FOXBOROUGH, Mass. -- We are getting to the end of it now. Once Monday Night Football is complete, there will be just two weeks left in the 2021 NFL regular season. If we want to overreact to stuff we saw this week, you really can't blame us, can you?
So let's start here, with the crucial AFC East matchup I covered Sunday at Gillette Stadium. The Bills rebounded from their windy, frustrating loss three weeks earlier to defeat New England 33-21 and take over first place in the division they won a season ago.
It hasn't been the easiest campaign for the Bills, and it wasn't the easiest week. They put two important wide receivers and a couple of offensive lineman on the COVID-19/reserve list and lost another offensive lineman, Ike Boettger, to an Achilles injury in the second half against the Patriots. But the Bills overcame all of that to win their most important game of the season. So it's worth asking if there's still a chance we end up seeing the Super Bowl contender we expected to see in this Bills team back when this season began.
In fact, it's worth devoting the entire Week 16 overreactions column to contender/pretender questions. We can't hit them all, and we made a conscious choice to exclude the Chiefs and Buccaneers, who won easily on Sunday and played in last season's Super Bowl, and the Packers, who have the league's best record.
Let's take a look at teams that have more question marks around them, for whatever reason, and where they stand after Week 16's action:
Jump to a team:
Bengals | Bills | Colts
Cowboys | Patriots | Rams
The Bills are a legitimate Super Bowl contender
No Cole Beasley or Gabriel Davis? No problem. Isaiah McKenzie, who spent a chunk of the season on the inactive list, caught 11 passes for 125 yards and a touchdown. Josh Allen played like an MVP with 314 passing yards, three touchdown passes and a team-leading 64 rushing yards. The Bills did not turn the ball over once -- which is the key to beating the Patriots. The Bills didn't even punt once. Buffalo came in here looking to make a statement along with their win, and it did just that.
The verdict: NOT AN OVERREACTION. There is one team in the AFC that looks like a dominator, and it's the Chiefs. And even they haven't been as dominant all season as we're used to seeing them. Buffalo still harbors ill feelings about losing the AFC Championship Game to the Chiefs last season. And if the Bills ended up in a critical playoff game against Kansas City, it's not out of the question that they would come in as fired up as they were to beat the Pats on Sunday.
Allen is never out of it, and the Bills have a decent chance to be pretty healthy and whole once the postseason starts. The absence of injured star cornerback Tre'Davious White is a red flag, but Sean McDermott and Leslie Frazier can scheme a defense to stop just about anybody. I think these Bills -- the way they feel about themselves right now -- would take their chances against Patrick Mahomes & Co. Whether the Bills would win is a different question. But they wouldn't be overmatched.
The Patriots are a legitimate Super Bowl contender
Two straight losses after a seven-game winning streak have the Patriots back in a wild-card spot. If the Dolphins win Monday night, they'll only be a game behind New England for second place in the division. The Pats were flying high for two months, living on positive turnover differentials and big plays from their defense. But over the past two weeks, they've lost to a couple of teams they might very well have to beat come postseason time. And when you're doing that at this time of year, we have reason to question your playoff chances.
The verdict: OVERREACTION. There is absolutely no shame in the Patriots still being a year away from true contender status with rookie quarterback Mac Jones and an offense that was thrown together in free agency. They aren't going to be a fun team to play in January, and if you turn the ball over against them then you're asking for major trouble.
But if you don't, I'm just not sure the Pats have enough places they can go on offense to go toe-to-toe with the other AFC contenders in a turnover-neutral game. And if they fall behind, they don't look like a team that's built to overcome that. It's outstanding that they've done what they've done this season, and it offers major hope for the future. Again, they could be a problem in the postseason. But they don't look like the kind of team that can win four straight against playoff-caliber competition.
The Bengals are a legitimate Super Bowl contender
For the second time this season, the Bengals obliterated the Ravens in a 41-21 win on Sunday. Yes, the Ravens are as short-handed as any team in the league, but there's no glossing over a 525-yard, four-touchdown effort from Joe Burrow in Cincinnati's biggest game of the season. This is only the second time in their history (along with 2009) that the Bengals have swept both the Steelers and the Ravens in the same season. The combined score of those four games was 147-58.
