Ten biggest winners and losers from NFL Week 13

Boy, oh boy, did NFL Week 13 provide some delicious fodder for our weekly winners and losers list.

We saw some spectacularly poor play from some of the NFL’s more prominent figures this week. Drew Brees made multiple mistakes that contributed to the New Orleans Saints losing yet another game, while Colin Kaepernick was actually benched in favor of Blaine Gabbert after a terrible performance at Soldier Field.

Of course, we also were treated to some phenomenal showings. Joe Flacco could not miss as his Baltimore Ravens blew out the Miami Dolphins, and Eric Berry returned two interceptions to the house.

These were among the biggest winners and losers from NFL Week 13.

Winner: Eric Berry’s heroics keep red-hot Chiefs rolling

The Kansas City Chiefs are on quite a roll now. Coming into Sunday’s game in Atlanta, Andy Reid’s team had won six out of their last seven games, their latest coming on the road in Denver against last year’s Super Bowl winners.

Though we pegged the Falcons as a team on upset alert, the general consensus around the league was that the Chiefs would struggle to keep up with Atlanta’s high-scoring offense.

That certainly wasn’t the case early, as Kansas City landed some huge blows early had the game tied up at 13-13 midway through the second quarter.

Then Eric Berry showed up in a huge way. He baited Matt Ryan into a critical mistake right before halftime, picking him off for a touchdown to put the Chiefs up by a touchdown (watch here).

Kansas City went up by 11 points in the third quarter on a gutsy fake punt that turned into a 55-yard touchdown by Albert Wilson before the Falcons came charging back in the fourth quarter with two touchdowns to go up by one point late in the game.

Berry then struck gold again with his second takeaway as Atlanta attempted to go up by three points on a two-point conversion. About 100 yards later, he had given the Chiefs a one-point lead on the two-point score, which ended up being the deciding play of the game.

The Chiefs are now 9-3 on the season and just one game behind the Oakland Raiders, who they’ll host Thursday in a huge battle for the divisional lead.

Loser: Drew Brees ends legendary streak in miserable outing

New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees owns the NFL all-time record for most consecutive games with at least one touchdown pass. Heading into Sunday’s game, he had extended his streak to 60 games.

That streak is now at an end. Brees passed for plenty of yards (326) Sunday at home against the Detroit Lions. Unfortunately, he failed to throw a single touchdown, threw three interceptions and fumbled once in an outing that gave his team no chance to win.

Meanwhile, Matthew Stafford was sharp, throwing two touchdowns and going for 341 yards without turning the ball over once in Detroit’s impressive 28-13 win.

The Lions extended their lead in the NFC North two to games over the Minnesota Vikings and improved to 8-4 on the season. There is still a lot of football left to be played, but it’s looking more and more like Detroit will win the division.

New Orleans dropped to 5-7 on the season but are still not out of the NFC South, two games behind Atlanta and Tampa Bay.

Winner: Seahawks back on track with blowout win at home

From the opening play of the game Sunday night at home against the Carolina Panthers, there was little doubt that the Seattle Seahawks were going to win.

Derek Anderson started the game for Ron Rivera’s club after Cam Newton apparently violated the team’s dress code and immediately threw an interception that resulted in three points for the home team (watch here).

It only got worse for Riverboat Ron’s crew, which ended up losing by a score of 40-7

Russell Wilson and the Seahawks offense could not be stopped in this game, gaining 534 total yards and 29 first downs while dominating the time of possession battle.

Seattle’s defense made life miserable for the Panthers’ offense all night long, holding it to 271 yards, 14 first downs and forcing two turnovers.

Kicker Steven Hauschka was a perfect 4-for-4, Tyler Lockett had two huge plays (including a 75-yard touchdown run) and the rout was on from start to finish. There wasn’t a single aspect of the game that Carolina can claim to have won.

The only negative thing that happened for the Seahawks came on the injury front. Safety Earl Thomas is out indefinitely after breaking his leg (he even mentioned retirement as a possibility on social media) and running back Thomas Rawls went into the league concussion protocol.

Still, after getting handled in Tampa Bay last weekend, it’s safe to say the Seahawks are back on track and will be a force in the playoffs. With a record of 8-4-1, the current the No. 2 seed in the NFC almost certainly has the NFC West wrapped up with four games left to play.

