The biggest game of the NFL season is upon us as the Kansas City Chiefs travel to Buffalo to face the Bills on Sunday afternoon.
Know who else will be around Lake Ontario this week? International superstar and Travis Kelce’s girlfriend Taylor Swift, who’s nearing the end of a nearly two-year Eras Tour.
Just a coincidence? Sources tell CBS Sports actually … yes.
“Completely unintentional,” a league source said earlier this week about the scheduling.
Though nothing has been confirmed in NFL circles yet, the expectation is Swift will attend Highmark Stadium on Sunday for the game, one day after she will have played three consecutive shows in Toronto.
Teams regularly ask the NFL to avoid — or book — certain dates for a variety of reasons. After six straight years of finishing the regular season on the road, the Jets requested and finally received a season-finale home game at MetLife Stadium this year, for example.
The league did work around Swift’s tour in some regards. The NFL did not plan home games for the Saints, Dolphins and Colts when their home stadiums were hosting Swift for the Eras Tour.
The NFL works with Amazon Web Services to devise each season’s schedule. This year there were one quadrillion schedule possibilities for a 272-game season, and the league considered more than 26,000 factors when making the schedule.
But Swift’s tour stop in Toronto was not one of them.
“The teams are honest with us about stadium availability,” Mike North, the NFL’s VP of broadcast planning, told CBS Sports in May ahead of the schedule release. “Some of these teams share their stadiums, whether it’s with Major League Baseball teams, if not stadiums, at least downtown footprint, municipal services, parking lots. We’ve got MLS teams playing in our buildings. Sometimes you’ve got a major golf tournament or a NASCAR race in the market.
“And yeah, every now and then a stadium asks for us to consider having the NFL team on the road a certain weekend because they have an event that they have an opportunity to book in their building, whether it’s the truck and tractor pull or a pop superstar concert or any other reasons. So try to take that all into consideration. Put it in the soup and just keep stirring and hope that where we land, at the end of the day, you know, if not satisfies everybody, disappoints everybody evenly and hopefully only a little.”
For the profile of this game, the NFL could have placed this rivalry matchup just about anywhere on the schedule. And whether the Chiefs were playing in Buffalo this weekend or any other stadium, it’s probable Swift could have gotten wherever Kelce was on the field.
In February for Super Bowl LVIII, Swift made it to Las Vegas in time for the game after playing a show in Tokyo that weekend. Getting her plane from Toronto to any NFL stadium this weekend would have been much easier than that.
After her three shows this week, Swift has open dates on Sunday through Wednesday before returning to the Rogers Centre for three more shows. She finishes the tour, which began in March 2023, in Vancouver in early December.
She has already attended all five Chiefs home games this season. Since her first appearance in a suite on Sept. 24, 2023, which was a 41-10 win at Arrowhead over the Bears, the Chiefs are 18-3 with Swift in attendance. Of course, they’re 23-5 since that date regardless of whether Swift’s in the building.
It’s impossible to know just how great the so-called Taylor Swift Effect has been on the NFL, but no one at the league is denying it. The NFL reportedly saw big ratings boosts in the female 12-17 and 18-49 demographics in her first appearance at a Chiefs game last September.
Her impact on the league from a social media perspective was “honestly unlike anything we’ve seen,” one league executive told CBS Sports last fall.
“Obviously the Kansas City Chiefs are a pretty big brand, seeing the 12-year-old girls wearing number 87 Chiefs jerseys. It’s fun for all of us to see,” North said in May. “And while I don’t have daughters, I do have nieces. And maybe my favorite thing about what’s happening now is, you know, if Taylor Swift is getting those little girls in front of a television screen to watch NFL football, yes, they’re looking to see Taylor, but they’re also starting to see an incredible amount of women in really prominent positions.
