The Sunday Evening Post: Week 11

Call it the Uprising of the Refuse.

Today, the Chiefs beat the Steelers, the Raiders beat the Bengals, and the Lions and Browns both looked like professional football teams for almost a full 60 minutes. (The almost is mostly the Browns' fault: Pass interference on a Hail Mary-ish pass, really?)

Sometimes, this happens. Last week, we saw a bunch of good games that favorites failed to win convincingly; this week, some of those favorites just failed to win.

It's not stunning that those teams came from the AFC North; the entire division laid an egg this week.

The Bengals and Steelers partisans from this blog were not happy. And they have right to be: The Bengals allowed ten points in the last minute of their game, coughing up the ball four times, and the Steelers squandered 17-7 and 24-17 leads in theirs while committing three turnovers.

But both of those squads are still in line for playoff berths. The same cannot be said for the Ravens, whose loss to the Colts puts them at 5-5, a game back of the 6-4 Steelers and Jaguars. Worse news for Baltimore: They must play the Steelers twice, and travel to Green Bay, which makes gimmes against the Raiders and Lions must-wins.

The teams in better position now have easier sledding in their last six games. Pittsburgh gets Green Bay at home, and could enter that game at 9-4 if they get past the Ravens on the road next week: They have the Raiders and Browns the two weeks after. Cincy has a few more patsies, too, with the Browns, Lions, Chiefs and Jets wrapped around road dates at Minnesota and San Diego.

For the winning teams among the North's losers, this Sunday is just a setback that should not derail playoff plans. For Baltimore, it's probably a death knell.

But fans of all three teams can just look at Cleveland if they want to feel better. The only thing unexpected about a Browns loss at this point is how it happens.