Jared Goff chose the worst time to be in a giving mood, despite it being Christmas.
The Lions’ playoff hopes were dashed after handing the Vikings six giveaways in the 23–10 upset loss. Detroit’s up-and-down defense did its best to keep Goff & Co. in the game, but the rare strong effort collapsed after wide receiver Jordan Addison delivered a 65-yard touchdown run to make it a 10-point deficit with 3:43 left in regulation.
Detroit has one meaningless game left against Chicago next week before heading into the offseason filled with questions on both sides of the football, including who will call plays for an offense that fizzled out in the final month of the season. With the Lions’ loss, the Packers clinched a playoff spot ahead of their Saturday night matchup against the Ravens.
Instead of getting a blowout to kick off the first of three games on Christmas, the Cowboys’ defense decided to make it interesting by allowing Jacory Croskey-Merritt to take off for a 72-yard touchdown run to bring the Commanders back within a touchdown in the third quarter. But Dallas added a couple more field goals from Brandon Aubrey to eventually put away Washington, 30–23.
On Christmas night, the Broncos will be at Arrowhead Stadium to face the postseason-eliminated Chiefs with unheralded quarterback Chris Oladokun making his starting debut.
The weekend slate will offer more appealing games with plenty of playoff implications. The Chargers host the Texans for the first of two games on Saturday. The winner of that one will make one final push for a division title while the loser should get comfortable with the idea of being a wild-card team.
We might get a Super Bowl preview on Sunday when the Bills host the Eagles. We’ll also get an intriguing Sunday Night Football showdown between the 49ers and the visiting Bears.
Let’s assess all the action, starting with the Christmas tripleheader.
Good: Vikings still battling despite latest QB injury
The Vikings deserve a ton of credit for spoiling the Lions’ playoff hopes despite being eliminated from postseason contention a few weeks back and having to play with undrafted rookie quarterback Max Brosmer, who filled in for the injured J.J. McCarthy.
Brosmer struggled, but he at least protected the football after throwing four interceptions in his starting debut against the Seahawks in Week 13. Minnesota had only 75 total yards before starting the drive that ended with Addison’s 65-yard rushing score with fewer than four minutes left in regulation. Brosmer finished 9-of-16 for 51 yards and added two carries for 16 yards
We probably shouldn’t be surprised about a Brian Flores–led defense playing tough despite the circumstances. Edge rusher Andrew Van Ginkel has made a living from giving quarterbacks nightmare performances. He can add Goff to the list after sacking him 1.5 times and recovering two of his three fumbles. The ageless safety Harrison Smith had one of Goff’s two interceptions and had one of Minnesota’s five total sacks. Cornerback Byron Murphy Jr. recorded the other pick on Goff.
The Packers need to send the Vikings’ defense a thank you card for getting them into the postseason before facing the Ravens, possibly without Jordan Love, on Saturday.
Bad: Lions need to figure out what went wrong offensively
Overall, the Lions have impressive offensive numbers this season, but they haven’t looked as strong as last year’s unit for most of the year.
It all fell apart on Christmas with Goff’s two interceptions and three lost fumbles against Minnesota. Last week, the Lions didn’t have issues with protecting the football, but they stalled for long stretches against the Steelers. The week before that, Detroit couldn’t keep pace with the Rams’ explosive offense.
If you look deeper, this team hasn’t been right ever since Dan Campbell took over offensive play-calling from John Morton coming out of the Week 8 bye. Bruising running back David Montgomery hasn’t been utilized much and the offense often looks to Jahmyr Gibbs to bail them out.
The creativity went out the door when former offensive coordinator Ben Johnson left to take the head coaching job with the Bears. It’s going to be on Campbell to find someone capable of calling offensive plays, because his team struggled with him focused on one side of the football.
Ugly: Detroit has plenty of questions after disappointing season
The Lions’ past two seasons have ended with six-turnover performances, going back to January’s divisional round loss to the Commanders.
Expectations were still high for this team despite losing Johnson and former defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn, now the coach of the Jets. But the Lions were playing catch-up most of the season because of the offseason departures, including the retirement of All-Pro center Frank Ragnow, who attempted to help the banged-up offensive line with a midseason return, but failed to pass his physical last month.
