The Little Things

 

Entering the weekend, the Championship Round looked to be a real heavyweight fight. With Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, Tom Brady, and Aaron Rodgers, you had arguably the four best quarterbacks in the league this year (I’d probably put Ryan Tannehill and Deshaun Watson ahead of Brady, but these are small quibbles). 

It isn't surprising that this is the case, since an elite quarterback is a big help getting to this stage. But things rarely work out this neatly. Only three years ago we were treated to a final four that included Case Keenum, Nick Foles, and Blake Bortles, a far sight from the elite collection of quarterbacking talent on display this weekend.

Of course, when both teams have an elite quarterback, it’s almost the same as if neither team has an elite quarterback. Having someone like Rodgers or Mahomes is enough to put a team into contention, but where a team goes from there often depends on everything else around the quarterback. At this stage, pieces like supporting cast, coaching, and simple luck are the little things that make all the difference.

(To those of you accusing me of using the theme and title of this article as a soulless promotion for the new film “The Little Things” starring Denzel Washington, Jared Leto, and Rami Malek being released this Friday in theaters and on HBO Max, I have only this to say: No Comment.)

The Pieces of a Defeat

In the much-anticipated clash of two of the greatest quarterbacks to ever play the game, Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers fought to pretty much a standstill. Brady of course had three ugly interceptions in the second half that allowed the Packers to get back into the game, but he also made several plays down the field in the first half that built this lead to begin with (sort of the opposite of his Super Bowl performance against the Falcons in 2016). Meanwhile, Rodgers spent most of the day frustrated trying to pick things apart underneath while under pressure of the sort he hasn’t faced all year. He only made the one egregious error, but he didn’t really produce offense on his own the way we’re used to seeing.

Both quarterbacks did enough to win this game, and enough to lose it. The difference came in those other pieces I mentioned above. If you had asked entering this matchup, I would have given a slight edge to Tampa Bay’s supporting cast, especially with the Packers missing David Bakhtiari on the offensive line. And, unsurprisingly, this difference showed up when Green Bay’s normal advantage at quarterback failed to materialize.

The most glaring disparity was along the front lines. Entering the game it wasn’t clear who would have the definitive edge in the pass-rushing game. Tampa Bay was a top five unit by ESPN’s pass rush win rate, but they would be facing the best pass protecting unit in the league. On the other side, Green Bay’s pass rush was mostly average this year, going against a pass protection unit that finished in the middle of the pack as well.

Of course, there were clear signs that these season-long measures wouldn’t be indicative of what we would see in this game. Green Bay was playing without the best pass-blocking left tackle in the league, while Tampa Bay’s offensive line was mostly healthy after a season where they were up and down due to injuries. And on the defensive side, the Buccaneers got back Vita Vea who—while not exactly an elite penetrator as a defensive tackle—is a dominant anchor in the middle that opened up their edge rushers to attack.

Tampa Bay won this battle on both sides of the ball. Brady had all day to throw, taking only a single sack and having one interception forced by pressure. Rodgers on the other hand spent much of the day running for his life, taking five sacks that caused drives to repeatedly stall before they could get anything going.

The other big factors in this game were coaching and officiating, two topics that have been discussed to death already and I don’t have much to add to. Matt LaFleur’s decision to kick the field goal on fourth down with just over two minutes left in the game was bizarre at the time, but in hindsight I don’t think it played a huge factor in the outcome.

Even if they had gone for it, the Packers would have needed so many things to pan out to win the game. They would have needed to convert the fourth down from the eight yardline to start with. They then would have needed to pick up the two-point conversion to tie the game. After that they would have had two minutes to try to stop Tampa Bay’s offense from moving down into field goal range. And then, if all that worked out, it still would have come down to the coin toss of overtime.

People have made a huge deal about going from a touchdown deficit to a touchdown deficit. But the difference between an eight-point game and a five-point game is actually meaningful. You still need a touchdown either way, but in the first scenario a touchdown merely gives you an opportunity to tie the game on what is basically a 50/50 shot, while in the second a touchdown would give you the win.

That’s not to say LaFleur made the right call. It’s just that this error didn’t actually play a huge impact in the outcome of the game. By the best win probabilities I’ve seen, the Packers had around a 13% chance to win the game if they went for it, and a 9% chance kicking the field goal. An error, but not as glaring as it looked at first blush.

