NFL Panic Index 2018: The Steelers are counting on the Browns

The Steelers almost did it. They almost turned their season around by beating the Patriots and Saints in consecutive weeks.

Mike Tomlin’s team ended a three-game losing streak by shutting down Tom Brady in Week 15, but it lost its place at the top of the AFC North thanks to the combination of the Ravens’ upset win against the Chargers and a closer-than-expected Pittsburgh defeat in New Orleans. Now the 8-6-1 Steelers need some serious help to make it to the postseason, and it’s going to have to come from a team with zero motivation to help Tomlin: the Cleveland Browns.

Pittsburgh needs to beat a spiraling Bengals team and hope the suddenly competent Browns can knock off Baltimore in Week 17. That’s the only combination that could result in a Steelers playoff berth, which looked like a lock when they were 7-2-1 and firmly atop the division. Worse yet, the Ravens are playing their best football of the season under rookie quarterback Lamar Jackson, who is 5-1 as a starter and is coming off a rousing win over the Chargers in Week 16.

Getting past Cincinnati shouldn’t be tough, but rooting for a Cleveland team with nothing to play for but pride could prove difficult. Baker Mayfield plays like every game is his own personal Super Bowl, but he’s going to be put to the test against the league’s top-ranked defense — even if he did throw for 342 yards and a touchdown the last time those two teams met.

Panic index: Rooting for a Browns win is no longer the football analog of buying a $200 car on Craigslist and taking it on a cross-country drive. Cleveland has already beaten Baltimore once, and while that was at home, it was also under the watchful incompetent guidance of former head coach Hue Jackson. The Browns have done nothing but improve since he was thrown to the wolves ... but they also haven’t faced Jackson yet.

For most of the season, the Eagles looked like they had a massive Super Bowl hangover that even Pedialyte, a cheeseburger, and a couple of Aleves couldn’t cure. They reached their low point just over a month ago in Week 11, when the Saints ran them out of the Superdome in a 48-7 shellacking. That dropped the defending Super Bowl champs to 4-6. Their playoff hopes were on life support.

Then they started climbing out of their hole. Two straight wins, even if they were over the Giants and a Mark Sanchez-led Washington team, got them back to .500 before a brutal overtime loss to the Cowboys looked like the nail in their coffin. Carson Wentz’s back injury also put him on the bench and brought Nick Foles back to the starting lineup against a tough schedule that started with a road game against the NFC-leading Rams.

And just like that, the Eagles were looking like their playoff selves from a year ago. Back-to-back wins, including a Foles-engineered comeback against the playoff-bound Texans, have them looking like one of the most dangerous teams heading into January, even at 8-7.

But it might not be enough. Two close losses within a month to the Cowboys dashed their hopes of another NFC East title. Philly’s only chance of getting back into playoffs is to grab the other NFC wild card spot. Unfortunately for the Eagles, they need a little help. First, they have to win their final game of the season, on the road against Washington. With Josh Johnson at quarterback and with a tough defense, Washington has at least been competitive in recent weeks. The Eagles should still win that game, though.

The second part is a little more difficult: They also need the Vikings to lose at home.

If not, the Eagles could be just the 10th team since 1990 to miss the playoffs the year after winning the Super Bowl.

Panic index: It’s never ideal to leave your playoff hopes in another team’s hands. Then again, the Vikings’ only win over a good team came against ... the Eagles. They’re also 0-5 against teams that have already clinched playoff spots, and that includes their next opponent: the Bears. And Matt Nagy isn’t planning on resting his starters, not with a first-round bye potentially at stake.

So don’t count the Eagles out just yet.

Tennessee got a fourth consecutive victory by beating Washington, 25-16, on Saturday.

In that win, the Titans lost Marcus Mariota to an elbow injury, but Blaine Gabbert came in to save the day. He completed seven of his 11 passes for 101 yards. Gabbert even threw a go-ahead touchdown with less than five minutes to go that saved the Titans’ postseason hopes.

Now the Titans just need a win in Week 17 to get into the playoffs. The problem is they’ll have to beat the Colts to get there, and nothing about the matchup looks good for the Titans.

First of all, Mariota isn’t 100 percent, but may try to play anyway.

“I am doing my best, (trying) to get back,” Mariota told a radio station Wednesday, via the Titans’ team website. “That’s all I can do. I’ll do everything in my power to see if I can go. Again, it is just taking it one day at a time.”

Earlier in the year, Mariota played through an elbow injury for the first two months of the season and was an inconsistent, below-average quarterback. If it’s more of that, the Titans are in trouble.

But the alternative is Gabbert, who has a 13-34 record as a starter with a career passer rating of 72.0.

Whoever it is will have to beat the Colts, who never ever lose to the Titans when Andrew Luck is starting.

The Colts have one loss in their last nine games — including a 38-10 win over the Titans in Week 11.

Panic index: The Titans have a shot at the playoffs, which is something 17 teams have already been eliminated from. That’s pretty cool. But good luck trying to find any reason to believe the Colts won’t do the same exact thing they did in their blowout win over the Titans in November.

Are the Titans toast? Yeah, probably.

There’s not really a wrong time to get hot. Houston looked like a footnote in the AFC South after its 0-3 start, but they pulled it together, with a little luck, to put together a nine-game win streak. But that streak ended in Week 15, a loss at home to the Colts. They lost again last week, this time to a suddenly resurgent Eagles team. In between those two losses they did pick up their 10th win of the season, but it was against the Jets.

So did the Texans turn back into a pumpkin in December? Is this the team we saw in the first three games of the season?

There are some issues, namely moving the ball in the red zone. Of all the playoff teams and potential playoff teams, only the Cowboys are worse in the red zone than Houston’s 51 percent conversion rate there. They also can’t seem to run the ball very well; having failed to break 100 total rushing yards in their last three games. It didn’t help either deficiency to have Lamar Miller out of action last week. He’s still limited in practice.

Miller’s ankle injury points to another problem that’s befallen the Texans lately — injuries. Demaryius Thomas is on the injured reserve list. Cornerback Kayvon Webster and linebacker Brian Peters are there now too.

Deshaun Watson has done a lot for the Texans offense this season — he probably should be a bigger factor in the MVP conversation than he has been — but he can’t do all it on his own, not even with other-worldly wide receiver Nuk Hopkins.

Panic index: It would be a shock if Miller weren’t back in time for the playoffs. That should help the offense. As for Thomas, he really hasn’t been much of a factor for the team since they brought him over at the trade deadline from Denver. Webster only played two games this season anyway. The Texans can overcome all of those injuries, but it hurts the depth chart at a time where they need it to be as filled out as possible.