Yes, losing Johnson as OC hurt this once mighty offense, but the unit suffered greatly from all the injuries on the offensive line throughout the season. Finding a quality center is going to be high on the offseason priority list.
Campbell might go into a second consecutive offseason searching for multiple coordinators depending on what he decides with Morton and defensive coordinator Kelvin Sheppard, who led one of the worst units in the NFL. Perhaps it helps Sheppard that the defense stepped up for nearly four quarters against the Vikings. Still, it’s hard to overlook the defense getting torched by the Giants, Packers, Cowboys, Rams and Steelers the previous five weeks.
The divisional playoff loss was ugly, but it seemed Campbell was going to lead the Lions to the postseason on a yearly basis. Now, he needs to address several concerns after his team took many steps back in a disappointing 2025 season.
Good: Cowboys’ offense provides holiday cheer amid lost season
Apparently, I was the only one who enjoyed the Zoom call with Cowboys legend Emmitt Smith during Netflix’s broadcast, because many on social media were upset about the random in-game interview taking up a sizable chunk of game time.
I thought hearing Smith’s stories were better than watching the Commanders’ awful defense in the first half, but fine, let’s highlight the Cowboys’ high-scoring offense instead.
Dak Prescott had no issues moving the ball on Washington coach Dan Quinn’s defense early. Dallas’s first three drives resulted in 240 yards and three touchdowns. Prescott (19-of-37, 307 yards, 2 TDs) connected with the speedy KaVontae Turpin for an 86-yard touchdown bomb that gave Dallas an 18-point advantage in the second quarter. At that point, it would have been better to watch a Christmas movie on Netflix. Then again, those upset about the in-game interview with Smith likely watched the entirety of this Christmas game filled with bad defenses. (Oh, the power of fantasy football championship week.)
But I’ll stop being negative about the product on the field because the Cowboys’ offense (480 total yards) gave its fans something to cheer about amid another disappointing season. If Dallas (now 7-8-1) can fix its defense—at least it’s not as bad as Washington's defense—this team could make some real noise in 2026 after the offense produced a 4,000-yard passer, a 1,000-yard rusher (Javonte Williams) and a pair of 1,000-yard receivers (George Pickens and CeeDee Lamb) in Brian Schottenheimer’s first season as head coach.
Bad: Cowboys let Commanders hang around with 72-yard TD run
The Cowboys needed to play situational football after allowing Washington back in the game with Croskey-Merritt’s long touchdown run with 9:34 in the third quarter.
Dallas went from potentially cruising in a blowout to having to deal with a one-score game in the second half because the poor defense gave the Commanders a one-play touchdown drive that took only 10 seconds off the game clock. From there, all Prescott and his offense could produce were three consecutive field goal attempts, with Aubrey going two-of-three on the kicks.
By failing to score touchdowns in the second half, the Cowboys were forced to trust their bad defense not to let the game get closer than a touchdown. Prescott eventually came through when he killed enough clock on the final drive, but situational football could have easily been avoided if the defense hadn’t allowed the one-play scoring drive.
Ugly: Washington will have a tough time fixing its defense
Have I mentioned that the Commanders (4–12) have a terrible defense? Well, let’s talk about it again because this team is going nowhere next season, even with a healthy Jayden Daniels, if the Washington decision-makers don’t make defensive upgrades.
Washington can look at Dallas for reasons why being a one-sided team doesn’t work in the NFL. The Cowboys can light up the scoreboard, but they’ll be taking their winter vacation at the same time as the Commanders.
But the Cowboys have a better path to repairing their defense because of the draft picks they gained in the Micah Parsons trade with the Packers. The Commanders lost picks due to the acquisitions of Deebo Samuel and Laremy Tunsil.
Washington, however, just needs an average defense that takes a bend-but-don’t-break approach because Daniels is capable of guiding a productive offense if he stays healthy in 2026. The Commanders will likely draft an edge rusher with their top-10 draft pick in April. They should also consider trading cornerback Marshon Lattimore and defensive tackle Daron Payne to gain draft picks.
This team is in desperate need of young defensive talent, especially after what this unit showed on Christmas.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as The Good, Bad and Ugly, NFL Week 17: Vikings End Lions’ Season With Turnover Barrage.
