Week 17 Care/Don't Care: Unlike Vikings, Packers' lack of a true WR1 hurts them when it matters most

5 things I care about

Sam Darnold, going through his progressions

When we talk about "quarterback whisperer" offensive play-callers, we often frame it as the head coach setting up a “quarterback-proof” system. There is no question that Kevin O’Connell’s offense is exceptionally well-designed and this is one of the premiere quarterback ecosystems in the NFL. But the Darnold reclamation season goes well beyond any of that, and this Week 17 game was a premier example.

Darnold’s 377 passing yards were a career-high and, per Next Gen Stats, he targeted an open receiver on a career-high 67.4% of his pass attempts. That stat alone might lead you to think Darnold was operating as the proverbial joystick extension of the play-caller but that’s not the play I watched on Sunday.

Week 17's game saw Darnold consistently work through progressions to find the open man. This offense has open players — Justin Jefferon's presence alone shifts coverages to the point where windows will be readily available — the quarterback just has to get to the point of the concept. You saw multiple plays on Sunday where Darnold cooly and calmly worked to that point of the play.

We are talking about the famous “seeing ghosts” Darnold doing this. That’s a wild transformation and that’s the beauty in O’Connell’s resumé.

Coaching is not just out-scheming everyone else. It's not simply about drawing up the most beautiful play on the whiteboard that any old quarterback can operate. It's about teaching and developing. The version of Sam Darnold we're seeing work through progressions and find answers deep into the concept is a player who has so clearly gone through that teaching.

After such a successful player transformation with Darnold, with top-five quarterback stats on the sheet and the team record to top it all off, I have a hard time imagining this story of developmental reclamation ends with this quarterback simply walking out the door.

That creates an interesting scenario for the Vikings in the offseason. Does a franchise tag sit well with Darnold, who could clearly cash in a monster deal elsewhere if he hits the open market and a locker room fully bought into him as the QB1? Where does that leave 2024 Round 1 selection, J.J. McCarthy?

All of those are problems for this team to consider in March of 2025 and beyond. Right now, every week the Vikings game film demands us to take them seriously as a Super Bowl contender. I’m done ignoring it and it’s almost exclusively because of the teaching under Kevin O’Connell. What a pristine job of team-building.

Jayden Daniels is everything for Washington

Week 17 was just another chapter in what’s becoming an already lengthy story of how Jayden Daniels has changed the culture for the Washington Commanders franchise.

Great quarterbacks can go to their second and third pitches when teams force them off their game. That’s what we saw Daniels do in Week 17.

One of the best quarterback-to-wide receiver connections in the league this season has been on this Commanders team. Entering this week, per Next Gen Stats, Jayden Daniels’ 140.0 passer rating when throwing to Terry McLaurin was the highest among quarterback-receiver duos in a single season since Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski with the Patriots in 2012 (140.1) (among duos with at least 75 targets). The Falcons were determined not to permit McLaurin to be the one to beat them. They sent shadow corner A.J. Terrell to track McLaurin and he aligned across from the Commanders wideout on 32 of his 34 routes (94.1% shadow rate), per NGS, allowing just 1 reception for 5 yards on 6 targets. The majority of the reps on critical late down-and-distance situations were in press-man coverage.

With that connection shut down for the night, Daniels picked other spots in an unbalanced Falcons defense. He found guys like Olamide Zaccheaus and Zach Ertz over the middle of the field to great success. He threw just two incompletions to those guys on the evening.

When the passing lanes were closed, Daniels created lanes on his own via the ground game. The amount of scrambles in which he sliced through the most minuscule of creases were insurmountable for the Falcons defense. Daniels’ 81.3% rushing success rate was the highest in a game this season. He fits the bill we want to see from the best quarterbacks in the game: create on your own when it all breaks down.

Kliff Kingsbury has done a great job as the play-caller for Washington, but this team doesn't have a "system." They have Jayden Daniels. He is the system.

Sometimes, "culture-changer" is overused in sports. Not in this case. Everything indicates Daniels is a special entity who instantly changed the fortunes of what’s been a lost-at-sea franchise for far too long. He deserves all the accolades and praise coming his way.

Even better, this should be just the beginning.

The most embarrassing loss of the 2024 season

I’m sure there are plenty of contenders and perhaps I’m overreacting to the most recent piece of data but the Colts dropping this Week 17 game to the Giants is the worst loss of 2024.

