NFL Winners and Losers: Lamar ...

There's not a realistic scenario in which Lamar Jackson doesn't make a lot of money playing football for the rest of his career. There might be 10-15 truly good NFL quarterbacks this season, and at his best Jackson is one of the best in the game.

The "Jackson's-bet-on-himself-is-a-loser" takes you'll hear over the next week will be overstated and premature. He'll get paid. The Washington Commanders made a trade this past offseason so they could pay Carson Wentz $22 million this season. So, yes, Jackson will be just fine.

Here are the rest of the winners and losers from Week 13 of the NFL season:

WINNERS

Buffalo Bills: The Bills didn't play Sunday. But they had to be very happy with what they saw. The Bills needed the Kansas City Chiefs to lose at some point if they wanted a shot at the No. 1 seed in the AFC. The problem was that the Chiefs had the easiest remaining schedule in the NFL heading into Week 13. The Bills really needed the Cincinnati Bengals to win on Sunday.

Geno Smith and the Seattle Seahawks: Losing to the depleted Los Angeles Rams would have been a miserable result for the Seahawks on Sunday. But with less than three minutes remaining, the Rams scored to take a 23-20 lead. The Seahawks were in trouble. Smith wouldn’t let the Seahawks lose.

Smith put together a 10-play, 75-yard drive that he capped with an 8-yard touchdown pass to DK Metcalf with less than a minute to go. The Seahawks escaped with a 27-23 win.

The Eagles' passing game: Over the past few weeks, the explosive passing game the Philadelphia Eagles had early in the season was missing. It seemed the loss of tight end Dallas Goedert to injury was a big problem. The Eagles are fine. They just needed to face the Tennessee Titans' secondary.

The Titans got torched by Eagles receivers DeVonta Smith and A.J. Brown, who got his revenge for the Titans not paying him in the offseason and then trading him to Philadelphia. Smith and Brown both had more than 100 yards with about five minutes left in the third quarter of the 35-10 win. Brown had two touchdowns, breaking out of a mini-slump. Smith scored once. Jalen Hurts had more than 300 yards passing before the end of the third quarter.

A tie for the Commanders and Giants: Everyone feels unsatisfied after a tie, but the New York Giants and Washington Commanders won't pass up a half-win.

The Giants are 7-4-1 and the Commanders are 7-5-1 after the 20-20 tie. Washington came back to tie the game late in regulation. The Giants missed a 58-yard field goal as time expired in overtime.

Mike Tomlin: Tomlin's streak of never having a losing season will likely come to an end. The 5-7 Pittsburgh Steelers could technically win four of their last five games and finish 9-8, but probably not. That doesn't take away from the job Tomlin is doing this season.

LOSERS

A bad Dolphins loss: Losing to the San Francisco 49ers wouldn't have been a bad result for the Miami Dolphins going into Sunday's game. Even losing by 16 wouldn't be the end of the world.

But when Jimmy Garoppolo went down with an ankle injury in the first quarter, leaving the 49ers with Brock Purdy — the last pick of the 2022 NFL draft — at quarterback, it became a game the Dolphins had to win.

Brandon Staley’s defense: It didn’t matter if the Las Vegas Raiders called a run or another pass to Davante Adams. It’s not like the Los Angeles Chargers were going to stop it.

Staley was hired by the Chargers after a great season as the Los Angeles Rams’ defensive coordinator, but his defense has been a problem for much of his time with the Chargers. It was certainly an issue on Sunday. Adams and Josh Jacobs had huge games in a 27-20 Raiders win. Jacobs had 144 rushing yards and Adams had 177 receiving yards. The Chargers still had a shot late in the game but couldn't tie it up on either of their final two possessions.

Jets' goal-line play-calling: The New York Jets are going to regret not running the ball from the 1-yard line.

They had a chance to pull off an enormous road win at the Minnesota Vikings but probably trusted quarterback Mike White too much. The Jets had third-and-goal from the 1-yard line, trailing 27-22 inside of the two-minute warning. On third down they threw an awful fade pass that had no chance.

Those who believed in the Jaguars: Next time, let's make the Jacksonville Jaguars do it a couple times in a row before we buy in.

The Jaguars beat the Ravens last week in a dramatic fourth-quarter comeback, and they were a buzzy team heading into their game against the Detroit Lions. That didn't last long. The Lions were up 23-6 at halftime on their way to an easy 40-14 win. It was an awful performance by Jacksonville to follow up a great win. 

Texans' offense: The Houston Texans wouldn't necessarily want Deshaun Watson back, even if that was an option. A lot more than football goes into that. But when you have Kyle Allen starting at quarterback, there really isn't much reason for Texans fans to show up.

Justin Fields, again: The Chicago Bears should have won on Sunday. They led 16-3. Fields was off to a good start.

But Fields couldn't put it away and couldn't bring the Bears back either. The Packers had a 20-19 lead in the fourth quarter when Fields threw a killer interception. The Packers scored on a 46-yard end-around run by receiver Christian Watson and got the two-point conversion to take a 28-19 lead. It was all but over after that, but Fields threw an interception to seal it.