The bigger decision in the game came at the end of the first half. After being stopped on their drive to try to get into field goal range, the Buccaneers looked at first like they were going to punt on fourth and four with 13 seconds left. Bruce Arians brought the offense to the sideline, only to reconsider and call a timeout to send them back out there. They picked up the first down, and the next play Brady hit Scotty Miller for a stunning touchdown to expand their lead to double-digits before halftime.

This was actually one of the easier calls for a coach to make, and it’s a little relieving that Arians got it right. The proximity to the end of the half really simplifies things. After the fourth down play, there’s really only time for one more play to try to get into field goal range and another to take a desperate shot at the endzone. If the Buccaneers converted, they probably would have needed only another five yards to get into field goal range. If they had failed, the Packers probably still would have been twenty yards away. The edge was clear, and even though they wasted a timeout to make that decision, it’s good to see they reached the right call in the end.

The other thing we have to discuss is the referees. I generally don’t buy any conspiracy theories about officiating deliberately favoring one side or the other, but in close games luck with penalties can make all the difference. And two big moments stand out in this game as an example of that. Tampa Bay’s drive at the end of the first half was set up by an interception on a play that looked to have defensive holding that wasn’t called, while their final drive of the game was extended by a holding that was called.

I understand the frustration of Packers fans with these two calls, but I don’t think either was an egregious error by the officials. The first play was holding, but it was the sort of holding up around the shoulders that officials often miss, and it really didn’t affect the play in any way (if anything the holding gave the receiver a better chance on a throw that was far behind him).

The holding later in the game was the sort that, even after a game spent swallowing their whistle, the referee really couldn’t stop himself from calling. There was much more separation between the receiver and the defender, and the stretching of the jersey was simply larger and more obvious. To not call that would have been malpractice far worse than the missed call earlier in the game. Maybe that’s an example of luck, but I don’t feel like the officiating in this game was particularly lopsided in one way or the other.

The Other Way Things Work

There are probably a few “little things” we could talk about in the AFC Championship Game as well. Josh Allen took several brutal sacks deep in the backfield to kill drive. After years of being one of the most aggressive coaches in the league on fourth down, Sean McDermott became bafflingly conservative in the biggest game of his career, three times kicking field goals in fourth and short situations on drives where they desperately needed touchdowns.

The Bills left opportunities on the board. They also got lucky in a couple of cases. The Chiefs handed them an early touchdown off a muffed punt. Kansas City defenders dropped multiple interception opportunities. If things had all gone against Buffalo, the outcome could have been far uglier than it actually was. But when it comes to all the things I talked about in the Packers-Buccaneers game above, this was a fairly even match.

The one place it wasn’t even was at quarterback. Allen didn’t have his best game, but the dropped interceptions kept it from becoming a true mess, and he created opportunities down the field with scramble drill passes and by taking off on his own. He didn’t play a good game, but he didn’t play a bad game either. He performed about in line with the quarterbacks from the earlier game. Rodgers, Brady, and Allen didn’t live up to their normal standards, but it shouldn’t be a surprise when a quarterback's performance takes a dip on a big stage against a tough opponent.

The exception, of course, is Patrick Mahomes.

There was some concern with how Kansas City performed down the stretch. They didn’t win a single game by more than six points over the second half of the season, and of the final four teams in the playoffs they actually had the lowest scoring offense. For much of the season Mahomes looked like an MVP favorite, but he was fairly pedestrian (by his standards) down the stretch.

It’s pretty obvious in retrospect that they were sleepwalking through the second half of the year, and that they still had the potential to turn things on when they needed to. Because Mahomes was Mahomes once again this past Sunday. Carving the opposing defense up within structure, and making plays that are difficult to believe when things break down.

The crazy part is, I think there’s still another gear for them to hit. The Chiefs haven’t really threatened teams deep yet this postseason, with Mahomes only attempting two passes more than twenty yards down the field. One of these was a drop by Tyreek Hill on Sunday that would have turned into a forty yard gain on one of the few Chiefs drives that didn’t go anywhere.

At this point in the postseason, the little things often make the difference in a matchup of two top-notch quarterbacks. But as Mahomes demonstrated on Sunday, he is capable of elevating his play to a level that no other player in the league can reach. The Buccaneers may be able to carve away similar small victories that they used to oust the Packers—victories that eluded the Bills—but in the end if Mahomes plays as well as he is capable of, there isn’t anything that any opponent can do.

