NFL Christmas 2022: Packers, Dolphins playoff chances after Christmas
Merry Christmas and welcome to the NFL’s day of excess. Yes, the league got greedy this year, with a Christmas Day triple-header, and in return Santa came down the chimney with some of the most disappointing teams in the league. Rams-Broncos might as well be coal.
How truly bad is this slate of games?
I sorted all 32 teams by preseason win total over/unders compared to the number of wins every team had going into Week 15. Five of the six most underachieving NFL teams (by this admittedly rudimentary metric) landed in standalone windows on what the league is trying to turn into a showcase day.
But it’s still a full day of NFL football, and two of the matchups (Dolphins-Packers and Cardinals-Buccaneers) are at least interesting, if not as quite as important as they looked on paper when the schedule was released in the spring. It’s still Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers and three teams alive in the playoff hunt.
Of course, people will still watch, and after reports come out about more people tuning in to watch Trace McSorley than Ja Morant, we’ll surely see chest-thumping from the league, the TV networks airing the games and the people who enjoy bragging about which sports are most popular.
So don’t worry about me! I’m sitting at home eating Chinese food and happily logging takeaways on all three games. And because I’m fully leaning into clichés, we’ll put plays and players onto lists naughty and nice.
This post will be updated throughout the day.
The Packers celebrated interceptions on Miami’s final three possessions, the last one by Rasul Douglas (29).
Jasen Vinlove/USA TODAY Sports
Packers at Dolphins
What happened
The Packers fell behind by 10 points in the first half, but shut out the Dolphins in the second half and scored the game’s final 16 points to win 26–20. Miami’s effort to come back was quashed as Tua Tagovailoa interceptions on their final three possessions.
The Dolphins outgained the Packers 376–301, but Green Bay won the turnover battle 4–1, took advantage of short fields, played aggressively on fourth downs (more below) and earned a season-saving win.
What it means for the Packers
Green Bay improves to 7–8 and keeps its hopes alive for at least another week. The team was handed a lifeline Saturday with every competitor for an NFC wild-card spot (Giants, Commanders, Lions and Seahawks) losing. The Packers have now won three straight and pulled into a tie for eighth in the NFC, just a half-game behind Washington and 1.5 back of New York.
If they win out with a pair of home games against the Vikings and Lions, a playoff berth is eminently possible. Of course that won’t be easy, but it also wouldn’t be the first time Rodgers ran the table to end the regular season.
This also makes the rest of the season more pleasant in Green Bay. A loss would have put conversations into hyperdrive about supplanting Rodgers with Jordan Love, but a win delays the inevitable conversations about whether the future Hall of Famer will return next season. For now, he can keep setting his aim on a 12th playoff berth in 15 years as the starter. The Packers have not been the same team they were in their three straight 13-win campaigns preceding this one, but here’s guessing neither the Vikings nor the 49ers would be thrilled to see them roll into town on wild-card weekend.
What it means for the Dolphins
Miami’s fourth straight loss has knocked the early-season darling down to 8–7. The Dolphins have fallen into the AFC’s No. 7 seed, but remain one game clear of any other team chasing them for one of the final spots (a long list: Patriots, Jets, Steelers and whichever of the Jaguars or Titans does not win the AFC South). The Patriots, Jets and Titans all lost on Sunday. And as much as the Dolphins’ once-very-promising season has been derailed, can you really say you feel better about any of those three teams than Miami right now?
The Dolphins are trying to get back to the playoffs for the first time since 2016, and still have a good chance to do it. If we’re searching for reasons to feel O.K., the Dolphins have had a streaky season, winning their first three, losing the next three, winning five more and now dropping four in a row. Maybe they can regroup and turn it around again (granted, that first losing streak came with backup quarterbacks in). Also: The first three games of this current streak were against no slouches (49ers, Bills and Chargers). But it’s tough to right the ship after losing four in a row (even if we remember the Rams went 0-for-November last year and still got a trophy at the end of the year).
The Dolphins can still beat the Patriots and Jets the next two weeks to roll into the playoffs at 10–7, but they have lost the shine they had in the season’s first two months when Mike McDaniel was a leading Coach of the Year candidate.
Nice list
The Packers’ aggression on fourth downs: Matt LaFleur coached like a team down to its last game. The Packers scored a touchdown on their second drive on a fourth-and-2, and for the game they went 3-for-5 trying to keep possessions alive. One of the misses was a fake punt deep in their own territory where they may have been better off just trying to pick it up with their offense. But I appreciate the spirit, if not the execution.
Packers returner Keisean Nixon: The Dolphins kicked a field goal on the first possession of the game, and Nixon answered with a 93-yard return to the 9-yard line. He left the game with a groin injury, but did his part to keep Green Bay in it early.
Tyreek Hill blocking way down field on Jaylen Waddle’s 84-yard touchdown catch and run: More like “running down the field with Waddle” than blocking, per se, but it still got the job done, accompanying his pal to the end zone.
Jarran Reed’s hand strength: Reed made a really nice play stripping Raheem Mostert in the first half—getting a hand on the ball and just ripping it out even as he was going down to the ground, then recovering it himself. Great play.
The ageless Marcedes Lewis!: The 17-year vet scored a touchdown on the aforementioned fourth-and-goal, and then made a lunging 31-yard grab on a wheel route up the left sideline (though Mike Perieria said it could have been reversed to an incomplete pass if challenged).
Not quite, but good tweet. (Side note: I loved this game, and it was the reason I bought a DreamCast instead of whatever version of PlayStation was out at the time. Probably a mistake by high school Mitch.)
Naughty list
Tua’s back-to-back-to-back interceptions: The first, by Jaire Alexander, came on the first play of the drive after Miami had taken over after a takeaway. The second, by De’Vondre Campbell, came on the ninth play of a sustained drive—the Dolphins took over down by three with 11:45 to go in the game, Tagovailoa was marching his team down the field until Campbell walked right into the passing lane for an easy-looking pick on a seam pass intended for Mostert. Rasul Douglas sealed the game with the third one on another poor decision you can witness for yourself below.
Miami’s botched kickoff: It came on Miami’s second kickoff of the game, so it was likely prompted by Nixon’s long return. It was weirdly underdiscussed on the broadcast, but it was either a squib kick that went awry and hit a guy, or an attempted onside kick where you try to bonk it off the front line. It didn’t come close to working. Either way, the miscue gave Green Bay the ball at its own 46. The Packers took advantage of a second straight short field, which led to the Lewis touchdown and evened the game 10–10. Whatever the intent, the execution left a lot to be desired.
Rodgers’s deep balls: This may have topped the list, had the Dolphins not melted away. Christian Watson had a step on his defender on a fourth-and-1 early in the second quarter, but Rodgers sailed it over him. He had another deep ball in the second quarter that was in and out of Xavien Howards’s hands and probably should have been picked off on the Packers’ side of the field. He then threw an interception to Kader Kohou on a ball that was underthrown into the end zone. (Packers fans probably wanted a push-off called against Kohou, but the broadcast defended the no-call.)
Fortunately for the Packers, these plays will mostly be forgotten rather than living in infamy as the plays that ended the season.
