Key takeaways and analysis from Week 14 in the NFL

Sunday Rundown recaps the most important developments from the day's action and examines their significance moving forward.

Don't let them get hot

Nobody will want to see the Rams in the playoffs.

It's been an up-and-down year to this point, with L.A. seeming varying levels of contender and pretender depending on the week. But the aura of a sneaky dark horse has remained throughout. Sunday's shootout win over the Bills is evidence of that sky-high ceiling.

Josh Allen bolstered his MVP case by throwing for 342 yards, running for another 82, and becoming the first quarterback in NFL history to have three passing touchdowns and three rushing touchdowns in one game. Somehow, that wasn't enough.

The Rams' offense, as we saw this week, can be just as good when healthy and firing on all cylinders. Matthew Stafford was nearly perfect while throwing for a season-high 320 yards and two touchdowns. An 11-of-15 rate on third downs sums up the consistency with which the veteran quarterback found Puka Nacua and Cooper Kupp on key plays throughout the day.

Now 7-6, the Rams may still seem like a long shot to get into the postseason. Don't get too caught up in their 33% playoff odds, though. L.A. is still in control of its own destiny in the NFC West. Having already secured a win over the first-place Seahawks, who hold a one-game division lead, the Rams can take the tiebreaker with a win in the regular-season finale.

It may take a perfect finish with the Seahawks also peaking, but that's well within the realm of possibility if these are the Rams we get going forward. This team knows as well as anyone that making a run is all about getting hot at the right time.

Zero regrets

Kirk Cousins returning to Minnesota could have been the ultimate revenge game. There's nothing quite like showing your old team that they made a mistake by letting you go.

Unfortunately for the Falcons quarterback, that's simply not the case here. The Vikings getting their 11th win of the season - a feat accomplished just once in six years with Cousins - validates the decision-making process almost as much as the eye test.

Cousins, who joined Atlanta on a four-year, $160-million deal in March, looks like a shell of his former self. While a 344-yard day might seem impressive on the stat sheet, another two interceptions gives him eight during the Falcons' four-game losing streak. He's the first quarterback since Brett Favre in 2005 to throw that many picks while being held without a touchdown over a four-game stretch of regular-season play, according to ESPN Stats and Info.

Sam Darnold, meanwhile, continues to outplay the one-year, $10-million contract he signed to replace Cousins in Minnesota. Turnovers and sacks have been problematic at times, but his performance against Atlanta was the perfect example of what this offense can be when he does avoid the negative plays. Darnold completed 22 of 28 passes on the day, throwing for 347 yards, five touchdowns, and no interceptions. He's the first Vikings quarterback to post a five-score game since Daunte Culpepper in 2004.

Going from Cousins to Darnold is the primary reason why so many in the football world considered the Vikings to be the clear underdog in an ultra-competitive NFC North. The Falcons were seen as a likely contender after their aggressive move to address the quarterback position. As always, nobody knows anything.

Cousins flopping in Atlanta while his former team only gets better should serve as a cautionary tale for teams weighing the possibility of paying an aging quarterback coming off a major injury. The best deals are often the ones you don't make.

Quick slants

An extremely Chiefs win

The Chiefs secured their ninth straight AFC West title with a 19-17 victory over the Chargers on Sunday night. That now means 10 of 12 wins this season have been of the one-score variety. That's never been a sustainable model for success, but these are the Chiefs we're talking about. They've kind of perfected it.

The non-Chiefs fans of the world are presumably desperate to see this team fail in the playoffs. That wishful thinking, combined with the fact that they've had to eke out wins like this, will lead to some predictions of their demise. We should know better by now, though, shouldn't we? This isn't a matter of getting lucky. The Chiefs are just that good when it matters most.

Eagles starting slow

A win is a win. In that sense, there's little reason to overthink the Eagles needing to sweat out their game against the Panthers. But this habit of stumbling out of the gate is not going to fly in the playoffs. A scoreless opening 15 minutes against the NFL's No. 32 scoring defense leaves the Eagles stuck on 17 first-quarter points this year. If that seems bad, it's because it is. It's the worst total in the league. Philly has all the pieces to win a Super Bowl, but these slow starts can't continue. Jumping ahead and then leaning on the run game throughout is the clear recipe for success with this offense. Being forced to play from behind and go pass-heavy against better opponents could lead to more postseason disappointment.