The Colts were still alive in the postseason race at the beginning of the day. A loss to the Drew Lock-led Giants ends that dream. The overall picture is bad enough but the specifics of this loss are worse.

Yes, you started your backup quarterback but Indy got what should be viewed as a 90th-percentile outcome from Joe Flacco at this point in his career. He gave the ball to the Giants three times but that’s always part of the equation. He also moved the offense with some regularity. The bottom line, you scored 33 points even with a handful of mistakes.

That’s enough to win a game … just not when you give up 45 to the current iteration of the Giants.

The Colts' defensive effort was downright humiliating. If Gus Bradley had heard of the name Malik Nabers before Sunday, his game plan didn’t show. Nabers made plays in single-man coverage multiple times on deep routes. When he got in space, the entire Colts defense seemingly operated in quicksand and took bad angles to bring him down. The fact that Nabers was seemingly left alone so often in this game makes it all the more ridiculous that Wan’Dale Robinson dunked on this defense on deep out-breaking patterns and Darius Slayton just walked into the end zone on a 32-yard score. Late and slow to the ball was the theme for the Colts defense in Week 17.

Drew Lock has played like the worst starting quarterback in the NFL when he’s gotten time under center for this Giants team. Bradley’s defense ceded five touchdowns to the embattled backup. Not a soul would have believed that if you predicted it before kickoff.

The Colts are officially eliminated from playoff contention on the back of this miserable performance and that feels justified. It’s been a long and confusing season for Indianapolis, filled with self-inflicted wounds along the way. It feels fitting that this is what sends them packing. This kind of result could cause major changes in an organization that’s felt stuck in the middle for far too long.

Bills get production from outside receivers

It feels pretty foolish to say that an offense that ranked No. 1 in EPA per play heading into Week 17 has a “missing piece,” but at times this year, the Bills offense hasn’t always gotten what they needed from their outside receivers. Their win over a Jets team that’s been tough on perimeter wideouts this year was a needed signal as they prepare for a postseason run.

No one on Buffalo's roster caught more than three passes. It was spread out, as usual. This team doesn't have a No. 1 receiver and they don't need any of the perimeter options to become that guy. What they do require is for those options to come up with big plays in specific situations. Josh Allen's two passing touchdowns went to Amari Cooper and Keon Coleman and both came in the exact fashion Buffalo needs them to step up.

Coleman hasn’t been perfect as he’s struggled to consistently separate against man coverage and has made some classic rookie mistakes. However, he is so often on the same page with Josh Allen on the scramble drills. His touchdown reception, which came on a wild cross-body Allen toss, was a perfect example:

As for Cooper, he has looked a step slower this season and has not been a full-time player with the Bills following his midseason trade. Sunday was no expectation as Cooper only ran a route on 37.9% of the dropbacks. He's not going to be a frequently high-target player but that's not what he's here for. Cooper is meant to be impactful when he's targeted, particularly on go routes from the X-receiver position. That is exactly how he scored his touchdown.

The Bills are locked into the second seed in the AFC and will likely rest starters in Week 18. The next time we see them will be in the postseason. When that game arrives, they’ll need some of this same impact from the outside receivers to make a run, even if they aren’t featured pieces.

Rookie receivers from LSU

LSU has given us some unbelievable wide receiver talent over the last decade, including some of the most dynamic rookie receivers in league history.

Malik Nabers does not make the above graphic, but he’s one of the rare rookie wide receivers who has recorded more than 100 catches. He also cleared 1,000 receiving yards during his Week 17 game and added two more touchdowns to his resume. Nabers has played with four different quarterbacks this season. He was correctly evaluated as an exceptional talent during the leadup to this year’s NFL Draft and he’s proven that throughout the course of the season.

Brian Thomas Jr. is the more surprising revelation. Thomas was not viewed in the same tier as Nabers, Marvin Harrison Jr. and Rome Odunze as prospects but you can easily argue he’s been the best of the bunch as a rookie.

Thomas has saved his best for the end of his first campaign. Since Week 14, Thomas has earned a whopping 34.1% target share over four games. That puts him in the neighborhood of Puka Nacua, A.J. Brown and Ja’Marr Chase. He has been responsible for 44.3% of the Jaguars' receiving yards, the third-most among pass-catchers in this span. We’ve watched Thomas develop from a big-play threat to a full-blown No. 1 wideout over the course of his rookie season.

