Now we’re cooking. Thanks to a year in which results seemed determined by a random number generator, the regular season’s home stretch is chock full of drama and week-to-week, game-to-game stakes for nearly the entire league. Only nine teams have been eliminated from the postseason, no team has officially clinched and every division is still up for grabs.
If a team’s Week 15 game isn’t outright live-or-die, it almost certainly determines their quality of life over their final three. Using The Athletic’s Playoff Simulator, we’ve isolated the highest-stakes games in either conference this week, along with the best cross-conference clashes:
📺 NFC Games To Watch 📺
Atlanta Falcons at Tampa Bay Buccaneers
The Falcons hung with the Seahawks for a whole half in Week 14, but it turned out those were the last meaningful minutes of their 2025 season. With their mathematical elimination, they’re now a ghost ship, drifting toward an offseason where they’ll attempt to deal with a quarterback hell of their own making. But aimless vessels can still crash into things and cause chaos, and Tampa Bay is one collision away from sinking.
Having lost four of their last five, the Bucs are tied with Carolina for the NFC South after squandering a comfortable lead. The two play twice to finish out the season, but for Tampa Bay, this home tilt with Atlanta is a fortune-changer.
If the Bucs beat the Falcons, they could split with the Panthers AND lose to the Dolphins and still have an 88 percent chance at making the playoffs. If they lose, that same scenario leaves them with a 30 percent postseason chance. Even a split with Carolina and a WIN against Miami puts them at about 45 percent.
Obviously, sweeping the Panthers would negate all of that, but does Tampa feel like a team that should bet on the easy thing happening? They need to account for misfortune, and beating the Falcons does that. Whether or not they can depends on how you tilt your head.
The Bucs’ defense allows the sixth-most passing yards a game and fifth-most after the catch, but boasts the best pressure rate in the NFL at 40.2 percent. What’s left of Kirk Cousins is under center for Atlanta, and Tampa has a top-10 run defense to throw at Bijan Robinson. The Bucs also expect Mike Evans back, which helps the offense considerably.
But (this is the Bucaneers, there’s always a but) Cousins has, impossibly, been better under pressure than in a clean pocket, seeing a 13-point improvement in passer rating and throwing for two touchdowns and no picks. Both TDs were against the blitz, where his passer rating is 115. Also, Tampa is among the worst defenses in football at defending passes out of the backfield, allowing the most yards per completion and the third-highest EPA (.33). Guess which running back leads the NFL in yards per reception and is essentially tied for the best EPA per catch.
Carolina Panthers at New Orleans Saints
Here’s a question: Could the Carolina Panthers beat the Carolina Panthers? It’s a perfectly sensible query to anyone who’s watched them play.
This is the Schrödinger’s Cat of NFL teams. Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle wrapped in black, silver and Panther Blue. Defying every attempt at measurement and simultaneously deader than disco and more alive than they’ve ever been.
Carolina can get to the playoffs a few different ways, but the only path devoid of external factors is sweeping Tampa Bay down the stretch. Assuming they don’t, their alternative routes require combinations of certain scenarios, and a loss to the Saints considerably shrinks the number of winning combos.
Assuming a series split with Tampa Bay, here are the two paths before the Panthers:
- If they beat the Saints in Week 15, Carolina is in if the Bucs lose to Atlanta.
- If they beat the Saints in Week 15, Carolina is in if they beat the Seahawks and the Bucs lose to Miami (even if they beat Atlanta).
If they lose to the Saints in Week 15, Carolina is out unless they beat the Seahawks AND the Bucs lose to both Atlanta AND Miami.
For any other 7-6 team, Seattle would be an insurmountable obstacle. But these Panthers have already beaten both the Packers and the Rams, and they get the Seahawks in Carolina. Of course, it’s the same Panthers team that already lost to the Saints once.
Until they take the field, Carolina is both teams, and the only certainty offered is that the more we watch, the less we’ll know.
Detroit Lions at Los Angeles Rams
If the Rams want their playoff bye, beating the Lions keeps things entirely within their control. If they lose, they’ll have to scoreboard watch even if they win their final three games.
If the Lions want the playoffs at all, dropping the Rams on the road makes things a whole lot easier. Win in L.A., and the Lions can split against Chicago and Minnesota and have a 75 percent or better chance at the postseason, so long as they beat the Steelers next week. If they lose to the Rams, they must either win out or pray for chaos, but either way, they’d have to beat the Bears at Soldier Field.
📺 Cross-Conference Games To Watch 📺
Cleveland Browns at Chicago Bears
A week removed from losing the biggest game of their season, and with rematches against the Packers and Lions on the horizon, the Bears are in prime trap territory. The NFC North may be (likely) out of reach, but an emotional hangover could cost Chicago the playoffs altogether.
Cleveland’s pass rush is not to be trifled with, and Shedeur Sanders has the offense in a place where they can punish mistakes. Caleb Williams and Chicago can’t afford to come out flat; their success has made them a prime trophy for teams like Cleveland’s wall.
