NFL 2016 Week 13: Live updates, scores and news from around the league

The Indianapolis Colts raced away with a 41-10 win over the New York Jets on the road on Monday Night Football.

The Colts wasted no time in getting a lead on the Jets after fielding a punt as a result of a three-and-out. Their first drive was a quick, three-and-a-half minute drive that was capped off with a Dwayne Allen touchdown reception. After yet another three-and-out, the Colts took over on offense again.

The San Francisco 49ers couldn’t find offensive success against the Chicago Bears and dropped an 11th consecutive game. While it’s frustrating for Colin Kaepernick, Chip Kelly, and others who have their careers on the line in San Francisco, it’s good news for the 49ers in the long run as it inches the team closer to locking up a pick at the top of the 2017 NFL Draft.

Unfortunately for the 49ers, their 1-11 season comes at the same time the Cleveland Browns are four games away from finishing the season 0-16.

After an 11th straight win, the Dallas Cowboys have become the first team in 2016 to qualify for the playoffs. After Dallas beat the Minnesota Vikings on Thursday night, the Cowboys were just a Buccaneers or Washington loss away from punching its ticket to the postseason for only the second time since 2010. The Cardinals beat Washington, and the Cowboys are headed to the playoffs.

The Buccaneers proved they won’t go down without a fight. Jameis Winston pushed his team into the playoff hunt with back-to-back upsets over Kansas City and Seattle. A win on Sunday over a dangerous San Diego team was another rung on the ladder that may push the Bucs to the playoffs for the first time in nine seasons. With a victory over the Chargers, the Buccaneers move into a tie for first place in the NFC South after the Falcons fell to the Chiefs.

Because the NFL is confusing and generally indecisive, the AFC has a new first place team, despite last week’s top team winning on Sunday.

Both the Raiders and Patriots improved to 10-2 this weekend, but the only tiebreaker that currently separates the two is best record in common games. Oakland earned the edge on Sunday with a 38-24 victory over the Bills, who split their season series with New England.

The Dallas Cowboys started Week 13 by solidifying their spot at the top of the NFC, and now they’re the first team to clinch a playoff berth this season. They needed Washington or the Tampa Buccaneers to lose, and Washington fell to the Cardinals, officially locking up a postseason spot for Dallas.

The Buccaneers held on against the Chargers and improved to 7-5 and are tied atop the NFC South with the Falcons. The Bucs are now in the final wild card spot after Washington lost.

Monday Night Football got off to a disastrous start for the New York Jets against the Indianapolis Colts. They couldn’t get anything going on offense, and it was the complete opposite for Andrew Luck and the Colts.

Luck found Dwayne Allen three times in the first half, giving them a 24-3 lead going into the locker room. They kept it going in the third quarter, when Luck hit Donte Moncrief for a touchdown to make it 31-3.

You always hear that big players come up in big games, and we’re seeing that on Monday Night Football with Andrew Luck and Dwayne Allen.

The two connected three times in the first half against the New York Jets, as the Colts absolutely dominated the Jets on both sides of the ball in the first half.

New York Giants wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. went out of his way to complain about the refereeing in his team’s 24-14 road loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers. On Monday, his quarterback offered some veteran advice about dealing with the men in stripes.

Eli Manning went on Mike Francesca’s radio show to talk about Sunday’s loss and offered some insight into his relationship with the referees after 13 seasons in the league.

The Indianapolis Colts and New York Jets Monday Night Football matchup doesn’t have the star power you might expect in a primetime game, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t entertaining players.

Pat McAfee, one of the most fun players in the league, stuck the Jets inside their own 5-yard line, and had a great celebration to go along with it, with a golf wave.

Both Ron Rivera and Cam Newton have tried to shrug off criticism of the strict dress code policy that led to the reigning NFL MVP being benched for the beginning of a must-win Sunday Night Football game against the Seattle Seahawks.

Newton made the trip to Seattle without a tie on, which is against the team policy and resulted in him sitting for Carolina’s opening series. With Derek Anderson starting ahead of Newton, the Panthers fell into a 3-0 hole early after the backup threw an interception on his first pass.

Only one player in the NFL has recorded three consecutive games with more than 100 receiving yards, and it wasn’t Julio Jones, Antonio Brown, Odell Beckham, Jr., or any other freakishly talented wide receiver.

Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce is the one NFL secondaries are struggling to figure out right now. In a 29-28 victory over the Atlanta Falcons, Kelce was targeted eight times and hauled in all eight passes for 140 yards.

Former Seattle Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch retired during Super Bowl 50, but that hasn’t stopped him from popping up here and there. As the Seahawks faced the Carolina Panthers on Sunday Night Football, Lynch was on the sideline.

Lynch approached his former teammates on the bench, speaking to Michael Bennett and then taking some good-natured jabs from Cliff Avril.

It must’ve been nice being a member of the Cowboys on Sunday. All they had to do was sit back, watch the Giants (8-4) fall to the Steelers and start popping champagne as the first team to clinch a playoff spot.

