The San Francisco 49ers were considered a rising Super Bowl contender until Jimmy Garoppolo suffered a broken foot last week. Now rookie Brock Purdy, the Iowa State quarterback who had the distinction of being Mr. Irrelevant — the last player taken in this year’s NFL draft — will take over the offense, facing the Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback who has never let anyone forget he was the 199th pick back in 2000.
Brady is coming off a winning rally against the New Orleans Saints that was remarkable even by his standards. The Buccaneers hadn’t won when trailing by eight or more points in the fourth quarter since 2012. And Brady, before Monday night, was 0-37 in the regular season and 1-43 including the playoffs when trailing by 13 or more points in the fourth quarter, according to ESPN Stats and Info. That one playoff win, of course, came in Super Bowl LI against Atlanta. Mediocre though Brady and the team were for 3½ quarters Monday and for the season, they are in position to get a playoff berth by winning a dismal division.
Here’s a look at the rest of the week 14 slate.
Byes: Bears (3-10), Colts (4-8-1), Commanders (7-5-1), Falcons (5-8), Packers (5-8), Saints (4-9).
Raiders (5-7) at Rams (3-9), 8:15 p.m., Prime Video: The Rams, losers of six in a row, are already assured of becoming the eighth team to have a losing record the season after winning a championship, and they are one loss away from having the most for a team defending a Super Bowl title. With Matthew Stafford out at least until Week 17 (and possibly the rest of the season) with a spinal cord contusion, Baker Mayfield is now on board. Las Vegas, on the other hand, no longer looks like one of the worst teams in the league after overtime wins in Weeks 11 and 12 and another victory over the Chargers this past week. They probably won’t make the playoffs, but as improbable as it seemed a month ago, there’s still a chance.
Jets (7-5) at Bills (9-3), 1 p.m.: Last month, the Jets pulled an upset against the Bills in the Meadowlands, holding them to a season-worst 317 yards and sacking Josh Allen five times. Now they’re coming off a game in which they had 199 more yards than Minnesota — and had a loss to show for it.
Browns (5-7) at Bengals (8-4), 1 p.m.: Oh, hi, Joe Burrow. In the past three weeks, he’s beaten AFC rivals Pittsburgh and Tennessee and continued to own Kansas City (and Patrick Mahomes). He’s on a 6-1 run with an NFL-leading 118.1 passer rating while completing 74.7 percent of his passes.
Texans (1-10-1) at Cowboys (9-3), 1 p.m.: Dallas has been responsible for the NFL’s two highest-scoring performances this season, scoring 54 against Indianapolis and 49 against Chicago, but its defense will have to adjust after losing cornerback Anthony Brown to a torn Achilles’. Houston appears to have erred in switching to Kyle Allen, with his 60.6 passer rating, at quarterback, and is going back to Davis Mills this week, but the top pick in the 2023 draft seems to be within its grasp.
Vikings (10-2) at Lions (5-7), 1 p.m.: This is weird: Detroit, on a 4-1 run in its past five games, has the 15th pick in the draft at the moment, and the first-round pick it got from the Rams for Stafford is No. 4. A surprise five-win team, the Lions face the Jets, Panthers, Bears and Packers after this week and still have an outside shot at the postseason.
Eagles (11-1) at Giants (7-4-1), 1 p.m.: New York missed a 58-yard field goal attempt on the final play of overtime against Washington this past week, resulting in a desultory tie. Still, a tie took the Giants a baby step closer to a playoff berth. Philadelphia has only stumbled once, against the Commanders, and doesn’t figure to do so in games in which A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith each top 100 yards in receiving yards and MVP candidate Jalen Hurts passes for nearly 400, like they did this past week against Tennessee.
Ravens (8-4) at Steelers (5-7), 1 p.m.: Pittsburgh has some good players at skill positions (such as tight end Pat Freiermuth), and quarterback Kenny Pickett is improving. Baltimore eked out a 10-9 win over a dreadful Denver team and may have a diminished Lamar Jackson, who is week-to-week with a knee injury, going forward.
Jaguars (4-8) at Titans (7-5), 1 p.m.: Tennessee’s offense is averaging 18 points per game and, not coincidentally, Derrick Henry has had per-carry averages of 2.8, 3.1, 2.2 and 2.7 yards over the past four weeks. His heavy workload at Alabama and in the NFL maybe be taking a toll, with his 29th birthday in a few weeks.
Chiefs (9-3) at Broncos (3-9), 4:05 p.m.: The loss to arch-nemesis Burrow and the Bengals left Mahomes limping. Ordinarily, this AFC West matchup would be destination viewing, but Denver is so unwatchable the game was flexed out of “Sunday Night Football.” Kansas City, with remaining games against Houston, Seattle, Denver again and Las Vegas, still has a solid shot at securing the AFC’s No. 1 playoff seed.
Panthers (4-8) at Seahawks (7-5), 4:25 p.m.: While Carolina figures out the “post-Baker Mayfield era,” Geno Smith has been a more than adequate replacement for the post-Russell Wilson era in Seattle. The Seahawks are in the running for the NFC West title despite having subpar performances in their past three games. Against the Rams this past week, Smith and the team averted what would have been a gut-punch of a loss.
Buccaneers (6-6) at 49ers (8-4), 4:25 p.m.: Nick Bosa is challenging Micah Parsons for earning defensive player of the year honors and has 14.5 sacks to Parsons’s 12. A 20-sack season isn’t out of the realm of possibility for Bosa. There was a bit of good news for the offense: Garoppolo might be able to return to the field — provided San Francisco makes a deep playoff run.
Dolphins (8-4) at Chargers (6-6), 8:20 p.m., NBC: Miami lost by 16 points last week to a San Francisco team that turned to Purdy, its third-string quarterback. Los Angeles is struggling to keep from wasting another of Justin Herbert’s prime seasons.
Patriots (6-6) at Cardinals (4-8), 8:15 p.m., ESPN: Of these two issue-laden teams, New England is perhaps in worse shape, with offensive players dropping hints criticizing Matt Patricia’s play-calling. It’s turmoil uncharacteristic of a Bill Belichick team, but at least its record is better than Arizona’s.