Changing of the Guard

The Young and the Old

If there was a consistent storyline to be found across the first weekend of the NFL playoffs, it was a battle of the generations among the quarterbacks. Each of the six games featured a starting quarterback in his 30s facing off against one in his 20s, and that even understates the disparities. The closest in age were 32 year old Russell Wilson and 26 year old Jared Goff. 33 year old Ryan Tannehill and 24 year old Lamar Jackson were the only other pair of quarterbacks born within a decade of each other.

The outcomes of these games split almost perfectly down the conference lines. On the NFC side, Tom Brady and Drew Brees both advanced to the second round despite being over 40. On the AFC side, 25 year old Baker Mayfield is the oldest quarterback left alive. The average age of the four remaining quarterbacks in the AFC is 24.5 years. The average age in the NFC is 36.8, and that is dragged down by Goff, the closest to an outlier remaining.

The disparity between the two conferences is jarring. On one side we have Brady, Brees, and Aaron Rodgers, three of the greatest to ever play the position clawing for possibly a last chance at glory. On the other side we have the breakout players from the past three seasons—Patrick Mahomes in 2018, Jackson in 2019, Josh Allen in 2020—to go along with third-year player Baker Mayfield. Mahomes is already well on his way to joining the list of all-time greats, but for the other three this postseason could provide the foundation for the legacies they are trying to create.

The evolution of the quarterback position across the league has taken an interesting path over the past decade. As players like the Brady, Brees, and Rodgers-along with Peyton Manning, Ben Roethlisberger, and Philip Rivers-sustained their careers well into their 30s, there was some concern about the lack of young quarterbacks excelling in the league. Here is the list of notable quarterbacks to enter the league from 2006-2015: 

2006: Vince Young, Matt Leinart, Jay Cutler

2007: JaMarcus Russell, Brady Quinn
2008: Matt Ryan, Joe Flacco
2009: Matthew Stafford, Mark Sanchez, Josh Freeman
2010: Sam Bradford, Tim Tebow
2011: Cam Newton, Andy Dalton, Colin Kaepernick, Tyrod Taylor
2012: Andrew Luck, Robert Griffin III, Ryan Tannehill, Nick Foles, Russell Wilson, Kirk Cousins
2013:
2014: Blake Bortles, Johnny Manziel, Teddy Bridgewater, Derek Carr, Jimmy Garoppolo
2015: Jameis Winston, Marcus Mariota

Ten years, producing a total of two MVP awards and one or two Hall of Famers (depending on your opinion of Ryan). There is a decade-long gap at the quarterback position, the same gap that showed up between the quarterbacks that faced off this past weekend. Fortunately, the past few years have seen an explosion of young talent at the quarterback position, and the weakness of the generation before has given them plenty of space to thrive

The differences between the generations is just as evident when you watch them play as when you look at the dates of their births. Brady and Brees are two of the purest pocket passers to ever play in the league, and while Rodgers was a threat with his legs early in his career, he’s scaled back his heroics somewhat this year. Even Goff, by far the youngest, is a bit of a throwback, one of the last pure pocket-passers to enter the league.

The AFC side sees a wide variety of styles, but each of the four remaining quarterbacks could be described very simply as a “playmaker”. Jackson is the most dangerous quarterback rushing threat the league has ever seen. Mahomes and Allen are fantastic athletes with explosive arms that allow them to attack any part of the field when the play breaks down. And while Mayfield may not athletically match up with the others, he plays with a gunslinger style that this year has resulted in more positives than negatives.

This is the consistent trend among the newest generation of quarterbacks. They are all fantastic athletes, and they are all capable of improvising outside the structure of the play to create opportunities down the field. In the modern NFL, where offensive line talent is at an all-time low and pass rush talent is at an all-time high, and where possessions can’t simply be thrown away when something goes wrong, the most valuable trait a quarterback can possess is the ability to create offense on his own.

What is fascinating about these eight remaining teams is that outside of the quarterback position, the divide between the AFC and the NFC aren’t that stark. You would expect teams to be built around the strengths of their quarterbacks, and to thus have very different offensive styles for the veteran pocket passers than the young playmakers.

