Clusterhump Atop the NFC Standings!
Week 15 Walkthrough eventually gets around to discussing Bills-Lions and Eagles-Steelers, despite having the Broncos, Packers, Texans and the Mahomes injury on the brain.
In this totally normal, not-at-all-weird Week 15 edition of NFL Walkthrough.
Josh Allen makes his final MVP argument and the Buffalo Bills issue a RESOUNDING STATEMENT with a convincing win over the Detroit Lions.
In other great news for the Bills, it’s beginning to look a lot like Wentzmas in Kansas City due to Patrick Mahomes’ high ankle sprain.
The Philadelphia Eagles issued a RESOUNDING STATEMENT of their own, winning their 10th straight game thanks to a Kumbaya performance from bickering superstars Jalen Hurts, A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith.
Did typing RESOUNDING STATEMENT in all caps make the bullet points above more exciting? Impactful? Did they make you feel like a sleep-deprived madman was screaming sports cliches in your ear?
The Houston Texans clinch the AFC South, but their win over the Miami Dolphins was more of a SLIGHTLY EQUIVOCAL PRONOUNCEMENT than a RESOUNDING YOU-KNOW-WHAT.
And much more!
But without further ado, let’s kick things off with Sunday’s biggest games, the ones that most of the country watched and is eager to spend Monday talking about.
Messy Mile-High Comeback Spotlight: Denver Broncos 31, Indianapolis Colts 13
OK, this wasn’t the game you might have expected Walkthrough to lead with. Eh, let’s go with it.
What Happened
The Broncos survived a three-interception meltdown by Bo Nix and moved one step closer to locking up a playoff berth thanks to their defense, one big punt return and some hilarious Colts blunders.
Anthony Richardson capped the opening Colts drive with a 22-yard touchdown on a designed run. His highlight quota met, Richardson took the rest of the game off from doing anything remotely helpful. But the Colts took a 13-7 lead into the third quarter with the help of an early Nix interception, a flat performance by the rest of the Broncos offense and a 36-yard punt return by Anthony Gould to set up a Matt Gay field goal before halftime.
Two more Nix interceptions in the third quarter kept the Colts in the lead even though Richardson was fluttering the ball around in pseudo-Tebow mode. What appeared to be a 41-yard Jonathan Taylor touchdown became a touchback when Taylor dropped the ball to begin his celebration before crossing the goal line, keeping the Broncos in the game. A 61-yard Marvin Mims punt return eventually set up a short touchdown drive to give the Broncos a 17-13 lead early in the fourth quarter.
That’s when Shane Steichen reached deep into his Bag of Dubious Ideas and found a stink nugget of Richardson-to-A.D. Mitchell-and-back-to-Richardson gadgetry that should have been left on the kindergarten playground where he found it. Nik Bonitto watched the slow-developing disaster unfold and leapt in front of Mitchell’s toss to Richardson for what went into the books as a 50-yard fumble recovery touchdown.