Loser: 49ers blown out by Bears in embarrassing fashion

The Chicago Bears and San Francisco 49ers had just three wins between them heading into Week 13. They have both been abused by the NFL’s better teams this year, yet the two teams were in no way competitive on Sunday at Soldier Field. Rather, the Bears were significantly better, winning in blowout fashion by the score of 26-6.

Neither team had completed a pass on a snowy day in Chicago until well into the second quarter. However, Matt Barkley finished with 192 yards passing against San Francisco’s abysmal defense after getting into a groove in the second half.

Things were significantly worse for the 49ers. Colin Kaepernick ended up getting benched after netting minus-21 passing yards after three quarters.

Marking his performance as all the more inept, Blaine Gabbert came right in and completed his first pass for 18 yards. That was about the only thing positive for the 49ers’ passing game, however. He also failed to do anything of significance and the team as a whole finished with just six net passing yards.

If not for the efforts of Carlos Hyde, who rushed for 92 yards on 20 carries, San Francisco would have had no offense to speak of. Yet even that accomplishment was overshadowed by Chicago’s Jordan Howard, who delighted fantasy football owners and the Bears with 117 yards rushing and three touchdowns.

It was just a terrible performance by a team that has been making the case for some time now that it is actually worse than the Cleveland Browns.

Winner: Young Bucs now tied for first in NFC South

It hasn’t taken the Tampa Bay Buccaneers long to become a competitive force in the Jameis Winston era.

After immediately improving by four wins in Winston’s rookie season, the Bucs are poised to legitimately challenge for the NFC South title. They beat the San Diego Chargers on Sunday in Southern California, 28-21, to move to 7-5 and into a tie for first place with the Atlanta Falcons.

It was a tremendous team win, with both the offense and defense contributing in significant ways.

Winston overcame an early interception and some hard knocks to finish with 280 yards and the game’s go-ahead touchdown on a clutch throw to up-and-coming tight end Cameron Brate.

Tampa Bay’s defense frustrated Philip Rivers throughout the game and forced the veteran into two costly second-half interceptions. One of them was returned by linebacker Lavonte David for a touchdown, and the other killed San Diego’s final attempt at coming from behind late in the fourth quarter.

This team is growing up in front of our eyes. With three of their final four games to be played against the Carolina Panthers and Saints (the other being against Dallas) it’s quite possible that the Buccaneers could finish with double-digit wins and the NFC South crown.

Loser: Blake Bortles sets new benchmark for miserable quarterback play

We’ve stayed away from including Bortles in this list for a while now, because why beat a dead horse? However, the third-year quarterback’s continued regression hit peak levels of misery Sunday in a 20-10 loss at home against the Denver Broncos.

Bortles completed just 19-of-42 passes (45.2 percent) for 181 yards (4.31 yards per attempt) with no touchdowns, two interceptions and a pick-six.

The entire performance was awful, but it’s the pick-six that is so significant (watch here). It was his third of the season and 11th of his three-year career…during which time the young passer has won just 10 games.

It also set a new mark for this stat in any NFL quarterback’s first three seasons.

Here’s another way to look at this, as it pertains to bad quarterback play versus one of the best — something that puts the awful stat into brutal perspective.

Now, this isn’t all Bortles’ fault. He’s been set up to fail somewhat with a defensive-minded head coach who has not provided him with the right offensive coaches to succeed.

That said, there is just no excuse for many of the mistakes Bortles makes, including many of his pick-sixes. At this point, it’s not hard to make the argument that there isn’t another quarterback in the league playing worse than Bortles.

Winner: Raiders score 29 unanswered points to crush Buffalo at home

Through 36 minutes of their home game against the Buffalo Bills, it sure seemed like the Oakland Raiders were destined to drop a game to the Chiefs in the AFC West. The Bills went up by the score of 24-9 after Mike Gillislee scored his second rushing touchdown of the game.

Oakland’s offense had been shut down for the most part to this point in the game. Then, led by legitimate MVP candidate Derek Carr, the offense exploded.

Scoring four touchdowns on their next five drives, the Raiders’ offense did what it’s been doing all year long. Carr threw a touchdown apiece to Michael Crabtree and Amari Cooper — one of the NFL’s best duos — and Latavius Murray ran in two scores.

