The NFC’s No. 1 seed will come down to the final game of the regular season when the Detroit Lions host the Minnesota Vikings next Sunday night.
The winner takes the NFC North and gets a first-round playoff bye and home-field advantage until the Super Bowl. The loser becomes the No. 5 seed and must play on the road in the wild-card round. The Lions hold the tiebreaker if the teams enter with identical records and play to a tie.
The Vikings (14-2) held on for a 27-25 victory over the Green Bay Packers on Sunday to set up the high-stakes showdown in Week 18. The Lions (13-2) visit the San Francisco 49ers (6-9) on Monday night in a rematch of the NFC title game. If they win, they have to beat the Vikings again or tie. Detroit beat Minnesota 31-29 in Week 7. If they lose or tie, they must defeat the Vikings.
The Philadelphia Eagles (13-3) clinched the NFC East and locked up the No. 2 seed with a 41-7 rout of the Dallas Cowboys. However, coach Nick Sirianni has a tough decision to make this week. Saquon Barkley is 101 yards away from breaking Eric Dickerson’s single-season record for yards rushing in a season.
Sirianni has to decide whether to rest Barkley and most of his starters to prepare for the playoffs or let his star try for the 40-year-old record.
The Los Angeles Rams (10-6) clinched the NFC West and the Seattle Seahawks (9-7) were eliminated when the Commanders beat the Falcons 30-24 in overtime Sunday night. Washington (11-5) secured a wild-card berth with the win. The Commanders and the Packers (11-5) hold the final two NFC playoff spots.
Atlanta's loss gave the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (9-7) control of the NFC South and dropped the Falcons (8-8) into second place. The Buccaneers would clinch the division with a victory or tie against Carolina next Sunday.
Three teams in the AFC have already secured their seeds. The two-time defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs (15-1) won the AFC West weeks ago and clinched the No. 1 seed.
The AFC East champion Buffalo Bills (13-3) are the No. 2 seed. The AFC South champion Houston Texans (9-7) are the No. 4 seed.
The Baltimore Ravens (11-5) would win the AFC North and get the No. 3 seed with a win or tie against Cleveland on Saturday or a loss or tie by Pittsburgh, which hosts Cincinnati on Saturday night.
If they don’t win the division, the Steelers have already clinched a wild-card berth. The Los Angeles Chargers (10-6) also secured a wild-card spot. They’ll be no lower than the sixth seed.
The final AFC playoff spot comes down to the Broncos (9-7), Dolphins (8-8) or Bengals (8-8).
Denver clinches with a win or tie against the Chiefs. The Dolphins need the Broncos to lose and they must beat the Jets on the road to get in. The Bengals must win and the Broncos and Dolphins have to lose for them to get in.
AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/NFL
Detroit Lions head coach Dan Campbell reacts as he talks to reporters after an NFL football game against the Chicago Bears on Sunday, Dec. 22, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Erin Hooley)
Green Bay Packers' Keisean Nixon stops Minnesota Vikings' T.J. Hockenson after a catch during the first half of an NFL football game Sunday, Dec. 29, 2024, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Bruce Kluckhohn)
Minnesota Vikings' Jordan Addison celebrates his touchdown catch with Justin Jefferson during the second half of an NFL football game against the Green Bay Packers Sunday, Dec. 29, 2024, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The FBI says it recovered the black banner of the Islamic State group from the truck that an American man from Texas smashed into New Year's partygoers in New Orleans' French Quarter, killing 15 people.
The investigation is expected to look in part at any support or inspiration that driver Shamsud-Din Jabbar may have drawn from that violent Middle East-based group or from any of at least 19 affiliated groups around the world.
President Joe Biden said Wednesday evening that the FBI had told him that “mere hours before the attack, (Jabbar) posted videos on social media indicating that he was inspired” by IS.
Routed from its self-proclaimed caliphate in Syria and Iraq by a U.S. military-led coalition more than five years ago, IS has focused on seizing territory in the Middle East more than on staging massive al-Qaida-style attacks on the West.
But in its home territory, IS has welcomed any chance to behead Americans and other foreigners who come within its reach. The main group at peak strength claimed a handful of coordinated operations targeting the West, including a 2015 Paris plot that killed 130 people. It has had success, although abated in recent years, in inspiring people around the world who are drawn to its ideology to carry out ghastly attacks on innocent civilians.
Here's a look at IS, its current status, and some of the offshoot armed groups and so-called lone wolves that have killed under the group's flag.
The main group also goes by IS, ISIS, or the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
It began as a breakaway group from al-Qaida.
Under leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, IS had seized stunning amounts of territory in Iraq and Syria by 2014. Within territory under its control, it killed, raped and otherwise abused members of other faiths and targeted fellow Sunni Muslims who strayed from its harsh interpretation of Islam.
By 2019, a U.S.-led military intervention had driven IS from the cities and towns of its self-claimed state. Al-Baghdadi killed himself, and two children near him, that same year, detonating an explosive vest as U.S. forces closed in on him.
Currently, the main IS is a scattered and much weakened organization working to regain fighting strength and territory in Syria and Iraq. Experts warn that the group is reconstituting itself there.
And that flag? Typically, it's a black banner with white Arabic letters expressing a central tenet of the Islamic faith. Countless Muslims around the world see the coercive violence of the group as a perversion of their religion.
Some experts argue that IS is powerful today partly as a brand, inspiring both militant groups and individuals in attacks that the group itself may have no real role in.
The group's credo and military successes have led armed extremist organizations in Africa, Asia and Europe to swear allegiance to it. It's a greatly decentralized alliance.
Many of the offshoot groups have carried out lethal attacks. Islamic State-Khorasan, an Afghanistan-based group, is one of the most lethal currently. Attacks linked to that affiliate include the March 2024 killings of about 130 people at a Moscow theater, the August 2021 bombing that killed 13 U.S. service members and about 170 Afghans as the U.S. was withdrawing from Afghanistan, and killings in Pakistan and elsewhere.
The New Orleans rampage reflects the deadliest IS-inspired attack on U.S. soil in several years.
Other attacks over the past decade include a 2014 shooting rampage by a husband-and-wife team who killed 14 people in San Bernardino, California, and a 2016 massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, by a gunman who fatally shot 49 people, pledged his allegiance on a 911 call to al-Baghdadi and raged against the “filthy ways of the West.”
Those attacks coincided with an influx of thousands of Westerners — some of them Americans — who traveled to Syria in hopes of joining the so-called caliphate.
In the aftermath of those killings, the threat from radicalized followers of the group had appeared to wane in the Defense Department strikes have taken out other IS members and the FBI has had significant success in disrupting plots before they come to fruition.
But over the past year, FBI officials have warned about a significantly elevated threat of international terrorism following Hamas’ rampage in Israel in October 2023 and the resulting Israeli strikes in Gaza.
The SITE intelligence group reported IS supporters celebrating in online chat groups Wednesday.
“If it’s a brother, he’s a legend. Allahu Akbar,” or “God is great,” it quoted one as saying.
President Joe Biden makes a statement on the latest developments in New Orleans from Camp David, Md., Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
Emergency services attend the scene on Bourbon Street after a vehicle drove into a crowd on New Orleans' Canal and Bourbon Street, Wednesday Jan. 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
This undated passport photo provided by the FBI on Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2025, shows Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar. (FBI via AP)
A black flag with white lettering lies on the ground rolled up behind a pickup truck that a man drove into a crowd on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, killing and injuring a number of people, early Wednesday morning, Jan. 1, 2025. The FBI said they recovered an Islamic State group flag, which is black with white lettering, from the vehicle. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
