Week 17 Recap: 49ers win thriller over Bears, Eagles outlast Bills, Drake Maye dazzles, and more
The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL
The Athletic
4.6 • 3.3K Ratings
🗓️ 29 December 2025
⏱️ 94 minutes
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Summary
Week 17 was all about the upstarts that have defined this season. The San Francisco 49ers and Chicago Bears gave us a game of the year candidate, with the 49ers coming out on top. The New England Patriots clinched the AFC East and Drake Maye made a case for MVP. The Jacksonville Jaguars took another step toward the AFC South crown. The Seattle Seahawks and Denver Broncos inched closer to locking up the top seeds in their respective conferences. Robert Mays, Derrik Klassen and Dave Helman look back at the week that was and set the stage for the final week of the regular season on this episode of The Athletic Football Show.
Rundown (timestamps are approximate)
2:52 Niners beat Bears in SNF thriller
21:25 Eagles take down Bills
39:00 Texans keep rolling, beat Chargers
49:44 Ravens stay alive with win over Packers
1:06:10 Browns upend Steelers
1:13:15 The NFC South remains the NFC South
1:24:20 What made us romantic about football in Week 17?
1:33:10 What did we learn in Week 17?
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Host: Robert Mays
Co-Hosts: Derrik Klassen and Dave Helman
Executive Producer: Michael Beller
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Audio Producer: Michael Beller
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Athletic Football Show. |
| 0:05.4 | I'm Robert Mays, man. |
| 0:06.8 | One heck of a week 17 slate. |
| 0:10.1 | Obviously, the Christmas games earlier this week, which we talked about on Friday, |
| 0:13.2 | but we had two Saturday games, both of which we dug into big wins for the Ravens and the Texans. |
| 0:19.1 | The Ravens staying alive in the AFC North Race with the Steelers' loss, |
| 0:23.2 | which we also hit today in a little WTF. |
| 0:25.9 | We kick things off, though, with a fantastic Sunday night football game |
| 0:29.3 | between the Bears and the Niners in a thrilling shootout |
| 0:32.5 | and hit a ton of other great stuff from the Week 17 Slate. |
| 0:39.7 | With me, Derek Classen, and Dave Hellman. Let's get to it right now. |
| 0:46.0 | That was one heck of a week 17, huh? |
| 0:49.1 | That was an incredible week 17, man. |
| 0:51.2 | Like, obviously we're coming off the high of the end of that game, but the rest of the slate was better than it looked going into it, honestly. |
| 0:57.5 | Just when I think I'm annoyed with the NFL for the Christmas shenanigans, |
| 1:02.3 | they totally redeem themselves. |
| 1:04.7 | That was riveting from beginning to end. |
| 1:07.3 | It was a great couple days of football. |
| 1:09.4 | I mean, yesterday you had a big time game between the Chargers and the Texans. |
| 1:12.6 | You had a Ravens Packers game that was different and entertaining in a way. |
| 1:16.2 | I don't think we could have expected. |
| 1:17.3 | And then all day today, I mean, you had plenty of compelling, important stuff happened throughout the day, |
... |
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