AT&T Stadium, the site of the Eagles' shocking week 12 collapse - Source: Pixabay
Spectacle and heartbreak. That’s what Week 12 delivered to the Philadelphia Eagles and every observer glued to the high-stakes NFC East clash. For thirty pulsating minutes inside AT&T Stadium, the reigning Super Bowl champions authored a near-flawless script—commanding a dominant 21-0 first-half lead, suffocating the Dallas Cowboys with a staunch defense and offensive firepower.
Jalen Hurts, orchestrating with both arms and legs, accounted for three first-half scores. The defense, opportunistic and hungry, forced turnovers to douse any early Dallas sparks. Was this the mark of a champion pulling away? The metrics said yes; the history books had other plans.
Because what followed was a collapse that will go down in infamy. Saquon Barkley’s fumble deep in Philly territory opened the door. The Cowboys stormed right through—Dak Prescott engineering three unanswered touchdowns, and Brandon Aubrey’s ice-blooded chip shot field goal at the buzzer cementing a scarcely believable 24-21 Dallas win as bewildered Eagles watched their fortress crumble. The result keeps the Cowboys' faint postseason hopes alive, while the City of Brotherly Love heads into full meltdown mode.
But what has that disastrous second half at Jerry World done to the Eagles' Super Bowl odds? Are they still the Lombardi favorites, as they were when they made the journey south to the Lone Star State? Or have their hopes gone up in flames? Let's take a look at both the Birds and the other Super Bowl contenders as the 2025 NFL season powers its way toward its conclusion.
Heading into the trip to face the Cowboys, the Eagles were the +400 favorites for February's Super Bowl in Santa Clara. Now, those odds have been pushed out to +650, with value quickly shrinking. The popular expected value calculator at Thunderpick shows that Philly did have a presumed 20% chance of successfully defending the Lombardi Trophy they won in such devastating fashion last season. Now, however, that chance has slipped to 13.33%, and the margin for error is quickly reducing.
How did a team riding an 8-2 record and sporting one of the league’s most dynamic dual-threat quarterbacks stumble so spectacularly? The analytics point to a troubling trend: Philadelphia has allowed the second-most points in the NFC over the past four weeks and has failed to protect leads in consecutive marquee showdowns. Playmakers like A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith remain elite, but emphasis on conservatism and a reluctance to air the ball out to them, particularly when leading, is starting to cost the Eagles dearly.
Yet the road ahead is far from apocalyptic. The Birds still control their fate with six games remaining, with two games against the Commanders and a clash with the Raiders, all surely resulting in Philadelphia victories. As such, they are still the second favorites to end the season as champions, despite their lengthening odds. History, however, is written in how teams respond to devastation. For Nick Sirianni and his locker room, a championship repeat will demand surgical attention to detail, emotional grit, and a refusal to let one night in Texas define their season.
If there’s a storm on the horizon for Philadelphia, it’s taking shape in Southern California. The Los Angeles Rams have caught fire at precisely the right moment. While everyone continues to falter around them, Tinsel Town's finest continues to march on, with their clinical 34-7 dismantling of Tampa Bay in Week 12 extending their win streak to six and catapulting them to the summit of the Super Bowl betting charts.
The Rams are now league leaders in point differential (+127), with MVP favorite Matthew Stafford continuing to dazzle. He amassed three more touchdown passes in week 12, taking his haul for the season to 30, the most in the league by some distance. But despite all the offensive firepower, with Stafford regularly finding Puka Nacua and DaVante Adams in the air in addition to Kyren Williams on the ground, the defense is equally as stout.
The Rams have allowed ten or fewer points in four of their last six games, including in the recent clash with the Bucs, where they allowed just 193 yards. That provides the platform for Stafford and Co. to shine, and with a friendly schedule still to come between now and the postseason, it's clear to see why they are the red-hot +400 favorites.
Dynasties don’t fade quietly, and you can write the Kansas City Chiefs off at your peril. Andy Reid's men have reached the Super Bowl in each of the last three seasons, winning the first two before being blindsided by the Eagles this season. This term, their demise has been well documented, but they refuse to surrender their status as the NFL's kingpins without a fight.
They continue to lurk as a +1000 contender, good enough for third overall in the billing. Forget the record (6-5 isn’t pretty) and focus on the intangibles: Patrick Mahomes, five game-winning drives, and a playoff pedigree that terrifies opponents. Their 23-20 overtime escape against Indianapolis was a masterclass in coming back from the dead, trailing 20-9 deep into the second half before showing their championship mettle. Mahomes threw for 352 yards, driving his team down the field time and again to force overtime, where kicker Harrison Butker became the hero.
But the pressure remains truly on. The Denver Broncos look to have the AFC West wrapped up, beating the Chiefs in week 11 at Mile High. Should Mahomes and Co. reach the postseason, they are likely to do so as a wildcard. No wildcard has ever won the Super Bowl, but the Chiefs aren't just any ordinary outsider. No one will want to face them under the bright January lights, a pressure cooker in which they have thrived time and time again.
