play0:16Alec Pierce elevates for incredible TD grabDaniel Jones throws it deep to Alec Pierce, who comes down with the ball for a touchdown.
play0:44Jonathan Taylor’s 83-yard TD breaks Colts’ rushing TD recordJonathan Taylor explodes for an 83-yard touchdown to become the Colts’ all-time leader in rushing touchdowns.
play2:02‘This looks atrocious’: Stephen A. criticizes the Broncos’ offenseStephen A. Smith is not impressed with the Denver Broncos’ offense, saying the team is not as good as its record.
play0:40TreVeyon Henderson asks sideline if he can score on 69-yard TDBefore TreVeyon Henderson scores a 69-yard touchdown, he looks to the Patriots’ sideline to see if he needs to get down or score.
play0:32Kyle Williams ends 1st quarter with 72-yard TDDrake Maye throws to Kyle Williams, who takes off for a 72-yard Patriots touchdown to end the first quarter.
play0:30Chargers pick off Aaron Rodgers for a 2nd timeDonte Jackson hauls in the Chargers’ second interception by Aaron Rodgers.
play0:26Herbert fires a strike to McConkey for a Chargers TDJustin Herbert finds Ladd McConkey wide open to pad the Chargers’ lead going into halftime.
Jonathan Taylor’s 3rd TD walks it off for Colts in OT (0:25)Jonathan Taylor goes untouched into the end zone to win it for the Colts in overtime. (0:25)
Alec Pierce elevates for incredible TD grabDaniel Jones throws it deep to Alec Pierce, who comes down with the ball for a touchdown.
Jonathan Taylor’s 83-yard TD breaks Colts’ rushing TD recordJonathan Taylor explodes for an 83-yard touchdown to become the Colts’ all-time leader in rushing touchdowns.
Jonathan Taylor explodes for an 83-yard touchdown to become the Colts’ all-time leader in rushing touchdowns.
‘This looks atrocious’: Stephen A. criticizes the Broncos’ offenseStephen A. Smith is not impressed with the Denver Broncos’ offense, saying the team is not as good as its record.
Stephen A. Smith is not impressed with the Denver Broncos’ offense, saying the team is not as good as its record.
TreVeyon Henderson asks sideline if he can score on 69-yard TDBefore TreVeyon Henderson scores a 69-yard touchdown, he looks to the Patriots’ sideline to see if he needs to get down or score.
Before TreVeyon Henderson scores a 69-yard touchdown, he looks to the Patriots’ sideline to see if he needs to get down or score.
Kyle Williams ends 1st quarter with 72-yard TDDrake Maye throws to Kyle Williams, who takes off for a 72-yard Patriots touchdown to end the first quarter.
Drake Maye throws to Kyle Williams, who takes off for a 72-yard Patriots touchdown to end the first quarter.
Chargers pick off Aaron Rodgers for a 2nd timeDonte Jackson hauls in the Chargers’ second interception by Aaron Rodgers.
Herbert fires a strike to McConkey for a Chargers TDJustin Herbert finds Ladd McConkey wide open to pad the Chargers’ lead going into halftime.
If you don’t like the team at the top of the heap in the AFC, just wait a week. Heading into the 2025 NFL season, there was a consensus that the teams with MVP-caliber quarterbacks that are perennially atop the conference — the Bills, Chiefs and Ravens — would quickly reestablish their rightful place atop the AFC, a tier above the other 13 teams.
In reality, we’ve had total chaos. The Chiefs started 0-2 and actually sit outside the playoff picture at the midway point as the eighth seed in the AFC. The Ravens opened the season 1-5 before turning things around after their bye. The Bills have beaten both of their frequent playoff rivals, but they’ve also lost to the Falcons and now to the Dolphins, who blew them out on Sunday.
Which team should we put faith in at the top of the AFC? Can we default to the Chiefs or Bills because of what we’ve seen in the past? Or should we be ahead of the curve and get behind a team like the Broncos, Chargers, Colts or Patriots — the four teams that have better records in the AFC than the old guard?
I’m here to make a case for that new group of contenders, the teams trying to convince us that it won’t inevitably be the Bills, Chiefs or Ravens competing in the AFC Championship Game. Are they on that level? I’m not sure there’s a right answer, but I’ll try to make the best possible argument for each, and we’ll touch on what happened to them in Week 10. Let’s start at the very top of the standings and work our way down.
Here’s the perfect example of how difficult it’s becoming to evaluate the top of the AFC. Did Sunday’s performance make you more or less confident in the Colts? A win is a win, and the Colts overcame the absence of injured defensive tackle DeForest Buckner (neck) to take down the Falcons in Berlin, prevailing in overtime on Jonathan Taylor’s third touchdown of the game.
