There are 267 games in an
NFL season, and 264 are in the books. We’re down to the final four teams, each
of which has played at least seventeen games. The four teams remaining are
among the most interesting and most covered in the league, and they’ve all been
in multiple primetime, nationally televised games.
At this point we know
what these teams are. The Patriots are a well oiled machine that doesn’t look
terrifying on paper but runs away from the competition thanks to a historically
great quarterback and the greatest coach in NFL history. The Steelers are a
high flying offense powered by the best running back in football, the best
receiver in football, and a top ten quarterback. The Falcons exploded onto the
scene carried by an MVP performance by Matt Ryan. And the Packers have Aaron
Rodgers.
I’ve written a lot of
words about these teams over the course of the year, and at this point it’s
growing tiring repeating the same things over and over. So going into the
biggest game of each team’s season, let’s try to find something new to say.
We’ve watched these teams a lot, but there are always details that slip through
the cracks. So let’s take a moment to look at things we might not know about
these teams, the secret strengths and secret weaknesses that will decide the
games on Sunday.
Green Bay Packers
This is a difficult one to point to right now, less than a week after Ezekiel
Elliott rang off 125 yards on only 22 carries. The Cowboys got whatever they
wanted on the ground, and if they had stuck with the run more consistently in
the first half, the outcome very well could have gone the other way.
But aside from a couple bad performances against the Cowboys, the
Packers run defense has been very stout all season. They finished the season
ranked 14th in DVOA against the run, not elite by any means but a
far sight better than their 22nd ranked pass defense. And in the
first game of the postseason they effectively shut down Paul Perkins, the
talented Giants rookie who came in averaging 4.4 yards per carry over the final
quarter of the season before putting up a measly 30 yards on ten carries
against Green Pay.
Green Bay’s strength starts along their front with the perennially
underrated Mike Daniels. While Clay Matthews continues to get all the love,
Daniels has been the best player on this defense for the past three years. He
anchors the middle and allows defenders to flow behind him, and when asked he
can generate good push up the field as well. Recently he’s been aided by rookie
first round pick Kenny Clark, who’s come on strong during their postseason run.
The Packers have a major task ahead of them trying to slow down
Atlanta’s offense. And while they likely have no hope keeping up with their
receivers down the field, their defensive front gives them some hope of
containing Atlanta’s talented running back duo. The Packers won’t be able to
stop the Falcons, but they can at least force them to become one dimensional.
Secret Weakness: Wide Receivers
So much has been made about how great Aaron Rodgers has been that we
haven’t discussed how great he has had to be. We know Green Bay’s defense is a
mess, and we know their running back situation is dire. But as this passing
game has clicked along, we’ve allowed ourselves to be blinded to the fact that
Green Bay has one of the worst receiving corps in the league.
The names involved fool some people, but the Jordy Nelson and Randall
Cobb we see on the field look nothing like the players they were three years
ago. Nelson still doesn’t show any sign of the elite speed that made him a top
ten receiver prior to his knee injury, and when he isn’t improvising as Rodgers
scrambles around behind the line he really can't generate any separation. Cobb has been banged up as well, and it’s going on two years since
we’ve seen him at his best as one of the league’s most dangerous slot
receivers.
Their next two most prominent receivers are a different sort of
problem. Davante Adams and Jared Cook are capable of making great plays,
but they screw up just as many as they create. We all remember Cook’s toe
tapping sideline grab to set up the field goal opportunity against Dallas, and
we forget the pair of passes that went between his hands earlier in the drive.
They’re a danger to defenses, but they’re just as much a danger to the Packers.
In all honesty, Green Bay’s best receiving threat right now might be
undrafted rookie Geronimo Allison. He has the size to make plays against tight
coverage, and he actually seems to get open as well. Hampered by a leg injury,
he remains questionable for Sunday’s game, potentially stripping the Packers of
one of their few reliable weapons.
