4 Games In Week 18 That Could Drastically Change the NFL Draft Order

   The Cleveland Browns are in sole possession of the worst record in the NFL - for now. Following Saturday’s loss to the Ravens, the Browns have officially ended their season with a record of 3-14. This will go down as the worst record in football, but there are 28 other teams that still have one game left to play on Sunday. Three of those teams are 3-13, and right above them are five teams with a record of 4-12. That means the first 9 picks of the 2025 NFL Draft are currently only separated by a single win. With the tiebreaker for draft order now being Strength of Schedule, and the Strength of Schedule being determined by the combined win percentage of a team’s opponents that season, there are a whole lot of things that could change between now and Monday. Here is a look at 4 games taking place on Sunday that could result in the biggest disruption of the draft order:

1. Bills (13-3) at Patriots (3-13)

With a loss in this game, the Patriots would secure the first pick in the draft. But don’t let the lopsided records fool you. Two weeks ago, they went into Buffalo and scored two touchdowns before the Bills were even able to get the ball past midfield. To the surprise of many, New England was still holding onto a 14-7 lead at halftime before Josh Allen brought his team back to a 24-21 win.

Buffalo has already locked in the #2 seed in the AFC and the #1 seed is out of reach, so they will likely be resting many of their starters. Head coach Sean McDermott did announce earlier this week that Josh Allen will start the game, but that backup quarterback Mitchell Trubisky will be getting most of the playing time. On the New England side, head coach Jerod Mayo might be fighting for his job. Things seemed relatively safe for Mayo until last week when his squad was blown out at home 40-7 by the visiting Chargers. That was their worst loss of the season, and thanks to the Giants beating the Colts in the same week, the Patriots' pick became the #1 overall pick. 

The rumor mill has been buzzing this week with reports that veteran head coaching candidates would be interested in the Patriots job if there were an opening, so Jerod Mayo will do everything in his power to make sure there isn’t one. If the Patriots do manage to win this game, they would improve to 4 wins on the year and be tied with somewhere between 5 and 8 teams that could end up with the same record depending on the outcome of all the other Sunday games.

2. Jaguars (4-12) at Colts (7-9)

The Jaguars are currently slated to pick 5th in the draft. They beat the Colts earlier this season, though the teams that met in Jacksonville back in Week 5 look very different from the teams heading to Indianapolis for the rematch. At the time, the 0-4 Jaguars were able to outlast the Colts in an offensive shoot-out for their first win of the season. Trevor Lawrence threw for 371 yards and 2 touchdowns, while Joe Flacco made the start for the Colts in place of the injured Anthony Richardson and answered with 359 yards and 3 touchdowns. The Colts dropped to 2-3 on the year. 

This time, Mac Jones is under center for the Jaguars while Trevor Lawrence recovers from a season ending injury and despite Anthony Richardson playing most of the season, he is once again injured and Joe Flacco has been asked to start one more game for Indianapolis. The Colts are a better team on paper, but they just lost to the Giants last week and allowed Drew Lock to pass for 309 yards and 4 touchdowns. Joe Flacco was also productive, but threw two interceptions to a Giants defense that has ranked near the bottom of all relevant pass defense stats over the course of the year. 

Mac Jones has managed to pull out two dodgy wins (both over the Titans) in his short time filling in at the Jaguars quarterback, if he managed to pull off another win it would give the Jaguars their 5th win of the season, putting them in a tie with 2 to 5 other teams with the same record.

3. Giants (3-13) at Eagles (13-3)

As we just mentioned, Drew Lock’s 4 touchdown passes to defeat the Colts last week gave the Giants their third win of the season and put them in position to make the 4th pick in the draft. Their final opponent of the season will be an Eagles team that appears to have one of the more aggressive plans to rest starters ahead of the playoffs. Like the Bills, the Eagles has locked in the #2 seed in the NFC and they cannot catch the Vikings or Lions so this game is virtually meaningless for Philadelphia.

There were 18 names on the list of Eagles players who were held out of practice this week due to either injury or rest. That list includes Jalen Hurts, Saquon Barkley, A.J. Brown, DeVonta Smith, Jalen Carter, Reed Blankenship, Cooper DeJean, C.J. Gardner-Johnson, Lane Johnson, Jordan Mailata, Quinyon Mitchell, and Darius Slay among others. If none of them play, the Giants will effectively be facing Philadelphia’s entire second-string roster on both sides of the ball. 

If Drew Lock’s hot hand continues, the reserve Eagles defense might not be able to contain him. Any given Sunday, right? A win here would give the Giants their 4th win of the season, and push their draft pick somewhere in the #5 to #8 range. 

4. Texans (9-7) at Titans (3-13)

Tennessee is currently in position to make the 2nd pick of the draft. The Titans are riding a 5 game losing streak, but their last win was a 32-27 over the Texans in Houston. It’s not entirely clear who the quarterback of this team is, as Will Levis and Mason Rudolph have split time throughout much of the season. This game will be the end of Levis’ 2nd season with the Titans, and he has little success to show for his efforts over that time. Rudolph is on a one year contract and could head into free agency after the season. Regardless of who gets more playing time during this matchup, it’s safe to say that both quarterbacks have something to play for.

Despite being just barely above .500 on the season, the Texans have secured a 2 game lead in the AFC South. This means they will be the #4 seed in the AFC no matter what happens, and this game changes nothing for them. When asked about his plans for this game, Houston’s head coach DeMeco Ryans would only say “everybody will be out there playing and then we’ll see how the game goes”. It would seem very likely that he will pull his starters at some point in the game, especially given the recent horrific knee injury that their young receiver Tank Dell sustained just a few weeks ago. It is only a question of when those players get pulled out and how much time Tennessee has to work against the backups. 

If the Titans did win this game, they would move back in the draft order and land somewhere between the 4th pick and the 8th pick. So much of this depends on the final Strength of Schedule scores, but there could be as many as 9 teams with a 4-12 record if the dominoes fall just right. If Tennessee was planning to draft a new quarterback with this pick, a win might push them too far back to accomplish that.