But of the teams remaining, this is not the case. Rodgers and Mayfield both lead offenses that are heavy on play action and getting the quarterback on the move to open receivers down the field. Brady and Allen both run heavily vertical assaults to electric field-stretching receivers. Jackson leans on a diverse running game and the opportunities this creates over the middle of the field. Brees runs an equally diverse passing game that distributes the ball on short routes to similarly grind his way down the field. And Mahomes lives in a system that combines a little bit of everything to make one of the most dangerous offenses the NFL has ever seen.

That is probably the most interesting development from the emergence of these young quarterbacks over the past few years, as well as the continued success of the veterans. There hasn’t been a dramatic shift in the styles of offense played as a result. And the shift that has happened has impacted both generations in similar ways.

Rodgers struggled for the past five years before being revitalized in this new scheme, just as Mayfield was helped this year by a similar scheme after a rough 2019. Many thought that Brady was a poor fit for Bruce Arians’s vertical attack, yet he’s been even more successful in Tampa Bay than he was his last few years in New England.

One clear trend across the eight remaining teams is that they all have excellent offensive lines. Stylistically there are some differences, but if you were to list the best eight offensive lines in the league, it wouldn’t look all that different from the eight remaining (Indianapolis, New England, and a healthy Philadelphia could slide in over Los Angeles or Buffalo, but it would be worth a conversation). Quarterbacks may be changing, but the way you construct your roster and scheme around them isn’t all that different now than it was in the past.

The Other 52 Players

Roster building in the NFL is a tricky game, and having an elite quarterback is basically a cheat code. The value of that position is so out of whack from the rest of the players on the field that wrapping them beneath the same salary cap almost feels wrong. Each year we seem to see a new quarterback set the mark for the most expensive contract—Carr, Garoppolo, Cousins, Stafford, and Ryan have all held that title at one point or another—and while it seems that Mahomes has set a new standard that will last a couple years, the trend will likely remain the same. A quarterback’s salary is set by whoever signed the biggest deal before, because the leverage held by even a competent player at that position is enough to run through any objections a front office might have.

In the end, all quarterbacks fall into three basic camps when it comes to money: rookie deal, placeholder, or franchise starter. This last category is huge in number, with players ranging from Goff to Rodgers to Garoppolo to Watson. And yet the money they’re making is all in pretty much the same ballpark. So having someone that is truly elite provides tremendous value, higher production at virtually no extra cost.

The goal of every GM should be to find this guy. If you get him, then everything becomes easy after that. The Minnesota Vikings are a perfect example of what happens when you have a quarterback who is just pretty good. You can build an excellent roster around him, you can even compete for a title for a couple of years, but the window is always short before the cap costs of sustaining a roster that talented catch up with you. And when that happens, the fall is steep and sudden, and you usually find yourself starting from square one.

The Chiefs are an example of the opposite side of the coin. They have Mahomes locked up through 2030, and their window stretches basically that entire decade. His extension hasn’t kicked in yet, which means they still have the money to spend on a loaded roster. They will hit some rough patches in a couple years—players like Travis Kelce will age out of their primes, others like Tyreek Hill and Chris Jones will start to weigh on the cap—but Mahomes has the talent to carry them through these years at a competitive level. And by the end of his contract, $50 million a year might not even be in the top ten of quarterback salaries.

For teams without a transcendent talent like Mahomes, the challenge becomes one of timing. It’s nice to believe you can just roll out a competitive team year-in and year-out, but ultimately that’s not realistic. NFL players have such short careers, and sometimes it’s less important which players you build your roster around than when you build it around them. A smart GM will aim for a window, a two or three year stretch when his players will all be in their primes and reasonably affordable. Of course, recognizing and taking advantage of these windows is not nearly as easy as it sounds.

The Future of the Quarterback Position

A couple years ago it was common to hear people fretting about what the league would do when players like Brady and Brees retired, with no exciting young quarterbacks looking ready to fill their shoes. That isn’t a problem anymore. Mahomes and Jackson have already won MVPs. Allen and Mayfield took massive leaps in their third seasons. Deshaun Watson is a star, if the Texans ever stop sabotaging his career. Both Joe Burrow and Justin Herbert are coming off stellar rookie seasons, and while Tua Tagovailoa wasn’t as impressive, he still has tons of potential. And next year things will get even more exciting, with the long-awaited debut of Trevor Lawrence, almost certainly in Jacksonville.

