The Caleb throw, a controversial call and plenty of mistakes: Barnwell sizes up 11 divisional round plays
Bill BarnwellJan 19, 2026, 08:35 AM ET Close Bill Barnwell is a senior NFL writer for ESPN.com. He analyzes football on and off the field like no one else on the planet, writing about in-season X’s and O’s, offseason transactions and so much more. He is the host of the Bill Barnwell Show podcast, with…
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Bill Barnwell
The NFL playoffs divisional round didn’t lack drama. There were tears, broken bones, comprehensive blowouts, dramatic comebacks, a lot of snow and a controversial call or two.
Young quarterbacks put some career highlights on their reel, and we even came pretty close to having three class of 2024 quarterbacks among the four starters in the conference championship games next weekend. Of course, we ended up with only one, as Bo Nix suffered a season-ending broken ankle late in the Broncos’ overtime win over the Bills, while Caleb Williams came up just short after an overtime interception helped the Rams pull out a victory in Chicago. The only quarterback from the 2024 draft class that we’ll see next weekend is Drake Maye, who had the worst performance of the three this weekend despite the Patriots’ win against the Texans.
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I’ve highlighted 11 plays or moments that stood out to me from the divisional round, and sized up how they decided the games we watched. We’ll go roughly chronologically by starting with Bills-Broncos from Saturday afternoon.
Jump to a game:
Bills-Broncos | 49ers-Seahawks
Texans-Patriots | Rams-Bears
The situation: First-and-10 from the Denver 32-yard line, Bills up 7-3 with 13:27 to go in the second quarter
There’s a lot to unpack here. Let’s start with the Broncos’ defense. There were real concerns about how this unit played after the bye, including a four-game stretch in which it ranked 27th in EPA per play before facing a pair of backup quarterbacks in Chris Oladokun and Trey Lance to end the season. Josh Allen is obviously a special talent, but allowing the Bills to score 30 points on 11 drives and not punt won’t quell those concerns.
Teams have found ways to attack the weak spots in the Denver defense by stretching the linebackers and getting them in space as a repeated target. The Bills had plenty of success there in this game. They used tosses and pin/pull sweeps to get the run game operating. Allen tormented the Broncos with his legs, including a 26-yard gain on the play before this fumble, when he feigned trying to escape the pocket to the left, drew Singleton that way and then broke upfield. And the Bills used misdirection and eye candy to distract Singleton, notably on the 25-yard gain to Dalton Kincaid on a leak concept, when the linebacker didn’t match to the tight end’s delayed route.
You know what makes up for a lot of that? Thwap. On this pitch to Cook, Singleton was initially blocked by Dion Dawkins, but the left tackle knocked the Broncos linebacker one gap over. Singleton did a great job of regaining his footing, steadying himself and delivering a perfect driving tackle on Cook, who lost the ball. Talanoa Hufanga didn’t have his best game, but he was quickest to jump on the ball, giving the Broncos a key fumble recovery.
Broncos ball! Alex Singleton forces the fumble 😳
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Stream on @NFLPlus pic.twitter.com/msSHg9AKXj— NFL (@NFL) January 17, 2026
Just as forcing a fumble can make up for some rough work in the open field, losing a fumble can overwrite many positive moments for a running back. Cook had a very good game on the whole, running 24 times for 117 yards and adding a 24-yard catch on a quick throw to the flat. He led the league in rushing this season, racking up 1,621 yards and 12 touchdowns. And Cook gains much more yardage even when he doesn’t get room to run because his vision on duo and ability to find and stretch cutback lanes to create extra yardage on zone runs are really special.
And yet, Cook finished the season with minus-12.6 rushing EPA. He ranked 120th among all backs in cumulative EPA, behind guys such as Dylan Laube, who had seven carries for 9 yards as a little-used backup for the Raiders. Of course, the reason was fumbles. Cook fumbled six times during the regular season, more than any other back. Getting 309 carries increases the likelihood of fumbling, but fumbling once every 51.5 attempts is a major setback. Not all fumbles are recovered by the opposing defense, but if they are, they take potential points off the board and can hand the opposition the ball with favorable field position.
EPA suggests that the impact of those fumbles erases a massive amount of the good Cook brings to the offense. I don’t believe Cook is the 120th-best back in the NFL, nor do I think he was less valuable or productive than Laube this season. In the past, when even great backs such as Barry Sanders and Shaun Alexander were routinely fumbling four times per year, fumbling six times wasn’t a huge deal. Now, though, when the rest of the league’s backs are fumbling once every 161 carries — as they did this past season — Cook fumbling three times as much does not help.
And it played a huge role in this game. The Bills were marching up and down the field on the Broncos early on. Buffalo led 7-3 and had the ball in field goal range with a new set of downs. If the Bills go up 14-3, does the game change? Instead, the Broncos took over on their 31-yard line and marched downfield without needing a third down until the final play of the drive, when Bo Nix hit backup lineman Frank Crum in the flat for a 1-yard touchdown.
Fumble luck is something nerds like me say is meaningful, and it played a huge role in deciding this game. There were seven fumbles in the game. A Jaleel McLaughlin fumble inside the 5-yard line was recovered by the Bills, but it was wiped off because of an offside penalty by Larry Ogunjobi. Nix should have had a touchdown pass shortly thereafter, but a drop led to a field goal. The Broncos came away with three points.
The other six fumbles all counted, though. Four of them went Denver’s way. In addition to the Cook fumble, Allen lost a pair of fumbles to Broncos star Nik Bonitto, with Denver turning both of those recoveries into field goals. Allen recovered a fumble on a bad snap by backup center Alec Anderson, who was in for Connor McGovern, which led to a sack. (McGovern got hurt trying to recover Cook’s fumble.) The Broncos recovered a ball that hit the ground on a broken flea-flicker, and the Bills picked up another Allen fumble later in the game.
