Sports

Late in the fourth quarter of Monday's 10-7 win by the Eagles over the Packers, Philadelphia faced a second and seven from its own 44. Running back Saquon Barkley got the handoff, with a chance to break free.

Enter Packers linebacker Micah Parsons. More specifically, enter his leg. Parsons tripped Barkley, causing him to fall down short of the line to gain.

Parsons was not penalized. He was, however, fined $12,172 by the league office. No flag was thrown.

Barkley gained five yards on the next snap, giving the Eagles a fresh set of downs. But the Eagles should have gotten 15 yards of field position, which would have come with a first and 10 from Green Bay's 35.

The drive eventually sputtered on the Green Bay 35, on a fourth-and-six play that saw the Eagles take a shot at the end zone. When it failed, the Packers received one last chance to win the game in regulation or to force overtime, with 27 seconds to play.

Of the various good games to be played on Sunday, one game is a rematch of one of the biggest playoff stunners ever.

The Chargers and Jaguars get together for the first time since the 2022 playoffs, when Jacksonville erased a 27-0 deficit to win the game, 31-30.

It was the fifth biggest comeback in NFL history, regular season or postseason.

The Chargers led that game at the half, 27-7. It was 30-14 in the third quarter. The Chargers reeled off 17 straight points to win the game with a 36-yard field goal as the clock hit zero.

This time around, both teams have different coaches. But the starting quarterbacks remain the same. Justin Herbert vs. Trevor Lawrence, who overcame four interceptions to engineer the playoff win..

Currently, the Chargers are 7-3, the Jaguars are 5-4. Both are, for now, on track for postseason appearances.

Herbert's odds at winning the MVP are 25-1; in the attached video, Chargers receiver Ladd McConkey makes the case for Herbert to win it. (Lawrence's odds are 400-1.)

And while some Chargers may have flashbacks to the collapse from the last time they played in Jacksonville, the Jaguars are battling demons of their own. They blew a 29-19 fourth-quarter lead in Week 10 against the Texans.

The Denver defense is going to need a good nickname.

They could possibly dust off Orange Crush, the label given to the team's defense in 1977, when the Broncos led the league in yards allowed per game and carried a 12-2 record to the Super Bowl.

That year, the Broncos had 50 sacks in 14 games. This year, they're four sacks away from having 50 in 11.

Via NBC Sports research, the Broncos can join the 1967 Raiders (61), the 1989 Vikings (53), and the 1987 Bears (51) as the only teams with 50 or more sacks in the first eleven games of a season.

As MDS noted in the aftermath of Denver's six-sack showing against the Raiders in Week 10, the Broncos are on pace for 78 sacks. That would be six more than the current single-season record of 72, set by the Bears in 1984.

The Broncos' 46 sacks lead the league by 14 over the Steelers and Seahawks, both with 32. (Seattle and Pittsburgh have played nine games each.)

To get to 50, the Broncos will need to corral Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes. At 17 sacks on the season, he's being sacked at a rate of fewer than two per game.