2018 Playoff Preview: NFC

It’s playoff time. Twenty teams have been eliminated, and over the next month we’ll cross off eleven more until we get a champion. I’ll admit that I’m a little less excited than normal, as this is only the second time in the past ten years that at least one of the two teams I follow most closely is not represented (and it doesn’t help that they were both eliminated on the final day of the season). But I am a dedicated and professional football analyst, so I will fight on through my disappointment.

We’ve followed these teams for four months now, and we have a pretty good idea of what we’re dealing with. We know their strongest points, and the weaknesses that could doom them. I’ll highlight both of these for each team, but I’ll also try to draw attention to a more subtle strength, something that could make all the difference when two proven and excellent teams collide.

Today I will start with the NFC.

New Orleans Saints

Strongest Point – Drew Brees

I shouldn’t have to say much more about this. Brees has put together a phenomenal season, making a strong case for MVP (as has Patrick Mahomes, which I’ll probably touch on in the next few weeks). He is a model of efficiency, shattering his own record for completion percentage and very rarely putting the ball anywhere other than exactly where it needs to go. He is the rare quarterback who is equally precise on every level of the field, and even if a team takes away his weapons underneath he can torch the opposition launching deep passes. There really isn’t a good way to attack Brees, and any team that faces the Saints will likely have to just accept that he is going to get his.

Weak Spot – Perimeter Weapons

The Saints have some excellent weapons on offense. Mark Ingram and Alvin Kamara are probably the best running back tandem in the league. Michael Thomas is off to one of the best three year stretches to start a career in NFL history. And after that…things are a little bare. These top pieces are usually enough to keep the offense flowing, as they attack very different parts of the field, and Brees’s elite accuracy can fit ball into passing lanes even when lesser receivers can’t create separation. But if a defense has both an elite cornerback capable of challenging Thomas and an athletic linebacker/safety core that can contain the running backs in the passing game, it is going to place an incredible burden on the least proven parts of this roster.

Secret Strength – Pass Rush

It took a while for the Saints to get this part of their defense going this year. Cam Jordan is as elite as ever, but he’s more of an interior player who doesn’t consistently challenge tackles around the edge. His impact can be mitigated, but only when the offensive line doesn’t have other things to worry about. And over the second half of the season the defense came alive as those other pieces started to click.

The most obvious of these pieces is rookie Marcus Davenport, who the Saints used two first round picks to move up and select in last year’s draft. He’s been in and out of the lineup with injuries this year, but he’s finally healthy, and he brings explosive athleticism on the edge that this team is otherwise lacking. But the biggest difference maker has been defensive tackle Sheldon Rankins. After a tough first couple years in the league he has showed the explosive burst and range that made him a first round pick. With him and Jordan on the inside and Davenport racing around the edge, offensive lines suddenly have to defend the attack from all angles.

Los Angeles Rams

Strongest Point – Offense

The Rams have the most balanced attack of all the top offenses in the NFL. They don’t have the explosive plays of Kansas City or the star power of New Orleans, but their ability to grind out consistent yardage through both the run and the pass makes them difficult for even an elite defense to shut down. Their offense hit a few bumps down the stretch, but it looks like it’s got its rhythm back, and I would assume Sean McVay has a few more wrinkles ready for the postseason. This offense is built on misdirection, and I expect they will have a few more down the field shots available to them when they start exploiting teams trying to go after their tendencies.

Weak Spot – Linebackers

The place to attack the Rams defense is right in the middle. Start by forcing their linebackers to run sideline to sideline, chasing after screen passes and quick hitting arrow routes. Then, once they are off balance, hit them right in the mouth. Los Angeles built a couple of the most imposing defensive front and back fours in the league this year, but they did it at the expense of the middle, trotting out sub replacement level athletes and hoping the rest of the defense could cover for them. Most of the time it has worked out, but several of the teams in the postseason present particularly poor matchups for them, and against someone like New Orleans or New England this hole in their defense could be their undoing.

