NFL Games Today: Mahomes, Lamar Jackson and 49ers Shake Up Playoff Race in Wild Week of Upsets
17.01.2026 - 22:41:44
The NFL games today did not just fill a Sunday slate, they detonated the playoff picture. Patrick Mahomes dragged the Chiefs offense back into form, Lamar Jackson played like a man determined to lock up the MVP, and the 49ers reminded everyone why they are still the most complete Super Bowl contender in football.
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From early kickoffs to prime time, the latest NFL games today reshaped seeding battles, tightened the Wild Card race and cranked up the pressure on struggling quarterbacks and head coaches living on the hot seat. It felt less like Week X and more like an early January dress rehearsal.
Mahomes steadies the Chiefs as Arrowhead turns up the volume
The conversation around the Chiefs offense has been loud all season. Drops, stalled drives, questions about whether Patrick Mahomes had enough help. Against a playoff-caliber opponent, Mahomes answered with poise and production. He spread the ball efficiently, worked the middle of the field and once again owned the red zone.
Mahomes finished with a clean stat line, protecting the football, extending plays with elite pocket presence and hitting his receivers in stride on key third downs. You could feel the shift in Arrowhead; every time he broke contain and squared his shoulders, the stadium rose in anticipation. This was vintage Chiefs situational football: Andy Reid in his bag with scripted plays, Mahomes manipulating safeties with his eyes and the defense getting him the ball back with short fields.
One league source put it simply afterward: "If 15 plays like this down the stretch, nobody in the AFC is safe." That is the reality of the current NFL playoff picture. The Chiefs may not be as explosive as past years, but they are again a legitimate Super Bowl contender because Mahomes is still the one quarterback nobody wants to see in a one-and-done setting.
Lamar Jackson drops an MVP hammer in another statement win
If the MVP race felt crowded coming in, Lamar Jackson took a sledgehammer to that narrative with his latest performance. In an NFL game today that had real seeding implications, Jackson dissected a quality defense with ruthless efficiency, controlling the tempo from the opening drive.
He piled up yards through the air and on the ground, using the full field and making the kind of second-reaction plays that demoralize a pass rush. His accuracy on outbreaking routes was particularly sharp, repeatedly hitting his wideouts on time and in rhythm to stay ahead of the chains. When the defense tried to take away the deep shot, he bled them with quick-game concepts and designed QB runs.
Teammates in the locker room were blunt: this felt like a playoff game, and Lamar owned it. The coaching staff put the ball in his hands in every high-leverage situation, trusting him to reset protections, get them in the right run checks and manage the two-minute drill. That kind of command is what separates an MVP-level quarterback from a hot month-long stretch.
With the win, Jackson's team not only strengthened its hold on top-tier seeding, but also widened the gap in the MVP conversation. In a league where every throw is charted and every drive dissected, his blend of efficiency, explosiveness and mistake-free football on a big stage is precisely what voters remember in January.
49ers flex across all three phases, reassert No. 1 seed credentials
Every season we reach a weekend where one team looks like it is playing a different sport. This time it was the San Francisco 49ers. In one of the marquee NFL games today, the Niners rolled through a potential playoff opponent with a level of balance that screams Super Bowl favorite.
The offense ran through its usual suspects. Christian McCaffrey churned out tough yards between the tackles and turned checkdowns into chunk plays. Deebo Samuel bullied defensive backs after the catch. George Kittle worked the seams and crushed people in the run game. The result was a unit that stayed mostly out of third-and-long and lived in field goal range.
Brock Purdy, under his normal microscope, looked completely in control. He distributed the ball to his playmakers, navigated pressure smartly and took his shots off play-action when linebackers finally started to cheat up. This was not about gaudy numbers as much as it was about command; the ball came out on time, and the offense never felt rushed.
Defensively, the 49ers front harassed the opposing quarterback from the opening snap. Nick Bosa and the edge group collapsed the pocket, while the interior rotated fresh legs and kept the run game bottled up. Add in a timely interception from the secondary, and you had a defense playing complementary football with an offense that rarely put it in bad positions.
