Two more thrilling overtime games saw the Kansas City Chiefs avoid a huge upset to book their play-off spot while the Dallas Cowboys suffered a shock defeat at the Jacksonville Jaguars.
The Jaguars scored with a late pick six as Dallas blew a 17-point lead.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers also gave up the same lead as Tom Brady collected some unwanted records as he lost to Joe Burrow’s in-form Cincinnati Bengals.
Jalen Hurts ran the Philadelphia Eagles to a 13th win of the season.
After the Minnesota Vikings’ historic fightback on Saturday, the Jaguars and Bengals both added 17-point comebacks to mark the first time in league history three teams had overturned such a big deficit in the same week.
Meanwhile the resurgent Detroit Lions won yet again and have a chance of a play-off spot, as do the New York Giants after their important 20-12 victory against the Washington Commanders.
The Giants’ win handed Dallas a reprieve after their shock loss by sealing the Cowboys’ place in the play-offs.
Jaguars stun Cowboys, Chiefs escape in Houston
It looked an easy task on paper for the Chiefs to beat the one-win Houston Texans and claim a seventh straight AFC West title, but in the end they needed Jerick McKinnon’s touchdown run in overtime to claim a 30-24 win to get the job done.
Only the Patriots with 11 have a longer streak of divisional wins than Kansas City’s current dominant run, but with Patrick Mahomes at quarterback the Chiefs have found a rare level of consistency as they make yet another bid for the Super Bowl.
“I think one of the most difficult things in the National Football League is consistent success,” said Chiefs owner Clark Hunt.
“The rules are designed to make that difficult, whether that’s the draft or the salary cap. So, it’s a real testament to the job that general manager Brett Veach and coach Andy Reid have done over the last several years.”
While the Chiefs escaped, the Cowboys could not as they blew a 17-point lead to lose 40-34 thanks to Rayshawn Jenkins scoring an interception return touchdown for the Jaguars in overtime.
Jenkins took Dak Prescott’s tipped pass 52 yards to seal a big upset victory for the Jags who, helped by four Trevor Lawrence TD passes, moved to a 6-8 record that keeps them in touch in the AFC South after the Tennessee Titans lost against the Los Angeles Chargers.
“I was running for dear life,” Jenkins said. “My hamstrings about to pull and everything.”
Lions still hot as Eagles march towards top seed
Hurts threw two interceptions and no TDs, but that is no problem for the Eagles quarterback as instead he ran in three scores to help Philadelphia beat Chicago 25-20 to match their team record with a 13th win of the season.
It was also Hurts’ 13th rushing TD of the season, putting him just one behind the NFL quarterback record, while on the opposite side Justin Fields of the Bears also had a landmark night as he became just the third QB to reach 1,000 rushing yards in a season.
Chicago, though, have lost seven in a row and need a big improvement to give their star QB a chance next season, as Philly have done with Hurts, who is right there in the MVP picture after another all-round display.
The Detroit Lions turnaround could yet lead to an unlikely play-off spot because from a 1-6 start they are now 7-7 after Jared Goff threw a late 51-yard TD pass to Brock Wright to beat the New York Jets 20-17.
Both sides are now 7-7 and just outside the wildcard spots, but while the red-hot Lions are fancied to get back into the play-offs after six seasons, the Jets’ 11-year drought looks more likely to continue after three straight defeats.
Second-half Cincinnati stun Brady, Patriots self-destruct
Brady was 89-0 when holding a 17-point lead in home games over his career before the Buccaneers imploded to help the Cincinnati Bengals win 34-23 and go top of their division with an eighth win in nine.
In a classic game of two halves, the Bucs dominated to go in 17-3 at half time but Brady committed a career-high four turnovers on consecutive possessions in the second half to give Burrow the chance to throw four TD passes and win the game.
The Bucs still somehow top their division but Brady has now lost eight games in a season for the first time in his 23-year career, and needs to win the last three to avoid a first losing campaign in the NFL.
Brady’s former team the New England Patriots also pushed the self-destruct button as they found a spectacular way to lose to the Las Vegas Raiders on the very last play of the game.
With the game tied at 24-24 and heading for overtime, New England’s Jakobi Meyers tried a wild backwards pass to keep the last play of regular time alive, only to throw it straight to Chandler Jones, a former Patriot, who returned it 48 yards to grab victory for the Raiders out of nowhere.
Losing on such a huge mistake will likely have Bill Belichick seething, not least because it drops the Pats to 7-7 and facing a big scramble to grab a wildcard spot.
Elsewhere, the Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Carolina Panthers 24-16, the New Orleans Saints were 21-18 winners against the Atlanta Falcons and Brett Rypien stood in for Russell Wilson as the Denver Broncos beat the Arizona Cardinals 24-15.