Did you notice anything about the quarterbacks I just named? They’re all on the AFC side of the league. The four left alive in the playoffs are not the only young stars in the AFC. Of the sixteen teams in the conference, at least half right now have reason to be confident they are set at the most important position for the next decade.

Once again, the disparity between the two conferences is stark. About the only name on the NFC side that I could have added to the list above is Kyler Murray in Arizona. Dak Prescott is the next most exciting young star, but he’s already 27 years old, coming off a major leg injury, and playing for a team that has never seemed that committed to keeping him around.

Apart from that, what young quarterback is there to get excited about in the NFC? Daniel Jones has played two years, and he’s been bad in both of them. Goff has proven to be a solid starter and nothing more through five seasons in the league. Jalen Hurts was only promising when compared to the quarterback he replaced. Taysom Hill is 30, and he doesn’t know how to throw a football. I suppose Jordan Love may still theoretically exist, but he wasn’t even good enough this year to claim the second spot on the depth chart.

Even with a promising quarterback draft class ahead, the NFC is not in great shape. The first three picks all belong to AFC teams. I expect both the Jaguars and the Jets to select a quarterback, sending the top two options over to the AFC. Things could get interesting if Atlanta decides to select a replacement for Matt Ryan, or if someone like Carolina, Washington, Chicago, or San Francisco leaps up to try to secure one of the next names on the board. But we are still talking about the third or fourth options available this year.

For the most part the NFC is locked into aging quarterbacks with large cap hits. Wentz, Goff, and Cousins will likely still be starting for their teams when 2022 rolls around. Stafford, Ryan, and Garoppolo could be shown the door sooner than that, but there is no clear replacement plan in place. The NFC is on a rapid track to becoming a wasteland for quarterback talent.

Obviously this is great news for the few teams that are set at the position. I expect this to be the final year for Brees, but both Brady and Rodgers will be back in 2021 on loaded offenses, with little in the way of challengers. Wilson struggled over the second half of 2020, but I expect him to bounce back next year. After that, things are a bit wide open in the NFC.

This openness has to be a bit tantalizing for the other teams in the conference. Teams like Chicago, Minnesota, and Atlanta sit at a tipping point now, where they have to decide whether to tear things down and rebuild or to try to stretch their current cores out for another year or two. They have to decide window they are trying to target. If they tear things down now, they have a chance to build a contending roster for 2023-2025, around the time the last of the old guard will drift away into retirement. If they linger too long, they could be looking more at 2025-2027, a future that is far less certain.

The AFC has the opposite problem. Five years from now, it’s likely that a few truly elite quarterbacks will be forced to watch the postseason from home each year. And even the ones who make the postseason will likely have to run a gauntlet of players like Mahomes, Jackson, Allen, and Mayfield, stars with playoff experience under their belts.

For an AFC team trying to plot their future, now is probably as good a time to strike as any. Both Pittsburgh and Indianapolis are facing offseason questions of whether move on from their veteran quarterbacks after disappointing first round exits. Normally I'd support them on this, but what exactly is the long-term plan here? By the time they're able to rebuild their rosters to competitive levels again, the current crop of fresh-faced quarterbacks will be smack-dab in the primes of their careers. I don’t think the Colts or the Steelers have what they need to compete for a Super Bowl next year, but in a conference loaded with future stars at the quarterback position, 2021 may be their last realistic chance for the next decade.

NFL Playoff Fulcrums

 

The playoffs are here, and we’re down to fourteen teams competing for the Super Bowl title. We’ve seen all these teams play sixteen games, and we have a good idea of which teams are good at what. The Packers and Chiefs are driven by elite quarterbacks. The Steelers and Rams are carried by dominant defenses that support wildly inconsistent offenses.

There are a handful of teams whose strengths can carry them through to a championship, and every team has weaknesses that could sink them. The final outcomes will likely be decided by the other parts of these teams, the parts that could go either way. In some cases these are strengths throughout the season that could go away. In others, unreliable units that have the potential to get hot at the right time and elevate these teams to elite levels.

AFC

Kansas City Chiefs
Pass Protection
Patrick Mahomes is obviously a special type of superstar, and his performance in the playoffs a year ago will be difficult to ever forget. But quietly a big part of that was an offensive line that kept him pretty much spotless the entire postseason run. He faced virtually no pressure until the Super Bowl against San Francisco’s dominant and deep defensive line, and this made his big comebacks against Houston and Tennessee possible.

