The year of the surprise package: five gifts the NFL gave us in 2021

With the festive season upon us, we reflect on reasons for football fans to be thankful as the year draws to an end

Picking results on a Sunday has been impossible at times with the 2021 season giving every fan at one stage or another a left-field result to revel in. Schadenfreude is very much included in your stocking this year. Detroit's 30-12 upset thrashing of the Arizona Cardinals last week, the league's worst team at kickoff beating the joint-best, last may be the finest, freakish morsel to be dissected ad infinitum with us forever shouting: But how Jared Goff?' into the void. But tis the season so treat yourself to the one-win Jaguars beating the Super Bowl-chasing Bills 9-6 in week nine, or seek out Tennessee's quintuple turnover tire fire from 21 November as they lost 22-13 to the ... Texans. You would prefer something a little more exquisite? Stay put in week 11 for the anti-vax bowl featuring Minnesota's upfront pseudo-scientist Kirk Cousins going toe-to-toe with Joe Rogan's Igor, Aaron Rodgers, in a deliciously painful shootout for the Packers. The greatest joy is the strangest results may still be waiting for us in the lead up to the expanded playoffs. The bubble still shockingly includes Seattle, Atlanta and Washington in the NFC. Stay indoors this Christmas and stare into the abyss, it looks like Ben Roethlisberger's retirement tour added an extra date in February.