Week 17 of the NFL season started Thursday night with Cleveland Browns quarterback Joe Flacco continuing his hot streak in another Browns win. The Dallas Cowboys held on after some controversy for a key win over the Detroit Lions in a battle of two of the NFC’s best Saturday night.

On Sunday, the San Francisco 49ers clinched the NFC’s No. 1 seed, the Baltimore Ravens clinched the AFC’s No. 1 seed and the Chicago Bears clinched the No. 1 pick (from Carolina) in the 2024 NFL draft.

Mason Rudolph helped keep the Pittsburgh Steelers’ playoff hopes alive with a win, and the Kansas City Chiefs clinched their eighth straight AFC West title.

On Sunday night, the Green Bay Packers blew out the Minnesota Vikings to push closer to an NFC playoff spot.

Our NFL Nation reporters reacted to all the action, answering lingering questions coming out of each game and picking out who — or what — is rising and falling for every team. Let’s get to it.

Are the Packers a playoff team? Almost. And if they play like this one more time they will be. All they have to do is beat the Bears in the regular-season finale and they’re in; no other help necessary. Considering coach Matt LaFleur has never lost to the Bears as Packers coach, the outlook appears good, especially the way Jordan Love (three touchdown passes to boost his season total to 30), Jayden Reed (two touchdown catches), Aaron Jones (a second straight 100-yard game) and the offense have been humming.

Stock up after the win: Packers’ pass rush. Defensive coordinator Joe Barry went with a blitz-heavy game plan to try to rattle Vikings rookie quarterback Jaren Hall, sending at least one extra rusher on half of his dropbacks, which resulted in a pair of a sacks and an interception before the Vikings pulled Hall for Nick Mullens at halftime.

Stock down after the win: Samori Toure. The chest injury that ended Jayden Reed’s night in the second half meant Toure replaced him as the punt returner. He muffed a fourth-quarter punt that the Vikings recovered at the Packers’ 7-yard line and turned into their only touchdown of the game. — Rob Demovsky

Next game: vs. Bears, 4:25 p.m. ET Sunday

 

Vikings
What happened to the Vikings’ defense? From the top, it should be pointed out that the Vikings were playing without several key starters, including outside linebacker D.J. Wonnum (eight sacks) and cornerback Byron Murphy Jr. (three interceptions). But the Packers simply toyed with the Vikings all night. Their receivers found wide-open holes in the Vikings’ zone defense — Love’s touchdown passes went to receivers who averaged 3.1 yards of separation — and tailback Aaron Jones (120 yards) found open holes throughout. More than anything, this game showed that no scheme — including one as creative as defensive coordinator Brian Flores’ — can overcome the type of personnel deficit the Vikings brought Sunday night to U.S. Bank Stadium.

Stock up after the loss: QB Kirk Cousins. On an otherwise miserable night top to bottom, Cousins fired up the U.S. Bank Stadium crowd by ripping off his shirt — revealing a series of “Kirko” chains around his neck — and leading them in a pregame SKOL chant before everything went downhill.

Stock down after the loss: QB Jaren Hall. Making his second career start, Hall looked like he was in over his head as he committed almost as many turnovers (two) as the number of points he led the offense to (three).