Key coaching blunders

Josh Allen's heroic efforts may not have been wasted were it not for two curious decisions late in the fourth quarter. First, Sean McDermott opted to accept a holding call that gave the Rams a second (albeit longer) chance on third down in Bills territory while ahead by three points. Maybe the Rams go for it on fourth-and-6 and convert, as they did on the eventual fourth-and-5 after an 11-yard gain on the third-down repeat. But giving them two shots at it seemed misguided either way. Then, with the Bills at the goal line trailing by two scores, a first-down QB sneak stopped short led to McDermott calling a timeout with 1:02 to play. Wasting a timeout in that spot effectively gave Buffalo no time to get the ball back after an unsuccessful onside kick. Game management doesn't need to be this difficult.

Bad teams stay bad

This should have been the week the Jets finally got back in the win column. Aaron Rodgers had recorded his first 300-yard game in 35 outings when they had the Dolphins on the ropes late in the fourth quarter. But there's always time for this team to make another inexcusable mistake. Davante Adams allowing himself to be pushed out of bounds after a third-down back-shoulder catch stopped the clock at 52 seconds. The Jets would have been able to run the clock almost all the way down before their go-ahead field goal if he had gone down in the field of play, as Miami was out of timeouts. Instead, the Dolphins were gifted enough time to march down the field and answer with a game-tying kick. An eight-play touchdown drive in overtime ensured the Jets wouldn't see the ball again, dropping them to 3-10 on the season and officially knocking them out of playoff contention for the 14th straight year.

Too little, too late

The 49ers team we saw this week looked a lot like the one that was competing for Super Bowls for the better part of the past five years. Injuries haven't done them any favors, to be sure, but where has this been all season? It took all of two quarters for the 49ers to put away the Bears on Sunday afternoon. San Francisco entered halftime up 24-0 on the scoreboard and 320-4 in the yardage battle. The second half was similarly one-sided en route to a 38-13 final. This team has everything it needs to make some noise in the playoffs, but it'd take a miracle to get there. At 6-7, running the table likely wouldn't even be enough.

Myth busted?

Anyone hoping the Bears would get the "fired coach boost" from dumping Matt Eberflus is going to be disappointed. Chicago was a familiar brand of bad in the first game with Thomas Brown as the interim coach, barely putting up a fight in San Francisco. The Bears are going to need a full reset with a new staff to get this thing back on track. They'll have to hope the job is every bit as attractive as they think it is in the upcoming coaching cycle. This team can't afford to make another mistake in that spot.

A costly win

In-game tanking isn't a real thing in the NFL, so nobody should be surprised to see bottom-feeders going all out for wins. There's no reason for players and coaches to play for draft position. That being said, Sunday's win over Tennessee was still less than ideal looking to the future in Jacksonville. The Jaguars getting their third victory of the season tentatively sees them fall from No. 1 to No. 5 in the projected 2025 draft order. An early run on quarterbacks could push another coveted player down the board, but the real value in Jacksonville getting the top pick would be shopping it to a QB-needy team. Stockpiling assets to rebuild the organization would be a lot more valuable than a meaningless win in December.

A two-horse race?

Jacksonville's victory leaves the Raiders and Giants as the NFL's only two-win teams through 14 weeks. Las Vegas currently holds the No. 1 pick based on the strength-of-schedule tiebreaker, but it's close enough that it could flip back and forth down the stretch. And we probably shouldn't be counting on one of these teams to get a win to create some separation. The Raiders figure to be starting Desmond Ridder for the last four weeks after losing Aidan O'Connell to a knee injury in Sunday's loss to the Bucs. The Giants, meanwhile, have proved that it doesn't matter which of their signal-callers is under center - points are tough to come by. These teams desperately need to get it right with their opportunity to draft a new quarterback.

Stat of the week