Jared Goff had an early screen pass intercepted deep in Detroit Lions territory, and a deep ball from his own end zone picked off later. Sam Darnold missed throw after throw for the Minnesota Vikings.

The final, most pivotal game of the NFL regular season, the first between teams with 14-2 records, was not the anticipated showcase for the most dominant division in modern league history. But the ramifications were massive just the same.

The Pick Six column sorts through the fallout from the Lions’ 31-9 victory, which secured Detroit the NFC North title and a first-round playoff bye as the NFC’s top seed, while Minnesota is relegated to the fifth seed and a tougher road to reach Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans.

What does the first-round bye mean for Detroit? How do the Vikings and the five other wild cards stack up against the best wild-card teams ever? Should the league change its seeding system out of fairness? Did the Los Angeles Rams get it right by resting starters instead of trying to dodge the mighty NFC North’s runner-up? Did Green Bay commit self-sabotage?

The Pick Six column answers those questions and more as the regular season turns to Black Monday and, soon, the wild-card round. Our full menu:

• Lions saved? Vikings doomed?
• Trading for O’Connell? Let’s talk
• Burrow’s hinting awakens echoes
• What makes sense for Patriots now
• Setting record straight on Barkley
• 2-minute drill: Bucs’ historic offense

1. The wild-card matchups are set. Let’s sort through the fallout

• Lions saved: Had the Lions lost by no more than two touchdowns Sunday, they would have been the greatest wild-card team since the 1970 AFL-NFL merger, at least by point differential. But because of their injuries, they would not have compared favorably to the team atop that list.

The Super Bowl-winning 1997 Denver Broncos finished 12-4 with a +185 scoring differential (Detroit was +200 entering Sunday), but they were second to Kansas City in the AFC West.

Unlike the current Lions, that Broncos team was incredibly healthy. Twenty of 22 Denver starters from Week 1 also started in the wild-card round. One of the newcomers to the lineup after the season opener was Hall of Fame left tackle Gary Zimmerman, who came out of retirement in September.

Compare that to the Lions, who have 17 players on injured reserve and lost another defensive starter Sunday night when first-round rookie cornerback Terrion Arnold was carted off the field with a foot injury.

The Lions won’t have any Hall of Famers coming out of retirement to help their playoff push, but they did welcome back linebacker Alex Anzalone on Sunday, to great effect. They could get running back David Montgomery back soon. They won’t lose any more players in a wild-card game, at least.

Even with the Lions’ injuries, winning two games at home after a one-week break feels so much more attainable than, say, heading on the road for a bad-weather game at Philadelphia or even returning to Minnesota.

“They hadn’t had a bye since Week 5, and it felt they were really limping,” an exec from another team said, “so this was a huge win for them.”

The job Lions defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn did in holding Minnesota to its third-worst offensive EPA game of the Kevin O’Connell era (minus-16.3, per TruMedia) went beyond Darnold simply having an off night. Detroit seemed extra physical with the Vikings’ receivers but didn’t incur penalties the way the Lions did when playing with aggression against Seattle’s wideouts in a Week 4 shootout victory. Can that carry over?

• How Vikings compare: Losing to Detroit by three touchdowns dropped Minnesota’s point differential to plus-100 for the season. That ranks 61st out of 249 wild-card teams since 1970, per Pro Football Reference — pretty good, but not up there with most of the wild-card teams that won it all.

The table below shows where the 2024 wild cards rank in regular-season point differential among the last 249 wild-card entrants. I’ve included the seven wild-card teams that won Super Bowls and the three that got there and lost.

Four of the seven wild-card teams to win Super Bowls ranked among the top 27 in regular-season point differential. Jim Plunkett’s 1980 Oakland Raiders and Eli Manning’s 2007 New York Giants won it all despite ranking near the bottom, with the slumping 2024 Pittsburgh Steelers.

The Packers, Chargers and Broncos rank higher in differential than the Vikings, despite Minnesota’s superior record (14-3).

After watching Darnold struggle Sunday, that doesn’t feel so wrong.

The Vikings were coming off a loss to Detroit when they traveled to face the Rams and lost a Thursday night game in Week 8. Teams are 6-10 with a minus-108 point differential in their next game after playing the Lions this season. Three of the six wins were against New England, another was against Chicago and another was against Dallas without Dak Prescott.