Thomas will get Trevor Lawrence back next season but will almost certainly be playing in a new offensive system. That’s a needed change in Jacksonville. As for Nabers, his future quarterback is to be determined, as is the fate of his current coaching staff. If a few variables swing their way amid offseason changes, I could see both Thomas and Nabers competing to be among the first five wide receivers drafted in fantasy next season. LSU’s dominance at the position continues to roll on.

5 things I don’t care about

Packers' late surge in Week 17

The final score of this game says it was a 27-25 loss by the Green Bay Packers. You have to give them credit for fighting back to get this game close in the end. Yet, I find myself so much more concerned with the qualities of their offense that allowed them to fall into a 20-9 third-quarter hole, than I am comforted by any aspect that got them back within two points in the end.

For the second time this month, we’ve seen a great defensive coordinator elect to pitch a bunch of man coverage at the Packers offense and live on the edge. Just like in the Lions Week 14 loss, it completely flummoxed the passing attack in the first half of the game.

As for the full-game numbers, Next Gen Stats notes that the Vikings played man coverage on 47.1% of the total dropbacks. Minnesota played man coverage on a season-low 10.7% of dropbacks in Week 4 against the Packers — where it won the game but gave up a ton of production to the pass-catchers — and has overall been extremely zone-heavy. Flores has been on his A-game all season and this changeup caught Matt LaFleur by surprise.

This is becoming a problem. The Packers have a collection of "good" wide receivers but, to this point, the lack of a true coverage-dictating No. 1 has become a problem against great teams, no matter how much LaFleur balked at that term in the offseason.

In the early portion of the season, I thought Jayden Reed was set to emerge as that player. However, the Packers have continued to spread the ball throughout the wide receiver room and Reed only ran a route on 67.6% of the dropbacks in Week 17. He’s left plays on the field with key drops, so perhaps that is part of the equation but he has also been limited to mostly a slot-only role who doesn’t play every snap. Despite the drops, Reed is their best man-beater and I can’t help but notice the time in which the Packers' passing game has felt the smoothest the last two seasons was when they ran so much of it through Reed in the back half of 2023.

The opposite feels true for Green Bay right now in that the passing game is anything but smooth. They are extremely run-heavy, and that portion of the attack is sublime, but it feels extremely volatile when they drop back to pass. The passing game overall still looks good in efficiency metrics but is a boom-or-bust unit and, so far, against top defenses, it’s been far more bust when they needed a play.

Michael Penix Jr. misfires

You can pick out a handful of throws from this game that you’d put in the “brutal miss” category for Michael Penix Jr. He sailed passes that would have kept drives moving. Such inaccurate spurts were part of the concern in his prospect profile.

That said, those misses won’t be what I come away from Week 17 remembering, as to why Atlanta lost the game.

For starters, you can pick far more positive moments than negatives in Penix’s first road start of his career. This is the second straight game where we saw Penix access throws that just weren’t available in this offense for most of the second half of the season. Penix drove several deep out routes to Drake London in critical moments late in the game after struggling on deep shots in the first half. He showed the zip on the arm that makes him a tantalizing talent and helped further access London’s still-untapped ceiling when it mattered most. No matter how their season ends, I can’t wait to see how this connection develops in 2025.

The most important throw of the night came on Penix’s touchdown. My post below was in jest, but these middle-of-the-field throws between zone coverage were serious issues for Kirk Cousins this year. Penix can drive the ball in these situations and that makes a huge difference in this attack.

Beyond Penix’s throws, this loss likely falls at the feet of the coaching staff. From painfully poor timeout usage by Raheem Morris at the end of both halves to abandoning an effective run game early in the second half, there is plenty to question about the coaching job for Atlanta. Those mistakes were far more damning than any made by the inexperienced quarterback.

Everyone needs more experience on this Falcons team. It’s a first-time head coach, play-caller and a rookie passer who is just now getting game reps. It will be disappointing if this team does let the NFC South title slip in the closing moments of the season, especially since they beat Tampa Bay twice. However, there can still be a bright future for this still-growing organization as long as everyone from the top down improves from Year 1 to Year 2. It goes well beyond just Michael Penix Jr.

