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The Chiefs held the Colts, who boast the NFL’s No. 1 scoring offense, to 20 points this past week — tying a season-low for Indianapolis. The Texans overwhelmed reigning MVP Josh Allen and the Bills’ offense. The Rams suffocated the Bucs in prime time.
Those showings highlighted a dominant week for defenses across the NFL, as just four teams reached 30 points. Ahead of Week 13, here’s my tiered ranking of all 32 defensive units (see Week 12 here):
Houston Texans
Denver Broncos
Los Angeles Rams
Kansas City Chiefs
Green Bay Packers
Baltimore Ravens
Seattle Seahawks
The Texans showed why they have arguably the best defense in football on a national stage last week.
Against the Bills, who entered Thursday Night Football with the NFL’s fourth-ranked scoring offense, Houston stuffed the stat sheet — eight sacks (a career-high on Allen), 12 quarterback hits, 11 tackles for loss and five pass breakups. The Texans also had three takeaways, including the game-sealing interception with 24 seconds left.
It was arguably the most dominant performance we’ve seen this year by a defense, given the stage of the season and the caliber of Buffalo’s offense. Houston owns the league’s No. 2 scoring defense with six weeks left in the regular season (16.5 points allowed/game).
It feels like the Rams’ defense is underrated, due to its lack of household talent (excluding edge rusher Jared Verse). But we can’t overlook the work of defensive coordinator Chris Shula. Boasting the NFL’s top-scoring defense entering Week 13 (16.3 points allowed/game), Los Angeles played lights out against the pass vs. Tampa, which was held to just seven points on Sunday night.
Cleveland Browns
Philadelphia Eagles
New England Patriots
Indianapolis Colts
Detroit Lions
Since an uncharacteristic showing against the Patriots in Week 8 — 422 yards of offense and six scoring drives allowed — the Browns’ defense has been playing at a championship-caliber level.
Led by All-Pro edge Myles Garrett, who has eight sacks in his past three games, Cleveland has allowed an average of 20 points during that span. If you exclude the two special teams touchdowns the team gave up in Week 10 against the Jets, that drops to 15.3. And the 23 points the Browns gave up in Week 12 to the Ravens is tied for the fewest points Baltimore has scored this season when Lamar Jackson plays 100 percent of snaps.
The Eagles remain on the shortlist of best defenses in the NFL, but they drop out of the Elite tier after allowing 473 net yards to the Cowboys, who scored 17 points in the final 18 minutes to beat the defending champs 24-21 on Sunday.
Los Angeles Chargers
Dallas Cowboys
Atlanta Falcons
Carolina Panthers
Minnesota Vikings
Jacksonville Jaguars
Buffalo Bills
Chicago Bears
San Francisco 49ers
New Orleans Saints
The Cowboys’ defense continues to ascend after climbing three tiers last week, approaching the Bet the Under class.
Dallas kept Philadelphia scoreless in the final 41 minutes on Sunday. It’s a small sample size, but over the past two weeks — since their bye and the trade deadline — the Cowboys rank second in rushing defense (45.0), seventh in sacks per game (2.5) and yards allowed per game (287.5), eighth in takeaways per game (1.5) and 11th in points allowed per game (18.5).
Among the other defenses in this tier, it’s worth noting that the Niners gave up just nine points to the Panthers on Monday. Carolina was coming off a game in which Bryce Young threw for a franchise-record 448 yards and three touchdowns with no interceptions. San Francisco’s banged-up defense held him to 169 passing yards and one TD against two picks with a 60.8 passer rating. The Panthers had just one play of 20-plus yards, which came in the final minute of the third quarter.
Niners defensive coordinator Robert Saleh has done a terrific job with his unit, which is without superstars Fred Warner and Nick Bosa for the rest of the season.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Miami Dolphins
Pittsburgh Steelers
The Bucs’ defense is unraveling, in large part due to the injury bug that has impacted the entire roster. Tampa has given up at least 28 points in three consecutive weeks and more than 400 yards of offense twice in the past three games.
New York Jets
Las Vegas Raiders
Arizona Cardinals
The Raiders gave up 24 points last week to a terrible Browns offense, which had scored 20 or more points just two other times this season. Superstar edge rusher Maxx Crosby is averaging a career-low 9.4% pressure rate, according to Next Gen Stats, in large part due to Vegas’ lack of production and help around him.
Washington Commanders
Tennessee Titans
New York Giants
Cincinnati Bengals
The Giants fired defensive coordinator Shane Bowen after New York blew a 27-17 lead to the Lions on Sunday. That was the fifth time this season that the Giants lost a double-digit lead in the fourth quarter.
Ben Arthur is an NFL reporter for FOX Sports. He previously worked for The Tennessean/USA TODAY Network, where he was the Titans beat writer for a year and a half. He covered the Seattle Seahawks for SeattlePI.com for three seasons (2018-20) prior to moving to Tennessee. You can follow Ben on Twitter at @benyarthur.
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