Those three field goals helped send the game to overtime. And though some fumbles can’t be prevented, sending Allen out with 17 seconds to go in the first half and no timeouts was clearly an ill-advised decision. It would be one thing to launch a ball to the sideline, but even if Allen had gotten down after the scramble, the Bills wouldn’t have had time for anything more than a Hail Mary. It was awful situational football from a veteran team that should know better.
Coach Sean McDermott hadn’t gotten much value for those timeouts. The Bills used one on offense after the first play of the game, the second on defense when they had 12 men on the field after a Broncos timeout and the third after the next play, when Cam Lewis made a tackle and couldn’t get off the field after suffering a cramp. And when that happened, the game swung again …
The situation: Second-and-10 from the Buffalo 29-yard line, score tied 10-10 with 0:22 to go in the second quarter
Lewis was in the middle of doing an admirable job. He’s normally in the mix at slot corner, but the Bills decided midweek to shift Lewis to safety. After losing Taylor Rapp in October, the Bills turned to veteran Jordan Poyer, but the 34-year-old went down with a hamstring injury last week against the Jaguars. Rookie fifth-rounder Jordan Hancock filled in, but McDermott thought Lewis would be better with a week of prep. He had a solid game, both before the injury and once returning after halftime.
When Lewis went down cramping, though, the Bills were forced to turn to safety Darnell Savage, who was cut in-season by Jacksonville and spent most of the year in Washington. Savage joined the Bills in December, played one defensive snap against the Eagles, a full game in Week 18 alongside backups against the Jets and then came on the field for a grand total of three defensive snaps against the Broncos. The third and final defensive snap will haunt Savage and Bills fans for a long time.
On the play, the Bills show single-high coverage before dropping into a two-deep shell. The Broncos boot Nix out to the right side and are flooding that side of the ball with routes, a common trend for Denver throughout the season and during this game. They have Marvin Mims Jr. running a go route, Courtland Sutton coming across the field on a deep over route and Tyler Badie in the flat. Savage recognizes this route combination, and we can see him working to squeeze over the top on Sutton’s deep crosser.
The problem is there’s a fourth pass catcher, and he’s heading the other way. Humphrey runs his route vertically out of the slot, and when Savage begins to turn toward the over route, Nix and Humphrey know they have an opportunity. Humphrey cuts his route back toward the opposite pylon, and Nix launches into his throw. Savage nearly runs into Humphrey, and while he turns around to try to contest the throw, he’s too late. Humphrey’s 29-yard touchdown gave the Broncos a 17-10 lead. That lead grew to 10 points after Allen’s fumble on the next play from scrimmage.
Redemption for Lil’Jordan Humphrey!
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Stream on @NFLPlus pic.twitter.com/2fGMhIkwyb— NFL (@NFL) January 17, 2026
Great coaching by Sean Payton, right? Wait until you hear about when he pulled the same trick again! In the fourth quarter, with the Broncos trailing by four points and driving for a potential game-winning touchdown, the Bills lost cornerback Tre’Davious White briefly after a third-down conversion by Nix. In came veteran cornerback Dane Jackson, a longtime Bills player who had been called back to the building after spending 2024 with the Panthers. Jackson played a total of three defensive snaps during the regular season. This was his first and only snap of the postseason.
The Broncos called timeout before the play, giving Payton time to hatch his plan. Before the snap, Denver uses motion to kick Jackson outside and isolate him against Mims, the team’s fastest wideout after Denver lost Troy Franklin to an in-game hamstring injury. The Bills send a five-man rush, keep a sixth man spying Nix and have a safety in the deep middle of the field, leaving them with man coverage everywhere else. With Cole Bishop flying to the flat to take his man, Jackson has no help against Mims, who runs a double move to the pylon. It’s not bad coverage, but Mims is just quick enough to get a half-step on Jackson, and Nix delivers a great throw.
There’s a long list of things Bills fans will rue about this game. There are reasons to be frustrated with McDermott (who was fired Monday morning), GM Brandon Beane, Allen and a host of others. But sometimes, an injury at the wrong time ruins your chances. Go back to the second 49ers-Chiefs Super Bowl and you’ll see Chris Jones running free at the quarterback to blow up a critical third-down play in overtime when Spencer Burford — who was in for the injured Jon Feliciano — blew an assignment and let the best defender in that game run free. The 49ers lost Dre Greenlaw to a torn Achilles, and the Chiefs repeatedly threw at his replacement, Oren Burks.
Great coaches adapt and take advantage of weaknesses. The Bills did it, too; would they have been so aggressive blitzing Nix in the second half if it weren’t for the Broncos losing Franklin and Pat Bryant to in-game injuries? Payton didn’t have a perfect game — the Broncos had all of one designed run with their running backs against a porous Bills run defense after the third quarter — but he came up with two key plays to attack missing Buffalo defenders to help get the Broncos to the next round.
3. Allen misses an open Dawson Knox
The situation: Third-and-10 from the Denver 32-yard line, Broncos up 30-27 with 0:16 to go in the fourth quarter
This isn’t the first crushing postseason loss for the Bills in recent years, but I’m not sure we’ve ever seen Allen have the response he did on the podium after the game, with the star quarterback holding back tears in front of reporters while suggesting that he had let his teammates down. It was a heartbreaking moment for a player who has fought through injuries all season and almost singlehandedly carried the Bills to victories at times. Allen certainly has nothing to be ashamed of, and it was no accident that teammates like Dawkins scoffed at the idea that Allen had let the Bills down after the game. Allen made a number of fantastic plays, and he has been the best player in football over the past three years.
One week after playing a nearly flawless game against the Jaguars, though, Allen had a handful of plays he would like to take back against the Broncos. We discussed the fumble before halftime earlier, when Allen wasn’t careful with the football at the wrong time. The Bonitto strip sack after halftime was perhaps less on the quarterback, but no one wants to fumble on back-to-back series. There were a number of pass plays, though, with which the Bills had an opportunity to score and didn’t.
