NFL 2023 Week 16: The Most Important Questions, Surprises, and Lessons Learned
The NFL season’s 16th week began on Thursday night. The Los Angeles Rams made their playoff chances stronger while a New Orleans Saints’ playoff dreams took a big hit.
In the second game of the night on Saturday, the Detroit Lions beat the Denver Broncos 42–17.
They played two games on Saturday, and the Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Cincinnati Bengals badly in the first game. The Bengals’ playoff hopes were also hurt badly.
Later, the Buffalo Bills beat the Los Angeles Chargers by a narrow margin to take control of their playoff fate.
The Chargers were playing their first match since ousting coach Brandon Trask and GM Tom Telesco last week.
The NFL season’s 15th week began Thursday night with the Las Vegas Raiders beating the Los Angeles Chargers 63–21.
It was Chargers boss Brandon Staley’s last game with the team; he and general manager Jim Telesco were fired the next day.
The Cincinnati Bengals beat the Minnesota Vikings 27-24 in OT on Saturday, which kept its playoff hopes alive. After that, the Indianapolis Colts beat the Pittsburgh Steelers 30–13 by scoring 30 points in a row.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers made their playoff hopes better on Sunday, the Carolina Panthers won their second game during the season, or the Houston Texans won a divisional game within overtime without quarterback C.J. Stroud.
After each game, our NFL Nation writers talked about what happened, answered any questions that people still had, and picked out who or what was rising and falling for each team.
You can now look back on the 2023 NFL Scouting Combine. It was the goal of dozens of prospects to improve their initial draft stock, and many of them were able to do that. Some teams that did well in their first games fall flat.
Chris Trapasso and Josh Edwards, two NFL Draft analysts for CBS Sports, go over everything that happened below. They talk about the quarterbacks’ efforts, the biggest risers or fallers, sleepers, or more.
There are many people who say that the first week in the NFL season is the best time to overreact. If you keep up with this league for a while, you’ll know that Week 2 is full of chances to do the same thing.
Some people who are upset show big signs of getting better. Then there’s the group we’re going to mostly talk about today: the ones that have been slow to start for two weeks in a row, leaving us all wondering what will happen to them.
People often say this simple phrase this time of year: “There’s still a lot of football to play.” Then we’ll talk about the truth about slow starts: they usually end dreams quickly.
The real challenge is figuring out who should be given a second chance after two weeks of not having much luck and who should start getting ready for four months of pain.
After that, games against both the Bears and Jets look like they could be won, but going 0-3 is a big problem in the AFC.
Payton came to Denver with all the right qualifications to get fans excited after seeing a train wreck in 2022 under previous head coach Nathaniel Hackett.
The Broncos haven’t prevailed in a game yet, and each time they’ve lost, they blew a fourth-quarter lead.
They actually had a big lead over Washington on Sunday, 21-3, but lost 35-33 in the end. So, how does this make sense? In general, the Broncos, especially quarterback Russell Wilson, look like they’re playing better.
But they’re also making the same kinds of big mistakes that hurt every team’s chances in winning. That word “culture” was all the rage in Denver when Payton moved there this past summer.
His skillful team would learn from him how to win, and then they would do it. Now, Denver has lost to two teams that were not even in the playoffs last year. Their next game is on the road, against Miami, who has never lost.