Through the wild, up-and-down NFL season, the one reliable team that seemed to emerge was the Los Angeles Rams. After last week’s blowout win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, they were everyone’s pick as the best team in football.
What we’re learning in Week 13 is that there are no reliable teams this season.
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On Thursday and Friday, all four favorites lost and all the losers were exposed in various ways. The Detroit Lions, Kansas City Chiefs, Baltimore Ravens and Philadelphia Eagles lost and none looked close to being Super Bowl contenders. But it didn’t matter, because the Rams were rock solid.
And then Sunday happened. The Rams, who were getting a historic run of mistake-free football from Matthew Stafford, lost 31-28 to a Carolina Panthers team that looked absolutely terrible six days earlier in a Monday night loss to the San Francisco 49ers. Stafford threw two interceptions, including a pick-6, and lost a crucial fumble late in the third quarter with his team trailing. Stafford hadn’t thrown an interception since Week 3. Stafford had thrown 28 straight touchdowns without an interception, an NFL record, before even he looked vulnerable.
Stafford’s turnovers weren’t the only issue. The defense let down too. Bryce Young hit a huge go-ahead 43-yard touchdown pass to Tetairoa McMillan on fourth down late in the fourth quarter, and that was a key turning point. Young had 206 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions. Everything that worked for the Rams last week against the Buccaneers vanished on Sunday.
The Rams are still a good team. We’re just seeing that every team this season is prone to a bad loss. There is no historically great team this season. One has to win a Super Bowl, however, even if the eventual champions won’t exactly be the 1972 Miami Dolphins. Maybe it’s the Rams. Perhaps it’s someone like the Eagles, who figure out their issues, or the Denver Broncos, who keep flying under the radar. The key to the postseason might be who avoids playing their worst game for a month, because every team this season has shown they’re capable of bad performances. Even the Rams.
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Here are the rest of the NFL’s winners and losers from Sunday’s action of Week 13:
Robert Saleh: The San Francisco 49ers defense has few stars on the field this season. They do have a star calling the defense though.
Saleh, San Francisco’s defensive coordinator, is getting the most out of a unit that lost stars Nick Bosa and Fred Warner due to injuries. A young defense is getting better as the season goes along, and that’s a testament to Saleh’s coaching. The 49ers held Shedeur Sanders and the Cleveland Browns down in a 26-8 win with some terrible weather. It was a good follow up to a strong performance in Week 12, when the 49ers shut down the Panthers (who looked pretty good against the Rams on Sunday).
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Saleh didn’t succeed as a head coach of the New York Jets, but poor ownership makes that a difficult situation. Teams might not hold his record in New York against him, especially as they see him maximizing a 49ers defense for a team that is in good shape to make the playoffs despite numerous injuries on both sides of the ball.
Baker Mayfield and Bucky Irving: The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have been surviving in spite of injuries. It’s starting to look better for them on that front.
Mayfield left last week’s game with a left shoulder injury and there was a lot of doubt if he would play this week. He played and had another strong outing in a 20-17 win over the Arizona Cardinals. He had 194 yards and a touchdown.
Even more promising was the return of Irving. Irving played for the first time since Week 4, having missed almost three months with foot and shoulder injuries, and he looked sharp. Irving scored a touchdown and generally looked like his old self. Irving had 81 yards from scrimmage, which was reasonable considering he was returning after a long layoff. He gives the Buccaneers another playmaker down the stretch.
The Buccaneers have a very easy schedule the rest of the season and they should win the NFC South. If they keep getting healthy, they could be a dangerous in the postseason too.
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Dolphins defense: After seven weeks, the Dolphins defense looked like perhaps the worst in the NFL. They were allowing 29.3 points per game and hadn’t allowed fewer than 21 in a game. Miami was 1-6.
Then, suddenly, it changed. The Dolphins defense was facing a bad New Orleans Saints team and it started pouring rain in the second half, but it was still another strong defensive performance in a 21-17 win. New Orleans did rally to score a late touchdown, but when they went for the 2-point conversion and the tie the defense came up with a huge play, as Minkah Fitzpatrick picked off Tyler Shough and returned it for two points.