Two key ones played out in the fourth quarter, and this was the bigger of the two. With the Bills having driven into field goal range trailing by three points, Allen had a couple of chances to take shots to the end zone. Facing a third-and-10 from the Denver 32-yard line with 16 seconds left, the Bills got into empty and had the Broncos defense in Cover 3.
Knox isn’t the most dynamic receiver, but he has a reliable pair of hands and is a solid route runner. He got himself open here, running a post route past Singleton and bending it away from P.J. Locke, the deep safety. The Broncos didn’t match to the route quickly enough, leaving what was frankly a pretty significant window given the game situation. Allen sailed his pass high. It wasn’t an easy throw, given that there’s activity around Allen, but it’s one he would expect to make, either by finding a better angle or getting to the route a little earlier.
Allen misses Dawson Knox on the last snap of regulation before the field goal. pic.twitter.com/eDSGlSO4Qn
— Bill Barnwell (@billbarnwell) January 18, 2026
If Knox catches this ball, there’s a decent chance he scores and Allen has written a triumphant chapter of Buffalo playoff history. Even if he gets tackled by Locke or Pat Surtain II, the Bills can use their last timeout and have the ball right around the 5-yard line with about eight seconds left, leaving them with enough time to run at least one play in the shadow of the end zone. Obviously, there’s no guarantee they score on that play, either, but there’s at least a decent chance this game never gets to overtime.
This wasn’t the only near-miss in regulation. Go back to the prior drive, when the Bills were up one and had the ball in the red zone. Facing a third-and-8, the Broncos sent a six-man blitz at Allen. Offensive coordinator Joe Brady had a good call in return, with a tunnel screen dialed up to Khalil Shakir. Jonathon Cooper did a nice job feeling the screen and might have been able to blow it up when Curtis Samuel turned upfield to block a defensive back, but it didn’t matter, as Allen double-clutched his throw and one-hopped the pass to Shakir.
With better execution, that screen might have scored or picked up a first down. A touchdown there would have put the Bills up eight with an extra point or nine if they had been brave enough to attempt (and then convert) a 2-point conversion. In the end, they settled for three, and the Broncos scored a touchdown to take the lead on the ensuing drive.
It wasn’t all on Allen. Buffalo’s much-maligned wide receiver corps had a rough game, led by their veteran imports. Brandin Cooks had a long catch on the sideline ruled incomplete when his wrist landed out of bounds. With 24 seconds left in regulation, Cooks got a step on Riley Moss on a route to the end zone, but the veteran wideout slowed down about 3 miles per hour, per NFL Next Gen Stats, as he crossed the goal line and wasn’t able to catch up with Allen’s throw.
Mecole Hardman Jr., who brought in a 4-yard touchdown earlier in the game to make his first catch in a Bills uniform, also appeared to be on a different page than his star quarterback in overtime. On the play before Allen’s controversial interception, the Bills got the single-high look they were expecting. Cooks cleared out Moss underneath, leaving a huge swath of space for Hardman to run a deep out from the slot. Allen’s throw was on time and before Hardman turned around to make his break, but the wideout likely ran his route deeper than Allen expected, turning what should have been an easy completion into a low throw and an incomplete pass.
If you’re looking for a scapegoat for the Bills’ loss, you’re wasting your time. There wasn’t one person to blame. Jackson, Savage and Hardman were all in-season additions who were only on the field because of injuries to the players ahead of them, with the Bills losing two different wideouts to torn ACLs last week alone. Cooks had a larger role late in the season, but he has repeatedly been able to get open during his time in Buffalo. They all deserve some of the blame, and while it’s unfair to pin too much on Allen given how essential he has been to Buffalo getting here, he deserves some too.
4. Ja’Quan McMillian intercepts Allen in overtime … I think
The situation: Third-and-11 from the Buffalo 36-yard line, scored tied 30-30 with 7:55 to go in overtime
What will linger with Bills fans deep into the offseason, of course, is what happened in overtime. On the play after Hardman’s miss, the Bills got Cooks matched up on a deep post away from McMillian in the slot. Cooks had a step on the younger cornerback, but after they both went up for the contested catch, McMillian came out of the pile with the football.
JA’QUAN MCMILLIAN INTERCEPTION
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Stream on @NFLPlus pic.twitter.com/S3yuoRu30c— NFL (@NFL) January 18, 2026
I’m glad I didn’t have to make this call. It seems impossibly close, and obviously, it played a huge role in deciding the game, given that the Bills would have been in field goal range if Cooks had caught the pass. There was also some push after-the-fact to call pass interference on McMillian given what happened on the ensuing drive, although I’m not sure that’s really warranted.
The argument seems pretty straightforward, although I’m not sure it will convince McDermott or Bills fans with access to screenshot technology. Cooks would get the reception if this had been a case of simultaneous possession, since ties go to the receiver, but because Cooks didn’t complete the catch as he hit the ground, he didn’t possess the football. (Comparisons to an Aaron Rodgers play from Week 14 don’t add up, as Rodgers was ruled to have possessed the football on the ground, while Cooks did not.)
What made this worse, of course, is what happened next. The Broncos threw a quick pass to RJ Harvey, and Shaq Thompson and Cole Bishop both missed tackles, with Harvey going for 24 yards. The rest of Denver’s yardage to get in range for the game-winning field goal came on pass interference penalties, as Taron Johnson was flagged for 17 yards before White took a 30-yard penalty. The veteran corner added an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty for throwing a tantrum and his helmet after the next snap.
Did the refs call overtime differently than regulation? The results were certainly different, given that there were no pass interference calls in regulation, while the Bills were flagged twice on the final drive of the game. Do we know that there were plenty of opportunities to call pass interference during regulation, though? I’ve seen concerns that Riley Moss should have been flagged on the throw to Cooks I mentioned earlier, but that was also on a snap where Cooks slowed down on his own. By the time Moss makes contact with Cooks’ arm, the throw was past him and uncatchable.