What Aaron Rodgers thinks about the 2025 Jets

NFL Network’s Ian Rappaport dropped a fascinating report regarding the New York Jets as the games were about to kick off Sunday morning.

Drama? The Jets? I know, shocking. You’ll find a good summary of the report below.

The only thing that makes the constantly dysfunctional Jets remotely appealing to possible candidates for head coach and general manager — much less the reason Rodgers was attracted to the team a couple years ago — is the presence of high-end young talent. If one of those players in Garrett Wilson is now reconsidering his future with the team based on Rodgers’ status, there is no choice for the future decision-makers for the team.

You choose Wilson over another second of the Rodgers era continuing beyond Week 18.

At best, the 2025 version of Rodgers would be an expensive bridge quarterback to hold down the fort until a rookie is ready to take over. That’s a replaceable role. It’s probably just better to move on and find another veteran bridge when a new staff arrives.

Week 17 was just another example of how far Rodgers has fallen. When he's protected and every single receiver is precisely where he wants them to be within the timing of the play, he can still play like a starting quarterback. The problem is that the picture is almost never that perfect. The Bills pressured Rodgers on 50% of the dropbacks in the second half of Week 17, per Next Gen Stats, and completely shut the door on the Jets. The offense scored zero points with Rodgers under center.

I’m sure this story will be painted as another diva receiver who wants the ball more often. Wilson is one of the most targeted players in the league, so that’s unlikely the root cause. If Wilson has just grown tired of the Rodgers experience, he won’t be the only one on this team. A split between Rodgers and New York was likely before this report, and with this out there, it is now the only thing that makes sense.

What the Bucs must do to keep Liam Coen

Outside of an elite quarterback, a difference-making offensive play-caller is one of the biggest edges in the sport. The best in the business maximize talent and hide weaknesses on the roster in the same way Tier 1 passers do, and even elevate non-elite quarterbacks close to that statistical category.

The 2024 season has shown that Buccaneers offensive coordinator Liam Coen is one of those guys.

The Bucs offense has been incredibly well-designed, regardless of the available personnel. All of their main pass-catching threats have missed time throughout different sections of the season. The offense has managed to thrive irrespective of who is or is not available. Coen has done an excellent job morphing the attack to fit who is out there. He has fulfilled the job of maximizing inexperienced talent and down-roster players.

Tampa Bay has also gotten the most out of young players this season. Rookie receiver Jalen McMillan scored twice against Carolina in Week 17 and some of the designer plays off motion to get him open have been sublime late in the season. Bucky Irving continued his dominant Year 1 by trouncing the Panthers. Up front, Graham Barton at center has been a revelation and is a big reason why the run game is leaps and bounds better this season compared to its 2023 counterpart.

The Bucs offense was already good last year. Coen has made multiple tweaks that have taken a lifeless run game to near the top of the league and smoothed out some of the volatility in the passing attack.

Tampa Bay already got lucky watching Dave Canales leave this gig in the offseason only to find their way into an upgrade this offseason. There is almost no chance they strike gold twice. No matter the cost, this team can’t afford Coen to wear different colors next season.

Losing draft slot discourse

There is no bigger wasted emotion from media and fans than the outright fury over late-season losses by a team that causes them to fall down the upcoming draft board.

For one, the last time this was a national storyline, the 2022 Houston Texans won their final game of the season and dropped to the No. 2 overall selection. The Texans took C.J. Stroud at the second pick and he promptly outplayed the guy taken ahead of him en route to two straight playoff berths for the team. Where you take the quarterback doesn't matter. How you develop the guy once he gets into the building is what counts.

Not to mention, it may be more pointless than ever, as the sentiment around the weakness of this next quarterback class is seemingly universal among draft analysts. Drafting a quarterback high is never a guarantee that he turns into a high-end starter. The odds may be worse than usual next season.

Lastly, you will never get the people on the actual field to get on board with intentionally losing games as long as their livelihood is on the line. Coaches likely to get fired at the end of miserable seasons don't care about the following staff's future draft picks. Players are even less likely to tank games when the tape is their reputation for future employers. Every new suggestion about how a team could pull off the intentional loss for picks is as farfetched as the last.

Football is a human game played by human beings, not robots. It’s what makes the game so wonderful and it never changes. The sooner you accept things like tanking aren’t realistic, the less time you’ll waste arguing for things that will never happen.