While Carr and Co. were tearing up Buffalo’s defense, Khalil Mack and the Oakland defense began to dominate.

With the win, the Raiders are currently the No. 1 seed in the AFC, owning a deep tiebreaker over the New England Patriots.

Now they’ll have very little time to prepare for one of the other hot teams in the AFC. Oakland will be on the road Thursday night for an AFC West battle against the Chiefs that will have huge implications on playoff seeding.

Loser: Philadelphia defense MIA in Cincinnati

The Philadelphia Eagles have featured one of the NFL’s most-dominant defenses this year. The Cincinnati Bengals have featured one of the more inept scoring offenses in the league and entered Week 13 with just three wins all year, the last coming in October.

So it was shocking Sunday that Philadelphia’s defense was so thoroughly dominated by Andy Dalton and Co. The Bengals owned the field, winning 32-14. Dalton toyed with Philadelphia’s secondary, going off for 333 yards on 23-of-31 passing with two touchdowns and no interceptions — his finest performance of the year.

His counterpart, rookie Carson Wentz, had a miserable time of it. He threw the ball 60 times, completing just 36 of those attempts while throwing three interceptions, two of which were hauled in by inside linebacker Vontaze Burfict — a guy not necessarily known for his pass defense (three interceptions in his entire career).

Wentz has struggled on the road all year, so it wasn’t shocking to see him have another poor road outing. But it was tremendously surprising that Philly’s defense was so helpless to defend a Bengals passing offense that has been off for much of the season and was without star receiver A.J. Green (hamstring).

Now with a record of 5-7, in last place in the NFC East, it sure seems like Philly’s postseason dreams are dead.

Winner: Joe Flacco and Co. ruthlessly end Miami’s six-game winning streak

The Miami Dolphins were one of the league’s hottest teams after winning six games in a row leading into their Week 13 matchup against the Baltimore Ravens.

Joe Flacco threw some cool water on their fun with his biggest performance of the season to lead a 38-6 demolition derby victory over the Dolphins. Flacco passed for 381 yards with four touchdowns and one interception before giving way to Ryan Mallett in garbage time.

His most dangerous weapon in this game was tight end Dennis Pitta (nine catches, 90 yards and two touchdowns), once feared to be finished with football as hip injuries threatened his career. Running back Terrence West added two touchdowns (one on the ground and one through the air) as Baltimore’s offense did pretty much whatever it wanted against Miami’s defense.

Offensively, the Dolphins had little success. Ryan Tannehill threw three interceptions, the team gained just 62 yards on the ground, failed to score until the fourth quarter and only had the opportunity because of a fumble by Pitta deep in Baltimore territory.

With the blowout win, the Ravens have won four of out their last five and remain tied with the Pittsburgh Steelers atop the AFC North.

Loser: Rams can’t seem to do anything right

Okay, so nobody expected the Los Angeles Rams to beat the New England Patriots at Gillette Stadium. That’s a given.

And this game was never even competitive. New England pitched a shutout through halftime, allowed a field goal in the third quarter and then finally let rookie Jared Goff throw a touchdown on the final Rams possession of the game.

The end result was a 26-10 beat down in which Tom Brady dinked and dunked his way down the field, LeGarrette Blount abused Los Angeles’ defense and the Pats simply cruised to their 10th win of the season.

That’s not why the Rams landed as losers here. Sunday before the game, we found out that the Rams extended both general manager Les Snead and head coach Jeff Fisher without making any announcement (more on that here).

Fisher has recently earned the ire of Rams legend Eric Dickerson, who continues to rail against the head coach. Truthfully, his ability to survive disaster is nearing cockroach levels. Fisher has not had a single winning season with the Rams and now has a record of 31-44-1 since taking over.

He also gave us all a huge laugh Sunday when he wanted to call a challenge but could not find his challenge flag (watch here).

The Rams have a poor offensive roster because Snead has struck out drafting offensive linemen and receivers. The team itself is run poorly because Fisher is among the most conservative head coaches in the NFL, and he consistently features poor offenses.

We sure hope we’re wrong here, but it’s hard to be optimistic about Goff’s future, as well as the team as a whole, as long as Fisher remains the man in charge.