The Bengals' only division loss so far was to Cleveland, and they'll get a chance to avenge that one in Week 18. The victory over Baltimore on Sunday left the Bengals alone in first place in the AFC North, so all they have to do is win their last two games to claim a division title and earn a home playoff game. They play the Chiefs next week, so that's not a given, but it's a fact.
The verdict: OVERREACTION. There are few bigger Burrow fans than the dude writing this column. I think he's tough as heck and that his team feeds off of that and is taking on his identity. This is a franchise that drafts well, and it made some great free-agent decisions this offseason. As the Bengals continue to build around Burrow, they will be a force to be reckoned with in the future.
But a contender to reach this season's Super Bowl? Tough to look at a schedule that includes dumb losses to teams like the Jets and Bears and not wonder a little bit. As dominant as Cincinnati has been in its division, it has lost too many games outside of it that it should have won. That makes me think the Bengals are still a year away, even if the Burrow fan in me really hopes I'm wrong.
The Rams are a legitimate Super Bowl contender
They didn't play their best game of the season on Sunday in Minnesota. Matthew Stafford tried to keep the Vikings in it with three interceptions, and the defense had to make a bunch of big plays to hold off the upset by a score of 30-23. But the Cardinals' loss on Saturday night means the Rams are by themselves in first place in the tough NFC West, and they're heading in the right direction as January football approaches. The Rams have legitimate superstars all over the roster, and on days when Stafford and the offense can't deliver, Aaron Donald, Jalen Ramsey and the defense have proved they can.
The verdict: NOT AN OVERREACTION. Yes, the Rams are top-heavy, and if one of those superstars goes down, they're in trouble. But if that doesn't happen, they're as formidable as anyone. Sean McVay has shown an ability to coach a team to the Super Bowl. And whether you're a Stafford believer or still on the fence, you have to acknowledge he enables the offense to do things it couldn't under Jared Goff.
This is a team that has made the Super Bowl once and has been on the fringes of it pretty much every year under McVay. Yeah, Stafford could lay an egg in January and bring back all of the negative narratives about him. But if he doesn't, there's no question his team is good enough to wreak havoc in the playoffs.
The Colts are a legitimate Super Bowl contender
Indy's victory in Arizona on Saturday night was its eighth in the past 10 games after a 1-4 start to the season. Frank Reich has once again lifted his team out of an early-season hole and brought it to the precipice of the playoffs. It'll still take something of a miracle for the Colts to overtake Tennessee for the division title, as the Titans beat them both times they played and hold a one-game lead with two to play. But the Colts look like a strong bet for a wild-card berth, and with Jonathan Taylor running the way he's running, they aren't going to be a lot of fun to play, either.
The verdict: OVERREACTION. Yeah, I know Carson Wentz came back and made big throws to deliver the victory in the second half on Saturday. But man, he was downright awful for most of that game, missing throws left and right (and high and low) -- he went 18-of-28 -- and looking like the kind of quarterback more likely to cost his team a playoff game than to put it on his back and win it.
I just can't muster the same kind of faith in Wentz that I have in some of the quarterbacks for other AFC contenders. And as brilliant as Taylor is, there has to come a time when the game is on Wentz's shoulders. Maybe Wentz proves me wrong when that happens, but as of now, I have a hard time seeing Reich's bunch in Los Angeles in early February.
The Cowboys are a legitimate Super Bowl contender
I have to be honest. I'm writing this at halftime of the Washington-Dallas game on Sunday night. I'll stay up until it's over, but I feel we have the data we need at this point to address this one. As I type this, it's 42-7 Dallas and it doesn't feel like it's been that close. For goodness' sake, a Cowboys defensive lineman and a Cowboys offensive lineman scored touchdowns in the first half.
The verdict: NOT AN OVERREACTION. Obviously, Washington isn't the kind of team the Cowboys will have to beat in the playoffs if they want to get to the Super Bowl. So no, thorough domination of a decimated opponent that was kind of an average team to begin with is not, in and of itself, evidence of a Super Bowl contender. But what showed up Sunday night was the explosive Dallas offense we thought we were going to see this year (and actually did, for a while, at the beginning of the year).
Dak Prescott looked comfortable and in rhythm, the playcalling was smooth and effective -- it felt as if the Cowboys could do literally anything they wanted to do in that first half, before Prescott was pulled midway through the third quarter. The defense has been consistently impressive for a while now.
If the Cowboys' offense can play like The Cowboys' Offense (capital letters) for a stretch of January games, they'll be as dangerous as any team.