Were these two calls incorrect? The second one on White was certainly right, although the veteran cornerback swears otherwise. The first one on Johnson was more ticky-tack, but I’m not sure it mattered. At the line of scrimmage, Joey Bosa was flagged for an obvious roughing the passer penalty, and the Broncos declined to pick up the pass interference call. Whether the Broncos accepted a 17-yard pass interference penalty or a 15-yard roughing the passer call, they were picking up a first down because of a Bills mistake on this snap.
The easiest thing to do is reduce a close game to a (perceived) bad call or subpar coaching decision. It’s a lot more difficult to break down what actually happened over the entirety of it and contextualize what happened around those calls. And I’m not sure that the Bills were actually impacted by a wrong call among those three overtime snaps, given that the roughing the passer penalty would have simply replaced the first pass interference call on Johnson.
That’s not going to stop some Bills fans from remembering this loss as a product of bad officiating, and while I don’t agree, that’s their right. I’d look back to another game from the past as an example of how reducing games to one snap or one call doesn’t do what actually happened justice. And coincidentally, of course, it’s a very famous game where the calls didn’t go Payton’s way.
Unlike this Bills-Broncos game, I don’t think there’s anybody who believes that the refs in the 2018 NFC Championship Game were correct to hold onto their flags when Nickell Robey-Coleman hit Tommylee Lewis before the ball arrived on a third-down wheel route. Even Rams fans would have to admit that Robey-Coleman got away with an obvious pass interference call, one that even led the league to briefly allow coaches to challenge PI (before dismissing those challenges for half a season.) A penalty there would have allowed the Saints to run down the clock and kick a short field goal to break a 20-20 tie with about 15 seconds left in the game.
What’s lost to history, though, is all the ways the Saints didn’t win the game without needing to rely on one call. The Saints dominated the Rams early, but they settled for two field goals in the red zone in the first quarter. Up 13-0 after 15 minutes, one of the league’s best offenses scored a total of seven points across its next five possessions. The Saints should have ended this game as a contest before that abysmal non-call.
Even after the missed call, the Saints still had chances to win the game. Stopping the Rams on the ensuing drive with 1:41 to go would have sent the Saints to the Super Bowl, but New Orleans allowed Jared Goff to drive 45 yards to set up a game-tying field goal. And while the Saints even won the overtime coin toss during an era when an opening-drive touchdown would have allowed you to win the game, Drew Brees threw an interception on the fourth play of the extra session, setting the Rams up for an NFC-winning field goal.
There’s a classic phrase in combat sports: Don’t leave the fight in the hands of the judges. The Saints did so and had their season disrupted by a truly awful call. I’m not sure the Bills were wronged by the decisions in overtime, but they definitely had plenty of opportunities to win this game before they got there and didn’t do a good enough job. They left would-be touchdowns on the field and turned the ball over four times in regulation before the interception in overtime. It’s a testament to Allen that they even came close to winning with that sort of formula.
5. Rashid Shaheed returns the opening kickoff 95 yards for a touchdown
The situation: Kickoff from the San Francisco 35-yard line, score tied 0-0 with 15:00 to go in the first quarter
There’s much less controversy to be had in the second game of the weekend, when the Seahawks got off to a dominant start and never looked back. Shaheed’s kickoff return touchdown was a spectacular moment from a battle of two of the league’s best special teams units.
Essentially, the Seahawks pulled out the equivalent of a trap run to free up Shaheed. After the former Saints wide receiver brought in the kick, fullback Brady Russell pulled to kick out safety Siran Neal and the Seahawks double-teamed linebacker Garret Wallow to create a running lane. (Russell actually maxed out at 20 mph on the play, per NFL Next Gen Stats, which was faster than Shaheed.) And 49ers cornerback Chase Lucas came all the way across the field to try to make a tackle, but when Shaheed shrugged off his diving attempt, he was one-on-one against Niners kicker Eddy Pineiro, whose attempted slide tackle would have earned a yellow card for denying a goal-scoring opportunity had this been a Seattle Sounders game.
RASHID SHAHEED 95-YARD KICKOFF RETURN TO START THE GAME.
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Stream on @NFLPlus pic.twitter.com/buR0WrfA6x— NFL (@NFL) January 18, 2026
Shaheed is having one of the weirdest seasons in a Seahawks uniform I can remember. He has done virtually nothing as a receiver since joining the team in a midseason trade, as the 27-year-old has racked up 188 receiving yards across 10 games in Seattle. Shaheed didn’t have a single receiving yard in a game in which quarterback Sam Darnold threw only 17 passes. If GM John Schneider knew that Shaheed would average only about 19 receiving yards per game, I’m not sure he would have been thrilled to send fourth- and fifth-round picks to the Saints for him.
Of course, everything else that Shaheed has done has made him valuable. He had seven carries for 64 yards with the Seahawks during the regular season, then added a 30-yarder on an end-around against the 49ers on Saturday. Shaheed managed both kickoff and punt return touchdowns with the Seahawks, with the latter helping to spur the critical comeback victory over the Rams, then added another kickoff return touchdown to get the blowout going against the 49ers. As a pass catcher, Shaheed has been irrelevant. As a runner and returner, he has been essential.
There’s another trade from Schneider’s past that looms here, of course. In 2013, Schneider traded a first-round pick to the Vikings for Percy Harvin, then signed the talented wideout to a six-year, $67 million extension. Harvin then missed virtually the entire regular season, catching one pass for 17 yards. He had four more for 26 additional yards in the postseason, but Harvin’s time with the Seahawks is remembered for one thing: his 87-yard kick return in the Super Bowl against the Broncos in what would be a decisive Seattle victory. (Or perhaps his fight with Golden Tate before the game.)