Green Bay Packers at Denver Broncos
The Packers have things pretty much sewn up, since even if they lose to Chicago in the rematch, they’ll own the NFC North thanks to the division record tiebreaker. The only way they stumble out of first place is if they lose an additional game while Chicago wins out. With Green Bay’s current level of play, the Broncos are the only opponent up to the task.
The Packers are road favorites, but Denver hasn’t lost a home game all year, the only NFL team with that distinction. None of Denver’s visitors has been as good as Green Bay, but mystique is mystique. The Broncos’ defense leads the NFL in sacks by double digits, allows receivers the least amount of separation in the AFC (second in the NFL) and allows the fewest rush yards per play and yards before contact.
Green Bay is largely without worry, but if any team has the horses (sorry) to make Chicago’s rematch with the Packers high stakes, it’s the Broncos.
Indianapolis Colts at Seattle Seahawks
The Colts were on life support; now they’ve got one foot in the grave. This impending loss doesn’t bury them, but it means they have to win out the final three weeks to get in. If the impossible happens and they upset Seattle, they could go 2-1 in any combination and still make the dance. But eyes, analytics and common sense say the Colts are cooked. Their fate was set three weeks ago in Kansas City; it just took until now to be realized.
📺 AFC Games To Watch 📺
Baltimore Ravens at Cincinnati Bengals
Cincinnati’s bad luck is like gravity, but instead of pulling objects together, it forever bends cosmic probabilities toward the most tragic possible outcome.
The Bengals did everything they needed to do against Buffalo, right up to the last moment that the result could still be changed. Then, everything went wrong in exactly the order it had to. Had Cincy escaped, winning the final four games would have given them a better than 80 percent chance at the postseason without external intervention. Now, those four wins would give them a 27 percent shot, so they need help the rest of the way.
A win here would be a massive board shift, as this is effectively an elimination game for both teams. If the Ravens lose, they still have outs, but they’d need to take out the Patriots, Packers and Steelers down the stretch, and the last two of those are road games.
Sunday saw flashes of old Baltimore, with over 200 rushing yards and a run defense that swallowed the Steelers whole, but their 2025 flaws reemerged late to doom them.
The Ravens are 30th in red zone touchdown percentage this season at 44.9 percent, and over their last three games, they’re converting at an anemic 38.5 percent rate. That’s never going to be enough against the Patriots or Packers, so if Baltimore wants in, it’s beat Cincy or bust.
Unfortunately for them, the Bengals’ offense is crackling with all the electricity the Ravens lack, and is miles more dynamic than the Steelers team that beat them in just three quarters.
Los Angeles Chargers at Kansas City Chiefs
No. Hey. No. Don’t do it. Not yet. These are the Chiefs, and these are the Chargers, and until this number says zero, or you see the “E” next to their name, Kansas City is not dead. It’s like we learned nothing from “Game of Thrones.”
Buffalo Bills at New England Patriots
The Pats are in, and a home win against the Bills sews up the division to boot. New England already beat Buffalo on the road and can smell the number one seed, which is an astounding place for a team that was 4-13 last year to find itself.
They have a much easier road to the No. 1 seed than Denver, since they play the Ravens, Jets and Dolphins after this, and wins against New York and Miami would secure the AFC East, even with a loss to Buffalo.
But a season sweep of the Bills that locks up a division title in Week 15 would be the perfect bow on a dream turnaround season. Real “Lexus December To Remember”-type stuff.
Buffalo will make the playoffs regardless of this game’s outcome, so long as they don’t lose to both the Browns AND the Jets, but Josh Allen and his team have ruled the division for five straight years. They haven’t been swept by the Patriots since Tom Brady left. To lose both streaks in one game would feel like a changing of the guard, with Buffalo ceding their position as apex predator without ever having won a ring.
Miami Dolphins at Pittsburgh Steelers
A win means absolutely nothing for Miami, but a Steelers loss puts Mike Tomlin’s team right back in the danger zone.
Pittsburgh finishes with road games in Detroit and Cleveland before hosting the Ravens in Week 18, and assuming a loss to the Lions, the Browns game will either not matter at all or give Mike Tomlin’s boys a safety net. A win against Miami means that if the Steelers beat Cleveland, they’ll have at least a 70 percent playoff chance regardless of what happens in the Ravens game. A loss means they’ll have to beat the Ravens to get in.
The Dolphins have won four straight, and their pride-fueled tear could end up saving Mike McDaniel’s job should it end in a winning record. It’s a long shot, but still on the table.
The Steelers have looked out of gas for weeks, and fall off a cliff in fourth quarters, averaging 73.4 yards (29th) and -.15 EPA per play (26th) in the final 15 minutes. Over their last three games, Pittsburgh has averaged 2.3 fourth-quarter points. Miami is averaging 7.3, and has run for 769 yards and seven touchdowns during their four-game heater, 282 yards and four scores of which have come in the final frame.
There is a very real chance that the Dolphins win this game, both teams miss the playoffs, and both coaches get fired. A perfect encapsulation of the 2025 AFC North.
NFL Week 15 staff picks
