The Green Bay Packers advanced to the NFL playoffs on Thursday without stepping onto the field, clinching a post-season berth when the Detroit Lions lost 23-10 at Minnesota.<\/p>\n
Green Bay accepted the Christmas gift of a third consecutive playoff appearance and sixth in seven years.<\/p>\n
Minnesota’s defenders forced six turnovers by Detroit that led to 16 points as the Lions fell to 8-8 and became unable to catch the Packers (9-5-1) for the last available NFC wildcard.<\/p>\n
“Can’t turn the ball over six times and expect to win,” Lions coach Dan Campbell said. “That’s what got us.<\/p>\n
“The effort is there. We’re just a little off and it’s costing us.”<\/p>\n
Lions defender Aidan Hutchinson called missing the playoffs “frustrating” and “disappointing”.<\/p>\n
A one-yard touchdown run by Aaron Jones gave Minnesota the lead but Jared Goff’s four-yard touchdown pass to Isaac TeSlaa made it 7-7 at half-time.<\/p>\n
Minnesota’s Will Reichard kicked field goals from 52 and 56 yards and Detroit’s Jake Bates responded with a 48-yard kick to make it 13-10.<\/p>\n
Jordan Addison answered with a 65-yard touchdown run to put the Vikings 20-10 ahead with 3:43 to play and Reichard added a final field goal.<\/p>\n
Other NFC clubs that have secured playoff berths are reigning champion Philadelphia, Seattle, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles Rams.<\/p>\n
AFC teams that have clinched post-season berths are Denver, New England, Denver, Buffalo, Jacksonville and Los Angeles Chargers.<\/p>\n
Broncos edge Chiefs<\/p>\n
The Denver Broncos improved to an NFL-best 13-3 with a 20-13 victory at Kansas City, seizing a lead in the fight for a first-round AFC playoff bye before rivals play on Sunday.<\/p>\n
The Chiefs, whose star quarterback Patrick Mahomes is out for the season with a knee injury, took a 7-6 half-time lead on Chris Oladokun’s five-yard touchdown toss to Brashard Smith.<\/p>\n
Harrison Butker added a 53-yard field goal for the Chiefs in the third quarter. Bo Nix ran nine yards for a Denver touchdown but Butker’s 47-yard field goal tied the game at 13-13.<\/p>\n
Nix flipped a one-yard touchdown toss to R.J. Harvey with 1:45 remaining to give Denver the final victory margin.<\/p>\n
The Broncos defensive unit stopped Kansas City at the Denver 26-yard line on downs to secure the triumph.<\/p>\n
It was Denver’s 11th victory of the season by one score or less and snapped a nine-game losing streak at Kansas City.<\/p>\n
Singer Taylor Swift attended to watch her fiancee, Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, who played what could be his final home game for Kansas City.<\/p>\n
In an earlier game between teams out of playoff contention, Dak Prescott threw for 307 yards and two touchdowns to spark Dallas in a 30-23 victory at Washington.<\/p>\n
The Cowboys’ quarterback completed 19-of-37 passes without an interception while Malik Davis ran 20 times for 103 yards for Dallas (7-8-1).<\/p>\n
“I’m blessed doing what I love on such a great holiday,” Prescott said.<\/p>\n
“We just want to finish off this season strong. It’s about rolling over the good things and taking the momentum.”<\/p>\n
Jacory Croskey-Merritt carried 11 times for 105 yards and two touchdowns for the Commanders (4-12).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Green Bay Packers advanced to the NFL playoffs on Thursday without stepping onto the field, clinching a post-season berth when the Detroit Lions lost 23-10 at Minnesota. Green Bay accepted the Christmas gift of a third consecutive playoff appearance and sixth in seven years. Minnesota’s defenders forced six turnovers by Detroit that led to …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":350,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=347"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":352,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347\/revisions\/352"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}