Harvin was traded five games into the following season. The Seahawks paid him more than $18 million for 176 receiving yards. Did the kick return touchdown in a game in which they were already up 22-0 change anything? Was that a good trade? Probably not. Do Schneider or Seahawks fans regret it? Nope. The Shaheed trade might deliver a similar sort of receiving production, but the speedy wideout has already done plenty to justify this deal, especially with much less heading out in the way of draft capital.
The situation: First-and-10 from the San Francisco 15-yard line, Seahawks up 27-6 with 2:23 to go in the third quarter
This was just a beatdown, with the Seahawks’ defense living in the backfield to torment San Francisco quarterback Brock Purdy. Losing running back Christian McCaffrey during the game and falling behind early didn’t help the 49ers, but Purdy spent most of this game running for his life. The Seahawks pressured Purdy on just under 40% of his dropbacks while blitzing only 12% of the time. The secondary squeezed Purdy’s initial reads, and by the time he got to option Nos. 2 and 3, the pass rush was on its way.
We already know the Seattle defense is great, though, and what happened on the Seahawks’ offensive side of the ball might be more interesting. In my playoff preview, I noted that the Seattle running game had improved in the second half of the season, most notably by creating more explosive plays on the ground. Walker is simply too athletic of a back to go long stretches without creating 20-yard runs, and we saw more big plays from him and Zach Charbonnet down the stretch.
Charbonnet left this game because of a knee injury, putting the onus of the workload on Walker. And what he did was out of character for the Seahawks’ run game — he made it consistent. Success rate has been a problem for Walker and the Seahawks going back to the beginning of his tenure in Seattle. Since 2022, Walker’s 37.4% success rate is the third-worst rate among backs with 500 or more carries, per NFL Next Gen Stats. On Saturday, though, Walker managed a 63.2% success rate. That was his second-best success rate in a single game behind a Week 2 performance against the Steelers earlier this season. And Walker’s seven first downs on the ground tied for his single-game high over that three-year span.
Success rate is a product of both the running back and the offensive line, and I chose this play because both did their jobs. This was one of the cleanest snaps they’ve had all season. With the Seahawks running outside zone, everybody wins on their blocks, including Grey Zabel initially helping on a double-team before getting upfield and sealing off the linebacker. Left tackle Amari Kight, in for the injured Charles Cross, does a good job of getting across 49ers edge Sam Okuayinonu and blocking him without holding as Walker gets outside. Walker is patient and waits to bounce his run upfield, and when he does, he accelerates forward for an easy score.
Kenneth Walker has another! Seahawks lead 34-6!
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Stream on @NFLPlus pic.twitter.com/eF4grFE4ig— NFL (@NFL) January 18, 2026
At its core, coordinator Klint Kubiak’s offense wants to run the ball on these zone runs with a consistently high success rate. Seattle hasn’t been able to run well for most of the season, with Darnold bailing out the offense by picking up huge chunks of yardage off play-action. (That serves as a reminder that teams don’t need to run the ball well to get play-action going; they simply need to convince linebackers that they’re willing to run the ball.)
Darnold has struggled badly since the first game against the Rams in November, dropping from first in Total QBR before the game to 27th since. The Seahawks have been able to survive, instead, by rushing. The 49ers aren’t stiff competition given the injuries they have on defense, but if the Seahawks can run the ball this effectively in the NFC Championship Game, it could be transformative for their offense.
The situation: Fourth-and-1 from the Houston 28-yard line, score tied 0-0 with 9:35 to go in the first quarter
This wasn’t a great game for the MVP candidate. For the second consecutive week, Maye simply held the ball too long in the pocket and didn’t do a good enough job of protecting it. While one of those fumbles came on a broken play in which Maye didn’t have a handoff option, decided to run upfield himself and had the ball knocked out as he was picking up a first down, Maye just didn’t play well.
There were exceptions, of course, and this fourth-and-1 was one of the best plays of the game for the Patriots. It came from a slant/flat concept the Patriots repeatedly got to during this game, including on both of the early touchdown passes to Douglas and Stefon Diggs.
On this play, the Texans blitz and play Cover 0, with man coverage across the board. The Texans are bringing Jalen Pitre off the edge at the snap, but Maye initially works to the flat and Rhamondre Stevenson‘s route, which stops Pitre, who wants to try to jump and tip the pass away. That flat route might have been available if Maye had lofted the ball over Pitre, but the second-year pro stayed patient and worked to his next read.
That read was Douglas on the slant, and while he had favorable leverage against Calen Bullock, there wasn’t a lot of space for this ball. Maye’s throw had to be exact, and it was. Bullock nearly gets to the slant as he dives, but Maye’s throw prevents Bullock from making enough of a play on the ball to break it up. And with no safety help, Douglas has plenty of space to turn upfield for a touchdown.
MAYE. DOUGLAS. 28-YARD TD ON 4TH AND 1!
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Stream on @NFLPlus and ESPN App pic.twitter.com/92q1eHeirw— NFL (@NFL) January 18, 2026
The Texans mostly avoided the blitz in this game, as they sent extra rushers at Maye on only six occasions. They didn’t need to given the success Will Anderson Jr., Danielle Hunter and that front were having, so the blitz was more of a schematic changeup than something that drove significant success for the Texans.
What did matter here, though, was the decision-making. New England coach Mike Vrabel chose to go for it on fourth-and-1 in lieu of trying a 46-yard field goal. There would have been a lot of anecdotal reasons to justify kicking. It’s good to take an early lead! Who doesn’t want to come away with points? In a low-scoring game with bad conditions, points are precious!
All of those things are true, but the other arguments are more compelling. This game was played in snowy conditions, which couldn’t have made kicking easy. The Texans have a great defense, and while Vrabel couldn’t have known how the rest of the game was going to play out, the chances that the Patriots were going to march up and down the field were going to be slim. When points are at a premium, what that usually means is that you won’t get many chances to score. And in that sort of a game, a touchdown is even more valuable, since the other team might need three field goals to overcome one TD.