Is there anything to the post-Lions hangover? Minnesota has extra time to prepare for the Rams this time. The Vikings-Rams game isn’t until Monday night.

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• System failure? The Vikings finished three games better than the Rams in the standings, and the gap appears larger when measured by point differential. At minus-19, the Rams tied for the sixth-worst point differential of any division winner in NFL history. (The 2024 Houston Texans are 19th on that list with a differential of 0.)

Where’s the outrage? The Vikings’ rough showing against the Lions might quiet complaints over a 14-3 team heading on the road in the wild-card round.

“I don’t think you rectify it,” an exec from a non-playoff team said. “It creates too much great conversation.”

Four of the five division winners with the worst regular-season point differentials won their home playoff game: the 2010 Seahawks, 2011 Broncos, 2016 Texans and 2014 Panthers. Two others among the 20 worst (the 2008 Cardinals and 2011 Giants) reached the Super Bowl, with the Giants (minus-6 differential) winning it all.

Had the Lions, perceived as one of the NFL’s best teams all season, lost Sunday and wound up visiting L.A., perhaps there would be more support for reconsidering the current playoff format. It’s a tough break for the Vikings but also an outlier — the product of a historic division.

• Rams didn’t care about the big, bad North: Led by the 15-2 Lions, 14-3 Vikings and 11-6 Packers, the 2024 NFC North proved to be the most dominant division in more than a half-century. Teams from the North outscored their non-division opponents by 384 points across 44 games. That per-game average (8.7) ranked first among 376 divisions since 1970, also per Pro Football Reference.

The Rams could have avoided the North in the wild-card round by beating Seattle in Week 18, drawing Washington instead. But coach Sean McVay prioritized resting starters, including 36-year-old quarterback Matthew Stafford, for good reason. The Rams played the Lions tough on the road in Week 1, falling 26-20 in overtime. They beat Minnesota 30-20 in Week 8.

“I like McVay’s whole thing,” a coach from another team said. “He’s like, ‘No matter what, we are going to have to be a really good version of ourself at home. I can’t worry about other people. I need to get our health optimized.’”

• As for the Packers: While McVay felt time off would help his aging quarterback be his best for the playoffs, his former understudy, Matt LaFleur, figured his young quarterback, Jordan Love, could use the reps in Week 18. Both teams had already secured playoff spots, so there was only the potential for seeding at stake.

As things turned out, Green Bay was going to be the seventh seed in the NFC with a win or defeat Sunday. But with the team suffering key injuries to Christian Watson (likely out for the season) and Love (should be OK for playoffs), and with LaFleur admittedly botching game management as Chicago claimed a walk-off victory at Lambeau Field, this game had ramifications.

The already bad optics appeared worse after Bears special teams coach Richard Hightower, who worked with LaFleur in Washington more than a decade ago, schemed a punt-return touchdown with an old trick — the misdirection return.

It’s all good for Green Bay if the team wins in the playoffs, but narratives surrounding teams can change quickly, especially in the postseason. The Packers and Vikings could find that out quickly. The NFC North’s record point differential isn’t going to help LaFleur manage games or Darnold throw more accurately.

2. Fox’s Jay Glazer suggested teams could seek to acquire Kevin O’Connell from the Vikings in the offseason. Here’s why the idea seems credible within the league.

Glazer’s reports are interesting because he’s selective, weighing in only on the big stuff. Some dismissed when Glazer suggested years ago that the New York Giants might trade young superstar receiver Odell Beckham Jr., but then the Giants did trade Beckham.

Glazer isn’t saying O’Connell will be traded. He’s saying the idea is on other teams’ radar.

Why would other teams think they might have a shot at acquiring O’Connell, who is beloved in Minnesota and seems to love coaching the Vikings? Because other teams think three things as O’Connell enters the final year of his contract in 2025:

• That O’Connell deserves outsized credit for the team’s success, not just for his work with Darnold, but also for his hiring of defensive coordinator Brian Flores and his overall success in the absence of strong drafting;

• That O’Connell is in a great position to seek additional power under terms of any new deal;

• That Vikings ownership might not grant O’Connell that kind of power and/or the type of money O’Connell might command elsewhere.

Teams therefore sense the potential for opportunity.