“They’re seeing women game officials. They’re seeing women coaches. They’re seeing women announcers. If we can bring more little girls to the television screen and they can see themselves looking back at them, there’s nothing but a positive there. So, yes, the Taylor Swift effect is real, but I can’t say that the Kansas City Chiefs got more national television because their tight end is dating a pop superstar. They got national television because they’ve played their way into those windows.”
THE NFL TODAY will be live from Buffalo on Sunday. Fans can join the crew in Lot 6 at Highmark Stadium starting at noon ET on Nov. 17.
Welcome to the Thursday edition of the Pick Six newsletter!
I hope you don’t have any plans tonight, but if you do, you might want to go ahead and cancel them because we have a huge Thursday night game: Commanders at Eagles. Please make sure to enjoy this game, because we have the Browns coming up next Thursday and I’m guessing that won’t be as enjoyable.
Of course, we’ve got a preview of tonight’s game coming in today’s newsletter, plus we have some playoff projections and we’ll be breaking down the latest comments from Deion Sanders, who might be bringing some drama to the 2025 NFL Draft. As a fan of drama, I’m all for it.
As always, here’s your daily reminder to tell all your friends to sign up for the newsletter or you can tell people you run into at the grocery store. That also works. To get them signed up, all you have to do is click here.
Thursday night preview: Picks and best bets for Commanders at Eagles jalen-hurts-eagles-usatsi.jpg USATSI The Washington Commanders (7-3) have been the biggest surprise in the NFL this year and they’ll have a chance to take over first place in the NFC East on Thursday night if they can go into Philadelphia and knock off the Eagles (7-2).
Here’s one reason why each team should be feeling confident:
Why the Commanders can win: Although the Eagles have one of the best defenses in the NFL — they’ve given up the second-fewest yards per game (274.1) this year and sixth fewest points per game (17.9) — that shouldn’t intimidate the Commanders. The Eagles have only played two teams that currently have a winning record (Atlanta and Green Bay) and those two teams had a lot of offensive success against Philly, averaging 399.5 yard 25.5 points per game. Basically, with the way Jayden Daniels has this offense playing, it won’t be surprising if Washington has some offensive success. The key will be for the Commanders to get their rushing attack going: Washington is 6-0 this year when they rush for at least 140 yards, but 1-3 when they don’t. Why the Eagles can win: The Commanders are surrendering an average of 142.7 rushing yards per game this year, which is the fifth-worst number in the NFL. The Eagles have the perfect weapon to take advantage of a bad run defense and that weapon is Saquon Barkley, who is currently second in the NFL with 991 rushing yards. This feels like a spot where Barkley would have a big game, but if the Commanders go all in to stop him, that could open things up for Jalen Hurts and the passing attack. Either way, the Eagles offense could be primed to have a big night as they look to take control of the division. You can get a full preview of the game from Jeff Kerr by clicking here.
If you’re thinking about betting on the game, here are a couple of props.
ONE PLAYER PROP I LIKE: Kenneth Gainwell OVER 13.5 rushing yards (-125 at BetMGM): This is an extremely low number for Gainwell, who has averaged 27.4 yards per game over the Eagles’ past five games. He’s also gone over this total in four of Philly’s past five games and I won’t be surprised if we see him do it again tonight. ONE KICKING PROP I LIKE: Zane Gonzalez OVER 6.5 points (-135 at BetMGM): The Commanders have played nine games this year and in ALL NINE of those games, their kicker has scored at least NINE points. The Commanders kicker was Austin Seibert in the first eight games, but it was Gonzalez in Week 10 and he’ll also be kicking tonight. Last week, Gonzalez scored nine points and it won’t be shocking if he tops that total tonight. And in case you’re wondering, my props are 26-19 on the season (13-8 on kicker props and 13-11 on all other props).
We also have a full betting preview from SportsLine that you can check out here.
And finally, here are our picks for the game.
