By ROB MAADDI AP Pro Football Writer
The Colts became mistake-prone. The Packers wasted opportunities. The Lions got pushed around. The Chiefs fell out of a playoff spot.
Both conference leaders looked ordinary Sunday and other top teams had rough games.
The NFL looks more wide open every week.
Even some winning teams struggled along the way to victory.
The Chargers let the lowly Titans hang around in a one-score game. The Jaguars needed to stop a 2-point conversion to secure an overtime victory over the Raiders. The Broncos had to rally to beat the Texans, who lost C.J. Stroud to a concussion in the first half. The Patriots held off the Falcons because of a missed extra point. The Bears blew a 14-point lead in the final two minutes against the Bengals but came back thanks to a woeful defense.
Week 9 demonstrated again why there are no dominant teams in the NFL this season. The better teams have shown flaws. The bad teams are awful. There’s plenty of parity overall.
Josh Allen and the Buffalo Bills had the best week, beating Patrick Mahomes and Kansas City 28-21. Buffalo’s defense held Mahomes to a career-worst 44.1% completion rate. Allen continued his mastery of the Chiefs in the regular season with his fifth straight win against them. But the Bills have lost to Kansas City in the playoffs four times in five years. Both teams may have to go the wild-card route to meet again in January.
The Bills (6-2) trail surprising New England (7-2) in the AFC East, already lost to the Patriots and have difficult games in the second half.
The Chiefs (5-4) are third in the AFC West and also have a tough schedule coming up.
The key to success for Indianapolis (7-2) this season has been ball security. The Colts had four turnovers in the first eight games before six giveaways in a 27-20 loss at Pittsburgh. Daniel Jones threw three interceptions and lost two fumbles, exposing some flaws for the first time this season.
The Steelers (5-3) snapped a two-game losing streak and extended their lead over Baltimore in the AFC North to two games.
Green Bay (5-2-1) may have been looking ahead to a playoff rematch against the defending Super Bowl champion Eagles (6-2) next Monday night because the offense didn’t show up to face Carolina, a 13-point underdog.
After dicing up Pittsburgh’s secondary last week, Jordan Love only led the Packers into the end zone once in a 16-13 loss at Lambeau Field. Green Bay’s first three trips inside the red zone resulted in one field goal.
Outside of a convincing win against Detroit in Week 1 and last week in Pittsburgh, the Packers haven’t been impressive. They lost to the Browns in Week 3, tied Dallas and needed to rally to beat Arizona.
The Lions (5-3) were 8 1/2-point favorites at home against Minnesota but the Vikings dominated the line of scrimmage in a 27-24 victory. Detroit has already lost more games than all of last season.
In Tennessee, the Chargers (6-3) kept the Titans (1-8) in the game. They trailed 14-7 after one quarter, led 20-17 from halftime into the fourth and finished with a 27-20 win. It was a costly game for Los Angeles because left tackle Joe Alt was carted off the field with an ankle injury. The Chargers already lost two-time Pro Bowl left tackle Rashawn Slater for the season due to a knee injury. They need to protect Justin Herbert to have a shot at making a deep playoff run.
AFC West-leading Denver (7-2) needed another fourth-quarter comeback to beat Houston 18-15. Facing the league’s stingiest defense, Bo Nix tossed a touchdown pass and connected for a 2-point conversion to tie it before leading the winning drive that ended with Wil Lutz hitting a 34-yard field goal as time expired.
The Broncos have won six straight games, coming back from a fourth-quarter deficit in four of those. It’s hard to sustain long-term success winning that way.
The Patriots also extended their winning streak to six games. They had a 10-point lead against Atlanta in the fourth quarter and came away with a 24-23 victory after John Parker Romo missed an extra point with 4:40 left in the game.
New England has a real chance to end Buffalo’s run of dominance in the division. Only two of the Patriots’ final eight games are against teams that currently have a winning record, including this week at Tampa Bay (6-2).
Six of the NFL’s eight divisions are jumbled with no lead more than 1 1/2 games. Seventeen teams have winning records.
There’s a lot of competition just like the NFL wants it.
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