Senior National Columnist There is plenty of nail-biting going on in the NFL right now -- for the four teams that will vie to fill the final two unoccupied playoff spots, for the franchises that might be contemplating regime change and, especially in personnel offices, for those closely watching playoff positioning. We have four division titles still to be determined: the AFC North (between the Steelers and Ravens), AFC South (the Jaguars and Texans), NFC South (the Bucs and Panthers) and NFC West (the Seahawks and 49ers). Everybody else is either playing for playoff seeding or pride. That doesn't mean there aren't clear winners and losers from Week 17. We have them here, as the NFL surges, and in some cases limps, toward the postseason. The Packers were shredded by the Baltimore Ravens on Saturday night, but that was no fault of quarterback Malik Willis. Starting on late notice in place of Jordan Love, who did not clear the concussion protocol despite taking the first-team practice reps during the week, Willis was a one-man offense, accounting for 348 of the Packers' 363 yards. Willis became the first player in league history with at least 275 yards passing, a completion percentage of at least 85 percent, one touchdown pass, at least 60 yards rushing and multiple rushing touchdowns. His only deficit: He wasn't available to try to tackle Derrick Henry. Willis is a free agent-to-be, and what he has put on tape as the Packers backup should garner him long looks as a potential starter just two years after he was forsaken by the Titans, who drafted him in 2022, threw him into action before he was ready, then tossed him overboard for Will Levis. Seeing Philip Rivers screaming at an officiating crew, in a game that didn't matter, three weeks after he came off the sofa to return to the Indianapolis Colts, was the love-of-football moment we all needed. The Colts are 0-3 with Rivers as the starter, but read that part again -- Rivers was the starter, at age 44, with his Hall of Fame candidacy already moving through the pipeline because he had been retired for five years before returning to the field. A few pounds heavier than he used to be, Rivers mostly did himself and the Colts proud, stunning even players and executives who feared disaster. He is unable to throw deep anymore, and his passes lack velocity, and those factors limited the Colts' comeback possibilities against the Jaguars on Sunday, but he enabled the Colts to be competitive, with his ability to operate the offense. If Rivers was a borderline Hall of Famer before this, his willingness to play and his joy in doing so should give that candidacy a nudge along. This was likely Rivers' last appearance, because with the Colts eliminated, rookie Riley Leonard is expected to start in Week 18. After the game, an emotional Rivers said he would do it all again. So would we. He and the Colts fell short of their ultimate goal, but this is a football guy, a credit to the NFL. One week after he was inexplicably not on the field with a game against the Patriots on the line, Derrick Henry reminded everybody exactly how idiotic that personnel deployment was. He ran around and through the Packers defense, going for 216 yards and four touchdowns, taking the pressure off backup quarterback Tyler Huntley and the microscope off the absent Lamar Jackson while keeping the Ravens alive for the winner-take-all AFC North showdown this Sunday night against the Steelers. This is one of the most physical rivalries in football, and whether Jackson can play in Week 18 or not, Henry illustrated with each of his 36 touches why, with the season on the brink, the Ravens' offense should include a very heavy dose of an all-time great running back. It's been an utterly miserable, lost season for the New York Jets, but on Sunday, Breece Hall got to 1,000 yards rushing, the first time a Jets player has done that since 2015. Hall's accomplishment is especially impressive because the Jets' passing game has posed no threat this season, allowing defenses to focus on Hall. After the game, Hall said he felt like he should have gotten to 1,000 several weeks ago, “but there’s just been a lot going on,” which neatly sums up this season. Why didn't the Jets feed him all along? That's the question for another day, but in the meantime, it's clear that Hall, a free agent this offseason, deserves a lucrative contract. He has been a revelation for the Saints, putting up a performance that should answer the question about whether they have their quarterback of the future. They have won their last four in a row, including two against the teams that will vie for the NFC South title in Week 18. Shough has thrown for more than 300 yards in each of the last two weeks, and on Sunday, he torched the Titans for 333 passing yards on 22-of-27 passing, with two touchdowns and no interceptions. The Saints don't have much around him except for Chris Olave, so they need a massive infusion of talent, but Shough has been smart, can throw the deep ball and can avoid pressure as he did Sunday. That is plenty to build on. We weren't sure which category to put them in, but here we are. Their loss to the Giants on Sunday means that if they lose to or tie the Chiefs in Week 18, the Raiders can lock up the first overall pick in the 2026 NFL Draft, which would be the most important asset the franchise has had in years. The good news: That gives them first crack at a quarterback of their choosing. The bad: Virtually everything else about the Raiders is a dysfunctional mess. Last week, the brain trust enraged Las Vegas' best player by placing Maxx Crosby on injured reserve when he believed he was healthy enough to play. The Raiders have some serious repair work to do with Crosby as part of a laundry list of other things that need fixing. The first question has to be whether Pete Carroll should return. They beat the Bills in Orchard Park (handing the AFC East to the Patriots), and in the first half, with the offense moving and the defense smothering, they looked like the defending Super Bowl champions. In the second half, the defense was nearly as tenacious -- the Bills didn't get on the scoreboard until there was little more than 5 minutes remaining in the game. The offense, though, went to sleep in the second half -- it had 16 net yards -- as it has tended to do at various stretches this season. That puts an awful lot of pressure on the defense. On Sunday, it held on by just inches against Josh Allen, who badly missed a throw on what would have been the game-winning two-point conversion. Vic Fangio clearly has a championship-caliber unit. The question all season, and now going into the postseason, is which version of the offense the Eagles will have. Without DK Metcalf and Calvin Austin III and after losing Darnell Washington during the game, the Steelers were woefully shorthanded, and it showed all day against the Browns. They managed just 291 yards, and 58 of those came on their final, frantic drive -- which was their best one, until it ended with incompletions on third and fourth downs. That was a familiar theme. The Steelers converted just three of 15 third-down attempts and none of their three fourth-down attempts. The most hopeful moment of the day for the Steelers happened in the second quarter. Trailing the Browns 10-3, the Steelers intercepted Shedeur Sanders and began a drive at Cleveland's 31-yard line. They moved to the 22-yard line, but on fourth-and-1 from the 22, Aaron Rodgers attempted a deep pass to the left side for Scotty Miller in the end zone. It was incomplete. Why not run for that 1 yard instead of attempt a low-percentage pass to a receiver who had caught four passes this season? The Steelers must beat the Ravens to win the AFC North on Sunday night, and with Washington suffering a broken arm and Metcalf suspended, the Steelers will badly need players like Kenneth Gainwell and Marquez Valdes-Scantling to step up in critical moments. They couldn't do it despite multiple opportunities against the lowly Browns, which doesn't inspire confidence. We promise, someone is going to win this division on Saturday, when the Bucs and Panthers face each other. But yikes. The Bucs have lost seven of their last eight games -- on Sunday, it was to the already-eliminated Dolphins. The Panthers haven't won consecutive games since mid-October, and Sunday against the Seahawks was a loss day. It's winner-take-all in Week 18, but it's hard to imagine whoever gets in will make much noise in January. They're in the playoffs, and that's what counts, but they have lost three in a row, and their defense -- so impressive most of the season -- collapsed Saturday night. They gave up a mind-numbing 307 rushing yards to the Ravens one week after a late-game cave-in against the Bears, which was a week after losing Micah Parsons to a torn ACL. Are all these things related? Of course, but the Packers were a top-five defense last year, before they got Parsons. And they were respectable against the Bears until there were less than 30 seconds remaining in regulation. Malik Willis' herculean effort notwithstanding, the Packers are limping into the playoffs as the seventh seed, with a string of dispiriting results from which to recover, and fast.