National Football League

NFL's loaded Week 18 slate opens up a vast array of possibilities

Updated Jan. 4, 2024 6:28 p.m. ET

Ready for chaos?

I hope so, because Week 18 in the National Football League is here and ready to unleash its fury, to break some hearts, scratch some heads and generally provide football's most entertaining two-day thrill ride.

Assumptions mean nothing going into the wrap-up stages of this, or any other NFL season. The unexpected occurs so frequently that we should have learned our lesson about how, as the regular season culminates, things like win-loss records, prior logic and statistical precedent all add up to precisely naught.

It is when we are forced to consider all kinds of permutations and possibilities, and we scoff at the most outlandishly unlikely ones, only to be simultaneously entertained and proven foolish when the near-impossible becomes mind-bending reality.

Across Saturday and Sunday, a whopping 13 of 16 games carry some sort of postseason relevance, whether in the form of jostling for seeding position or just trying to secure a place in the field, the latter of which is the case for 11 teams battling for the five spots that are yet to be locked.

It is numbers and action and tiebreakers and much more. It is dramatic and its blink-and-you'll-miss-it. It is complicated, too, even when it appears to be chillingly simple.

It is not especially common for winner-take-all games to occur on the final day, and the Houston Texans' clash with the Indianapolis Colts will be just the 31st in the entire history of the league, according to CBS Sports.

It is straightforward in that the winner is guaranteed a spot in the postseason and the loser is assured of a one-way ticket to vacation, but — and there is almost always a but — the only way both could potentially make it would be in the case of a tie.

A tie, you say? As if.

That's what most said back in 2021 ahead of a Week 18 clash between the Las Vegas Raiders and the Los Angeles Chargers. The mutually-beneficial-tie scenario was an implausible asterisk, until, in the waning seconds of overtime, suddenly it wasn't.

Then, with the Raiders prepared to let the clock expire, Chargers head coach Brandon Staley was caught up by the dizzying forces of the last day. Staley inexplicably called a timeout, allowing Las Vegas to try a nothing-to-lose field goal, which they converted. The Chargers, in the most Chargers way possible, were bounced.

Earlier that same day, observers laughed at the suggestion that the AFC South's script could be flipped by the Jacksonville Jaguars beating the Indianapolis Colts, given that Indy was hungrily chasing a postseason spot, Jonathan Taylor was a relentless rushing machine and the Jags were 2-14 and bound for the No. 1 draft pick and Trevor Lawrence.

Until … Carson Wentz forgot how to play and the Colts got embarrassed, the visitors being the ones made to feel like clowns in a game when much of the Jacksonville crowd turned up in fitting costumes to protest their team's leadership.

That is the kind of history that might send some panic up the spine of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who have been buoyed by the stout QB play of Baker Mayfield and need to conquer only the hapless Carolina Panthers (1:00 p.m. ET on FOX and the FOX Sports app) to make the postseason in back-to-back seasons — despite a collective record of only .500 in that span.

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Mayfield is nursing pained ribs heading into the game, while New Orleans and Atlanta lie in wait in the event of any slip-up. "I'll be able to deal with it," Mayfield told reporters.

Neutral eyes naturally get drawn most keenly to the biggest names and greatest potential for danger. Josh Allen and the Buffalo Bills are a win in Miami away from reviving a once-forlorn season and clinching the AFC's No. 2 seed.

The Bills are also, if Tua Tagovailoa has one more big evening in him, in danger of being bumped from elimination action altogether, if a defeat is accompanied by wins for the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Jacksonville Jaguars — and as long as our old friend, a tie, doesn't occur in the Houston-Indianapolis game.

No one gets to switch off and chill this weekend, the rare exception being the Cleveland Browns, locked in as the AFC's No. 5 seed, no matter what happens in either their game at Cincinnati or elsewhere, providing the perfect opportunity for Joe Flacco to rest his aching bones and, presumably, enjoy the kind of mid-afternoon nap he seems fond of.

Everywhere else, it matters, meaning unlimited combinations for different kinds of upheaval.

There is even a wild scenario in which the Steelers, currently in the No. 9 spot and peering in from the outside, could lose against Baltimore (which will rest starters) and still leapfrog their way into the postseason. Or, depending on how things go, win and still come up short.

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The options for Week 18 fall into things that could happen, things that should happen, things that probably will happen and things we're virtually certain won't happen.

That last category is by far the most dangerous of all, because, as we've seen before, they still might.

Martin Rogers is a columnist for FOX Sports and the author of the FOX Sports Insider newsletter. Follow him on Twitter @MRogersFOX and subscribe to the daily newsletter.