What we learned in NFL Week 17: 49ers, Seahawks set up clash for NFC's top seed
SOURCE:The Athletic|BY:Zak Keefer
For the second straight year, we'll have a winner-take-all showdown in the final week of the regular season.
For the second straight year, we’ll have a winner-take-all showdown in the final week of the regular season that will not only decide a division title but also the NFC’s No. 1 seed.
It’ll be the San Francisco 49ers and Seattle Seahawks meeting Saturday at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif., with the NFC West crown and the conference’s top seed on the line (the Detroit Lions defeated the Minnesota Vikings under similar stakes in January).
Credit Kyle Shanahan and his staff: Sunday night’s 42-38 win over the Chicago Bears was the 49ers’ sixth in a row. That’s how a team that sat in third in the NFC West for most of the season has climbed within 60 minutes of a playoff bye. Not only that, but also a win next week would mean the 49ers wouldn’t have to leave their home stadium the rest of the way — and that includes a potential Super Bowl LX appearance.
With just one weekend left in the regular season, all but two playoff spots have been clinched. The AFC North and NFC South winners will claim those next weekend.
In the AFC, three teams still have a shot at the No. 1 seed, though it’s the Denver Broncos’ to lose.
Behind the 49ers’ win over the Bears, the second-best finish of Sunday’s slate came in Orchard Park, N.Y., where Josh Allen battled through a foot injury to lead the Buffalo Bills back from a 13-0 fourth-quarter deficit to the Philadelphia Eagles. But after a 1-yard touchdown run from Allen cut Philly’s lead to 13-12 with five seconds left, Allen missed wideout Khalil Shakir in the end zone on what would’ve been a game-winning 2-point conversion. With that, the Eagles celebrated their 11th win of the season, and the Patriots celebrated their first AFC East title since 2019.
We’ll have a winner-take-all game next Sunday night in Pittsburgh, where the 9-7 Steelers will host the 8-8 Baltimore Ravens with the AFC North on the line. Pittsburgh coughed up a chance to wrap up its first division title in five years by losing 13-6 to the Cleveland Browns, keeping the Ravens’ playoff hopes alive for another week. Cleveland’s Myles Garrett, still a sack away from breaking the single-season record, suggested after the game that the Steelers’ priorities might’ve been skewed. “I feel like they were more worried about keeping me away from Aaron (Rodgers) than getting the win, and I think that’s what came back to bite him,” Garrett said. He’ll try to chase down Joe Burrow in Cincinnati next week for the record.
It’s essentially the same scenario in the NFC South, albeit with a minor wrinkle. The division will most likely be decided Saturday afternoon in Tampa, Fla., where the reeling Buccaneers — who fell 20-17 to the Miami Dolphins on Sunday and are now 7-9 after a 6-2 start — will try to avoid putting the finishing touches on an unthinkable late-season collapse. They’ll host an 8-8 Carolina Panthers team that fell 27-10 at home to the Seahawks. A win for the Panthers would clinch the franchise’s first division title in 10 years. A loss would deliver the Bucs their fifth straight crown.
The only caveat is if the Atlanta Falcons win their final two. That would give the Panthers the edge in a decisive tiebreaker — division win percentage — even if they lose to the Bucs next week. After seeing the Rams on Monday night, the Falcons will host the Saints, winners of four straight, to close the season.
The AFC South remains up for grabs, and Jacksonville has the inside track. A 23-17 win over the Indianapolis Colts on Sunday means all the Jaguars have to do is beat the 3-13 Tennessee Titans at home next week to end Houston’s two-year reign atop the division. The Texans, winners of eight straight after Saturday’s 20-16 victory over the Chargers, need a Week 18 win over the Colts and a Jags loss to the Titans to make it three AFC South titles in a row.
The Colts, meanwhile, have dropped six straight and will become the first team in 30 years to start 8-2 and miss the playoffs. After dropping his third game in a row as a fill-in starter, 44-year-old Philip Rivers offered no regrets. “Other than us not winning … it’s been an absolute blast for three weeks,” he said. “If I go back and say, ‘All right, now you know everything’s going to happen, what are you going to do?’ I’d do it all again.” The Colts are considering starting rookie Riley Leonard in Week 18.
Here’s what we learned from Week 17 in the NFL:
It’s SF-Seattle for the NFC’s top seed
A game that featured two Coach of the Year candidates, 11 touchdowns and 80 points came down to one throw. And for a moment there, it looked as if Caleb Williams was about to do it again.
Why not? It would’ve been Williams’ seventh fourth-quarter comeback of the season, and it would’ve kept the Bears’ hopes alive of earning the NFC’s No. 1 seed. Instead, Chicago’s final drive Sunday night — after 15 plays and 58 yards — came up short when Williams’ last pass fell incomplete in the end zone.
For San Francisco, Brock Purdy shook off an early pick-six to play one of his best games as a pro: He led six touchdown drives, including one that pushed the 49ers in front for good with 2:15 left. That’s now back-to-back games for Purdy with five touchdowns. Christian McCaffrey was again a workhorse, with 27 touches, 181 all-purpose yards and a touchdown.
Williams finished with 330 yards and two touchdowns for Chicago.