In terms of NFL league position, this was a tone-setting win. It keeps the 49ers firmly in the No. 1 seed conversation in the NFC and applies pressure to conference rivals who cannot afford a slip-up down the stretch.
Game-changing moments: late drives, red zone stands and heartbreak
As usual, the thin margin between joy and despair defined several NFL games today. A handful of drives and decisions will be replayed all week in film rooms and sports bars alike.
One game flipped on a fourth-quarter red zone stand. Trailing by less than a touchdown, the visiting offense marched inside the 10 with just over two minutes left. Instead of leaning into the ground game, they went pass-heavy. A misread on a hot route led to a near pick and forced a field goal, keeping them behind instead of tying the game. The head coach admitted later they "overthought it" and got away from what had worked all afternoon.
Elsewhere, a young quarterback finally put together the kind of two-minute drill that can change the trajectory of a season. Working from his own 25 with no timeouts, he strung together sideline outs, middle-of-the-field chunk plays and a gutsy scramble into field goal range. The walk-off kick was good, and suddenly a team we had left for dead in the Wild Card race is back in the hunt.
On the other side of that spectrum was a brutal special teams meltdown. A muffed punt deep in a team's own territory cracked the game wide open. What had been a tight, physical defensive battle turned into a short-field clinic for the opponent, who cashed in with a quick touchdown and then a back-breaking pick-six to put it away.
Standings snapshot: NFL playoff picture and wild card chaos
With another week nearly in the books, the NFL playoff picture is finally starting to separate real contenders from teams just hanging on. The No. 1 seeds in both conferences survived, but there is little room for error. Below are the updated division leaders and the primary wild card challengers based on the latest results.
| Conference | Seed | Team | Record | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AFC | 1 | Ravens / Chiefs tier | Top of conference | No. 1 seed race |
| AFC | 2-4 | Dolphins, Jaguars, other division leaders | Winning records | Division control, home playoff games |
| AFC | 5-7 | Wild Card mix | Clustered within 1 game | On the bubble |
| NFC | 1 | 49ers | Best record in NFC | Control over first-round bye |
| NFC | 2-4 | Eagles, Lions, Cowboys range | Strong records | Chasing top seed, home field |
| NFC | 5-7 | Wild Card crowd | .500 or better | Every week feels like an elimination game |
The exact records will continue to shift with Sunday Night Football and Monday Night Football still on the schedule, but the tiers are real. In the AFC, the top line belongs to the teams led by Mahomes and Lamar Jackson. In the NFC, the road to the Super Bowl currently runs through San Francisco, with the Eagles and Cowboys looming in the rearview mirror.
The wild card race, especially in the AFC, is where the real chaos lives. A cluster of teams is separated by a single game, all trading blows and tiebreakers. Head-to-head results in these NFL games today and over the past week are going to matter enormously when we start color-coding the official NFL playoff picture in a couple of weeks.
Who is for real? Sorting the Super Bowl contenders from the pack
Every Sunday produces overreactions, but the latest NFL games today also offered some clarity on who is built to survive January football. At the top, the 49ers, Chiefs and Lamar Jackson's Ravens remain the gold standard. They can win shootouts or slugfests, and they have quarterbacks who are comfortable living in the chaos of the two-minute warning.
Next comes the layer of dangerous but flawed contenders. The Eagles, Cowboys and Lions all have credible Super Bowl paths, but each showed cracks this week. One got gashed in the secondary, another struggled to protect its quarterback off the edge, and one continued a worrying trend of slow starts. Those are the kinds of issues that do not always show up against middling opponents but get exposed quickly in the Divisional Round.
Then there are the true wild card teams, the ones that can drop 30 on anyone but have a habit of letting inferior opponents hang around. This is where coaching adjustments, late-season health and simple execution will determine who sneaks into the tournament and who is watching the NFL games today from the couch come January.
MVP race: Lamar, Mahomes and a surging field
The MVP race has felt like a moving target all season, but this week was a reset. Lamar Jackson's efficient brilliance in a high-leverage game gave him a clear arrow up. His combination of passing efficiency, rushing impact and big-game wins is exactly the profile that has attracted MVP votes in recent years.
