Six Lessons From NFL Wild-Card Weekend: Caleb Williams Will Soon Be a Top-10 QB

Forget what I said about not giving sub-.500 division winners home field advantage to start the playoffs.

Had the Carolina Panthers been forced to play at SoFi Stadium for their wild-card matchup against the Rams, they likely would have been blown out.

Instead, the Panthers benefited from a raucous home crowd and nearly pulled off one of the biggest playoff upsets in recent memory. Most importantly, we were all entertained by the back-and-forth battle between Matthew Stafford and Bryce Young, who we learned plenty about despite the playoff exit.

Perhaps it is unfair that the NFC West had three teams win at least 12 games and only one got to open the playoffs at home, even though those records were better than the No. 2-seeded Bears (11–6) and No. 3 Eagles (11–6). But it all worked out in the end because the Rams, 49ers and Seahawks are three of the four remaining teams in the NFC.

Maybe it’s also unfair that the 49ers will go from flying across the country after playing the Eagles on Sunday to playing in Seattle six days later. It would have made more sense to schedule that game on Sunday, but I’m O.K. with giving the No. 1 seed the extra advantage after the bye week.

If you don’t like how the league schedules playoff games, go out and clinch the No. 1 seed. Don’t like having a better record than your opponent yet starting the postseason on their field? Go out and win your division. But, who knows, maybe I’ll change my mind again depending on how entertaining Seahawks-49ers is on Saturday.

We learned plenty during a drama-filled wild-card weekend, including that Josh Allen is the best football player on the planet and that Jim Harbaugh needs to save Justin Herbert from the Chargers. Here’s what else we learned.

Caleb Williams will soon be a top-10 quarterback

It’s not surprising to see Caleb Williams use his elite skill set to his advantage, unless you’re one of the foolish people who believed he’ll never be a good quarterback just because his fashion choices don’t align with outdated machismo culture. (I didn’t expect Lil Wayne to be one of those critics.)

It’s not a big deal that Williams paints his nails, but it’s a big deal that he can make throws that only four or five quarterbacks in the league can make. Actually, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen Patrick Mahomes or Allen make the throw that Williams made on fourth-and-8 vs. Green Bay, rolling to his left before unleashing a 27-yard dart to Rome Odunze while hitting the Michael Jordan jumpman pose, one of many gotta-have-it plays in the 31–27 victory.

4th and Caleb 🧊@InsideTheNFL | @ChicagoBears pic.twitter.com/4DcYJnBTDn
— NFL Films (@NFLFilms) January 12, 2026

Williams’s athletic gifts were obvious in college, which is why he was the clear No. 1 prospect in the 2024 NFL draft that included Jayden Daniels and Drake Maye. It just took him a while to figure out how to control all his talent at the NFL level, and coach Ben Johnson played an instrumental role in that.

There are reasons why Mahomes needed to sit for a year and why Allen didn’t find his stride until his third season. And who knows how Aaron Rodgers’s career would have panned out had he started right away and not sat behind Brett Favre for three seasons.

Williams’s playoff debut reminded me of Allen’s 2019 wild-card performance against the Texans. Allen was still erratic in his second season, but it was noticeable that he was on the verge of a breakout season. Expect Williams to make the same ascension in 2026 after all the jaw-dropping throws he made to guide the Bears to an 18-point comeback against the Packers.

Bears-Packers now the best rivalry in the NFL

I’m entirely O.K. with the Bears talking nonstop trash about the Packers after beating their NFC North rivals in possibly the slowest-developing comeback victory in playoff history. Seriously, how did we get to this point when it was 21–3 at halftime, 21–6 in the fourth quarter and 27–16 with 6:36 left in regulation?

But here we are with the new best rivalry in football. For decades, we were told this was a fierce rivalry, but no one born since the 1980s can remember when this was a competitive rivalry until this season.

It’s easy to forget that just last year Green Bay had an 11-game winning streak over Chicago, because Williams and his teammates appear to have erased that from their memory after wearing cheese grater hats in postgame interviews. Even the head coach is shouting “F— those guys” from up north and he couldn’t care less about the old timers calling it “classless.”

This became the best rivalry in the NFL the second that Johnson gave Packers coach Matt LaFleur a cocky drive-by handshake after Saturday’s win. In that moment, LaFleur might have accepted Johnson’s trash talking because it didn’t come at the podium with not much to back up his words. All you can do is take it on the chin after suffering an 18-point collapse in the postseason, especially when the Packers had several opportunities to put the game away.

Finally, Johnson and the Bears have every right to talk trash and they’re milking every second of it. Part of me is hoping the Packers retain LaFleur so we can continue seeing this coaching matchup twice a year. Nothing but straight cinema from these two historic franchises. Now I get the hype about these two rivals.

Panthers should stick with Bryce Young

Carolina Panthers quarterback Bryce Young — Bryce Young acquitted himself well in his first playoff start despite the Panthers’ loss. | Bob Donnan-Imagn Images

The Panthers should use Young’s impressive playoff performance against the Rams as a launching pad to leave the low moments from their quarterback in the past. If Jimmy Horn Jr. didn’t drop the ball on fourth down, perhaps Young would have had a game-winning drive in the playoffs instead of losing 34–31.

I still have my reservations about Young, and he might have benefited from facing a bad L.A. secondary and working with a coaching staff that knows coach Sean McVay and the Rams well. So, yes, the jury is still out on Young doing this on a weekly basis against any team in the NFL. But at the same time, Young is the best QB option for the organization in 2026.