NFL Next Gen Stats had this as a clear “go” situation, with the Patriots improving their win expectancy by 3.3% simply by attempting a fourth-down conversion, let alone succeeding or scoring a touchdown. Given the situation, I’d argue the other factors, including weather and opponent, made this only a more obvious decision to try to convert on fourth down.
Coach DeMeco Ryans, on the other hand, might be the most conservative coach in football. The Texans went for it just 13.7% of the time on fourth down this season, the second-lowest rate in the league. That jumped to 18.9% of the time when Houston was on the opposing side of the field, which was last in the league. I’ve been willing to give Ryans some benefit of the doubt given that he has an elite defense and a truly awful run game, but the Texans did have success on tush pushes with their tight ends this season, giving them a fourth-down solution in short-yardage spots.
In a game during which his offense didn’t get many opportunities, though, Ryans simply stayed too conservative for too long, especially after he got to see what this contest would look like. In the third quarter, with 9:45 to go and the Texans down by 11 points, Ryans decided to kick a field goal on fourth-and-2 from New England’s 7-yard line. That’s a massive mistake, with ESPN’s model seeing it as a 3.8% swing of win expectancy toward the Patriots. It brought the game within eight points, but the Texans were still going to need to score a touchdown, get a 2-point conversion and score again without allowing the Pats to score.
In the fourth quarter, Ryans just seemed to put off losing for as long as possible. Down 12 points with 12:09 to go, the Texans punted on fourth-and-6 from their own 27-yard line. The Patriots promptly ran six minutes off the clock and punted. On the next drive, after C.J. Stroud was sacked on third down, the Texans faced a virtually impossible situation with a fourth-and-18 and 4:17 to go. No good choices here, but again, Ryans punted. It wasn’t until the Texans were truly out of options, with 1:11 to go, that Ryans went for it in a difficult fourth-down spot, at which point an incompletion ended the game.
8. Marcus Jones returns a Stroud interception 26 yards for a touchdown
The situation: First-and-10 from the Houston 25-yard line, Texans up 10-7 with 10:31 to go in the second quarter
Even as they forced five takeaways on defense, the Patriots weren’t able to run away with this game (in part because they turned the ball over three times themselves). Maye and the offense simply weren’t able to capitalize on those Houston mistakes. They turned four of the Texans turnovers into zero points, even though two of those opportunities handed the Pats the ball around midfield.
The one exception was when the Patriots defense turned one of the takeaways into points by itself. This was on a first-and-10 midway through the second quarter. The Texans were trying to find Stroud an easy completion, running play-action to the right and then sending Stroud out on a naked bootleg to the left, where he was supposed to have a quick option in the flat in tight end Harrison Bryant.
Here’s where dominating the line of scrimmage can have unexpected effects. At the snap, Milton Williams — New England’s prized free agent addition last offseason — drove left tackle Aireontae Ersery backward. Stroud had an unblocked K’Lavon Chaisson on him after the play fake, which is by design, but the quarterback is expected to either take a deep enough drop to create space against the unblocked defender or get the ball out quickly into the flat. There wasn’t anybody there, though. Ersery had been knocked so far backward that he tripped Bryant, who fell down, leaving Stroud mostly helpless.
MARCUS JONES PICK-6!
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Xavier Hutchinson had run away from Christian Gonzalez at the second level and had a couple of steps, but throwing it up for him turned out to be disastrous. Stroud probably needed to just accept that the play was blown up and either go down or try to outrun Chaisson to the edge. Instead, he tried to force the ball to Hutchinson. Chaisson smacked Stroud as he released the ball, and the pass went up into no man’s land. Jones caught what amounted to a short punt and returned it for a pick-six, with Hutchinson throwing the Pats defensive back into the end zone by his facemask over the pylon.
The game was played under ugly weather conditions, and spending most of it down his top two pass catchers in Nico Collins and Dalton Schultz didn’t help, but there’s no way to sugarcoat how Stroud played here. He finished the game with a 21.0 Total QBR, which was better than Maye (20.7) but not by much. Stroud threw four interceptions, and while not all of them were the young quarterback’s fault, there were four or five other throws into dangerous places that also could have resulted in picks.
I wouldn’t draw massive conclusions about Stroud’s future from one bad game. It has been an inconsistent year for the third-year quarterback, and he hasn’t really hit the heights of his rookie season. Stroud’s biggest strength has been his ability to protect the football, and now he has turned the ball over seven times in two playoff games this season. Turnovers haven’t been a problem for him in prior playoff campaigns, but Stroud looked shell-shocked for much of this postseason.
The problem is that the Texans really haven’t fixed the problems they’ve faced during the entirety of the Stroud era. Over the past three years, the Texans are 31st in EPA per play during the regular season on designed rushes. Their two backs had 18 carries for 31 yards on Sunday. The offensive line has gone through a complete makeover, but the Texans weren’t able to hold up against a Patriots front that wasn’t all that devastating during the regular season, even when it had Williams in the mix. New England held the Texans to a 32.7% success rate on offense. Only the Jets (with Brady Cook at quarterback) and Browns (with Dillon Gabriel) had worse days in the 2025 season.
The problem is about to get more expensive to solve. GM Nick Caserio has been afforded a lot of latitude to fix what’s around Stroud while his star quarterback has been on a rookie deal. Now, Stroud’s eligible for an extension. So is DE Will Anderson Jr., who was absolutely unblockable for stretches of this game. Their agents should ask for their clients to become the highest-paid players in the league at their respective positions.
