The Minnesota-Buffalo game was a game for the season if not the ages.
What we don’t know is the long-term ramifications. It was a devastating overtime loss for the Bills, who went from the top seed in the conference to third in their division.
And with Philadelphia losing its first game to the Commanders, the Vikings are tied for top seed in NFC at 8-1 although the Eagles have the head-to-head tie breaker.
And now Kansas City has a clear path to the top seed in the AFC with a 7-2 record.
But the larger question is what happened to Josh Allen and the Bills. Allen is no longer a MVP candidate after he and the center botched a snap that gave the Vikings a touchdown in the final minute and Allen ended the game by throwing an end zone interception in overtime.
Meanwhile, Minnesota’s Justin Jefferson is establishing himself as the best receiver in the game and his one-handed catch will make all the highlight shows.
Can Allen and the Bills rebound in their last eight games or are they a flawed team that is not as good as we thought? We will see..
Meanwhile, there is a wild scramble behind the 7-2 Chiefs. Miami leads AFC East at 7-3 with Jets second at 6-3. The Ravens lead AFC North at 6-3 and the Titans are atop AFC South at 6-3. And the Patriots, Bengals, and Chargers have four losses. That means there are eight teams between two and four losses with seven playoff spots.
The only five loss team in the AFC is Indianapolis, which improved to 4-5-1 when it won Jeff Saturday’s first game as a coach against the struggling Raiders.
Saturday handed the starting job back to veteran quarterback Matt Ryan and it remains to be seen how effective the Colts will be in the last seven games as Saturday tries to show Jimmy Irsay’s decision to make him the interim head coach makes some sense since his only coaching experience was three years in high school.
In the NFC, the big loser was the Cowboys, who were beaten by the Packers in the highest rated game of the year. That dropped the Cowboys to 6-3, two games behind the Eagles and means they could wind up a wild card team.
The Cowboys are now ranked sixth behind the Eagles and Vikings at 8-1, Seahawks at 6-4, Bucs at 5-5 and Giants top wild card spot at 7-2. San Francisco has final wild card spot at 5-4 while the Commanders are eighth at 5-5. Five teams –the Cardinals, Rams, Falcons, Packers and Lions — all have six losses.