Put it this way: Unless Carolina pulls off a miracle and lands one of the four or five elite quarterbacks in the offseason, this team is still a year or two away from becoming a legitimate Super Bowl contender. Trading for Kyler Murray or Tua Tagovailoa won’t change that. Signing Daniel Jones or Rodgers or Malik Willis won’t be enough. And the Panthers won’t be drafting in the top 10 to possibly select Indiana’s Fernando Mendoza or Oregon’s Dante Moore.

Coach Dave Canales has done an excellent job in two seasons of repairing a once atrocious roster he inherited from the previous regimes. He improved the offensive line and rushing attack to give Young a fighting chance to put it all together and overcome the crappy hand the organization dealt him as a rookie when there was constant turmoil under the watch of owner David Tepper.

Now that there’s finally stability, Carolina should continue with the massive investment the team made nearly three years ago when they traded with the Bears for the right to select Young No. 1 overall. There’s something positive brewing with Young throwing to wideouts Jalen Coker and rookie sensation Tetairoa McMillan. And it helps that the team still has two more years on Young’s rookie deal.

He’s done enough to get the $27 million salary in 2027 from the fifth-year option, which the team will likely exercise before the May deadline after what he showed in the playoffs.

It’s time for Eagles to trade A.J. Brown after latest incident

By now, the Eagles must be tired of all the drama involving their star wide receiver. If the team has no intentions of shifting into a pass-heavy offense, it’s time for them to trade A.J. Brown and let him get what he wants elsewhere.

Clearly, winning a Super Bowl and making four consecutive trips to the postseason since arriving from Tennessee hasn’t been enough to please him. He’s constantly unhappy with the flow of the offense and just got into a shouting match with coach Nick Sirianni during the 23–19 wild-card loss vs. the 49ers. Though the argument was clearly started by a screaming Sirianni, who also deserves scrutiny after running down the sideline to confront his receiver who had just committed one of his several costly drops on the night, Brown kept it going after his coach had cooled off.

At 28, Brown is still a dynamic playmaker and his hunger for more will benefit a team that needs a boost to get over the hump. Perhaps that’s the Ravens or the Chargers. But his act has gotten tiring in Philadelphia and now the team needs to flip him for a Day 2 pick and feature more of DeVonta Smith and build through the draft.

Jalen Hurts should embrace the change and use it as motivation to get better, similar to what played out in Buffalo when Allen won an MVP the season after the team traded Stefon Diggs to Houston. The only difference here is that Hurts and Brown have already won a Super Bowl with two appearances in the big game. It really shouldn’t be that difficult to lean into a fresh start for both sides.

Rams need more from edge rushers Jared Verse, Byron Young

Los Angeles Rams linebacker Jared Verse — Rams edge rusher Jared Verse had 7.5 sacks during the regular season, his second year in the NFL. | Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images

I recently came around on the idea that the Rams’ high-scoring offense is enough to overcome a weak secondary and a thin linebacker group to win the Super Bowl. Still, it would go a long way if edge rushers Byron Young and Jared Verse provided more than they did in Carolina. They combined for three quarterback hits, one tackle for loss and zero sacks.

They’re talented pass rushers and it’s not a surprise that both were named to the Pro Bowl for consistently applying pressure on opposing quarterbacks. But when the back end of the defense is littered with issues, it’s on them to do more than push the pocket—they need game-changing plays that lead to takeaways or else they’ll need Stafford to bail them out again.

Los Angeles has had some bad losses this season, falling to the Panthers the first time around and to the Falcons in Week 17. But it was never blown out, with four of five losses being decided by a field goal or less and the other being the wild last-second blocked kick return touchdown by Eagles defensive tackle Jordan Davis, which still ended up being another one-score loss.

The Rams will be in every game because of the offense. Still, we’ve already seen five times where Stafford, Puka Nacua, Davante Adams and the rest of the offense weren’t enough to overcome defensive issues, and let’s not forget about the suspect special teams.

Verse, the 2024 first-round pick, was named Defensive Rookie of the Year last year and Young recorded 12 sacks in his third season. This duo is capable of doing a lot more in the playoffs.

Chargers need to follow Patriots’ free agency blueprint

As recently mentioned by Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer, the Patriots had to pay a tax to convince stud defensive tackle Milton Williams to not take the Panthers’ lucrative contract offer in March.

New England drew criticism for handing Williams a four-year, $104 million contract because he wasn’t an every-down player with the Eagles. But the Patriots rolled the dice on Williams’s monster 2024 postseason to help Philadelphia win the Super Bowl and were rewarded with a dominant first season in New England.

He was worth every penny with how he made life miserable for Herbert and the Chargers’ offensive line in the 16–3 wild-card victory, recording two of the team’s six sacks.

The Chargers need to be that aggressive in free agency this March. Harbaugh and GM Joe Hortiz have opted for low-risk, high-reward players, which has worked out for the most part with adding Teair Tart and Poona Ford before he left to join the Rams. There was also the return of Keenan Allen, which gave Herbert another reliable target. And the one time the team splurged for a free agent was the signing of guard Mekhi Becton, which backfired this season.

But Becton was considered one of the top free agents. The Chargers need to go for the best, and pay Ravens center Tyler Linderbaum whatever he wants to block for Herbert. Los Angeles should also get aggressive on the trade market, which worked out when it traded with Baltimore for edge rusher Oweh Odafe, who could cash in after his three-sack performance against the Patriots.

As stated above, the Chargers could use a player as physical and as demanding as Brown. Herbert and his teammates would benefit from the intensity level being raised a few notches. Stefon Diggs certainly provided that for the Patriots this season.