PICKS FOR ‘TNF’
Kerr’s pick: Eagles 33-23 over Commanders Prisco’s pick: Eagles 31-24 over Commanders My pick: Eagles 27-24 over Commanders
Over on our CBSSports.com picks page, you can see who our eight experts are taking by clicking here.
NFL playoff projections heading into Week 11 With the NFL schedule now in mid-November, you might be wondering which teams have the best chance of making the playoffs this year. Well, I was also wondering that, so to figure out who’s going to make the playoffs, we had Stephen Oh of SportsLine simulate the rest of the season. We then used those simulations to project the 14 teams we expect to make the playoffs.
Tonight’s game will obviously have a huge impact on the NFC East race. Right now, the Commanders have a 58.4% chance of winning the division, but if they win tonight, that will shoot up to 80.2%. On the other hand, the Eagles will see their chances go up from 41.6% to 60.5% if they beat Washington.
In news that won’t surprise you, the Chiefs are currently the team favored to win it all, according to our projection. If you want more details on the projections, including the individual playoff chances for all 32 teams, be sure to click here.
Midseason superlatives: Voting on the most disappointing team and biggest overachiever I know we had our midseason extravaganza last week (You can see it here) and that it’s not even the midseason anymore, but we have one more midseason story coming your way and it’s coming right now. We rounded up 13 NFL writers and had them vote on several topics from the biggest disappointment to the biggest overachiever.
Let’s check out the results of our poll (Teams are only listed if they received more than one vote in their category)
Most disappointing team
Jets (6 votes)
Cowboys (3.5 votes) Breakdown: These were the only two teams that got more than one vote and it’s not surprising. Both of these teams were viewed as Super Bowl contenders, but the only way they’re going to be watching the Super Bowl this year is if they buy a ticket to the game.
Biggest overachieving team
Commanders (4.5 votes)
Steelers (2.5 votes) T-3. Vikings (2 votes) T-3. Cardinals (2 votes) Breakdown: The Commanders won this vote, but don’t sleep on the Cardinals. They’ve managed to put together a 6-4 record despite the fact that they’ve played the second-toughest schedule in the NFL through 10 weeks. Their first 10 opponents had a combined winning percentage of .581. Only the Buccaneers have faced a more difficult slate (.658).
Team most likely to break out during the second half of the season
Buccaneers (4 votes)
49ers (3 votes)
Bengals (2 votes) Breakdown: If you’re wondering why the Bucs are on top, it’s because they have the easiest remaining strength of schedule in the NFL. Their final seven opponents have a combined winning percentage of .328. Only one remaining team on their schedule currently has more than three win (Chargers). As for the other two teams here, it’s pretty self-explanatory. The 49ers finally have Christian McCaffrey back while the Bengals seem to be on the cusp of being good if they can stop shooting themselves in the foot.
If you want to see all the superlatives that we voted on, be sure to check out our full story here
Answering the NFL’s biggest questions heading into Week 11 russell-wilson.jpg Getty Images As we get ready to head into Week 11, there are a lot of questions that need to be answered around the NFL and the good news for us is that we have Jordan Dajani here to answer them.
Let’s take a look at two of his biggest questions this week:
Who’s in the best spot to land the top QB in the 2025 NFL Draft? “If the season ended today, the Jacksonville Jaguars would own the top pick. They just signed Trevor Lawrence to a record contract, so they probably aren’t drafting a quarterback. With the in mind, keep an eye on the Giants, the Titans, the Browns and Raiders as we inch closer to the end of the regular season. All four of those teams currently hold a top-five pick.” Are the Steelers actually Super Bowl contenders? “The Steelers have an incredible defense and Russell Wilson has brought some consistency to the offensive side of things. They are a good team, but I don’t think we can call them ‘Super Bowl contenders.’ Pittsburgh has started four different seasons 7-2 or better under Mike Tomlin. They won zero playoff games in the previous three instances.” Steelers fans, please direct your hate mail to Jordan and not me.
Also, you can check out the rest of Jordan’s story here.