Secret Strength – Playmaking Defense

Obviously we need to at least acknowledge Aaron Donald. We can debate relative value compared to quarterbacks, but no one at any position in the league outperforms his peers like Donald. He paced the field in both pressures and sacks despite being double teamed on nearly every snap, and play in and play out he changes the way offenses have to play the Rams. But what truly makes him fun to watch are the plays that he single handedly demolishes, where he seems to teleport into the backfield before anyone on offense even realizes what is happening.

This ability to ruin a drive in a single moment is a common thread throughout the Rams defense. Marcus Peters has had a disappointing season, but he remains the league’s preeminent ball hawk. Aqib Talib is second among all active players in career interceptions, and with the disruptive ability of the players up front they have the ability to force even the best quarterbacks into mistakes. This was the key to their victory over the Chiefs earlier this season. In a high scoring game, each possession becomes even more crucial than normal, and most of the top teams in the league will likely gain ten yards if given three plays. These splash moments are often the difference makers in a tight contest, and the Rams will need several such moments to make a run to the Super Bowl.

Chicago Bears

Strongest Point – Front Seven

The arrival of Kahlil Mack has done more than just provide the Bears with a superstar. It has made everyone aware of the superstar already there. Mack is a nightmare with few equals in the NFL, but Akiem Hicks is nearly as impossible to block, and together they make things just about impossible for opposing offensive lines. Both players excel against the run and the pass, attacking in different ways that allow the Bears to use a variety of clever blitzes and stunts. This opens things up for the other talented athletes along their front, players like Leonard Floyd and Roquan Smith who are perfectly capable players that perform as top playmakers thanks to the stars beside them.

Weak Spot – Secondary

The Bears were always going to be a good defense this year, and they certainly took a step forward with the addition of Mack. But what really put them over the top was the play of their back four, specifically their ability to generate turnovers. Kyle Fuller and Prince Amukamara on the outside produced 10 interceptions combined, and safety Eddie Jackson added six more while returning two of these for touchdowns. But interceptions are a bit unreliable, and the talent on the back end doesn’t match the production. With Jackson possibly still limited by a late season ankle injury, and finding themselves potentially facing teams with offensive lines capable of slowing down their front seven, more pressure is going to be placed on the cornerbacks to actually stick with receivers in coverage, rather than making just one or two plays a game.

Secret Strength – Quarterback Mobility

The biggest questionmark on this team is still their quarterback. Mitchell Trubisky has been all over the place in his second season, at times looking like an emerging star and at others a major liability. I don’t expect him to suddenly find consistency in the playoffs, and he doesn’t necessarily have to. With this defense the Bears can afford a few stalled possessions, as long as they get a handful of plays throughout the game from their young passer.

Trubisky is capable of delivering those plays. Like many in the middle class of quarterbacks around the league his greatest weakness is pressure, struggling to identify open receivers when rushers come at him untouched. For some like Kirk Cousins and Joe Flacco, this sinks their ability to function if they don’t have a top tier offensive line. But Trubisky’s athleticism is a step above these other quarterbacks, and even when he faces pressure he has the ability to make it miss and get out of the pocket. Whether improvising to find an open receiver downfield or taking off with the ball himself, he gives the Bears a few opportunities each game to extend drives that otherwise would have failed.

Dallas Cowboys

Strongest Point – Rushing Attack

A lot of things have changed for the Cowboys in the two years since their last visit to the playoffs, but this part remains the same. They still want to run their offense through their rushing attack, feeding Ezekiel Elliott behind an offensive line loaded with talent. They added a big play weapon in Amari Cooper, and they lost the anchor point of their offensive line when Travis Frederick was forced to miss the season, but they still build everything on their offense around the running game. When it’s working, they are passable enough to win low scoring games. When it’s not, they don’t have a prayer.

Weak Spot – Passing Attack

As much as Cooper’s arrival has buoyed them, it really has just moved their passing game from awful to below average. Cooper wasn’t a good receiver in Oakland, and while he is certainly playing better in Dallas, he has benefited a great deal by comparison to the players he has replaced. Their second leading receiver is Cole Beasley, and after that it falls off massively to players like Michael Gallup and Blake Jarwin. As long as they can remain balanced on offense, teams won’t be able to completely erase both Elliott and Cooper. But if they fall behind and are forced to switch to a pass first approach, they will have no hope of moving the football.