Anderson’s an easy sell. But would the Texans pay Stroud $65 million per year? Two years ago, coming off his fantastic rookie season, that seemed obvious. Now, with Stroud either stagnating or taking a step backward, it seems more dangerous. I look at Trevor Lawrence, whose extension looked like an albatross for a 12-month period before he turned things around and got hot late in 2025, but that came only after the Jags changed their coaching staff and much of the offense around him. At this point, waiting a year and seeing what happens in Year 4 of the Stroud era might make more sense, even if most teams want to get their quarterback deals done as early as possible.
9. Caleb Williams hits Cole Kmet for the longest 14-yard touchdown ever
The situation: Fourth-and-4 from the Los Angeles 14-yard line, Rams up 17-10 with 0:18 to go in the fourth quarter
I wasn’t going to start anywhere else, was I? In a season full of spectacular plays in key moments for Williams and the Bears, the second-year quarterback managed to top his fourth-down conversion from last week with a play Bears fans won’t forget for many years to come. It has to be the only 14-yard touchdown pass ever to travel more than 50 yards in the air, with Williams completing the deepest pass of the Next Gen Stats era in terms of distance behind the line of scrimmage (26.5 yards).
NO WAY. CALEB WILLIAMS HEAVES IT ON 4TH DOWN.
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On top of being an incredible throw, it’s also the exact kind of play myself and many others wanted coach Ben Johnson to get out of Williams’ system this offseason. One of the worst habits quarterbacks can take from the college game to the pros is that trend of running straight backward against pressure, hoping to outrun slower linemen before finding an open receiver with a hero-ball throw. It was a major issue for Williams when he was at his worst last season.
This was one hell of a time to bring it back. Facing fourth down with Chicago’s entire season on the line, Williams was pressured quick by Jared Verse, who went through left tackle Joe Thuney. (Restored to the left tackle spot where he had a nightmarish game for the Chiefs in last year’s Super Bowl, Thuney had an otherwise-solid game given the circumstances.) With nobody open, Williams simply ran 20 yards backward to buy himself some time and then delivered a truly perfect pass to the back of the end zone, where Kmet extricated himself from tight coverage by Cobie Durant and brought in a season-extending touchdown.
Williams has made a number of incredible, high-velocity, off-platform throws this offseason, but this was his official ascension into the “only they can do that” club. There’s a list of NFL quarterbacks who come up when we see seemingly impossible throws. Allen. Patrick Mahomes. Justin Herbert. Matthew Stafford might still be in that club. I’m not sure how you can bring that group up and not include Williams. You’re not supposed to be physically capable of making this pass, let alone delivering it perfectly in the process.
Should the Bears have gone for two afterward? I think you could make a reasonable case for either side. If you believe that momentum would uplift one team and devastate another with one big play, well, it’s hard to argue that there was any play more heartbreaking for the defense or more enthralling for the offense than Williams’ touchdown. (I go back to the 2015 divisional round, when Aaron Rodgers hit a Hail Mary on the final snap of the game before the Packers faced this same decision, as the closest comparable.)
The Bears are built through their run game, and on the whole this season, they’ve been much better on offense than they’ve been on defense. Against a Rams team that was favored heading into the contest, the Bears might believe that they have a better shot at converting a 2-pointer to win the game than heading into overtime, given that the Rams were going to take over with 20 seconds and three timeouts after the play. And while we’d love to believe that extra points are automatic, well, I can’t be the only person who watched a Bears kick at home to tie the game with my fingers over my eyes.
At the same time, the Bears didn’t have Colston Loveland, who converted a 2-pointer for them against the Packers, as the rookie tight end left the game with 1:45 to go after an 18-yard catch with a concussion and didn’t return. The Bears defense had played an excellent game against Stafford, and so the perception of the Bears being the underdogs heading into the contest might have been something closer to an even matchup in reality.
And as Johnson noted after the game, the Bears really hadn’t had a great day in short-yardage or near the goal line. They had run six plays inside the 5-yard line and scored once, and even that play required Williams to come off his first read before hitting DJ Moore for a 3-yard touchdown. They were playing with an offensive line that didn’t have much experience together, given that left guard Jordan McFadden had been on the field a grand total of three offensive snaps over the prior two seasons combined before playing 81 offensive snaps on Sunday night.
The decision to kick the PAT didn’t work out too terribly for the Bears. The Rams responded to the extra point by kneeling and going to overtime. Chicago won the toss and elected to kick, and after the Rams went three-and-out to start OT, the Bears were in position to win with a field goal. Williams then converted on third-and-4 and fourth-and-1 with his legs to get to midfield before throwing his third interception of the game (more on that in a minute).
If anything, the more damaging decision from Johnson came earlier in the game. Johnson is a very aggressive coach and kept his foot on the gas pedal against the Rams, but as the game wore on and it looked to be an unexpectedly tight defensive struggle, Johnson made a more traditional call. After Kyle Monangai was stuffed on a third-and-1 run just short of midfield, the Bears let the third quarter end. When they came back, Johnson punted, costing the Bears three points of win expectancy by the NFL Next Gen Stats model.
This is the exact sort of situation where we hear (occasionally reasonable) arguments for what analytics can’t capture. The Bears didn’t want to give the Rams any momentum by handing them a short field. This was a low-scoring game where both defenses were playing well. Chicago had just been stuffed on the prior play. In a game with the usual Bears defense, Johnson should be aggressive. In this one, with the Bears holding the Rams to 10 points through three quarters? Kicking and playing field position felt like the right call … right?
Well, there’s a reason the base rate fallacy exists, and there are moments where assuming game situations will continue to play out the way they do can go wrong. The Rams suddenly remembered that they were allowed to run the ball on the ensuing drive, and their offense sparked to life. They picked up the yardage from the punt after four plays. Stafford converted a third-and-6 for a first down before a Puka Nacua jet sweep picked up a fourth-and-1 inside the red zone. And a Kyren Williams touchdown gave the Rams a 17-10 lead, putting the Bears in danger until Williams eventually answered back with the game on the line.