Atlanta Falcons
Atlanta has so much talent at the skill positions on offense that it has
become easy to forget about the line. They have an MVP candidate at
quarterback, the best 1-2 punch at running back in the league, a top three wide
receiver, and a couple of valuable free agent additions on the outside. This
team has as much depth and talent at the skill positions as any in the league,
and it just so happens that the big guys blocking for them are a top notch unit
as well.
Continuity has been a major key to their success this year. The Falcons
are the only team to start the same five linemen in every game, and their
familiarity working with each other has helped patch up any weak spots across
the front. Jake Matthews is the biggest name, and even though he hasn’t
developed into the surefire star we thought he was when he went sixth overall
in the draft, he has proven to be a solid and reliable left tackle, something
few teams in the league possess.
But the real star of this unit is in the very middle. After toiling for
years in Cleveland, Alex Mack found new life signing as a free agent with the
Falcons. He has completely turned this unit around, much as the return of Ryan
Kalil rejuvenated the NFC Champion Panthers a year ago. The importance of a
center in stabilizing a front is difficult to measure, but for the second year
in a row we are seeing just how valuable that position can be with its ability
to paper over other flaws in an offensive front.
Secret Weakness: Pass Rush
It’s easy to get fall in love with a dominant pass rusher. We spent all
of last offseason lauding Super Bowl MVP for Von Miller before watching him
receive a well deserved record contract. His combination of talent,
performance, and personality won us over, making it conveniently easy to forget
that he did not carry Denver’s dominant pass rush alone. The five sacks he
accumulated during their playoff run were certainly noteworthy, but they were
only five out of fourteen total that the Broncos had during that three game
run.
A dominant pass rusher is great. But a dominant pass rush is even
better, and just because you have the first doesn’t mean you have the second.
Vic Beasley led the league with 15.5 sacks, but the Falcons as a whole finished
only tied for 16th. They fared even worse when you look at advanced
stats, where their adjusted sack rate of 5.4% ranked 24th in the
league.
Atlanta’s pass rush certainly looked imposing a week ago, but any NFL
team could do that against the Seahawks. It will be a much different challenge
going up against the Green Bay Packers this weekend. Green Bay boasts arguably
the best pass blocking line in the league, and they are only helped by the
presence of Rodgers, a master of movements within the pocket to give himself space
to throw. To get at Rodgers you need to be able to attack from three angles at
once, to get penetration while also closing down the escape lanes. And as good
as Beasley is, he can’t be everywhere at once, and he will need help from the
thin unit around him in order to successfully harass Rodgers.
Pittsburgh Steelers
The back end of Pittsburgh’s defense has been so bad for so long that it
still feels like I might be missing something. Much of the credit for their
recent run of defensive success has gone to their pass rush, particularly their
linebackers. James Harrison is an ageless machine, Bud Dupree is an athletic
freak finding his own, and Ryan Shazier moves like he may actually be part
gazelle. The emergence and health of this unit has certainly played a major
role in their turnaround, but more of the credit rightfully goes to their
secondary.
In last April’s draft the Steelers used each of their first two picks on
defensive backs, and both are now installed in the starting lineup. First round
pick Artie Burns was seen as a development project at cornerback, a
talented athlete who was more of a track star than a football player. And while
he has been burned for big plays several times this year, he has proven himself
to be at the very least a capable starter, which has given them the flexibility to bump
William Gay into a more comfortable position in the slot.
The real star is their second round pick Sean Davis. Beside veteran Mike
Mitchell (who is having a hell of a year himself), Davis has given them a pair
of big hitting and athletic erasers over the middle. Davis flies all over the
field in a wide variety of roles, hanging back in a deep Cover-2 zone (which
the Steelers use more than any other team in the league), or walked up into the
box as a run defender or a blitzer. Davis has experience playing cornerback, and
he can keep up in coverage as well as he can hit, giving Pittsburgh the kind of
versatility and depth in the defensive backfield that they haven’t had in a
very long time.
Secret Weakness: Secondary Receiving Options
The real secret weakness of the Steelers is at quarterback. But I’ve
addressed that already on multiple occasions, so we should turn to another hole
in this team, one that certainly isn’t helping Ben Roethlisberger out. The
Steelers have the best running back and best wide receiver in football, and
often that is enough to put together an elite offense. But when they do have to
turn to their secondary options, they find that the talent at these positions
is sorely lacking.