With Dallas (11-1) having defeated Minnesota 17-15 on Thursday Night Football earlier this week, there wasn’t much else for the team to do while the rest of the NFC East battled it out. The Giants’ 24-14 loss won’t hurt too bad for the moment, however. New York still remains in the playoff picture as the No. 5 seed — same as last week. It’s just that things wouldn’t stay so lucky for the rest of the division.

The Denver Broncos beat the Jacksonville Jaguars, 20-10, to improve to 8-4 on the season, but managed to do it with just 206 yards of total offense. The Broncos instead turned to punter Riley Dixon often, and the Jaguars relied heavily on Brad Nortman, leading to 875 combined punting yards.

It’s the most of the 2016 season and Dixon’s 506 punting yards represent the 44th 500-yard punting performance in NFL history.

The Detroit Lions are in first place in the NFC North and are showing no signs of slowing down. Led by quarterback Matthew Stafford, the Lions boast a high-flying passing offense this season that looks much different from the one they’ve fielded in recent years.

Stafford has always been a quarterback who throws for a lot of yards. He threw for more than 5,000 yards in 2011 and has broken 4,200 yards the past four seasons. He’s also thrown a lot of touchdowns every season, none more than the 41 he put up in 2011, when he had wide receiver Calvin Johnson at his best.

The College Football Playoff has finally been decided, so mercifully we don’t have to hear the phrase “eye test” for a while. It’s a useful term to apply to the NFL to explain just how weird this season has been, however. Look at the top of the division standings, or close to it: By the eye test, do the Texans look like a division-winning team? Are the Falcons seriously still in first place? Are the Giants really 8-4?

The Lions and Chiefs have been two of the most surreal. The Lions’ win over the Saints on Sunday was their first in which they didn’t trail in the fourth quarter. The Chiefs beat the Falcons because safety Eric Berry picked off Matt Ryan’s two-point conversion pass and ran it all the way back, giving the Chiefs a shocking 29-28 lead.

The Seattle Seahawks defeated the Carolina Panthers 40-7 during a Week 13 matchup at CenturyLink Field. Here are six things you should know about this game.

Off and on throughout the entire season, Seattle has struggled on the ground. Its running backs couldn’t find holes to run through, and the offensive line had a hard time creating lanes.

The Kansas City Chiefs got a big win on the road against the Atlanta Falcons, and it was primarily thanks to safety Eric Berry.

Berry, an Atlanta native, was playing in the Georgia Dome for the first time since he entered the NFL in 2010, and said that it was an emotional homecoming, for good reason.

The Cowboys clinched their playoff this weekend. They won Thursday night, and Washington’s loss to the Cardinals on Sunday made them the first team in the league to punch their ticket to the postseason.

I’m still not entirely sure which team in the NFC has the best shot at beating them, though it’s not an impossible task. Seattle looks like the second best team in that conference, but losing Earl Thomas changes the Seahawks. You saw that when Cam Newton immediately went after Thomas’ replacement with a deep shot touchdown to Ted Ginn.

Cam Newton played for almost the entire game on Sunday Night Football against the Seattle Seahawks. But the Carolina Panthers raised eyebrows when Derek Anderson, not Newton, was under center for the start of the game.

After the 40-7 loss, Newton confirmed reports that he was benched by head coach Ron Rivera for not wearing a tie.

The Carolina Panthers seemed to be doomed from the start of the Sunday Night Football matchup against the Seattle Seahawks, and that held through the end of the game. It was a must-win for the Panthers to keep any chance at the postseason alive, and they couldn’t pull it off, losing 40-7.

Panthers head coach Ron Rivera benched Cam Newton for the opening series due to violating a minor team rule. Newton was reportedly sidelined for a team dress code violation, and Derek Anderson started in his place.

The Seattle Seahawks were briefly without running back Thomas Rawls, who left the game to enter the league’s concussion protocol. He later was cleared and returned to the game.

Rawls scored two touchdowns for Seattle prior to his injury. His first was an 8-yard run, and the second was a 45-yard score.

Immediately after Seattle Seahawks safety Earl Thomas left Sunday Night Football against the Carolina Panthers with a lower leg injury, Cam Newton took advantage, hitting wide receiver Ted Ginn, Jr. for a 55-yard touchdown.

Carolina’s touchdown capped off a three-play drive that took one minute and 26 seconds off the clock.

Khalil Mack was the NFL’s Defensive Player of the Month for November, and he has kept that momentum going into December.

Mack, who has been one of the best defensive players in the NFL this season, busted his way through the Bills’ offensive line, then got to Tyrod Taylor for the strip and fumble recovery to solidify a victory for the Raiders.

Chip Kelly and the San Francisco 49ers had a rough go Sunday in a 26-6 loss in Chicago against the Bears, but Kelly had dealt with something much greater just two days earlier.

Paul Kelly, Chip’s father, had passed away on Friday night. Kelly confirmed his father’s passing on Sunday afternoon.