10. Williams is picked off by Kam Curl
The situation: Second-and-8 from the Los Angeles 48-yard line, score tied 17-17 with 6:47 to go in overtime
It seemed like the Bears’ night until it didn’t. Chicago was a couple of first downs away from getting into field goal range in overtime, and Williams had just picked up a fourth-and-short with a sneak. It felt like the Rams were on the ropes. Sean McVay might have actually been frozen on the sideline. After the Bears survived at the end of regulation, how could they lose in overtime?
And then, suddenly, the entire situation changed. Johnson isn’t shy about getting aggressive or dialing up one of his many trick plays in any situation. Here, he went back to a core concept that had worked for the Bears throughout the season and ran dagger, with Rome Odunze clearing out a deep cushion and Moore expected to run a dig (or deep-in) route underneath in the vacated space.
I say expected because that’s not really what happened. Odunze ran his clear-out route, but Moore never really seemed to cut and make himself available to Williams. He drifted toward the corner, so when Williams tried to throw the dig, Moore ended up nowhere near the route, leaving Curl in position to pick off the pass.
KAM CURL PICKS OFF WILLIAMS IN OT.
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After the game, Williams confirmed that he was expecting Moore to break off his route underneath the safety. Only the Bears offense knows exactly what play was called and what rules the team has for adjusting routes, but dagger is a classic route combination every team runs, and the route Moore ran in context with what Odunze ran is not that. I strongly suspect this was supposed to be dagger.
It wasn’t the only time the Bears might have created an interception with route miscommunication. In the third quarter, they lined up with Loveland split out wide and Luther Burden III in the slot. Loveland broke inside on a quick in. Burden ran a corner route, but Durant was able to get depth and take the pass away for a Rams interception.
NBC commentator (and former wide receiver) Cris Collinsworth speculated that there might have been a mistake here, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he was right. That deep corner route usually has something underneath to control the cornerback in the flat, preventing him from getting the depth to do exactly what Durant did and make that interception. Usually, that’s a quick hitch route. With Durant pressing him at the snap, though, Loveland might have read man coverage and adjusted his hitch route to that in-breaker — without realizing that the Rams were actually in zone, freeing Durant up to sink deeper and make the pick.
Again, we can’t say for sure, but it sure felt like two of Williams’ three interceptions weren’t on (or at least weren’t entirely on) him. The other pick was a fourth-down throw when the Bears would have turned the football over anyway if Williams had merely thrown incomplete. I’m putting less on Williams’ shoulders for those INTs than I am on Maye, Stroud or even Allen for the turnovers in their respective performances.
11. Stafford hits Davante Adams on the sideline
The situation: First-and-10 from the Los Angeles 41-yard line, score tied 17-17 with 5:51 to go in overtime
Williams’ game-extending TD throw to Kmet is going to live on for a long time, and it should. It’s going to be one of the defining moments of his career. Without taking anything away from that play, I’m not sure people realize just how impressive of a throw Stafford made in overtime to pick up a first down. This wasn’t his finest game, but this was a truly perfect throw in a key moment from the MVP candidate.
Stafford to Davante. What a completion!
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This is one of the hardest throws for NFL quarterbacks to make: a deep out from the hash to the opposite sideline. It’s the easiest throw to misplace. Leave it too far outside and it’s uncatchable. Leave it even a tiny bit inside and it has the potential to be picked and run back the other way. With an opportunistic corner in coverage in Nahshon Wright, Stafford said the throw needed to be “outside-outside.” Most quarterbacks don’t have an outside-outside. Some of them don’t have the arm or the confidence to make this throw.
Kyler Gordon is also underneath in coverage on Jordan Whittington in the flat, meaning Stafford’s pass has to (1) get enough loft to go over the slot corner, (2) get down quickly enough to keep Wright from having a chance to make a play on it, and (3) give Adams a shot at making the catch. Austin Booker even gets pressure on Stafford through left tackle Alaric Jackson. This pass essentially has to go into a teacup 35.5 yards away. Somehow, it does, and Adams brought it in for a first down.
That pass was hard. The other key completion in overtime was not. Facing a third-and-6 on the next set of downs, Stafford must have been thrilled to see the look he got at the snap. The Bears showed Cover 0 before the snap, lining up with eight players on the line of scrimmage. The Rams had three wideouts to the right side of the field, and the Bears had three defensive backs all playing off-coverage behind the line of scrimmage.
At the snap, Gordon blitzed off the line and the Bears played Cover 0, leaving Stafford with an easy throw. He took one step and threw a quick hitch to an uncovered Nacua. While the star wideout was bringing the throw in short of the sticks, Chicago defensive coordinator Dennis Allen was asking 32-year-old safety Kevin Byard III to fly down and tackle Nacua short of the line to gain. Byard still has his strengths as a veteran safety, but nobody would like his chances of covering and tackling arguably the league’s most physical wide receiver on a critical third down. The Rams picked up 16 yards, got in field goal range and won the game.
This was another game where the Rams didn’t dominate on offense as you might have expected. Facing a Bears team that was turnover-or-bust for most of the year on defense, McVay & Co. spent most of the night struggling to find answers to slot blitzes into the backfield. McVay curiously got away from running the football, even though the Rams were averaging more yards per play running than throwing at one point in the second half. Despite the Bears being down their best linebacker in T.J. Edwards, the Rams ran only eight snaps with two or more tight ends on the field.
It wasn’t pretty, but for the second week in a row, the Rams did just enough to win. They’ll need to do more against the Seahawks in the NFC Championship Game. Los Angeles was the only team to give the vaunted Seahawks trouble during the second half of the season, although the Rams were eventually let down by their special teams in a 38-37 defeat. The Rams have been great for stretches on offense in the postseason, but they’ll need to be those guys for four quarters (or potentially five) in Seattle to advance to the Super Bowl.
