, a school very much needing a program revival). I am pulling for PSU to take the interim tag from Smith, no matter what happens in Piscataway. 

And in two major rivalries, both Harvard and Lehigh entered their games undefeated. Yale rolled the Crimson at home, sending the boys from Cambridge home with a daunting loss. Lehigh won on the road in Easton and secured its bid to represent the Patriot League in the FBS Playoffs.

In Division III action, four Centennial Conference teams were in action. Muhlenberg won its play-in game against Union; the Mules now meet top-seeded Mount Union. Carnegie-Mellon and Ursinus won their bowl games in the Centennial-MAC series, with Dickinson suffering a two point loss at Delaware Valley. F&M hosts Eastern and Johns Hopkins has a  home game with Springfield, winners over Cortland. 

To end my recounting of a busy sports week, I went to Jersey Mike’s Arena and watched Rutgers down American in a very uninspired game. American played  better than RU but fell apart in the second half. 

RU is not going anywhere fast with this group. The home loss to Central Connecticut State, a NCAA team last year still was embarrassing. I see the bottom of the Big Ten beckoning. 

I remain of the belief that RU basketball Catch Steve Pikiell and football legend Greg Schiano might not be back next year. But what do I know? 

Enjoy your Thanksgiving. Whether it is with bird or birdless. Don’t be like UConn basketball coach Danny Hurley. He moved up his team’s celebration of  the holiday to Wednesday so that the #3 squad would not be suffering from tryptophan ahead of Friday’s game at Madison Square Garden against #8 Illinois. Would he qualify as a grinch at Christmas with this kind of attitude? 

A busy time ahead for sports fans. Don’t overeat. Indeed.