All-time finish for last spots
The 32 things we learned from Week 18 of the 2021 NFL season:
1. Parity, perhaps the NFL’s most important calling card, continues to create rampant playoff turnover. Ever since the league first expanded the playoff field to 12 teams and began seeding them in 1990, at least four new clubs have reached the postseason every successive year. The 2021 lineup will feature seven teams – the Arizona Cardinals, Cincinnati Bengals, Dallas Cowboys, Las Vegas Raiders, New England Patriots, Philadelphia Eagles and San Francisco 49ers – that didn’t participate a year ago.
2. With the Cards limping into the field, breaking a sixyear drought, every NFC team has participated in the Super Bowl tournament at least once since 2016 – when the New York Giants and Detroit Lions last qualified. The New York Jets maintain the league’s longest playoff drought, one that extends to 2010, followed by the Broncos. Denver, which hasn’t returned since winning Super Bowl 50 following the 2015 season, fired coach Vic Fangio.
3. What’s different about this year’s playoffs? Maybe not a whole lot given Tom Brady and Bill Belichick are both back once again. But you won’t see either on the league’s first Monday night wild-card broadcast, a rubber match forum as the Cardinals visit the Los Angeles Rams for the NFC West rivals’ third meeting of the season.
4. Also different? The presence of Raiders QB Derek Carr, who will be making his longawaited postseason debut. Carr was an MVP candidate in 2016, when the Silver and
Black last reached the playoffs. But he suffered a season-ending broken leg in Week 16.
5. Las Vegas’ Rich Bisaccia also becomes the first interim coach to guide his team into the postseason.
6. But what an amazing regular-season finale Sunday to wrap up the league’s first 17game regular season. The Pittsburgh Steelers clinging to life with an overtime win at Baltimore and help from an unlikely source in Trevor Lawrence, whose team knocked off the Colts. Then the 49ers made a memorable comeback in Los Angeles, punching their wildcard ticket with an overtime triumph over the Rams, who backed into the NFC West crown anyway thanks to a loss by Arizona. But that all paled to game No. 272, the Raiders beating the Los Angeles Chargers on Sunday night with a field goal on the final play of overtime – after the Bolts called a widely parsed timeout that might have nixed the tie, which would have permitted both teams to pass beyond the playoff velvet rope. An absolutely stunning day of football.
7. Apparently the Indianapolis Colts really didn’t feel like doing any more “Hard Knocks” episodes. How else to explain their 26-11 loss to the Jaguars in Jacksonville, where the Colts amazingly haven’t won since 2014? Now, a team that appeared primed to potentially do significant damage in the playoffs prematurely heads into an offseason where many will again openly wonder if the Carson Wentz trade – and it will now cost Indy its 2022 firstrounder – was worth it.
8. And bummer for Colts RB Jonathan Taylor, the NFL’s 2021 rushing king by a sight, who saw his credibility as an MVP candidate drain away on a forgettable