The Dolphins have started requesting interviews with candidates for their General Manager job.
The team has had some time to come up with names since they fired Chris Grier on October 31. Champ Kelly finished out the year as the team’s interim G.M.
According to multiple reports, the first set of names includes 49ers vice president of player personnel Tariq Ahmad, Eagles assistant G.M. Alec Halaby, Rams assistant G.M. John McKay, Packers vice president of player personnel Jon-Eric Sullivan, and 49ers director of scouting and football operations Josh Williams.
Halaby, Sullivan, and Williams have made the interview rounds in recent years and all five candidates work for teams that have been regulars in the playoffs in recent seasons. The Dolphins have missed the postseason the last two years and would like their eventual hire to have a hand in ending that drought.
Home-field advantage might not mean much in the first round of the NFL playoffs.
Of the six games in the wild card round, the road teams are favored in four.
The biggest favorites are the Rams, who are 9.5-point favorites to beat the Panthers in Carolina. But that might be just fine with the Panthers: The Rams were previously 10-point favorites at Carolina in the regular season, but the Panthers won 31-28.
The Packers are 1.5-point favorites on the road in Chicago. It will be the third meeting of the two teams in the last six weeks after they played twice in December. The Bears beat the Packers 22-16 in overtime in Chicago in the regular season, while the Packers beat the Bears 28-21 in Green Bay.
The Bills are 1.5-point favorites against the Jaguars at Jacksonville. The Jaguars lost twice at home in the regular season.
The Eagles are 3.5-point favorites at home against the 49ers. The Eagles lost twice at home in the regular season.
The Patriots are 3.5-point favorites at home against the Chargers. The Patriots went 14-3 this season, but all three losses were at home.
The Texans are 3-point favorites on the road against the Steelers. The Steelers lost at home three times in the regular season.
If the betting lines are to be believed, only two division winners, the No. 2 seed Eagles and Patriots, will advance to the divisional round.
The NFL has announced the wild-card weekend schedule for Jan. 10-12:
Saturday, Jan. 10
4:30 p.m. 5 Los Angeles Rams at 4 Carolina Panthers (FOX, FOX Deportes)
8 p.m. 7 Green Bay Packers at 2 Chicago Bears (Prime Video)
Sunday, Jan. 11
1 p.m. 6 Buffalo Bills at 3 Jacksonville Jaguars (CBS, Paramount+)
4:30 p.m. 6 San Francisco 49ers at 3 Philadelphia Eagles (FOX, FOX Deportes)
8 p.m. 7 Los Angeles Chargers at 2 New England Patriots (NBC, Peacock, Universo)
Monday, Jan. 12
8 p.m. 5 Houston Texans at 4 Baltimore/Pittsburgh (ESPN/ABC/ESPN+/ ESPN Deportes; ManningCast-ESPN2/ESPN+)
Jordan Love didn’t play for the Packers on Sunday. Neither did Malik Willis.
Third-string quarterback Clayton Tune started what was a glorified preseason game for the Packers as they did not start 16 key contributors in a 16-3 loss to the Vikings.
With the Packers already locked in as the seventh seed, coach Matt LaFleur decided to call it a regular season after Week 17. He learned his lesson in Week 18 last season when wide receiver Christian Watson tore an anterior cruciate ligament.
“I think we did the right thing today,” LaFleur said Sunday, via Rob Demovsky of ESPN. “And we’ll see. Time will tell. But I feel better about this certainly than I did a year ago after the game. It was a double whammy when we lose the game and you lose a key player for us to go into that run. I thought this was the best decision.”
Love, who was cleared from concussion protocol, served as the backup with Willis inactive with right shoulder and hamstring injuries. If Love had to play, though, LaFleur said Love would not have attempted a pass.
The Packers finished with minus-7 passing yards, their fewest in a game since 1976. They ended the regular season with a four-game losing streak, becoming only the fourth playoff team in NFL history to end the regular season with a losing streak that long or longer.
The 1986 Jets (five losses), 2024 Steelers (four) and 1999 Lions (four) entered the postseason on a losing streak of four games or longer, according to ESPN Research, and of that group, only the 1986 Jets won a playoff game.
In a largely disappointing season, the Vikings finished strong.
Minnesota concluded the 2025 regular season today with a 16-3 win over Green Bay that improved the Vikings’ record to 9-8 on the season. That’s not good enough to make the playoffs, but after a rough start, the Vikings ended the season on a five-game winning streak.
It helped that the Packers weren’t trying to win, as they were already locked into the No. 7 seed in the playoffs and rested many of their most important players. Third-string quarterback Clayton Tune started for the Packers and showed why he’s a third-stringer.
For Vikings fans, the best moments came when they recognized two longtime respected veterans, safety Harrison Smith and fullback C.J. Ham, both of whom got loud ovations in what may have been their last game in Minnesota.
The bad news for the Vikings was that quarterback J.J. McCarthy aggravated his right hand injury, raising more concerns that he’s simply not capable of staying healthy. McCarthy’s status as the franchise quarterback is the biggest question facing the Vikings in the offseason.
The Packers have bigger fish to fry. After treating today like a preseason game, the Packers will now get ready to travel to either Chicago or Philadelphia for the wild card round of the playoffs.