Secret Strength - Linebackers

The Cooper trade stands out as a glaring inflection point on Dallas’s season, but the arrival of Leighton Vander Esch into a starting role is a much bigger factor. In the eleven games he started this year the Cowboys have only lost twice, while in the five he came off the bench they were 1-4. Vander Esch has been a revelation in the heart of this defense, stacking up against the run while also flying sideline to sideline. He has generated turnovers and elevated everyone around him, finally giving them a replacement in the middle for the oft injured Sean Lee.

Vander Esch is getting all the hype as the rookie first round pick, but he probably isn’t even the best linebacker on the team. That would be Jaylon Smith, who in his third year has finally returned to NFL shape. He was the best player in the 2016 draft before a brutal knee injury knocked him into the second round, and even though it’s likely he will never be fully back to what he was in college, simply reaching 80% of that has made him one of the best linebackers in the NFL.

Seattle Seahawks

Strongest Point – Rushing Attack

Yes, the first NFC Wild Card Game is going to be a bit of a throwback, ground dominated game. The Seahawks ran the ball more than any team in the league, and they actually did it well after years being tanked by poor offensive line play. Chris Carson finished fifth in the league in rushing yards, Rashaad Penny provides a good change of pace off the bench, and Russell Wilson is always dangerous with his legs, even if he has used them less frequently this year than in the past. If they get a lead, they are content and capable of grinding out the clock on the ground.

Weak Spot – Defense

It’s hard to find a clear defined weak point on Seattle’s roster. They don’t really excel in any one area, and that will ultimately lead to their downfall, but they don’t have glaring holes either. They just have a lot of okay pieces in okay situations, most tellingly on their defense. After losing most of the core that made them so elite over the past decade, they have put basically their entire defense on the shoulders of Bobby Wagner, and while he is truly a special player capable of elevating the play of everyone around him, there is only so much he can do. This is a problem, because with Seattle’s ball controlling run style they are going to need their defense to hold down the fort to keep them in advantageous situations where they can continue to focus on running the football.

Secret Strength – Deep Passing

The passing game isn’t great for Seattle, except in one key area. They are one of the best teams in the league at attacking down the field, and almost all the credit deserves to go to Wilson. He throws an absolutely gorgeous deep ball that hangs forever in the air and comes down in a position where the defense can’t possibly make a play on it, and if there’s even a little bit of separation his receiver will win a big play.

This hasn’t been a part of their arsenal in recent years because they haven’t been able to keep him upright long enough for the receivers to get open down the sidelines. And while their offensive line is still vulnerable to occasional lapses, they have stabilized enough to allow Seattle a few deep shots a game. The Seahawks are outmatched by most of the top teams in the league, but if they can slow things down, control the game on the ground, and make a couple big plays down the field, they can score an upset or two.

Philadelphia Eagles

Strongest Point – Pass Rush

They haven’t gotten as much attention because the team has struggled, but the defensive front this year is every bit as good as they were a year ago, possibly better. Fletcher Cox is still a terror in the middle, and even though the sacks haven’t been there like they were a year ago for Brandon Graham, he still produces pressure at a rate near the top of the league. Offseason addition Michael Bennett has been phenomenal as well, giving them the same ability they had a year ago to rotate bodies and produce nonstop pressure on the quarterback.

Weak Spot - Secondary

The Eagles have to produce pressure, because if they don’t they are going to be torn to pieces on the back end. With Ronald Darby, Jalen Mills, and Rodney McLeod all on injured reserve, they are stuck playing a secondary that includes Rasul Douglas, Sidney Jones, Corey Graham, and Avonte Maddox. Nearly every quarterback left alive is capable of absolutely shredding this secondary if given time, and a few stand behind offensive lines capable of providing that to them.

Secret Strength – Nick Foles

This isn’t so much a strength as it is a wild card. Last year most people dismissed the Eagles because they were forced to turn to a backup quarterback, and Foles’s performance in the final weeks of the regular season didn’t help matters. He was equally terrible in their Divisional Round victory over the Falcons, before turning it on and torching the Vikings and the Patriots.

