What can you say about Week 15 in the NFL? We witnessed the largest comeback in NFL history, Deshaun Watson earn his first divisional win as a member of the Cleveland Browns and then the Buffalo Bills survived the Miami Dolphins in snowy Orchard Park thanks to a 25-yard field goal from Tyler Bass as time expired. And that was just on Saturday!
Sunday around the NFL was pretty wild as well. The Jacksonville Jaguars and Cincinnati Bengals trailed by 17 points in their respective matchups, but came back to win, the Tennessee Titans left the door open for the AFC South with their fourth loss in a row and the Kansas City Chiefs clinched the AFC West for the seventh consecutive year — although the Houston Texans certainly made them earn that victory.
What made our list of top-five wildest moments from NFL Sunday in Week 15? Let’s start with a pretty incredible interception.
5. Titans’ heads-up INT
Just before the halftime break, Los Angeles Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert threw up a pass to Mike Williams in the end zone. Titans rookie cornerback Roger McCreary intercepted the ball while going out of bounds, and threw it back to teammate Joshua Kalu, who secured the interception with both feet inbounds. It was a pretty big play, as this kept the Chargers from scoring any points before halftime. It’s interesting, as CBS Sports rules analyst Gene Steratore said that if McCreary pushed the ball forward to Kalu, it would have resulted in an illegal batting penalty. Don’t you think we should see more of this moving forward?
4. Justin Fields does another Justin Fields thing
There’s no doubt Fields has taken a big jump in Year 2, and a big reason for that big jump is because of his running ability. The Ohio State product set the Chicago Bears franchise record for rushing yards by a quarterback in a single season this week, which was headlined by this absurd 39-yard scramble. Check out how many defenders he ducked on this run!
Fields actually stepped out of bounds at the 9-yard line, but this play was still unreal. According to CBS Sports research, Fields owns five of the 10 longest rushes by a quarterback this season — which includes the play above. After Sunday, Fields has exactly 1,000 rushing yards on the season. He is just the third quarterback in NFL history to record a 1,000-yard rushing season, and has three games remaining to chase the record. Lamar Jackson had 1,206 rushing yards in 2019.
3. Tom Brady blows 17-point lead
It looked like the Tampa Bay Buccaneers were going to get back on track with a win on Sunday, as they led Cincinnati by 17 points late in the second quarter. However, Joe Burrow and the Bengals then reeled off 34 straight points, and won 34-23!
Previously, Tom Brady had won 94 straight games when he had a 17-point lead. A big reason for the collapse were turnovers. The Buccaneers turned the ball over on four straight possessions in the second half, and unfortunately, all four turnovers were attributed to Brady. The living legend tied his career high with four giveaways, throwing two interceptions and fumbling possession away twice. With this loss, Brady falls to 6-8 as a starter this season. Those eight losses are the most losses he’s suffered in one season in his NFL career, and he’s very close to locking in his first-ever losing season as an NFL player.
2. Jaguars defeat NFC QB for first time in 21 tries
The streak is over! The Jaguars have finally defeated a quarterback from the National Football Conference for the first time in 21 tries, as they defeated Dak Prescott of the Dallas Cowboys 40-34 in overtime. The last NFC quarterback Jacksonville defeated was Eli Manning in 2018! This was the longest interconference losing streak since the 1970 merger.
The Cowboys jumped out to a 21-7 lead at halftime, and then extended that lead to 27-10 in the third quarter. Then, the Jags went on their run. Doug Pederson’s squad rattled off three unanswered touchdowns to take a 31-27 lead. At the end of the fourth quarter, we were tied at 34 apiece.
Jacksonville got the ball to start the extra period, but went three-and-out. Then, Prescott took over, and this happened:
Trevor Lawrence was a star on Sunday, as he completed 27 of 42 passes for 318 yards, four touchdowns and one interception. He has now gone back-to-back games throwing at least three touchdowns, and has a 14-1 TD-INT ratio over his last six games. The former No. 1 overall pick is not a finished product just yet, but he looks like a legitimate franchise quarterback on the rise, and he may get the Jaguars into the playoffs this year.
The New England Patriots at Las Vegas Raiders matchup was one of the wildest games of the year. First, the Raiders blew a 17-3 lead, which maybe was predictable, but then Derek Carr hit Keelan Cole for a controversial 30-yard, game-tying touchdown with just 32 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter. The Patriots then got the ball back, but didn’t have much time to do anything. So we thought.
With just three seconds remaining, Rhamondre Stevenson took a handoff up the middle. He tried to extend the play by lateraling the ball to Jakobi Meyers in hopes of sparking some kind of “Music City Miracle” moment. Meyers also attempted to lateral to a teammate (I think Mac Jones?), but it was picked off by Chandler Jones!
Jones then proceeded to stiff-arm the other Jones into the dirt, and run the ball back 48 yards for the game-winning touchdown as time expired!
The last time a team scored a game-winning touchdown on a fumble recovery on the last play of a game was also the Raiders in 1978. Dave Casper recovered a teammate’s fumble to defeat the Chargers, 21-20. That game is famously known as the “Holy Roller” game.