NFL winners and losers, Week 17: Cue the Ravens' rest vs. rust debate once again

Each week of the NFL season, The Baltimore Sun will recap the best and worst from around the league. Here are our winners and losers from Week 17:

Winner: Armchair quarterbacks

The final week of the NFL regular season is always fascinating.

By waiting until Sunday night to release the Week 18 schedule, the league builds suspense for the final games that will determine the playoff field and the eventual Super Bowl champion. This year, the weekend begins with an all-AFC North showdown on Saturday, with Ravens vs. Browns kicking off at 4:30 p.m. and Steelers vs. Bengals following at 8 p.m.

Given the Ravens just need a win over the hapless Browns — who lost their fifth straight Sunday and fell to 3-13 on the season — to clinch a second straight AFC North title, it would seem a bit anticlimactic. Baltimore (11-5) is a 17 1/2-point favorite, so assuming it doesn’t collapse, Pittsburgh (10-6) would enter its game against Cincinnati with nothing to play for but playoff positioning.

But that playoff positioning could be mighty important. Consider the Texans, who are locked into the No. 4 seed as the AFC South champions. Houston (9-7) has lost two straight and five of its past eight games as it deals with injuries, a shaky offensive line and a worsening defense. After losing wide receiver Tank Dell for the season in Week 16, the Texans were blown out at home, 31-2, by the Ravens on Christmas Day. C.J. Stroud looks like a shell of the brilliant quarterback who dazzled as a rookie.

It’s funny, then, that the consolation prize for the AFC North runner-up could be a wild-card game in Houston. Sure, it isn’t a home playoff game, but a matchup against the reeling Texans is very favorable. If you gave coaches John Harbaugh and Mike Tomlin truth serum, they’d almost certainly agree.

So why, then, would the Ravens or Steelers want to win the AFC North? Flags fly forever, but wouldn’t an opportunity to rest key starters ahead of a first-round matchup against a team on the ropes be more beneficial than, say, suffering an injury or two before facing a tougher opponent? The Bengals, who need to win Saturday to keep their faint playoff hopes alive, are also 2 1/2-point favorites against the Steelers, so the Ravens could even afford to lose to the Browns with their backups and still win the division title.

Winning the AFC North and the No. 3 seed could mean a home playoff game against the No. 6 seed Los Angeles Chargers, who have won 10 games, have one of the league’s best quarterbacks and a veteran coach who’s won a national championship and taken his team to the Super Bowl. Or, if the Steelers slip to the No. 6 seed, it could mean a rematch against a hated division rival that knows the Ravens’ strengths and weaknesses better than anybody. Not so easy, right?

Lamar Jackson is no stranger to sitting out the regular-season finale, having missed it for injury or rest in all but two of his previous six seasons as the starter. The last time the star quarterback suited up for the Ravens’ final regular-season game was 2020, when Baltimore came back from a midseason COVID-19 outbreak to win its final five games and clinch a wild-card spot. Jackson is 1-1 in the wild-card round when he plays the week before the game. When he rests during the regular-season finale, as he did in 2019 and 2023, he is 1-1 in his first playoff game. So when it comes to rest vs. rust, there’s not much evidence it really matters for the two-time NFL Most Valuable Player.

That makes it all the more curious how the Ravens decide to treat this week. Their playoff berth is already secured; it’s just a matter of who they play and where. To recap: An AFC North title and No. 3 seed means a home wild-card game vs. the Chargers or Steelers, then a potential divisional-round game at No. 2 seed Buffalo (who the Ravens crushed, 35-10 in Week 4). A loss to the Browns and a Steelers win means the No. 5 seed and a wild-card game in Houston, then a potential trip to top-seeded Kansas City (who beat the Ravens, 27-20, in the season opener) in the divisional round.

Which path would you choose? Let the debate begin.

Loser: The Colts and Giants

It’s rare that both teams’ fan bases leave a game feeling terrible.

The Colts entered Sunday needing a win to keep their playoff hopes alive, while the Giants were two more losses away from securing the No. 1 overall draft pick for just the third time in franchise history. An Indianapolis victory would be best for both sides.

So it came as a shock when the Giants took a 28-13 lead on Ihmir Smith-Marsette’s 100-yard kickoff return for a touchdown to open the second half — and even bigger surprise when New York held on to that lead and secured a 45-33 victory, officially eliminating the Colts (7-9) from playoff contention.

Even with Joe Flacco at quarterback, it was expected that Indy would waltz to victory over a hapless team that was one defeat away from becoming the first in NFL history to go 0-9 at home. The Giants had lost a franchise-record 10 straight games and had been outscored by nearly 150 points.

Somebody forgot to tell Drew Lock, who finished with a nearly perfect passer rating while accounting for five touchdowns, including two scoring passes to rookie wide receiver Malik Nabers. Whenever the Colts threatened to come back, the Giants made a huge play to extend the lead.

It’s a horrible finish for Colts coach Shane Steichen, who waffled between second-year quarterback Anthony Richardson and Flacco during the season and then face-planted in a must-win game against perhaps the league’s worst team. It’s hard to build much confidence when a season ends that way, no matter how promising Richardson’s flashes are.

For the Giants (3-13), it could be yet another misstep for a franchise that missed out on last year’s impressive quarterback class largely because of a meaningless late-season winning streak led by Tommy DeVito. New York can still finish with the No. 1 pick, but a chance to draft either Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders or Miami’s Cam Ward might have vanished Sunday in an ultimately hollow victory.

Winner: Minnesota Vikings

It’s Sam Darnold’s world. We’re all just living in it.

The one-time bust now has a chance to clinch the No. 1 overall seed in the NFC after Sunday’s 27-25 win over the Packers in which he threw for 377 yards and three touchdown passes.

Minnesota is 14-2 entering a Week 18 matchup against the Detroit Lions that will decide the NFC North champion and the first-round bye that comes with the conference’s best record. It’s a stunning journey for the 2018 No. 3 overall draft pick, whose career was on life support after failed stints with the Jets and Panthers before getting an opportunity to start in Minnesota after rookie J.J. McCarthy suffered a season-ending knee injury in the preseason.

Darnold got a hero’s welcome in the locker room after Sunday’s win, with proud coach Kevin O’Connell looking on as the 27-year-old former Southern California star was showered with water and lifted onto his teammates’ shoulders. It’s the first time that a quarterback has won 14 games in his first season with a new team, a feat we might not see again for some time.

It sets up another first, as the finale between Minnesota and Detroit will be the first regular-season meeting between teams with 13 or more wins in league history.

For a player who was written off by so many, the opportunity to not only start a playoff game for the first time but perhaps make a run to the Super Bowl is special and shouldn’t be taken for granted. In an NFL world so often dominated by living legends and young prodigies at the most glamorous position in sports, it’s refreshing to see a journeyman get a chance to shine.