Across his first eight starts in a Colts uniform, Jones did an impeccable job of avoiding negative plays. He threw just three interceptions, fumbled twice and took a mere nine sacks, which yielded the league’s best sack rate at the time. Over his past two games? Jones has four picks and eight fumbles. He has been sacked 12 times, more than doubling his total from the prior two months of the season.
Is some of that variance? Of course. Jones got away with a dropped interception or two during the first half of the season. One of his interceptions against the Steelers was a throw to the flat that was deflected by one Pittsburgh linebacker to another like they were setting up a volleyball spike. When you’re running hot, those balls hit the ground, and when you’re not, they somehow land in the wrong hands.
The sacks, though, are a real concern. The true outlier for Jones versus the player he was in New York was that sack rate. Even as Giants coach Brian Daboll aggressively encouraged Jones to get the ball out quickly and his offenses ran some of the shortest average air yard rates of any team in the league, Jones took sacks on 8.5% of his dropbacks in New York. Those takedowns led to difficult down-and-distances and issues with fumbles and strip sacks.
Daniel Jones throws it deep to Alec Pierce, who comes down with the ball for a touchdown.
This offense has been ruthless all season, but the Colts really weren’t that on Sunday. One Jones fumble just outside the red zone cost the Colts a shot at three points. Michael Badgley missed a field goal and an extra point. Indy failed on a fourth down at the 5-yard line when Taylor was stuffed for a 2-yard loss and on a 2-point attempt when Jones was late to throw the wheel on mesh and gave the Falcons’ defense time to bat the pass away.
The best argument: This is the best offense in football in the middle of a potentially historic run by its best player.
Taylor’s dominant run really started in the final quarter of the 2024 season before extending into 2025. Over that 14-game stretch, he has 306 carries for 1,766 rushing yards and 21 rushing touchdowns. Nobody is within 500 rushing yards or six rushing touchdowns of the Colts star over that span.
Jonathan Taylor’s 83-yard TD breaks Colts’ rushing TD record
In games against stiff competition, the Colts have basically battled their opponents to a draw. They manhandled the Chargers, lost a frustrating one to the Rams in part because of Adonai Mitchell’s brutal fumble on his way into the end zone and had a game against the Broncos come down to the final snaps, where a leverage call against Denver turned a field goal miss from 60 yards out into a 45-yard kick to win the game for Indy.
‘This looks atrocious’: Stephen A. criticizes the Broncos’ offense
The most realistic criticism: The Broncos can’t know what they’ll get on any given day — or even on any given pass — from Nix.
No quarterback inspires more graphics with tortured start/stop points. Have you ever wondered which quarterbacks have great touchdown-to-interception ratios over a 10-game span as a rookie? There were graphics all over the place highlighting Nix’s performance over his prior five quarters after the win over the Cowboys. But those endpoints exist because they’re surrounded by wildly disappointing performances.
Nix just isn’t hitting them. He’s running a minus-19.8% completion percentage over expected (CPOE) on passes traveling 30 or more yards in the air this season, the worst mark in football for passers with 10 or more of those throws this season per NFL Next Gen Stats. Nix is 3-of-27 on those passes, with one touchdown throw and three picks. The NFL Next Gen Stats model suggests that he has left five of those long completions on the field, and I’d argue that number is low.
As ESPN’s Mina Kimes mentioned, Nix’s off-target rate on throws traveling 10 or more yards downfield is 39%, which is 32nd in the league. He’s also 32nd on those throws from a clean pocket and again on first downs, where his off-target rate is a whopping 45%. That last figure is the third worst for any QB in a single season over the past decade.
The problem isn’t that Nix can’t throw accurately or hit deep throws. His arm isn’t an issue at all. Watch some of Nix’s best throws, like that 93-yard seam shot versus Cleveland’s Tampa 2 coverage from last season, and you’ll see the sort of zip and accuracy anyone would want from a young QB. When Nix is set and gets his body into a throw, he looks great.
The hope was naturally that Nix would have things slow down a bit — that he’d be more consistent and intentional with his footwork and movement in Year 2. But I’m not sure he looks any different than he did in Year 1. When Nix is in rhythm and playing confidently, that can lead to brilliant stretches of play. And when he isn’t, as was the case against the Raiders, it can lead to games where even Broncos fans wonder whether they have the right guy.
Like the Colts, the Broncos have won one of their games against stiff competition in narrow fashion and lost another in a heartbreaker. Nix missed a big throw that might have set up the game-winning field goal against the Chargers, who then drove downfield for their own game-winning kick.
Sunday was a chance to prove themselves to some nonbelievers. The Bucs aren’t a great team, but they’ve beaten the Seahawks and 49ers, and Baker Mayfield has been able to coax the team to victories when things have been close. Going to Tampa Bay in rainy conditions was going to be a test of whether the Patriots could take their act on the road against stiffer competition.