There is another part of the equation that must be discussed.

How executives from other teams view Vikings general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah informs how they see O’Connell’s situation in Minnesota. Many longtime NFL evaluators scoffed privately when the Vikings hired Adofo-Mensah, a former Wall Street commodities trader who played basketball at Princeton and did not have a traditional scouting background, as their GM. Adofo-Mensah then took the lead in the search that resulted in O’Connell’s hiring.

Those executives now see the Vikings’ struggles in the draft as justifying their skepticism. If they were in O’Connell’s position, they would use their leverage to forge a direct link with ownership.

“Which business guy do you want making your evaluation: the GM or the owner?” a veteran coach asked.

How coaches and executives from other teams view things is interesting and can be instructive, but it isn’t what matters. O’Connell will decide what’s important to him. How things shake out will reveal to what extent his view aligns with the views held by other football people in the league.

3. The Bengals missed the playoffs with superstars Joe Burrow, Ja’Marr Chase and Trey Hendrickson enjoying elite individual seasons. Was it only a temporary setback or is Burrow on the Carson Palmer frustration train?

Finishing 9-8 and out of the playoffs with Burrow tossing 43 touchdown passes, Chase topping 1,700 yards and Hendrickson collecting 17.5 sacks once would have seemed impossible. It happened.

The Bengals spent Sunday hoping Kansas City and the Jets would win so they could reach the playoffs. It had to be a powerless feeling as the Chiefs rested starters and lost big, ending Cincinnati’s season.

Burrow might feel similarly powerless entering an offseason that could be pivotal for the Bengals. He’s lobbying for the team to keep receiver Tee Higgins in particular.

“You don’t want to make a living out of letting great players walk away,” Burrow said Tuesday. “That’s why you try to get those deals done early.”

The Bengals are not known for getting deals done early. Burrow knows this. He wants to change this.

Burrow doubled down Saturday after keeping alive the Bengals’ playoff hopes, if only temporarily, with a victory over the Steelers.

What happens if Higgins leaves and the Bengals regress on offense? What happens if their defense, which has fallen off after safety Jessie Bates, tackle D.J. Reader and others departed, continues to slide? It ranked 29th in EPA per play this season despite a late rally against poor offenses. (Update: Defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo was fired Monday, sources told The Athletic.)

Palmer made 99 regular-season and postseason starts with the Bengals before growing so frustrated with the organization that he held out and forced a trade. Burrow is 76 starts into his career and hinting at some frustration over the team letting Higgins reach the brink of free agency, with Chase due for a market-setting extension.

The chart above compares the career timelines for Burrow and Palmer, showing how many games above and below .500 they were along the way.

Palmer generally enjoyed strong weaponry until No. 2 receiver T.J. Houshmandzadeh departed as a free agent in 2009, a year after top wideout Chad Ochocinco tried to force the team into trading him. The current situation is not the same, but what happens with Chase and Higgins surely will affect Burrow’s outlook on the future.

4. Here’s what makes sense for the Patriots after they moved on from Jerod Mayo following one season.

The Patriots were not the first franchise to have an in-house head-coach-in-waiting for when their legendary power coach retired or was let go.

The Seattle Seahawks did something similar when they named the younger Jim Mora as their coach-in-waiting under Mike Holmgren. The team owner at the time, the late Paul Allen, preferred hiring high-profile power coaches. But he went with Mora to succeed Holmgren in 2009. The arrangement lasted a single season before Allen landed a bigger name: Pete Carroll.

When Patriots owner Robert Kraft designated Mayo as Bill Belichick’s replacement in waiting, I questioned whether Mayo would become a placeholder for an owner in transition. Kraft likes taking big swings, but after tiring of Belichick’s autocratic approach, his priority for the 2024 season was simply regaining control of his franchise. Hiring Mayo let him do that.

Two things Kraft did not expect happened in the meantime.

• Mayo struggled in his first season on the job, making it appear he might need years to develop.

• Kraft’s own Hall of Fame candidacy faltered amid what was perceived as efforts by him to prime his chances at Belichick’s expense.

Kraft turns 84 in June. His team has gone six seasons without winning a playoff game. The Patriots have only one playoff appearance in their past five seasons. From Kraft’s standpoint, waiting to see whether Mayo develops into a good coach could feel riskier than plugging in a finished product — especially when multiple finished products are available.

