Quick question. If you lose the wrong guy in December, are you still the “better team,” or are you just the next team getting shoveled into the same grave every season gets eventually?

Because sometimes the NFL isn’t about who’s the best team. It’s about who gets lucky and avoids the injury bug. That’s it. That’s the whole thing. We dress it up with culture talk and toughness talk and “built the right way” talk, then the league hits Week 14 or Week 15 and it turns into triage. NFL injuries in December matter more than who has the better gameplan.

And everybody knows it, too. Everybody. You can see it in the way people watch games right now. It’s not even pure joy anymore. It’s this half-celebration, half-bracing-for-impact vibe. Like, “Nice win, please get up, please get up, please get up.”

What drives me nuts is the way people pretend this is a moral issue.

All year the NFL braintrust screams about availability like it’s a personality trait. Like it’s a hustle stat. Like it’s a choice. Then an actual real injury happens to their team and suddenly the tone changes. Suddenly it’s “well obviously that changes everything.” Suddenly it’s “you can’t judge them without context.” Suddenly it’s “look at the schedule, look at the short week, look at the injuries.”

Yeah. No kidding. That’s why the tough talk is so fake. It’s easy to be hard about injuries when they’re happening to somebody else.

December doesn’t crown the best team. It crowns the team that survives the longest without the wrong body part snapping. It crowns the healthiest liar, meaning the team that gets to keep pretending this is some pure scoreboard of “deserving,” because they didn’t get their season flipped inside out at the worst possible time.

This is what set me off

Here are the pegs, and I’m not even trying to be dramatic about it.

Patrick Mahomes tore his left ACL, ending his season.

Micah Parsons suffered a potentially serious ACL injury.

Rams wide receiver Davante Adams left with a hamstring injury.

Quarterback, defensive star, top receiver. Different roles, same punch in the mouth. And notice how it always hits right when people start talking in confident sentences about who’s “the team nobody wants to see.” That talk is fun in October. In December, it’s basically comedy.

Because December has no runway. There’s no “we’ll see what we have.” You get one week, then the next week, then the next week, and every one of them is tied to the playoff math everybody swears they don’t care about until they’re staring at it at midnight.

That’s why this stuff changes the whole mood. It’s not only the injury. It’s the timing. It’s the way the entire league immediately rearranges itself around that news.

The “no excuses” crowd is full of it

This is where someone does the tough-guy thing.

“Injuries happen to everybody.”
“Next man up.”
“Stop making excuses.”
“Good teams overcome it.”

And sure, injuries happen to everybody. But that sentence is useless on purpose. It’s the kind of true statement that helps you avoid the real conversation.

The real conversation is that injuries don’t hit everybody evenly, and they don’t hit everybody at the same positions, and they don’t hit everybody at the same time. Losing a random starter is one thing. Losing your quarterback for the season is a different sport. Losing a defensive wrecking ball can change your whole personality. Losing a top receiver with a hamstring can turn an offense from confident to tight without anybody wanting to say it out loud.

“Next man up” is not a plan. It’s what you say when you don’t want to admit the obvious. Most teams are not built to lose the wrong guy and keep playing the same game. Most teams have one version of themselves that looks like a contender, and another version that looks like a team trying to get through the day.

And the hypocrisy is the part that makes me laugh. The same people screaming “no excuses” are always the first ones writing a whole essay about context when the injury report has their logo on it. They want grace. They want understanding. They want everyone to acknowledge it changes everything.

Good. Keep that same energy when it’s not your team.

Kansas City is about to learn what margin really means

If Mahomes is done for the season, the Chiefs might start to be in a downfall after this. Not because the franchise suddenly got stupid. Not because the coaches forgot football. Because a season-ending quarterback injury is the closest thing this league has to pulling the floor out from under you.

Here’s what people miss when they talk about quarterbacks like they’re just yards and touchdowns.

A great quarterback gives you margin. He gives you room to be imperfect and still win. He gives you a way out when the play isn’t perfect, when protection isn’t perfect, when the pocket gets gross, when somebody runs the wrong thing, when you start a drive with a penalty and now it’s behind the sticks.

Take that away and everything gets smaller.

Your play calling shrinks. Not because the coach got scared, but because the downside changes. Your third downs get heavier. Your drives get longer and harder. You stop living off those moments where the game breaks and you still get points anyway.

And opponents adjust immediately. This part is real whether fans want to admit it or not. Defensive coordinators do not call the same game against a backup that they call against Mahomes. They challenge more. They pressure more freely. They sit on things with more confidence. They make you prove you can win the slow way for four quarters.