Then after the Saints got a rare onside kick and Miami’s defense was forced to get back on the field, the Dolphins got a quick stop that culminated with a fourth-down stop on a Tyler Shough quarterback sneak. The Dolphins have won four of five, perhaps saving Mike McDaniel’s job in the process. They probably have saved defensive coordinator Anthony Weaver’s job too.
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Since that awful start on defense, the Dolphins had allowed 10, 28, 13 and 13 points in their four games heading into Week 13. The 28-point game was the only loss in that stretch, to Lamar Jackson and the Baltimore Ravens. The Dolphins have turned it around despite trading pass rusher Jaelan Phillips to the Eagles before the trade deadline. It’s an impressive transformation, and it came out of nowhere.
LOSERS
Indianapolis Colts’ hold on the AFC South: A few weeks ago, there was chatter that the Colts were the best team in football. They might not even end up winning their division.
The Colts took a damaging loss on Sunday. The Houston Texans continued their hot streak, with the defense making several big plays and the offense doing enough to beat the Colts 20-16. The Texans failed to convert a tush push on third and fourth downs late in the game, giving the Colts a chance. Daniel Jones got the Colts into Texans territory but the drive stalled and Jones’ fourth-down pass was knocked down to give Houston a huge stop.
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Jones’ fractured fibula was reported this week, and that has to be a reason the Colts offense has taken a step back. Indianapolis has lost three of four and the only win was a close overtime victory over a bad Atlanta Falcons team. The Colts are now 8-4. The Jaguars are also 8-4 after they beat the Titans on Sunday and the Texans are back in the race at 7-5. A dream start to the season is evaporating quickly.
Tennessee Titans and their coaching search: The bad part about the Titans firing coach Brian Callahan so early in the season is it allowed the top candidates in the 2026 head-coaching cycle ample opportunity to watch Tennessee play.
The job is beyond a fixer-upper. The Titans are a horrible team and aside from having Cam Ward (which might not be the draw we think it is) and an inside track at the top overall pick in next year’s draft, there’s not a lot to sell any candidate with multiple options. The Titans were uncompetitive at home in a 25-3 loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars. The Titans are 1-11. An incredibly lucky win over the Arizona Cardinals has saved them from weeks of talk of the 0-17 possibility and being one of the worst teams ever.
Ward is a conundrum. The top overall pick of this year’s draft has some impressive highlights but the body of work is not great. The Titans have scored 14 or fewer points seven times this season. You can blame the infrastructure around Ward for his struggles, but it’s hard to deny he has struggled. He had just 141 yards on 38 attempts on Sunday. The new coach would have to buy into turning Ward into a franchise quarterback, which is possible but he doesn’t have the post-rookie promise of someone like Caleb Williams a year ago.
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The Titans will hire a decent candidate. It’s one of 32 jobs and does have Ward and the top pick. But it needs to be built from the ground up, and that’s a scary proposition for a candidate with other offers.
Raheem Morris: It’s the time of year in which coaches have to worry about what will happen after the season. Another bad loss for the Atlanta Falcons won’t look good on Morris.
The Falcons were facing a New York Jets team that was 2-9 coming in and using Tyrod Taylor at quarterback after benching the ineffective Justin Fields. The Falcons blew a late 24-17 lead, allowing the Jets to tie it and then drive for a game-winning field goal as time expired. The Falcons lost 27-24 and are now 4-8 this season. They’ve been a big disappointment. Even worse, their first-round pick in 2026 was traded to the Los Angeles Rams during this year’s draft.
Morris might pay the price for the poor record. Atlanta went 8-9 last season, Morris’ first full season leading the team, and this season has been even worse. A young Falcons team hasn’t made progress. Over the rest of the season the Falcons will have to ask themselves if they’re seeing enough to justify running it back with Morris for another season.