Mike Vrabel was the obvious candidate to replace Belichick one year ago, except for the fact that Kraft had already committed to Mayo.

Vrabel remains available and would seem to fit well.

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Carroll is another intriguing possibility. He’s a power coach with people skills, an unwaveringly positive outlook and unfinished business in New England.

Kraft hired Carroll to replace Bill Parcells in 1997. Carroll posted a 27-21 (.563) record with two playoff appearances. Kraft fired him and later lamented that he hadn’t given Carroll the power the coach needed to shape the roster. Kraft had regretted giving so much power to Parcells, so he withheld it from his next coach, Carroll. He regretted not giving Carroll a fair shake.

Carroll turns 74 in September. Some might consider that too old for the job. What does the 83-year-old Kraft think?

Mike McCarthy is another potential candidate who could make sense for Kraft or any owner looking for a finished product. McCarthy’s contract with the Cowboys expires Jan. 14. He could sign an extension or become available.

Owners sometimes pivot from one extreme to the next. Kraft did that when he pivoted from Parcells to Carroll. He did it again when he pivoted from Carroll to Belichick, and again when he pivoted from Belichick to Mayo. With Mayo out, it’s difficult to imagine Kraft making another speculative bet on an unproven candidate. He’ll want a surer thing and will find it in Vrabel, Carroll, McCarthy or another seasoned coach.

“Kraft was not going to fire Mayo unless he gets Vrabel, Carroll or some other clear upgrade,” an exec from another team said.

5. The Philadelphia Eagles rested Saquon Barkley in Week 18, leaving him 100 yards short of Eric Dickerson’s single-season rushing record. That makes comparing them easier.

The date was Nov. 11, 1984, and Eric Dickerson was facing a Chicago Bears defense allowing 79 rushing yards per game and 3.4 per carry, both league-leading figures. Buddy Ryan was Chicago’s defensive coordinator. Dan Hampton and Leslie Frazier were injured, but this was still an elite Bears defense with Mike Singletary, Richard Dent, Steve McMichael, Otis Wilson and Gary Fencik in the lineup that day.

Dickerson, in his second season, rushed for 149 yards and two fourth-quarter touchdowns in a 29-13 Rams victory.

Also that season, Dickerson had a 120-yard game against Lawrence Taylor’s New York Giants. He was the only 100-yard rusher against the Cleveland Browns, meaning Dickerson hit triple digits against formidable defenses coached by Buddy Ryan (Bears), Belichick (Giants) and Marty Schottenheimer (Browns).

These were among the signature performances for Dickerson on his way to 2,105 yards, which broke the record O.J. Simpson set in 14 games and remains untouched with Barkley sitting out Sunday.

If you didn’t see Dickerson play, you might not realize the gifts he brought to the game. He stood 6-foot-3, weighed 230 pounds, clocked 4.4 seconds in the 40 and had what other great running backs — Simpson, Jim Brown — called elite vision. The 9.4-second time he ran to win Texas’ high school state title in the 100-yard dash converts to 10.28 over 100 meters. That’s the time Tyreek Hill ran to win the 2012 IAAF World Junior Championships.

Dickerson had more rushing yards than anyone through the first 16, 32, 48, 64, 80, 96, 112 and 128 games of a career. He slipped to second behind Barry Sanders through 144 games and retired after playing 146.

Dickerson did these things in an era when top backs got more carries against defenses that sold out to stop the run, under rules allowing greater violence.

“He was hit so hard on every play, it almost sounded like they had turned up the microphones on the field,” Rams coach John Robinson said after the 1984 game against the Bears.

For Barkley to swerve into Dickerson territory even briefly is impressive.

Dickerson, like Barkley this season, played 16 games in 1984. Both backs ran behind talented, mostly veteran blockers led by acclaimed line coaches (Jeff Stoutland for the Eagles, Hudson Houck for the Rams). Dickerson’s interior linemen that season combined for 17 career Pro Bowls. Robinson was the perfect coach for him.

The table below shows how Dickerson and Barkley stack up in their signature seasons. It ranks their yardage totals from highest to lowest by opponent. The numbers in parenthesis show where each single-game total ranked against that particular opponent in that season. I’ve excluded 2024 Week 18 to keep the number of games equal.