That’s where the slide happens. Not always as some dramatic collapse. Sometimes it’s just the slow grind of losing the safety net. The same sloppy quarter you used to survive becomes a loss. The same weird turnover you used to erase becomes the deciding play. The same “we’ll figure it out” drive turns into a punt because there’s no magic bailout coming.

And once you start losing those games, the standings stop being a compliment. They turn into a countdown.

If you want stats here, this is where you plug them in: the Chiefs with Mahomes versus without Mahomes in [points per drive], [third down conversion], [turnover rate], [red zone TD rate]. That’s the shape of the problem. That’s what changes first. That’s what starts a downfall.

Green Bay can get shoved off the road in one MRI

If Parsons is dealing with a potentially serious ACL injury, I’m going to say it the way you asked for it: this is going to derail the Packers season if that injury is what it sounds like.

Not because Green Bay is “nothing” without him. Because disruption is the entire foundation of defense in this league now.

If the quarterback is comfortable, you lose. Period. Not every time, but often enough that you’re basically begging for a miracle if you can’t make the pocket uncomfortable.

A disruptive defender changes the whole day even when he doesn’t show up in the box score the way casual fans want. He changes protections. He changes timing. He forces quicker decisions. He speeds up the offense in a way that leads to bad throws and rushed reads and punts.

If that goes away, everything behind it gets stressed.

Now corners have to cover longer. Safeties have to make harder choices. Linebackers get put in worse spots because the ball is coming out on schedule instead of late. The offense gets to run the full menu instead of the uncomfortable version.

So what do coaches do when they can’t get disruption the normal way? They start manufacturing it. More pressure, more risk, more exposure if it doesn’t land. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it blows up and you give up chunk plays that change the entire game script.

This is how a season derails in December. It’s rarely one single moment. It’s a chain reaction. One extra third down you can’t get off the field. One extra drive. A tired defense. A missed tackle. A big play. Now you’re chasing. Now your offense is tight. Now you’re forcing it. Now you’re living week to week hoping the next one goes your way.

And again, if you want the “stats” version without guessing, this is where you plug in Green Bay’s [pressure rate] and [sack rate] with Parsons versus without, plus [points allowed per drive], plus [third down defense]. That’s the football version of “derailed.”

The Rams problem is the injury that looks small until it doesn’t

A hamstring doesn’t sound scary until your offense starts feeling like it’s playing in a smaller room.

Davante Adams leaving with a hamstring injury matters because hamstrings live in the gray. Sometimes the guy misses time. Sometimes he’s active but limited. Sometimes he’s out there and everybody pretends everything is fine, then you watch and realize he’s not separating the same and the defense knows it.

A top receiver isn’t just catches. He’s spacing. He’s leverage. He’s how you keep the defense honest. He’s how you stop corners from squatting on routes. He’s how you force help, which opens the rest of the offense.

If that threat is compromised, the defense tightens up. Windows shrink. Timing gets harder. The quarterback holds the ball longer because the easy separation isn’t there.

That extra beat is where bad stuff happens. Hits. Sacks. Forced throws. That’s how one hamstring turns into a bigger problem than the initial headline.

And the parts of the game that decide December games are the parts that get hurt first: third downs, red zone snaps, the one play late where you need a clean win. If Adams is limited, those moments get harder, even if he’s technically “playing.”

Fine, injuries are part of football. Stop acting like they’re nothing

I can hear the pushback already.

Injuries are part of the league. Everyone deals with it. Build depth. Adapt.

Yep. All true. And none of that changes the point.

You can believe injuries are part of football and also admit injuries decide outcomes. You can believe teams should build depth and also admit certain injuries change your ceiling. Depth helps you survive. It does not keep your team identical.

The schedule rewards depth more than hype. Hype is fun in September. Depth is what keeps you alive in December. If your whole plan was “please stay healthy,” that’s not a plan. That’s a wish. And December is where wishes go to die.

The only honest takeaway

Sometimes the NFL isn’t about who’s the best team. It’s about who gets lucky and avoids the injury bug.

Mahomes tearing his left ACL and being done for the season can absolutely kick off a Chiefs slide because it removes the margin that used to save them when games got weird. If Kansas City starts dropping games they used to survive, don’t act confused. That’s what happens when the safety net disappears.

If Parsons is dealing with a potentially serious ACL injury, the Packers can get knocked sideways because disruption is not optional on defense anymore. It’s the base layer. Lose it, and you start asking everybody else to be perfect at the exact time of year nobody is perfect.

If Adams is fighting a hamstring, the Rams can feel it in the moments that decide games, especially if “active” turns into “limited” and the field starts shrinking.

So here’s the actual question, no fake tough talk: should fans stop calling injuries “excuses” when it’s clearly one of the biggest deciders in the league?

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