Part of this is just bad luck. A year ago Pittsburgh had one of the five best number two receivers in the league, the freakishly athletic and dynamic
Martavis Bryant. He gave them an elite down the field threat, a receiver with
the speed to stretch a defense over the top and the size to make plays on the
ball in the air. But a combination of his stupidity and the league’s archaic
drug rules forced him to miss the entire season, and the Steelers were left
with little to work with on the outside.
After number two receiver Markus Wheaton went down for the season, the
most experienced receiver on their roster was former draft bust Darrius
Heyward-Bey, who they keep around mostly for his skills on special teams. The
other four receivers currently on their active roster came into the 2016 season
with a total of one career catch between them.
These young players have impressed so far, and there is definitely
reason to be excited about their future. But the Steelers don’t need their
future as much as their present, and they are lacking the skills to
consistently challenge NFL defenses right now. The biggest absence is a true
deep threat, something the Steelers hope they can find if tight end Ladarius
Green is able to return from the concussion protocol this weekend. If he can
go, that adds a dimension to this offense that may be able to push it over the
top. If not, the Steelers may be placing too much on the shoulders of their
offensive stars.
New England Patriots
New England’s offense is always a little more talented than we realize. They
have a habit of collecting skilled players who don’t fit the traditional mold
that talent evaluators look for. They don’t grab the big, freakish athletes
that everyone else falls in love with. Instead they try to find players who
slip through the margins that they can slide into productive roles in their
system thanks to their excellent coach and quarterback.
The classic example of this is Julian Edelman, who continues to produce
despite not being the player everyone thinks he is. (Seriously, watch him in
this game. I guarantee at some point he will drop a pass, and I guarantee that
it will be followed by the commentator saying something along the lines of “a
rare drop by Edelman”. He’s good for about one of these a game.)
This year New England has expanded their stable of weapons to a pair of
quietly fantastic running backs. Dion Lewis was a surprise star of the first
half of 2015 prior to a knee injury that cost him the beginning part of 2016 as
well. The Patriots kept him in reserve for most of the regular season, before
unleashing him last week to the tune of a rushing touchdown, a receiving
touchdown, and a kickoff return touchdown. He has been an underrated star since
his college days, and he found the perfect landing spot in New England.
The other option in New England’s backfield is the exact opposite of the
small, shifty Lewis. LeGarrette Blount is a big, physical runner who
specializes in capitalizing in the red zone. He scored 18 touchdowns this year,
more than half of which came from one yard out. The combination of the two
gives New England some much needed variety in their offense, which gives Tom
Brady more freedom to make plays down the field.
Secret Weakness: Pass Coverage
New England has pulled a remarkable trick this year, convincing the
average fan that their defense is actually good. And while leading the league
in fewest points allowed is certainly a worthy goal, it’s less notable when you
do it against the opposition the Patriots have faced.
Let’s take a quick run through the quarterbacks New England has gone up
against this year. The two best are probably Carson Palmer and Russell Wilson,
in games that saw the Patriots go 1-1 thanks only to a bad missed field goal by
the Cardinals. Within their division they had a pair of games against Tyrod
Taylor and one against Ryan Tannehill. Quality quarterbacks, but not something
that will scare any defense.
And then we get to the rest of their schedule. In the other twelve games
they’ve played, the Patriots have faced off against Cody Kessler, Andy Dalton,
Landry Jones, Colin Kaepernick, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Jared Goff, Joe Flacco,
Trevor Siemian, Bryce Petty, Matt Moore, and twice against Brock Osweiler.
Roethlisberger hasn’t been playing well, but he’s still better than
anyone on that list. There were holes throughout the defense a week ago against
Houston, and any human being with a functioning arm will be able to hit passes
against them (just bad luck the Texans didn’t have one of those.) There will be
opportunities down the field, against a pass rush that can’t create consistent
pressure and a secondary that can’t keep up with even league average wide
receivers.
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