Week 18 Recap: Seahawks and Broncos lock up top seeds, Panthers back into playoffs, and more
The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL
The Athletic
4.6 • 3.3K Ratings
🗓️ 5 January 2026
⏱️ 83 minutes
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Summary
Week 18 had a little bit of everything, as far as stakes are concerned. A game for the 1-seed in the NFC? Check. Winner-take-all divisional matchups? Check. Glorified exhibition games? Oh yeah, big check. And when it all wrapped up, we got our first look at this season's playoff field. Robert Mays, Derrik Klassen and Dave Helman put a bow on the regular season on this episode of The Athletic Football Show.
Rundown (timestamps are approximate)
0:01 Ravens-Steelers
17:10 Seahawks-Niners
34:11 Panthers/NFC South
52:20 Playoff picture
1:02:00 Draft order
1:03:55 How can you not be romantic about football?
1:15:10 What did we learn today?
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Host: Robert Mays
Co-Hosts: Derrik Klassen and Dave Helman
Executive Producer: Michael Beller
Video Producer: Katy Duffy
Audio Producer: Michael Beller
Social Producer: Scott Krinch
Follow Robert on Bluesky: @robertmays.bsky.social
Follow Derrik on Bluesky: @qbklass.bsky.social
Follow Dave on Bluesky: @davehelman.bsky.social
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Follow Derrik on X: @QBKlass
Follow Dave on X: @davehelman_
Theme song: Haunted
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Athletic Football Show. |
| 0:04.7 | I'm Robert Mays. |
| 0:05.6 | Week 18 is in the books. |
| 0:08.9 | Man, that was a fun Sunday night game. |
| 0:10.7 | I'm not sure it was a good game, but it was sure fun. |
| 0:13.7 | The Pittsburgh Steelers knock off the Baltimore Ravens to punch their ticket to the postseason. |
| 0:19.3 | Started off by digging into that game and then talked |
| 0:21.4 | about the other games that really mattered in Week 18. |
| 0:24.8 | The fight for the number one seed between the Seahawks and the Niners on Saturday, and then |
| 0:29.7 | the Carolina Panthers somehow losing a game and then winning in the NFC South, which, |
| 0:35.1 | you know, I can't remember anything like that happening, but that's exactly what happened. So we dug into all of the implications in the NFC South the race. After that, chatted a little bit about just the playoff schedule, the seedings. We know what they all look like. At first, quick look at the schedule for next week. A lot of good ones on the slate. I'm already dreading the fact that I have to talk about Bears Packers and then, or watch Bears Packers and then immediately talk about it. That's just not |
| 0:58.4 | going to be a good look for anybody. And then chatted a little bit about the draft order and the |
| 1:03.6 | top 10 that has now come into full view with the season wrapped up. Let's dig into that with me, |
| 1:09.2 | Derek Klesson and Dave Helman right now. |
| 1:18.0 | Right before we started recording, Dave just started laughing, |
| 1:21.0 | and I know that he was just going back and in his mind replaying what we just saw over the |
| 1:25.1 | last, like, half hour. |
| 1:26.2 | I know that's why you're just sitting there shuckling. |
| 1:28.7 | Yeah, because we got everything you could possibly want from the last game of the season, |
| 1:33.4 | including the fact that that was, that sucked. |
| 1:37.1 | Like, theoretically, thrilling, thrilling finish. |
| 1:40.7 | So football was horrible. |
... |
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