Deion Sanders might throw a wrench in the 2025 NFL Draft The NFL Draft is usually a pretty simple process: A team picks a player and then that player signs a contract with the team. However, things may not be so simple next year, and that’s because it sounds like Deion Sanders might throw a wrench into things.
During an interview on FS1 Wednesday, the Colorado coach was asked if he might “step in” if the the wrong team tries to draft his son, Shedeur Sanders.
Here’s what Sanders had to say:
Sanders said he’ll step in if the wrong team tries to draft his son. “Yeah, but I’m not gonna do it publicly, I’d do it privately.” Sanders said of possibly stepping in. “I’m going to be a dad until the cows come home.” The Colorado coach also said he’d step in to make sure two-way star Travis Hunter doesn’t go to the wrong team, either. What Sanders is looking in an NFL team. Deion didn’t name any specific teams for his son, but he did give a description of what he wants to see from a team that might draft Shedeur. “Somebody that can handle the quarterback that he is, somebody that can handle, understanding what he’s capable of. Someone that has had success in the past handling quarterbacks or someone in an organization that understands what they’re doing. Not just throwing you out there amongst the wolves, if you don’t have the support and the infrastructure of the team.” Sanders won’t be worrying about the offensive line. Deion said the structure of the organization is way more important than that the line looks like. “Forget the line, he’s played with lines that haven’t been great, but he’s been able to do his thing, but just the infrastructure of the team, the direction of where we’re going.” Sanders also responded to the Cowboys coaching speculation. When Michael Irvin brought up the possibility of Sanders coaching the Cowboys, Deion gave him a six-word response, “I love it where I am.” Deion then took the FS1 crew on a video tour of his office, which is inside Folsom Field and has a view of the mountains. The craziest scenario would be Sanders going to the NFL and then drafting his son. As things stand now, our four mock draft writers have Shedeur headed to three different locations: New York (Giants), Las Vegas and Cleveland. Out of those three teams, I could see Deion and Shedeur teaming up with the Raiders.
If you want to know where our draft writers have Travis Hunter going, you can see all of our mock drafts here.
Extra points: Aaron Rodgers still planning to play in 2025 getty-aaron-rodgers-jets.jpg Getty Images It’s been a busy week in the NFL, and since it’s nearly impossible to keep track of everything that happened, I went ahead and put together a roundup for you.
Aaron Rodgers wants to play another season. With the Jets struggling and Rodgers taking a beating this season, there was some thought that he might want to retire after the 2024 season, but that’s not the case. During his weekly press conference on Wednesday, Rodgers said he would like to return in 2025. The four-time MVP turns 41 on Dec. 2. NFL combine staying in Indianapolis for another year. The NFL has been tossing around the idea of moving the combine to a different location, but if that happens, it won’t be until 2027 at the earliest. The league reached a deal with Indianapolis that will keep the combine in the Indiana city through the 2026 season. Jon Gruden lands a deal with Barstool Sports. The former Raiders coach has found a new job. Gruden will once again be working in the media after landing a multiyear deal with Barstool Sports. Gruden had been visiting with several NFL teams over the18 months, including the Chiefs and Saints, but he never landed a job. Instead, he’ll be taking his first media job since leaving ESPN to coach the Raiders in 2018. J.J. McCarthy has second knee surgery. The Vikings rookie had to undergo a second knee surgery this week as he continues to work his way back from a torn meniscus. The 10th overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft needed another procedure done on his right knee to mitigate swelling that occurred after he ramped up his physical therapy work. You can read more details on McCarthy’s situation here.
The Kansas City Chiefs haven’t lost a game all season. In fact, they haven’t lost since Christmas 2023. Despite their dominance in the last 15 games, they are underdogs heading into Week 11 against the Buffalo Bills.
