We're 15 weeks into the NFL season, but it's been such an unpredictable year that it still has the capacity to surprise us. We usually have a better handle on who the contenders and pretenders are by this time, but with each week of 2025, our expectations have been upended. This late in the season, only one thing is clear: There simply isn't going to be a dominant team, and it's time to stop waiting for one to emerge.
Certainly, there were surprises we could have done without on Sunday. Watching both Patrick Mahomes and Micah Parsons go down, clutching their left knees, and Davante Adams pull up while running a route, was dismal.
But we don't have much choice but to accept the chaos of the final few weeks of the 2025 season. Here are the biggest surprises -- delightful and otherwise -- of Week 15. And buckle up for more to come.
1) Philip Rivers survived and gave the Colts a chance to win on three days of practice. With a huge assist from the defense, the Colts were in their game against the Seahawks until the very end. The offense wasn't explosive, but it also didn't implode, as might have been expected with a 44-year-old quarterback who hadn't played in five years. Rivers threw an interception that ended the Colts' last-ditch try to get into field-goal position, but Rivers didn't get pummeled by one of the league's best defenses. Considering that at this time last week, the Colts did not have a single healthy quarterback on their roster, that's not bad. Rivers was brought back to Indianapolis to try to save the season and get the team into the playoffs. The loss to the Seahawks was the Colts' fourth in a row and at 8-6, they are now two wins behind the division-leading Jaguars with three games to play. But they are in the eighth spot in the AFC, so the Colts are still alive. Thankfully, so is Rivers.
2) The Chiefs are out of the playoffs for the first time since 2014 and that wasn't even the worst thing that happened Sunday. As the Chiefs were driving for what might have been the game-winning score, Mahomes went down in pain, grabbing his left knee. Mahomes tore his ACL, adding another layer to the Chiefs' season from hell. Mahomes' recovery will shadow the entire offseason, but the reality is the Chiefs never looked right this season. They didn't have their full complement of receivers early, then their offensive line had absences, and they had no continuity. Still, it's a shock that a team that had been to the last seven AFC Championship Games, had won the last nine division title in a row and has Mahomes is eliminated with three games left to play. The Chargers, who have won six of their last seven, did the deed on Sunday, but this was a season-long decline that led, finally, to a brutal crash.
3) The AFC East still may go through Buffalo. The Bills have been an excellent second-half team all season -- their inability to play at that level in the first half is one of the mystifying and maddening things about the team -- mostly because of Josh Allen's heroics. But their comeback against the Patriots, who had taken a 21-0 first-half lead, was still jaw-dropping. The Patriots, who would have clinched the division title with a win Sunday, entered the game with a top-five scoring defense and gave up five straight touchdown drives to the Bills. The offense, which is seventh in the league in scoring and scored 24 points in the first half, managed just three first downs and 100 yards of offense in the second half, their only points coming on a 65-yard touchdown run by TreVeyon Henderson. Drake Maye had a mostly quiet game and couldn't drive the Patriots to a late score, even though he had the ball in his hands and Kayshon Boutte running across the field on third down. The Patriots still lead the division by one game, and could still be the AFCâs top seed, but because they had played the easiest strength of schedule, there had been questions about how they would fare against elite teams during crunch time. Those questions are likely to linger at least one more week. And the Bills reminded everyone that no matter what seed they have, they could be a dangerous postseason opponent.
4) The Bucs' collapse. The three-game losing streak that swallowed November was understandable. The Bucs were battered by injury, and they were facing three of the best teams in the league. What is "inexcusable" -- Todd Bowles' word from Thursday night -- is losing a 14-point, fourth-quarter lead to the Falcons, who have already been eliminated from playoff contention and who were penalized 19 times, on a night when superstar wide receiver Mike Evans returned and had 132 receiving yards. That followed a similarly unfathomable loss to the New Orleans Saints, also at home. The Panthers also blew a chance to take over first place Sunday with their loss to the Saints, so the Bucs still hold the lead in the division. The Bucs play the Panthers next week and in Week 18, so everything is still in front of them, but time is running out for Tampa to pull out of its tailspin.
5) The Bengals got blanked with their playoff lives on the line. Joe Burrow said it was one of the worst games heâs ever played and while he didn't get a lot of help, it's still unfathomable that a team that has invested so much in its offense could be shut out at home with the season on the line. Just two weeks ago, the Bengals scored 32 points against the Ravens. But that was one of only two games since Oct. 12 in which the Ravens have given up more than 25 points. On Sunday, the Bengals had offensive miscues from early in the game and never settled into a rhythm. And Burrow threw a pick-six to wrap things up. Afterward, players insisted they were prepared. Much was made about Burrow's comments last week ruminating on happiness and football, and that is probably going to be a theme throughout the offseason, even though Burrow said it had "nothing to do with Cincinnati." A no-show performance with so much at stake suggests multiple issues with the Bengals that likely span all parts of the football operation.
6) The Eagles finally seemed to figure out their offense. Yes, it was against the Raiders, but adjusting this late in the season, after 15 weeks of sputtering, is still something and something of a surprise. The Eagles fed Saquon Barkley and the running game to get a balance to the offense, Jalen Hurts had three touchdown passes and looked more comfortable running himself, and there was more creativity in some of the play-calling. This was a get-right game, and to get this right this late is still a nice little surprise the Eagles will be happy to take.
7) The San Francisco 49ers are 10-4 despite the injuries. They are without Nick Bosa, Fred Warner, Brandon Aiyuk and have receiver only parts of seasons from Brock Purdy and George Kittle. Of all the surprises this season, the 49ers' sustained success is one of the biggest.