For the Seahawks, it doesn’t get any simpler: Beat the 49ers next week and the NFC playoffs will run through Seattle for the first time since the Legion of Boom Days. Sunday’s win over the Panthers moved them to 13-3, meaning Sam Darnold is now the first quarterback in history to win 13 games or more in consecutive seasons with two different teams. (Darnold led the Vikings to a 14-3 finish last season after dropping that Week 18 showdown with the Lions.)
The Broncos’ 20-13 win over the Chiefs on Christmas night, coupled with the Chargers’ loss to the Texans on Saturday, clinched Denver’s first division title in a decade. The last time the Broncos were on top of the AFC West, Peyton Manning was their quarterback and Von Miller was about to lead them to a championship.
Now the Broncos can set their sights on the AFC’s top seed and lone playoff bye. A win next Sunday over the Chargers would do it.
In the event the Broncos lose, the Patriots would have to beat the Dolphins to earn the top seed. The Jaguars can earn the No. 1 seed only if they beat the Titans and both the Broncos and Patriots lose.
A year ago, a two-win Giants team rolled the Colts in a Week 17 game that cost New York the No. 1 pick. On Sunday, a two-win Giants team rolled the Raiders in a Week 17 game that could end up costing New York the No. 1 pick.
But it’s hard to blame them — especially rookie quarterback Jaxson Dart — for snapping a nine-game losing streak with a 34-10 victory on Sunday. This team needed a win. Dart threw for 207 yards and ran for two touchdowns in the Giants’ first victory since Oct. 9.
The Raiders, meanwhile, have all the makings of a team deserving of the No. 1 pick. This season has been an utter disaster. Geno Smith has regressed. The defense has been atrocious. A report trickled out this week that the team is beefing with its best player, Maxx Crosby. And Pete Carroll — lured out of retirement to steady a sinking ship of an organization — hasn’t found any answers.
Las Vegas’ reward, with a loss next week to the Chiefs, will be the franchise’s first No. 1 pick since 2007. The Raiders will hope for a better outcome this time. That year, Al Davis used the pick on JaMarcus Russell.
The 2025 season has more worthy candidates than any in recent memory. One could make a legitimate case for seven coaches.
All Shanahan has done in San Francisco is lead the 49ers back to the playoffs — with a shot at the No. 1 seed — despite losing Pro Bowlers such as Nick Bosa, Fred Warner, George Kittle and Purdy for long stretches this season. On Sunday night, Kittle was out and All-Pro left tackle Trent Williams was lost early in the game. San Francisco still found a way, thanks in large part to Shanahan’s play-calling late.
Ben Johnson not only unlocked Caleb Williams in Year 2 but also flipped a franchise that hadn’t won double-digit games in any of the past six seasons. Most impressive, perhaps, is how disastrously it all started: The Bears, if you’ll recall, blew an 11-point second-half lead in their season opener to the Vikings, then were routed 52-21 in Detroit a week later. It wasn’t just bad, it was ugly. “It’s a kick in the teeth,” Johnson said that day, fuming at the postgame podium. It looked like the start of another long year in Chicago.
The Bears have won 11 of 14 since. Seven wins have come in one-score games. For a team that slogged through a 10-game losing streak last season, it’s hard to think of a more stunning about-face.
Then again, the Patriots’ Mike Vrabel has a case. From 4-13 to 13-3, Vrabel has accomplished the same thing in New England, changing the entire outlook for a franchise in a matter of months. The Patriots became a bottom dweller in Bill Belichick’s final few seasons, then Jerod Mayo’s lone year, winning just eight combined games from 2023 to 2024. New England was picking in the top five of April’s draft. Heading into Week 18, it’s in contention for the AFC’s top seed.
In Jacksonville, Liam Coen is now just the 11th coach since 1970 to win 12 or more games in his first year as a head coach. He’s done a remarkable job — much like Vrabel — flipping a team that won just four games last season into a Super Bowl contender. And he did so without the 2025 No. 2 draft pick, wideout/cornerback Travis Hunter, who’s missed most of the season due to injury. With a win next week over the lowly Titans, the Jags would match the second-best regular-season record in franchise history.
In Seattle, it took only two years for Mike Macdonald to take what he built in Baltimore as the Ravens’ defensive coordinator and do the same with the Seahawks. A win next week over the 49ers and Macdonald will have delivered the Seahawks the NFC’s No. 1 seed and the franchise’s first NFC West title since 2020. That’s no small achievement any year, but especially this one, with Sean McVay and Shanahan at the top of their games.
The job Sean Payton has done in Denver has probably been taken for granted, partly because the Broncos showed so much promise last season, winning 10 games and making the playoffs with a rookie quarterback. But his three-year body of work has been tremendous: Payton climbed out of $85 million in dead cap money — what the Broncos paid to move on from Russell Wilson — and built his team into a Super Bowl contender in two short seasons. A win next week would tie the franchise record for regular-season wins, set in John Elway’s final season (1998). Payton is now one of two coaches in NFL history — Belichick is the other — to win at least 13 games in a season five times.
DeMeco Ryans, a candidate for this award each of the last two seasons, also deserves mention. He’s built the best defense in the league and lifted Houston from an 0-3 start to 11 wins and counting, plus an outside shot at a third straight division title. The Texans are now the fifth team since 1990 to begin a season 0-3 and make the playoffs.
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