Michael McQuaid of Pro Football Ireland looks at some of the key storylines ahead Week 14 of the 2025 NFL season, which got under way on Thursday night with the Detroit Lions defeating the Dallas Cowboys at Ford Field.
Smyth’s second game
Usually, a 2-10 football team is not worth focusing on in the early weeks in December. The New Orleans Saints were eliminated from play-off contention last weekend, but you wouldn’t have thought that was the case if you were sitting in Mayobridge as Charlie Smyth made his NFL debut.
After a successful onside kick and a 56-yard field goal, Smyth will start his second successive game this Sunday, when the Saints travel to Tampa Bay to face the Buccaneers.
While it’s been a difficult year for the Saints on the field, Smyth’s head coach Kellen Moore was in no doubt who should play this week.
"We'll go with Charlie," Moore said in a press conference on Wednesday.
"Charlie will be ready to go. He did an excellent job last week."
It’s obvious, but this is a huge opportunity for the Down man. He has only one more elevation from the practice squad left with his international player status. A good performance on Sunday would place him in an excellent position to be the long-term kicker for the Louisiana outfit.
The only issue is that Baker Mayfield and a potentially explosive Bucs offence are on the other side of the field.
NFC North battle
After a big win for the Detroit Lions on Thursday night, the meeting of the Chicago Bears and Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field this Sunday has taken on even more significance.
Over the next three weeks, the teams will play each other twice, with the NFC North title almost certainly on the line.
This is the rebirth of an incredible rivalry in the NFL. The Bears sit at the top of the NFC and the last time they were in at least a tie for first in the conference 13 weeks into the season was in 2006, when they finished 13-3 and made the Super Bowl.
It's not just the rivalry but the Chicago Bears in general who are reborn. First-year head coach Ben Johnson has been a revelation for the Soldier Field side. Quarterback Caleb Williams described him as a "man of the people" earlier this week and it’s easy to see why.
Their win last Friday over the reigning Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles was a huge statement. Exactly one year to the day since Matt Eberflus was fired, Johnson took his team into Philadelphia and put a marker not only on the NFC, but the NFL overall, with a 24-15 victory.
A win on Sunday in enemy territory would lift them to a level we haven’t seen in years.
Welcome back Joe
Any fan of the game would have been delighted to see Joe Burrow return last weekend when the Cincinnati Bengals defeated the Baltimore Ravens on the road with relative ease.
Burrow returns at a time when the AFC North does not boast any team with a winning record and while the Bengals will realistically need to win out to make the play-offs, they have a shot if they can go on the road and take care of Josh Allen and the Buffalo Bills this Sunday.
Easier said than done, eh?
In their final three games, the Bengals face teams who have had a poor season, in the Miami Dolphins, Arizona Cardinals and Cleveland Browns. A win in Buffalo means that this is not out of the question to improve to 8-8.
Burrow has had his injury issues, but he has a plethora of skills in his attack to put points on the board. The issue for Cincinnati is what Josh Allen and his cohort are capable of doing.
It’s early December and this is the time of the year when teams must show what they are worth. The AFC East looks like it is headed back to New England (who are on a bye this week) and while Allen is having a spectacular season, the Bills will be wary of play-off seedings in the final weeks.
This should be a cracker.
Wins needed
If the Bengals are starting to look at the final five weeks as a realistic option, you know that the Pittsburgh Steelers and Baltimore Ravens are under pressure.
So their clash takes on an added relevance. The Steelers need to be better on all sides of the ball. Last weekend, the Bills found it incredibly easy to run the ball against them in Pittsburgh, with 249 rushing yards on the day (yes, I checked this multiple times to make sure I could count).
That is an insane number.
The Steelers head to Baltimore to face a Ravens team that will be very disappointed with their showing on Thanksgiving night against the Bengals.
Lamar Jackson (above) does not look like the player we know. At the time of writing, he has missed practice with an ankle injury, and the Ravens attack is not clicking.
For Pittsburgh, it’s not just pride on the line. Fans are expecting improvements across the board. Ten weeks on from a historic game in Dublin, their season is very much on the line this weekend.
College ball
Yes, this is an NFL piece, but there is so much going on for Irish talent in the United States. Armagh’s Paddy McAteer will play for the Troy Trojans in the Sun Belt Championship game against James Madison this weekend.
The Mullaghbawn man has had a standout season in his second year and is the first player out of the latest crop of Irish talent to feature in a championship game at this level of college football.
Outside of this, Kildare’s Sean O’Haire was honoured by the Big Ten Conference this week. He was announced as part of the All-Big Ten First Team for Maryland, the equivalent of the All Stars in the United States for college football conferences.
On a weekend where we look forward to watching two Irish players in action in the NFL, we know we aren’t far off seeing more take the limelight.