The offensive line has been a bigger issue this year for Kansas City. They’ve cycled through a bunch of combinations on the interior of the line, while their tackles have both been in and out of the lineups. It seems unlikely they will have Mitchell Schwartz available in the playoffs, an All Pro player now missing from the right side. If there’s any way to disrupt this Chiefs offense, it’s by getting pressure on Mahomes and forcing him to get rid of the ball when he doesn’t want to. Fortunately the only team in the AFC with a real dangerous pass rush is Pittsburgh, though this could present a problem if they make it to the Super Bowl.

Buffalo Bills

Non-Diggs Weapons
After years stuck as a second receiving option in Minnesota’s run-first system, Stefon Diggs broke out this year as the primary weapon in the Bills aerial attack. He led the NFL in both receptions and receiving yards, as he immediately became Josh Allen’s favorite target on every level of the field.  

Allen got off to a hot start primarily by feeding Diggs, until defenses steadily adjusted to try to take him away. Allen’s performance dipped in the middle of the year, but over the final month both he and Diggs exploded through the finish line, helped by the additional weapons that emerged on Buffalo’s offense.

Cole Beasley has been a staple in the league as a third-down pest for almost a decade now, and he just wrapped up his best season, as he has mastered the art of finding holes over the middle of the field when his team needs him most. As John Brown has struggled with injuries, Gabriel Davis has stepped up as their primary deep threat. These other options have only opened things up more for Diggs, and they have the Bills offense clicking right now as well as any in the league. 

Pittsburgh Steelers

Ben Roethlisberger
There have been a lot of different issues that have plagued the Steelers offense over the second half of the season. Their offensive line has quietly become very mediocre over the past couple seasons. They have no explosiveness from their running backs. Multiple receivers have been best by drop issues. Defenses have adjusted to their quick passing game, tightening the field and giving them very little space to make plays underneath. 

But all these issues eventually do come back to Roethlisberger. The line hasn’t been reliable in pass protection, but he’s exacerbated the issue by being so terrified of contact that he gets the ball out of his hand extremely quick even if there is no pressure to be found. This has limited their ability to attack the intermediate areas over the middle of the field, and has enabled defenses to suffocate the Pittsburgh offense.

Roethlisberger needs to start trusting the players around him and taking more risks. In the second half of their final meaningful game he seemed to realize this, and the offense opened up allowing them to come from behind to beat the Colts. The most obvious change was getting Chase Claypool more involved, but Roethlisberger himself was more aggressive and more accurate down the field. Can he sustain that for more than a half? At this point it seems unlikely, but we’ve seen this before when Peyton Manning looked done and then did enough to get a defense-first Broncos team to the title. 

Tennessee Titans

Defensive Disruption
Tennessee’s defense is bad. There really isn’t much more to say about it. They rank in the bottom five in defensive DVOA, alongside Detroit, Jacksonville, Houston, and Las Vegas. They are comfortably the worst defense to make this playoff field, and it’s quite possible they get run off the field right away with a defense that couldn’t stop someone moving at a slow walk.

Tennessee is in the playoffs because their offense is loaded. Loaded enough that they need just a little bit of life from the other side of the ball to give them a chance against just about any opponent. If that life is going to show up, it will come from the front four. Harold Landry took a step back with only 5.5 sacks this year, but he is still an explosive presence off the edge capable of racing around a pass blocker and striking the quarterback before he’s even completed his drop. And Jeffrey Simmons is an emerging star on the inside. When the Titans have found something resembling an effective defense, it has been because of Simmons utterly wrecking opposing offensive lines. They are going to need a lot of that to stay competitive in this postseason.

Baltimore Ravens

Down the Field Passing Attack
Baltimore’s offense has come alive over the past few weeks, and they are once again playing at the level that earned them the top seed in the AFC a season ago. The running game remains the heart and soul of this offense, but it’s been the development of their down the field passing attack that has really opened things up for them.  

All season defenses tried to counter the Ravens by packing the box and closing off the middle of the field, and Lamar Jackson struggled when he was forced to throw into other areas. Marquise Brown has been a major disappointment in his second year, though lately he’s had a knack for finding the endzone, with touchdowns in five of Baltimore’s final six games. The real find though has been Miles Boykin. He’s still only getting about one catch a game, but these are typically big catches, with three of the last five going for touchdowns and two of these covering around 40 yards. The Ravens don’t need much from their passing game, just one or two explosive plays to keep defenses honest and soften things up for them to grind underneath.

