NFL Week 18 Awards: The Players Who Owned the Final Weekend

By Tiffany Williams –

The NFL didn’t coast into Week 18. It put its foot on the gas and ripped the steering wheel clean off.

This was not a quiet finale. This was not a polite bow on the regular season. This was chaos, statement games, careers being stamped and résumés being shredded, and the league’s weekly awards landed exactly where the noise was loudest. The final weekend didn’t whisper. It screamed.

In the AFC, New England Patriots running back Rhamondre Stevenson didn’t just show up. He flattened Miami. Cleveland Browns linebacker Devin Bush didn’t just make plays. He changed a game with one violent swing. Houston Texans kicker Ka’imi Fairbairn didn’t just kick field goals. He carried a team on his right leg. Week 18 didn’t crown passengers. It crowned drivers.

Stevenson was the engine. New England rolled Miami 38-10, and the Patriots running back was everywhere, chewing up yardage, punching in touchdowns and turning a season finale into a personal highlight reel. Stevenson finished with a season-high 153 scrimmage yards, 131 on the ground and 22 through the air, and scored three touchdowns, two rushing and one receiving. No one else in the entire league matched three scrimmage touchdowns in Week 18. Not one. While other teams were resting or scoreboard-watching, Stevenson was ripping through defenders like the season still depended on it.

The league took notice. Stevenson earned his first career Offensive Player of the Week award, becoming the second Patriots player to win it this season, joining Drake Maye from Week 13. He also became the first Patriots running back to earn the honor since Dion Lewis did it back in 2017. That’s not trivia. That’s a drought snapped. Add another line to the résumé: Stevenson became the first former Oklahoma player to win Offensive Player of the Week this season, joining Adrian Peterson and Joe Mixon as the only former Oklahoma running backs to ever take home the award. That’s not a random list. That’s elite company.

Defense brought the violence in Cleveland. Devin Bush didn’t just rack up tackles against Cincinnati. He flipped the game on its head. Fourteen tackles. A 97-yard interception return for a touchdown. That’s not stuffing a stat sheet, that’s hijacking a scoreboard. Cleveland escaped with a 20-18 win, and Bush authored the moment that made the difference. The league hasn’t seen a player post at least 14 tackles and an interception return of 95 yards or more in a single game since 2000. That’s a quarter-century gap slammed shut in one afternoon.

Bush earned his second Defensive Player of the Week award and his first with Cleveland, becoming the second Browns player to win the honor this season alongside Myles Garrett from Week 12. He also became the first Browns linebacker to take the award since Joe Schobert in 2019. Bush now owns Defensive Player of the Week honors in two different uniforms, Week 6 of 2019 with Pittsburgh and Week 18 of 2025 with Cleveland. The Michigan pipeline stayed alive, too. Bush became the first former Michigan player to win Defensive Player of the Week since Aidan Hutchinson in Week 3 of 2023, and he now ties David Harris for the most Defensive Player of the Week awards by a former Michigan linebacker. This wasn’t a comeback story. This was a reminder.

Special teams didn’t blink. Ka’imi Fairbairn put on a kicking clinic that felt unfair. Houston beat Indianapolis 38-30, and Fairbairn accounted for 20 of those points himself. Six field goals. Every single one clean. From 51, 48, 29, 43, 44 and a game-winning 43 yards. Add two extra points for good measure. No other player in Week 18 made at least six field goals. No one else came close to his output. This was leg power with playoff pressure baked in.

Fairbairn picked up his fifth Special Teams Player of the Week award, tying Deshaun Watson for the second-most Player of the Week honors by a Texans player, trailing only J.J. Watt. His list of awards now stretches across seasons: Week 15 of 2018, Week 15 of 2023, Weeks 2 and 5 of 2024, and now Week 18 of 2025. He also passed Brad Daluiso for the second-most Player of the Week awards by a former UCLA player, now trailing only Troy Aikman. That’s not kicker trivia. That’s franchise history.

The NFC answered with its own fireworks. Matthew Stafford reminded everyone that arm strength doesn’t age quietly. The Los Angeles Rams quarterback torched Arizona for 259 yards, four touchdowns and a 114.5 passer rating in a 37-20 win. Stafford led the NFC in touchdown passes and passer rating in Week 18 and became the third player in NFL history to throw multiple touchdown passes in 15 games in a season. The only other names on that list are Peyton Manning and Dan Marino. That’s the lane he’s driving in.

Stafford earned his fourth career Player of the Week award and his first since Week 3 of the 2021 season. He became the fifth Rams quarterback to win the honor at least three times, joining Jim Everett, Kurt Warner, Marc Bulger and Jared Goff. His awards now span two franchises and three seasons, Week 11 of 2019 with Detroit, Weeks 1 and 3 of 2021 with the Rams, and now Week 18 of 2025. Add another historical note: Stafford is now the third former Georgia player to earn at least four Offensive Player of the Week awards, alongside Terrell Davis and Todd Gurley. That’s not nostalgia. That’s sustained relevance.

Defense in the NFC went through New York. Bobby Okereke turned Dallas into a turnover machine. Six tackles. An interception. A fumble recovery. The Giants rolled 34-17, and Okereke became one of only six players this season, and the only linebacker, to record at least five tackles, an interception and a fumble recovery in the same game. This wasn’t noise. This was dominance wrapped in discipline.

Okereke earned his first career Defensive Player of the Week award and became the first Giants player to win it since Kayvon Thibodeaux in Week 15 of 2022. He also became the first former Stanford linebacker to ever earn Defensive Player of the Week honors. No footnotes. No asterisks. Just a first.

Atlanta closed it out on special teams. Zane Gonzalez was perfect when it mattered. Four field goals. All good. From 40, 51, 38 and 38 yards, plus a point-after, in a 19-17 win over New Orleans. He was one of only three NFC kickers to make at least four field goals in Week 18 and one of only three to hit from beyond 50 yards. Precision mattered. He delivered.

Gonzalez earned his fourth career Special Teams Player of the Week award and became the fourth Falcons kicker to win multiple such awards in a season, joining Morten Andersen, Matt Bryant and Younghoe Koo. His awards timeline stretches from Weeks 8 and 10 of 2021 with Carolina to Weeks 12 and 18 of 2025 with Atlanta. He also became the fifth former Arizona State player to win at least four Player of the Week awards, joining Terrell Suggs, David Fulcher, Jake Plummer and Gerald Riggs.

Week 18 didn’t wrap up the season. It slammed the door and cracked the walls. These awards weren’t handed out politely. They were seized. Power football, violent defense and ruthless special teams took center stage. This wasn’t a soft ending. This was the league reminding everyone exactly who it is before the playoffs begin.