He obviously isn’t a secret this year, but people are still not sure what to make of him. It’s understandably difficult, because who he is varies depending on the day. A year ago as a top seed with a complete roster, this volatility was reasonably seen as a liability. But this year they are at the bottom of the NFC, and their only hope is to find some magic somewhere. Foles is capable of producing this magic. He’s also capable of sinking this team’s hope from the first snap of the game. We won’t know the answer until Sunday afternoon.

The Other Week 17

We’ve reached Week 17 of the NFL season, and there is a great deal still at stake. Three playoff spots are still available, with six teams left fighting to keep their seasons going this weekend. Home field advantage is up for grabs in the AFC, while only one team so far has clinched a first round bye.

There will be a lot of attention paid to the games that will fit the final pieces of the playoff puzzle into place. This post is not about these games. This is about the other games, the ones no one has a great deal of interest in (and that the NFL, in their vast wisdom, grouped together in the early window, essentially killing viewership for that period). But there are people out there--people such as me--who can’t imagine doing anything else while there is football on. We are going to be watching, so we should probably find some justification for that, shouldn’t we?

Carolina Panthers @ New Orleans Saints

The Saints have clinched the top spot in the NFC, and they will likely rest a lot of their players for this final game. Even if they roll the starters out for the early stages, I expect we’ll see a number of their stars finish the game in baseball caps on the sideline. Chief among these stars is MVP candidate Drew Brees, which means that we may finally see the return of Teddy Time.

I’m not going to pretend to be impartial here. Even after leaving Minnesota, Teddy Bridgewater may be my favorite player in the NFL. His first two years showed a great deal of promise, and things were only looking up before his devastating knee injury in the preseason in 2016. It’s been three years since his last consistent time in a regular season NFL game, and now he’ll have a chance in an ideal situation to show what he is capable of.

Bridgewater is a free agent at the end of the year, and after a strong preseason he is likely to be the hottest commodity on the market. He is going to sign somewhere he has a chance to compete for a starting job, which means this is his last regular season game in a Saints uniform. Hopefully Sean Payton will give him a chance to open things up and show what he can do, and hopefully this will just be a brief glimpse of the sort of magic we will see regularly in his next stop for years to come.

Atlanta Falcons @ Tampa Bay Buccaneers

There is no player in the league right now that is more frustrating to me as an analyst than Jameis Winston. In a league that has trended towards ultra-conservative quarterback play, he is a throwback, a player who produces big plays for both the offense and the defense in nearly equal measure. When it comes to moving the ball down the field, he is one of the best quarterbacks in the league. When it comes to keeping the ball out of the defense’s hands, he routinely makes egregious errors.

The interceptions get a lot of attention. They stand out on the stat sheet, and they are the number one criticism pointed to by people who want to get rid of Winston for off the field reasons. After four years in the league, it is probably too much to expect him to erase these mistakes. This is the player he is going to be for the rest of his career.

The question we should be asking is, do we really want him to stop making these mistakes? As the league has trended towards an overemphasis on statistics such as touchdown-to-interception ratio, I’ve found myself wondering if this might be forcing quarterbacks into a style that inhibits actually moving the football. I think that has been an issue at times this year for Aaron Rodgers, who put together an incredible streak of avoiding turnovers while killing drives by taking sacks and hurling the ball out of bounds.

So far I haven’t come up with a good way to quantify this, so for now we’ll just have to settle for the eye test. And Winston is a perfect case study for this puzzle. With every completion he makes, ask yourself how close it was to a turnover, and how much he gained by fitting it successfully through that window. And when he inevitably makes a mistake, ask yourself how much upside the play would have had, and what they truly lost by handing the ball to the other team.

Dallas Cowboys @ New York Giants

The Cowboys are one of the few playoff teams locked into a position in the playoffs. They are going to be the fourth seed in the NFC, and they don’t have anything to play for this weekend. The Giants were mathematically eliminated only a couple weeks ago, but their season has been more or less dead on arrival after a 1-7 start.