Cleveland Browns

Keeping Baker Calm
The biggest change from last year to this year for the Browns was the improvement of their offensive line. The draft selection of Jedrick Wills locked down the left tackle spot for the long term, and Bill Calahan once again demonstrated why he’s one of the two best offensive line coaches in the world (Mike Munchak has been fighting him for that title for the past two decades). The line has paved easy lanes for their dominant running game, but it has been even more impactful protecting Baker Mayfield.

Three years into his career, Mayfield is a solid quarterback capable of some remarkable plays who still has absolutely no idea what an NFL pocket is. If he feels even a little pressure, he immediately tries to break away to the edge, often only running himself into even more trouble. Last year this led to erratic play and a ton of turnovers, but this year they’ve managed to keep him so clean that he never even has to think of pressure. When the Browns can do this, they have the weapons to be a dangerous passing attack. But it only takes a little pressure to throw this Mayfield completely off his game.

Indianapolis Colts

Running Game
Philip Rivers has bounced back after a couple rough seasons to end his time with the Chargers, but this passing game still doesn’t have the juice to light up opposing teams consistently through the air. Their defense is strong, but it may not be enough to keep them in games against the tougher teams in the AFC. 

That’s where the running game comes in. The Colts have a better chance with a balanced attack, and with one that can keep the ball in their hands and shorten the game. For most of the season they didn’t have this running game, but Jonathan Taylor came alive down the stretch. He had 741 yards over his final six games, culminating in a 253 yard performance last week (against the Jaguars I know, but still). I’m still skeptical of how far a running game can actually carry a team in the postseason, but it’s a useful tool for an underdog, as Tennessee proved a year ago.

 

NFC

Green Bay Packers
Fast Start
Green Bay has settled into a steady rhythm as they’ve coasted through the mediocre teams on the schedule over the second half of the season. They explode out of the gate, put up a ton of points before halftime, and then go mostly silent on offense as they ride this early lead to an easy victory. There are a few possible explanations for this—they take their foot off the gas, Matt LaFleur is better at scripting the start of the game than adjusting as the game goes on—but so far it’s been an effective strategy.

The Packers are excellent front-runners, but this isn’t a team that is built to play from behind. The arrival of LaFleur has caused them to switch to an offense heavy on misdirection and play-action, which has revitalized Aaron Rodgers’s career while also leaving them vulnerable to the same flaws many teams that use this scheme have. When things are going well, they can keep opposing defenses on their heels and carve them up. When things aren’t going well, they struggle to beat a defense that knows to expect a pass-heavy attack.

Green Bay’s defense is also built to play with a lead. They are excellent against the pass, but they can be gashed on the ground when an opponent is able to stay committed to the run. This is what killed them in the playoffs against San Francisco last year, and it’s how they lost to the Vikings in Lambeau earlier this season. The Packers have to hope they can keep up their early-game success, because if they wind up in a competitive contest or fall behind, they are going to have to play a style they are not comfortable with. 

Seattle Seahawks

Pass Defense
The bigger questionmark for Seattle entering the postseason is an offense that has been lifeless down the stretch of the season. But, if I’m being totally honest, I’m not really sure what they have to do to fix this, aside from saying, “Russell Wilson needs to stop playing like shit.” So I’m going to address a different part of their team. 

In the early and middle parts of the season Seattle’s pass defense was on a historically terrible pace. They couldn’t stop anyone or anything, and it only got worse when their secondary sustained multiple injuries. They’re healthier now, and they are playing much better, thanks in part to an improved pass rush. Carlos Dunlap has looked surprisingly spry since his midseason trade from Cincinnati, and Jamal Adams remains a unique contributor as a pass rushing safety. There are still holes blown wide open in their coverage units, and I worry what will happen when they face some of the elite quarterbacks in this playoff field. But they are at least getting some pressure now, which will keep them from surrendering fifteen yards every time the opposition drops back to pass.

New Orleans Saints

Pass Rush
The obvious answer here is Drew Brees, but I would pretty much just be copying a lot of what I said above about Roethlisberger. So instead I’m going to talk about the biggest change in this Saints team that occurred midway through the year, one that will be crucial if they are going to reverse their early season loss to Green Bay. 