The Bills are two-point favorites for the AFC showdown between the top two teams in the conference. While the betting odds are on Buffalo’s side, history is on Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes’ side. The three-time Super Bowl champion has been an underdog 14 previous times as a starter and is 11-3 in those games.
The Chiefs were also underdogs in Week 7 in their Super Bowl rematch against the San Francisco 49ers, who were 1.5-point favorites. They won that game 28-18 on the road and now face another road trip where they are not favored.
Mahomes has a .798 winning percentage as a favorite in his career and a .786 winning percentage as an underdog. The Chiefs were favored in every regular-season game in 2023, but were underdogs in three playoff games — Bills, Ravens and 49ers. As we saw, that didn’t matter and the Chiefs marched their way to a second consecutive Super Bowl win.
This is the most challenging game for the Chiefs for the remainder of the season (we’ll see about their road game in Pittsburgh on Christmas), so it likely will be the last time the Chiefs won’t be favored in the regular season.
Kansas City currently sits at 9-0, while Buffalo is 8-2. Buffalo has defeated K.C. in their last three regular-season meetings.
The Chiefs and Bills will face off in Buffalo Sunday at 4:25 p.m. ET on CBS as the standalone national game.
THE NFL TODAY will be live from Buffalo on Sunday. Fans can join the crew in Lot 6 at Highmark Stadium starting at noon ET on Nov. 17.
Justin Fields played an integral role in the Pittsburgh Steelers’ surprising 4-2 start to the 2024 season. But Fields hasn’t received any playing time since Russell Wilson replaced him in the starting lineup in Week 7. Wilson has won each of his three starts under center as the Steelers have improved to 7-2 entering Sunday’s big AFC North matchup against the 7-3 Baltimore Ravens.
Despite his recent absences on game days, Fields hasn’t been forgotten by Steelers offensive coordinator Arthur Smith, who alluded to Pittsburgh’s backup quarterback possibly getting some snaps against Baltimore.
“We’ve had a package every week,” Smith said when asked about his plans for Fields moving forward, via the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “It goes back to the flow of the game. It will be ready to go when we need it. Maybe it will be this Sunday. Maybe it will be next Sunday.”
Specifically, Fields’ mobility has been a component of Pittsburgh’s offense that has been missing since the quarterback change was made. Fields is still the Steelers’ second-leading rusher despite not playing in the last three games. Conversely, Wilson has rushed for just 13 yards on 10 carries during his time running the offense. He did score on a short touchdown run during his first start, a blowout win over the Jets in Week 7.
Speaking of that play, it was somewhat of a surprise that Steelers coach Mike Tomlin didn’t insert Fields into the game for that specific moment. But Tomlin wanted to see what Wilson could do in all facets of the game. And while Wilson is not Fields as far as running is concerned, he is still capable of making the occasional play with his legs, like his 6-yard run on a third-and-4 play during last Sunday’s 28-27 win over the Commanders.
So far, the Steelers haven’t needed Fields’ on-field presence to win games with Wilson under center. But that could change in the upcoming weeks, starting with their upcoming game against a Ravens defense that has allowed the least amount of rushing yards in football so far.
If not this week, it appears that Fields will get back on the field at some point this season. The 25-year-old is set to become a free agent next offseason, so it’s reasonable to expect that the Steelers have an invested interest to see Fields get more live reps before possibly re-signing him.
Either way, Wilson has seized control of Pittsburgh’s offense, largely because of his accurate deep ball passing and leadership skills that come with being a nine-time Pro Bowler and former Super Bowl champion. Wilson’s lengthy film sessions with Smith — that sometimes go well into Friday night — certainly help.
“We spend so many hours (working on film), sometimes my wife FaceTimes me, making sure I’m not somewhere on the South Side,” Smith joked on Thursday, via 93.7 The Fan. “I’m like, ‘There’s Russ.’ We’re here on Friday night, talking through those situational things.”