There is one major question the Giants still have to answer, and that’s what their plan is going into the offseason at the quarterback position. Eli Manning has been an utter disaster this year, and it should be clear to anyone watching that he cannot play quarterback in the NFL anymore. He misses routine passes and gives up in the face of any pressure, killing his offense week in and week out despite being surrounded by one of the better supporting casts in the league.

There is a very clear path forward for the Giants this offseason. They cut Manning loose, and they invest in someone younger and more capable at the most important position. This isn’t a great year to be in need of a quarterback—Bridgewater is likely the only starter with real upside who will be on the free agent market, and getting their guy in a thin draft class will likely require them trading next year’s first round pick as well to move up. They could also try to find a one year stopgap like Joe Flacco. But trotting out Manning for another season should not be an acceptable approach.

It shouldn’t be, but it might end up happening again. The ownership of this team is justifiably enamored with Manning on a personal level, and it will be hard for them to force him out the door if he doesn’t agree to retire with dignity. If he puts together an even remotely competent performance in this final game, this last impression might be enough to drag this sad saga on for another year.

Green Bay Packers @ Detroit Lions

These are two teams at a major crossroads. Both have been successful over the past few years—to very different degrees, admittedly—and both are now faced with rosters that have been stripped mostly bare by years of mismanagement. The Packers have the advantage of having a Hall of Fame quarterback, but Aaron Rodgers is wrapping up a very disappointing season that we may look back on as the first stage of his eventual decline. Matthew Stafford has also had a career worst year, but neither team is going to make a change at quarterback this offseason. If there are changes that will come, they will be at the head coaching positions, and this game gives both Joe Philbin and Matt Patricia one last opportunity to state their cases.

The Packers kicked things off when they fired Mike McCarthy a few weeks ago, and they will already be taking a look around the market when the season ends. But there are reports out there that they—and in particular, Rodgers—would like to Philbin around for next year. I personally can’t think of a worse decision for the franchise. This sort of move would basically just be an extension of the McCarthy era, when they should be trying something radical and drastic to get the most out of Rodgers’s final years. But a strong performance by the offense in this game could tip the scales in his favor, and lead to yet another lost year for the Packers.

The Lions are in a much more treacherous situation. Normally I think it’s unreasonable to talk about dismissing a coach after only a single season, but the stories that have come out about Patricia suggest that this could be something they want to erase as quickly as possible. It isn’t just the product on the field that is concerning. Patricia has been unpleasant on a personal level to everyone involved in the organization, and he’s been habitually late to meetings and press conferences. He seems like he doesn’t have the temperament to be an NFL head coach, and if that’s the case they need to get him as far from the organization as possible.

I never really understood the Patricia hire to begin with. The defenses he ran in New England were not good, and the only real credentials anyone seems to point to are his connections to Bill Belichick, which hardly seem meaningful considering the track record such coaches have had. I don’t think the Lions are quite in a situation where they need to cast Patricia aside, but if they decided to do so I wouldn’t have anything particularly harsh to say about the decision.

Miami Dolphins @ Buffalo Bills

I’ve spent a lot of time in the previous sections talking about quarterbacks, and even though there might be something interesting to watch with Josh Allen and Ryan Tannehill, I’m mostly over it. I’ve seen enough of Tannehill to last a lifetime, and it’s clear now that Allen is not remotely ready to play in the NFL, especially with the talent that’s been put around him. Next year might be a different story, but for now there’s really no point in watching him.

Instead let’s take a look at the players who will be facing down the quarterbacks all afternoon. Each of these teams boasts one of the best young cornerbacks in the game, and against these mediocre receiving corps they should be in position to absolutely dominate. Tre’Davious White has been a dominant defender since the Bills drafted him in the first round in 2017, and he’s been a crucial part of what has quietly been one of the best defenses in football this season.

On the other side, the Dolphins have a similar emerging star in Xavien Howard. Howard has come on a bit more slowly since being drafted in the second round in 2016, but over the past season and a half he has been as dominant as any cornerback in the NFL. Unfortunately, he has missed the past three games with a knee injury, and there’s a decent chance he sits out again on Sunday. So even I am going to have trouble paying much attention to this game, and in all likelihood anything that happens here will be forgotten by the time the meaningful games in the afternoon roll around.