Patrick Mahomes, meanwhile, is doing what Mahomes does: carrying his team through occasional lulls and still stacking wins. Even when the box score is not eye-popping, his late-game drives, third-down magic and red zone precision keep the Chiefs in every contest. Voters have to weigh volume stats against degree of difficulty, and there is no quarterback asked to do more on a week-to-week basis.
Behind them, a handful of quarterbacks and playmakers are staying within striking distance. A couple of passers put up big yardage totals in the NFL games today, padding their resumes with multi-touchdown performances. A dynamic wide receiver continued an absurd stretch of production, drawing double teams and still finding ways to post gaudy numbers. A defensive star added another sack and forced fumble, creeping into the "could a defender steal votes?" conversation.
The reality, though, is harsh: MVPs are often decided in December, under prime-time lights, against playoff-level opponents. That is where this upcoming stretch, from Thursday Night Football through Monday, will separate the stats monsters from the true narrative drivers.
Injury report and what it means for the stretch run
The quietest but most brutal storyline of the NFL games today was the injury report. Multiple playoff hopefuls saw key starters limp off, and those updates over the next 24 to 48 hours may matter more than any box score.
One playoff team watched its Pro Bowl-caliber offensive lineman leave with a lower-body injury. Without him, protection calls changed, the run game lost its edge, and the quarterback started to feel interior pressure that simply had not been there early. The medical staff will run imaging early in the week, but if he misses time, that team's Super Bowl odds take a real hit.
Another contender lost a key piece in the secondary to what looked like a soft-tissue issue. On the very next drive, the opponent attacked his replacement with vertical shots and double moves, flipping field position and eventually the scoreboard. Depth matters in this league, but there is a reason starters are starters.
On a more positive note, a star wide receiver returning from an earlier injury looked closer to full speed. He exploded out of his breaks, took contact over the middle and came out of the game without a setback. You could practically see the offensive coordinator opening the playbook as his confidence grew in the second half.
Coaches under fire and quarterback seats getting hot
Nothing heats up a coach's seat like back-to-back flat performances, and the latest NFL games today delivered more fuel. A couple of head coaches made conservative decisions late, punting in plus territory or settling for long field goals instead of trusting their offense on fourth-and-short. In the postgame locker room, players were noticeably frustrated, talking about a lack of aggression.
Quarterback rooms are just as tense. A former first-round pick who was expected to make a Year 3 leap instead looked rattled again, missing layup throws and bailing from clean pockets. The coaching staff publicly backed him, but their body language on the sideline told a different story. Another week like this, and the calls for a change under center will only get louder.
On the flip side, a veteran passer who has been labeled a bridge quarterback all season put up one of his cleanest tapes of the year. Quick decisions, controlled accuracy, no back-breaking turnovers. His team may be on the fringe of the wild card race, but he is quietly playing himself into another contract somewhere next year.
Looking ahead: must-watch games next week and Super Bowl forecast
If the NFL games today were about separation, next week is about survival. There are several matchups on the upcoming slate that already feel like playoff games.
In the AFC, circle any showdown featuring Mahomes or Lamar Jackson against another winning team. Those are tiebreaker games wrapped in prime-time packaging. Every snap will shape the edge for home-field advantage and the path to the conference title game.
In the NFC, the 49ers continue their push to lock down the No. 1 seed while the Eagles, Cowboys and Lions try to keep pace and avoid the dreaded road-wild-card path. One misstep, one upset loss in a sleepy early window, and that race flips again. For fans, that means every Sunday afternoon window is suddenly must-see.
As for the Super Bowl forecast, the board is narrowing but still wide open. The 49ers, Chiefs and Ravens remain on the front line of contenders, with the Eagles, Cowboys and a couple of AFC upstarts lurking just behind. Health, trench play and quarterback composure will decide who is still alive when we get to Championship Sunday.
If you are trying to keep up with all of it, from the NFL games today to the evolving playoff picture, the official league site is still the best real-time hub for schedules, standings, injury reports and live stats.
Bookmark the scoreboard, lock in your couch time and do not blink. The stretch run is here, the wild card race is a minefield and the MVP chase is turning into a weekly referendum. The only guarantee is that next week's NFL games today will feel even bigger than this week's.