For the first few weeks, the Saints defense looked lifeless without any ability to get pressure on the quarterback. They have good players in their secondary, but not so good that they can hold up if the quarterback stands in the pocked for four or five seconds. As the season wore on, the defense came alive with a pass rush that stifled Tom Brady and held Patrick Mahomes in check, while carrying the team through their quarterback issues.

The big difference seems to have come with the return of Marcus Davenport in Week 5. While Davenport has only produced 1.5 sacks himself, his presence as a speed threat on the edge has opened up the rest of New Orleans’s pass rush game. The big question going forward will be leading sack artist Trey Hendrickson, who had 12.5 through the first fourteen weeks before a shoulder injury knocked him out. Without him this defense is vulnerable, but if the pass rush is at full strength they can cause problems for any offense. 

Washington Football Team

Secondary Receiving Options
There are a few reasons Washington was able to turn things on over the second half of the season. Alex Smith is getting most of the credit, but he was basically just as effective as the quarterbacks they had playing before. The defense coming together certainly played a part as well, but the biggest change as the season went along was the development of receiving threats outside of Terry McLaurin. 

Early in the season McLaurin was all they had going. Over the first four weeks he accounted for 41% of the team’s receiving yards, an insanely high total for a single receiver. He was banged up a little down the stretch and only managed 16% of the team’s yards over the final four weeks, while the rest of the passing game stepped up.

McLaurin is still the best player on this offense, but it’s good to have some other options. Cam Sims and Steve Sims have alternated in the role as the second wide receiver, while both JD McKissic and Antonio Gibson have contributed out of the backfield. But the biggest find has been tight end Logan Thomas, who finished second on the team with 670 receiving yards and made huge play after huge play as Washington fought their way to the NFC East title. 

Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Coverage
Tampa Bay sort of flipped what sort of team they were halfway through the year. Early in the season their offense hit some bumps while Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski got up to speed, and they won games mostly through a dominant defense. While their offense pulled together into an elite unit over the second half of the season, their defense lost the edge that made them look like a championship contender over the first two months.

Losing Vita Vea in the middle of their line was certainly a tough blow, but the bigger difference has been on the outside. Early in the season they excelled with a pair of lockdown cornerbacks in Carlton Davis and Jamel Dean, two players who both excelled by playing on a knife’s edge. As the year has gone on, Dean’s aggression has left him susceptible to big plays on double moves, while Davis’s physical style has drawn more penalties. If they can clean these issues up, they have the talent to lock down some of the dangerous passing attacks they will have to face to reach the Super Bowl.

Los Angeles Rams

The Brilliance of Sean McVay
Some of the shine has definitely worn off of McVay since Los Angeles’s run to the Super Bowl two years ago. But he remains a clever offensive mind, just one no longer playing with an absolutely stacked pool of talent. Fortunately, the Rams defense has ascended to an elite level this season, so they no longer need an offense lighting up the scoreboard to keep things competitive. 

It’s still a little unclear what the Rams will do at quarterback, but either way they are left with someone far short of most of their playoff peers. Jared Goff has established what he is at this point—a solid option when everything is working smoothly around him, and a potential disaster when it isn’t. Fortunately, McVay is second probably only to Kyle Shanahan when it comes to putting his quarterback in position to succeed. He isn’t going to turn Goff into a superstar overnight, but if he can craft a few clever plays each game, the Rams can claw their way to a few ugly upsets.

Chicago Bears

Mitchell Trubisky on the Move
Trubisky is still a major liability for this team, but since his return to the starting role the Bears have found ways to use him far more effectively than in his prior time on the field. They are getting him outside the pocket a lot more on designed bootlegs to both the left and the right, which has a few different effects. It simplifies the reads by giving him only half the field to work in. It gets him away from an offensive line that has struggled all year. And it gives him the option to tuck the ball and run using athleticism that his backup Nick Foles simply doesn’t bring to the table.

The Bears face a steep climb in the playoffs, and if they are going to have any hope of pulling upsets they are going to need major contributions from Trubisky. He’s capable of spark plays with his arm, but they are likely going to need him to give them more on the ground. He’s averaged below 20 rushing yards per game in each of the past two years after contributing 30 per game in 2018, and this offense is going to need even more from him. Scrambles when the play breaks down, designed runs in timely situations, even some options with David Montgomery. Everything should be on the table for an offense desperately trying to conjure points.