In the shadow of Levi’s Stadium on Sunday, with the game tied and with no time left on the clock, the football gods finally, finally, finally allowed 49ers kicker Jake Moody to have his moment.
After missing both of his two previous field goal attempts in the fourth quarter, Moody came through. He nailed a 44-yard field goal as time expired to give San Francisco a 23-20 over the Buccaneers, potentially saving the 49ers’ season.
Afterward, the mood in the San Francisco locker room leaned more toward relief than joy as star offensive lineman Trent Williams broke down the team huddle.
“This is just the beginning, man,” Williams told his teammates. “That’s the way to fight, but we’ve got a lot more fighting to go.”
Indeed, just nine months removed from being one fourth down stop away from winning the Super Bowl, the 49ers are fighting for their playoff lives. San Francisco (5-4) sits in second place in the NFC West, a half-game behind the division-leading Cardinals (6-4).
The battle for the division title is shaping up to be the last unknown in the NFC playoff picture. Though eight weeks still remain in the regular season, six teams already have strangleholds on a postseason spot. According to the SportsLine Projection Model, which simulates every NFL game 10,000 times and is up well over $7,000 for $100 players on top-rated NFL picks since its inception, six teams in the NFC already have at least an 74% chance of reaching the playoffs: the Lions (99.9%), Commanders (98.6%), Eagles (95.9%), Falcons (88.7%), Vikings (83.9%) and Packers (74.9%).
The only question, according to the model, is which team wins the NFC West. Though the Cardinals lead the division, the model says San Francisco has a better chance to make the playoffs than Arizona, 58.5% to 52.7%.
Stephen Oh, SportsLine’s principal data engineer and the man behind the model, says that the NFC could have multiple pretenders make the playoffs.
“Arizona is only +18 in point differential (seventh best in NFC), and Atlanta is just +2,” he says. “Unlike in the AFC where every team is at a model top 12 team or better, the NFC could have multiple non-true contenders make the playoffs. Not only Arizona and Atlanta but also Minnesota if Sam Darnold keeps throwing multiple interceptions.”
As for the 49ers’ Week 11 game against the Seahawks, the SportsLine Projection Model has an A-grade spread pick, saying one team covers in well over 50% of simulations. The game is one of four with A-grade spread picks based on model simulations for Week 11. You can find those top-tier Week 11 NFL picks at SportsLine.
New England Patriots defensive lineman Christian Barmore, who has been out since being hospitalized with blood clots during the summer, practiced on Thursday for the first time since his diagnosis.
Barmore has been on the team’s non-football illness list since the time of his hospitalization. New England signed veteran Mike Purcell shortly thereafter as a possible replacement, but he was released less than three weeks later.
“Our principal concern at this time is Christian’s health and well-being,” the team said in a statement at the time of Barmore’s hospitalization. “Fortunately, Mass General Brigham provides some of the best healthcare in the world. While there is no current timetable for his return, we know Christian is getting tremendous care, and we look forward to his full recovery.”
Patriots DT Christian Barmore has returned to practice @RapSheet report officially confirmed! pic.twitter.com/Epdw0KdLt0
— Sophie Weller (@sophieewellerr) November 14, 2024 The hospitalization occurred almost three months to the day after Barmore signed a four-year, $84 million contract extension with the Patriots. The deal, which averages $21 million per year and has made Barmore one of the NFL’s 10 highest-paid interior defenders, signaled New England’s plans to continue featuring the lineman as a core piece of new coach Jerod Mayo’s unit.
Originally a second-round draft pick out of Alabama in 2021, Barmore has appeared in 44 games for the Patriots to date, starting 11 contests. He logged a career-high 8.5 sacks in 2023, when he also set personal-best marks in tackles (64), quarterback hits (16) and tackles for loss (13).
Barmore’s return to the practice field is yet another recent positive for the Patriots, who have won two of their last three games after a 1-6 start to the season. New England will play host to the 4-5 Los Angeles Rams this Sunday.
