Just four teams remain in the NFL playoffs as conference championship week is upon us. Divisional Round weekend is one of the best weeks of the year, and it delivered once again on Saturday and Sunday with four games that had just about everything.
To start the weekend off, the Broncos escaped the Bills at Mile High 33-30 in overtime thanks to five Buffalo turnovers. The game had plenty of lasting ramifications, as Bo Nix was knocked out for the rest of the playoffs due to an ankle injury and the Bills fired head coach Sean McDermott after missing another opportunity to get to the Super Bowl.
Late on Saturday night, Rashid Shaheed started Seahawks-49ers with a 95-yard kickoff return for a touchdown on the way to a 41-6 Seattle victory before the Patriots and Rams punched their tickets to championship weekend with wins on Sunday.
Who were the big winners and losers from Divisional weekend? Let’s get into the list.
Winner: The Seahawks are the team to beat
The Seahawks came into the weekend as the biggest favorite on the board, in part because they are a rested and ready No. 1 seed and in part because the 49ers came into the game with a historically long list of injuries. In Week 18, with the top seed and the NFC West on the line, Seattle stifled this same Niners team 13-3 in Santa Clara.
On Saturday night, it quickly became clear that things were going to get worse before they got better for Kyle Shanahan and company. Shaheed’s kickoff return got the Seahawks in front right off the bat, and the 49ers’ first two series ended with a turnover on downs and a fumble.
Kenneth Walker went over 100 yards and scored three touchdowns, Sam Darnold appeared no worse for wear despite his mysterious oblique injury, and Seattle’s defense ran it up to eight consecutive quarters keeping this explosive San Francisco offense out of the end zone in a 41-6 win.
Seattle will get to stay home again in the NFC Championship Game, and it’s going to take a heck of an effort to take Mike Macdonald and company down.
Loser: The Bears run out of miracles
The Bears have made magic all season to capture the NFC North title and the No. 2 seed in Ben Johnson’s first season as head coach, and they pulled off their best Houdini act yet in the Wild Card Round to beat the Packers after trailing 21-3.
On Sunday, after a surprisingly low-scoring game against the Rams in the cold at Soldier Field, the Bears needed one more miracle to keep their season alive on fourth-and-4 with less than a minute to go. Caleb Williams, as he has done all season, came up with the goods and tossed one of the best touchdown passes you’ll ever see to Cole Kmet to tie the game.
OH MY, CALEB WILLIAMS LAUNCHES IT ON FOURTH DOWN
pic.twitter.com/J8FWTHegHh
— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPoints) January 19, 2026
Ben Johnson chose to kick the extra point and head to overtime instead of going for two and the win, and the Bears unfortunately ran out of miracles in overtime. After the defense got one more stop, a miscommunication between Williams and DJ Moore resulted in an interception, and the Rams drove down and won on a Harrison Mevis field goal late in overtime.
Chicago still has plenty to feel good about coming out of this season heading into year two of Johnson and year three of Williams, but this is a tough loss to take in the moment considering the opportunities they created to advance.
Winner: The Broncos find a way again
The Broncos, in similar fashion to the Bears, have also squeaked out win after win at the end of games all season, finishing as the No. 1 seed in the AFC and earning a home game in the Divisional Round. Still, Denver came into the day as an underdog against the No. 6-seeded Buffalo Bills and Josh Allen.
Allen had plenty of moments, both good and bad, in this game, and the Bills ran the ball well throughout the day. However, Sean Payton put together some good drives early on, Bo Nix put together a clutch drive at the end of the fourth quarter, and the Broncos picked up five turnovers throughout the day to squeak out a 33-30 win in overtime.
The last of those five takeaways was the play of the game. After a Broncos punt on the first possession of overtime, Buffalo only needed a field goal to advance. Allen took a deep shot to Brandin Cooks that would have gotten Buffalo in range for the winning kick, but Ja’Quan McMillian ripped it out of his hands for an interception that decided the outcome.
Unfortunately, the Broncos will need to get two wins out of backup quarterback Jarrett Stidham after Nix suffered a fractured ankle on the final drive of the game. The Broncos will have the chance to lean on a very good defense and an elite offensive line as they try to get their hands on a championship.
Loser: CJ Stroud’s unraveling hits rock bottom
The Houston Texans felt like a dangerous team coming into these playoffs because of one of the best defenses in the NFL and an offense that could be explosive, in theory, with CJ Stroud at quarterback. In the Wild Card Round, that ferocious defense was on full display in a 30-6 win over the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Stroud was sloppy in that first-round win, fumbling the ball five times and throwing an ugly red-zone interception. However, if he could clean things up, surely the Texans would be able to compete with the Patriots in the Divisional Round, right?
The Houston defense shut down Drake Maye and the Patriots’ offense for most of the game, but Stroud continued to spiral from the week before with a four-interception first half. That string of turnovers included a very ugly pick-six to Marcus Jones, and Houston was playing catch-up for much of the second half as a result.
Questions about Stroud’s future seem a bit reactionary coming off of two bad games, even if they were really bad. But this meltdown in Foxborough will be remembered the next time he steps into a playoff setting for a Texans team that has still never advanced to a conference championship game.
Winner: The newly well-rounded Patriots
On the other side of Patriots-Texans, New England is showing that it has more ways to win games outside of having Drake Maye outscore opposing offenses. With Milton Williams and Christian Barmore back healthy in the middle of the defensive line, it’s very difficult to run the ball on the Pats and will be for Denver, which doesn’t have an elite run game.
On the outside, Christian Gonzalez and Carlton Davis form one of the best cornerback duos left in the playoffs, and both of them were on fire on Sunday. Gonzalez and Davis were all over a Texans receiving core that didn’t have Nico Collins in this game, and they were a big reason why Stroud struggled so much.
On offense, the Pats struggled to move the ball against arguably the best defense in the NFL, but Maye made a couple of big throws and Kayshon Boutte reeled in an insane one-handed catch for a touchdown to essentially put the game away in the fourth quarter.
Now, the Pats have to go to Denver and play a backup quarterback in Jarrett Stidham to go to the Super Bowl in year one under Mike Vrabel. In classic Vrabel fashion, this Pats team is rounding into form and elevating its play in the trenches as the playoffs roll on.
Loser: The Bills blow it again
In the 2020s, the Bills have been the team on the wrong end of the most gut-wrenching playoff losses out of anyone. Whether it’s the 13 seconds game, the Damar Hamlin fake punt game, the snow game against Joe Burrow, or last year’s crushing AFC Championship Game loss, Josh Allen and the Bills have been through it recently.
But this was Buffalo’s year. The AFC playoffs felt a little different this year, as the Chiefs and Ravens both sat on the sidelines and watched. There was no Patrick Mahomes and no Lamar Jackson in the way of Buffalo’s Super Bowl path. After getting through a tough game against Jacksonville, surely Bo Nix wouldn’t be the man to slow down this Buffalo run, right?
Instead, the Bills went into Denver, Allen turned the ball over five times and Nix hung 33 points in an overtime win for the Broncos. Allen and the Bills have now lost in the Divisional Round in four of the last six seasons, losing in the AFC Championship Game on both occasions which they reached it.
Sean McDermott was fired as a result of the loss, which means the Bills will have a new face leading them in 2026 for the first time since Allen has been the quarterback. Will that be enough to finally get them over the hump?
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