—There will be five national broadcasts this weekend including the feature game –Pittsburgh at Baltimore – as the late Saturday afternoon game on Fox as they battle for the AFC North lead. The Steelers are 10-4 and the Ravens 9-5. Both teams will have a short turnaround and play on Christmas Day nexr Wednesday. That will be the third game in 11 games for both teams. Baltimore goes to Houston and Pittsburgh hosts Kansas City on Christmas Day.
–Kansas City hosts Houston in a 1 p.m.Saturday game on NBC, which also has its usual Sunday night game featuring Tampa Bay at Dallas. The Chiefs-Texans game is an unusual one. Since Houston has clinched its division and is out of race for top seed, it has little at stake in the game against Chiefs so it remains to be seen how motivated the Texans will be. The Chiefs need to win to win two of their last three to get the top seed but don’t know how effective Mahomes will be playing on his sore ankle. The Chiefs announced Mahomes has been a full participate in practice but he could aggravate the injury in the game.
–The weekend starts with Denver at the Chargers Thursday night on Amazon and ends on Monday night with New Orleans at Green Bay on ESPN and ABC. The Broncos are 9-5 and the Chargers are 8-6 as they both are batting for an AFC wild card spot. The Saints at 5-9 have little at stake while the 10-4 Packers are in the hunt for an NFC wild card spot.
—Fox has an interesting game late Sunday afternoon with Minnesota at Seattle. The Vikings are one of the three 12-2 teams in the NFC along with the Eagles and Lions while Seattle is tied with the Rams, who play the Jets, for the NFC West lead at 8-6. The Vikings, Lions and Eagles have all clinched playoff spots but they are all going for the top seed. This weekend all three figure to win because the Eagles play Washington and the Lions play at Chicago.–The Atlanta Falcons, a game behind the 8-6 Bucs in the NFC South, are benching veteran Kirk Cousins for rookie Michael Penix for the game against the Giants. The Bucs figure to beat Dallas so the 7-7 Falcons can’t afford to get upset by the Giants.
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