JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
The NFL regular season is done and dusted. For the league's best teams, the playoffs start on Saturday. And for everyone else, it is Black Monday, the day when many coaches who didn't get their teams to the post-season are often fired. Here to cover it all for us is NPR sports correspondent Becky Sullivan. Hey.
BECKY SULLIVAN, BYLINE: Hi, Juana.
SUMMERS: All right, Becky, let's start off with the winners of this season. Who's looking good to get to the Super Bowl?
SULLIVAN: Well, I think we have to start the conversation at the Detroit Lions - 15-2. This is the best season in franchise history after a Sunday night win against the 14-win Minnesota Vikings - very impressive. They won 31-9 over what seems to be maybe the second-best team in the NFC. This is a franchise that has never even appeared in a Super Bowl, let alone won one. Just three seasons ago, they lost 13 games, so this is a dramatic turnaround. Last season, they fell just short of reaching the Super Bowl, with a second-half collapse in the Conference Championship game, but this year they are back with a vengeance. Offence has been on a tear. Nobody has scored more points this season, and they were rewarded with that 1 seed on the NFC side, meaning they have this coming weekend off and just get to go straight to the divisional round.
SUMMERS: Yeah, that's right. OK, let's turn it over to the AFC. Who else ended the season trending up?
SUMMERS: Yes. Well, as you might know, Juana, the counterpart for Detroit in the AFC is the Kansas City Chiefs...
SUMMERS: Yep.
SULLIVAN: ...Who are also 15-2 after letting their key players take a game off yesterday. By contrast, with the sort of, like, long-suffering Detroit Lions, the Chiefs are looking to win their third Super Bowl in a row, so you can't count them out. The other AFC teams I would say looking strong to finish the season included the Buffalo Bills and the Baltimore Ravens, both of whom have an MVP candidate at quarterback. On the NFC side, we talked about the Vikings. There's also the Philadelphia Eagles, who are the 2 seed. They've also looked terrific down this stretch and could be very much in the mix.
SUMMERS: All right. Let's change the topics here and talk about the teams whose seasons are over.
SULLIVAN: Yes.
SUMMERS: Where were the biggest disappointments this year?
SULLIVAN: I think it was hard to choose. There were quite a few disappointments around the league. I think I should mention the Cincinnati Bengals, who were eliminated from the playoffs yesterday when the Denver Broncos won and got in that 7 seed spot. They had an MVP-caliber season out of their quarterback Joe Burrow. They had the best wide receiver in football this year in Ja'Marr Chase. That should be enough to be even a fringe playoff team, but they just had a poor start to the year. And even though they got hot to end the season, they had simply just set themselves back too far back in September. Defense in particular was an issue. They have fired their defensive coordinator but seem to be keeping their head coach around.
I should also mention the New York Jets, who people were excited about with the comeback of Aaron Rodgers. But he just turned 41 last month - honestly, looks like it on the football field. They were just awful for much of the season. And then just a little honorable mention here for disappointing seasons for the Dallas Cowboys and Jacksonville Jaguars - both of these teams lost their starting quarterbacks to injury in the middle of the season but were looking a little shoddy before then - so tough to put your finger on just went wrong.
SUMMERS: Yeah. So who is going for a fresh start with a new head coach in 2025?
SULLIVAN: Well, as of this afternoon, there are already five head coaching vacancies. We've already mentioned a couple of those teams - the New York Jets and the Jacksonville Jaguars. Another intriguing one, I think, is the New England Patriots, who are in the midst of this sort of yearslong rebuild after the departures of coach Bill Belichick and quarterback Tom Brady. There's a lot of work to do there but also a lot to be excited about with this rookie quarterback named Drake Maye, who started starting these games in the second half of the season. They have a lot of money to spend going into next season. That one's something to keep an eye on.
And then, sort of similarly, you have the Chicago Bears, who started a rookie quarterback in Caleb Williams all season long. He showed flashes of excellence this year. They fired their coach back in November, so that one's been a known quantity for a little while. And then the last one to mention, the fifth vacancy, is the New Orleans Saints. But of course, the firing season isn't over just yet. There may be a few more to come.
SUMMERS: So, Becky, often the team that gets the top pick in the draft gets to transform themselves with that top pick. Who is that going to be the spring?
SULLIVAN: That's going to be the Tennessee Titans. It's usually a rookie quarterback you're talking about who can transform a team. I'm not sure that there are any truly transcendent quarterbacks in the draft this year from college, but Cam Ward from the Miami Hurricanes is the likely top pick. He's a quarterback, so he could probably go No. 1 or 2.
SUMMERS: NPR sports correspondent Becky Sullivan. Thank you.
SULLIVAN: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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