Dickerson had seven games in which his yardage total was the most that a given opponent allowed all season. Barkley also had seven such games, led by his 255-yard game against Dickerson’s former team, the Rams, and a 176-yard game against his own former team, the Giants.

Barkley was the only 100-yard rusher against Baltimore. No other runner topped 63 yards against the Ravens.

The average (3.6) and median (2.0) rankings for Barkley’s performances were higher than Dickerson’s average (3.9) and median (2.5). He also had the edge in yards per carry (5.8 to 5.6). Dickerson had a 2-1 lead in 200-yard games and shined against those legendary defenses. His record will stand for at least another season.

6. Two-minute drill: Baker Mayfield and Bucs offense

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have the only offense since at least 2000 to meet or exceed the following marks over a full season:

• 28 points per game (28.6 for Tampa)
• 6.0 yards per play (6.2)
• 65 percent red zone touchdown rate (66.7)
• 50 percent third-down conversion rate (50.9)

There have been 798 offenses since 2000.

Thirty-nine of the 798 scored at least 28 points per game on offense (excludes points scored on defense/special teams).

Thirty of those 39 averaged at least 6.0 yards per play.

Eighteen of those 30 converted red zone possessions to touchdowns at least 65 percent of the time.

Of those 18, only 2024 Tampa Bay converted at least half of its third-down tries.

This was an offense featuring a first-time coordinator (Liam Coen) and a quarterback (Baker Mayfield) all 32 teams could have signed in free agency multiple times in recent years.

Posting that type of production while reaching the playoffs and making sure franchise icon Mike Evans reached 1,000 yards for an 11th consecutive year, tying Jerry Rice’s record, made Week 18 a great one for the Buccaneers, even if they struggled early in their 27-19 victory over New Orleans.

• Young and Stroud revisited: The Houston Texans are headed for the playoffs, but they cannot be happy about quarterback C.J. Stroud’s sophomore slump. The Carolina Panthers are finished for the season with a 5-12 record, but they must be thrilled with where their second-year quarterback, Bryce Young, appears headed after passing for 251 yards and scoring five total touchdowns (three passing, two rushing) in a 44-38 overtime victory over the Falcons on Sunday.

“(Young) looks more comfortable and is making better decisions, like the edge is off him,” an exec from another team said.

No one could have seen this coming when Young, the first pick in the 2023 draft, and Stroud, the second pick, entered this season, and especially not after Young was benched following Week 2. But as the table below shows, Young has outproduced Stroud over the final nine games of the regular season. He completed 25 of 34 passes for 251 yards against the Falcons.

I’ll be interested to see what the Texans do in the offseason if Stroud and their offense struggle in a one-and-done playoff situation. They’ve gone from having the hottest young quarterback and one of the hottest coordinators in Bobby Slowik to being a team that wins on defense, in spite of its offense. Things change quickly in the NFL. Young and the Panthers can attest to that.

• Seattle’s expensive win: Geno Smith took tons of punishment during the season as the Seahawks leaned heavily into the pass behind a shaky offensive line and without a reliable ground game.

While a case could be made that the approach contributed to Seattle slipping in the offensive rankings and missing the playoffs, Smith got his reward Sunday. He collected $6 million in incentives after hitting career highs for passing yards and completion rate while the team won 10 games.

That last part — winning 10 games — was supposed to protect the team from Smith piling up stats in a less-than-meaningful context. But the 10 wins weren’t enough for Seattle to reach the playoffs. The Seahawks barely got their 10th win to finish 10-7 even though the Rams were resting key starters Sunday.

This was about the worst way Smith could collect on the incentives, in other words. But a deal is a deal.

• Jets by far most improved offense: Even before Aaron Rodgers tossed four touchdown passes Sunday, the Jets ranked No. 1 by a wide margin in year-over-year gain for offensive EPA per game.

The table below shows the top five teams by this measure. All but the Buccaneers were poor on offense last season. That makes Tampa Bay’s appearance on this list remarkable. The Bucs were good enough on offense last season for offensive coordinator Dave Canales to land a head-coaching job with Carolina, and they still improved a tick more than Carolina did.

(Photo of Dan Campbell, right, and Kevin O’Connell: Kevin Sabitus / Getty Images)