With the NFL playoffs finally here, it’s time for my annual preview. If you don’t have time to watch the postseason this month and the Super Bowl in February, this article makes it really simple: I lay out who will win each of the 13 playoff games and why. No need to tune in.
That’s a slight exaggeration. All it takes is one wrong prediction to throw off this entire bracket, and I will consider myself lucky to make it through the first Saturday of wild-card weekend going 3-for-3. All the preparation or research in the world means nothing if a quarterback tears his UCL in the first half, as Brock Purdy did in the NFC Championship Game two years ago, or if the conditions freeze out an entire team, as they did for the Dolphins in Kansas City last year. One bad call or a run of fumble luck could mean a lot more than a team’s true level of play against its opponent.
Instead, consider this a guide to what factors might decide games, based on what we know about how these teams performed during the regular season. What were their strengths and weaknesses? How do they match up? If they played earlier in 2024, what factors from that first or second game are likely to recur in the rematch? Is there something about their roster or philosophy that might be different this time around?
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Last season, for example, the Texans faced the Browns just three weeks after Cleveland had marched up and down the field and scored five touchdowns in a 36-22 victory. The Browns were thriving despite a brutal interception rate from Joe Flacco, however, and their defense had slipped after Myles Garrett had suffered a shoulder injury, a trend masked by their unsustainable turnover rate. The Texans promptly torched them 45-14 in the January rematch.
There is only one problem: I’m too attached to my priors. Before last season, I predicted that the Chiefs would beat the Cowboys in the Super Bowl, and when both teams made it to the playoffs, I stuck with that combo in my playoff preview. You know how that went, both good and bad.
Both of the teams from my preseason Super Bowl prediction are in the 2024 bracket, and I might just stick with them again as we preview the postseason. It’s just going to take a few upsets along the way. Let’s start with the AFC before getting to what feels like a wide-open NFC:
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Conference title games: NFC | AFC
AFC wild-card weekend
(7) Denver Broncos at (2) Buffalo Bills
Sunday, 1 p.m. ET on CBS
Spread: BUF -8.5 (46.5)
Broncos fans are understandably excited about rookie quarterback Bo Nix after a nearly perfect performance against the Chiefs. Kansas City benched its seven most-used defenders, and coordinator Steve Spagnuolo blitzed the rookie just six times. But when a quarterback goes 26-of-29 for 321 yards with four touchdowns and runs seven times for 47 yards, it’s tough to poke too many holes in the results. Nix’s performance was the seventh best of the season by Total QBR (97.3).
Nix won’t have that sort of game against the Bills, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he has success throwing early. So much of what the Broncos do to make life easier for Nix revolves around screens and the short passing game, and the Bills haven’t been great defending those. Buffalo has allowed 49.8% of passes within 10 yards of the line of scrimmage to result in successful plays for the offense, the seventh-worst rate for any team. The Bills are built to take away big plays and force opposing offenses to slowly work their way downfield, which Broncos coach Sean Payton is perfectly content doing with his quarterback.
But I’m not sure a great Broncos defense matches up well with Josh Allen and the Bills. Denver plays man coverage at the second-highest rate in the league (56.3%), and that’s just fine by Allen. Twenty-two of his 28 touchdown passes have come against man coverage this season, and when defensive backs are matched up with a receiver, they can’t help out if he takes off running. And although Pat Surtain II is capable of taking away any receiver as the best cover corner in the game, the Bills don’t have one featured wideout for Surtain to lock down. They tied the NFL record this season with 13 players catching touchdowns.
The Broncos thrive by getting pressure, as they rank 17th in QBR allowed when their pass rush doesn’t get home. Allen is a pressure eraser, though, taking sacks at the league’s lowest rate. The average quarterback sees his QBR decline by nearly 34 points when pressured. Allen’s QBR is more than 12 points better when he’s under duress. He finished with the highest QBR under pressure in a season since ESPN began tracking the metric in 2009 (85.3).
The Lions have one of the most similar defenses to the Broncos, stylistically. Allen destroyed Detroit in mid-December by scaring it into playing zone coverage, endlessly extending plays and finding open receivers on scramble drills. When the Lions leaned back into their blitzes, Allen destroyed them with his legs. I expect to see more of the same here, with Allen throwing at Riley Moss, P.J. Locke and Justin Strnad. It will be asking a lot of Nix to keep up with the potential MVP.
Prediction: Bills 34, Broncos 21
(6) Pittsburgh Steelers at (3) Baltimore Ravens
Saturday, 8 p.m. ET on Prime Video
Spread: BAL -9.5 (43.5)
The Pittsburgh offense has crashed. Over the past month, the Steelers rank 31st in expected points added (EPA) per play and 29th in QBR. The offense has been fine running the ball — it ranks eighth in success rate on the ground — but the big plays that came along with those runs earlier in the season have dried up. The Steelers had chances to hit downfield shots against the Bengals in Week 18, but they were let down by drops, namely from George Pickens.
Over that same stretch, the Ravens have morphed into the league’s best defense. They have the No. 1 EPA per play allowed over the final month of the season, having swapped out safety Marcus Williams and linebacker Trenton Simpson for Ar’Darius Washington and Malik Harrison, respectively. The pass rush is tied for fourth in sack rate (7.7%) despite blitzing at the ninth-lowest rate. This isn’t a good combo for Pittsburgh.
The shift from Williams to Washington has shored up Baltimore’s downfield pass defense, which is almost exclusively where Russell Wilson is hoping to find success at this point of his career. The Ravens allowed a 96.0 QBR on deep passes with Williams on the field, which would have ranked 28th. With Washington, that mark has improved by 30 points, and is the fifth-best leaguewide.
The Steelers probably aren’t winning this game if they need to score 28 points on offense. They’ll need help from the special teams and defense, the latter of which hasn’t produced many big plays in recent weeks.
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Graziano: Teams would fire current coaches if Mike Tomlin became available
Dan Graziano and Domonique Foxworth discuss the possibility of Mike Tomlin becoming available if the Steelers lose to the Ravens.
During their 10-3 start, the Steelers averaged 2.2 takeaways and had seven games with three forced turnovers. During this four-game losing streak, they have forced five takeaways, two of which came on special teams. The prerequisite for winning this game is two turnovers on defense, which is always a possibility considering Pittsburgh has game wreckers such as T.J. Watt.
The Ravens won’t have top receiver Zay Flowers (knee) on Saturday. Lamar Jackson has posted a 75.2 QBR on just under 100 dropbacks without Flowers this season, and I wonder whether the wideout’s absence will aid the offense against Pittsburgh. Baltimore leaned away from 11 personnel (one running back, one tight end, three wideouts) and into more groupings with two running backs or two tight ends this season. It was in three-wideout sets 28% of the time in 2024, down from 47% a year ago.
There’s even less of a reason to play three-wideout sets with Flowers on the sideline, and the Steelers have been much worse against heavier sets. Pittsburgh is built to rush the passer, and when teams have come out with three or more wideouts, it has ranked second in the NFL in EPA per snap on defense. With two or fewer wideouts on the field, though, it drops to 19th.
The Steelers have given Jackson fits over the years, as the two-time MVP has posted a 28.9 QBR against them compared with a 70.6 mark against the rest of the league. His playoff struggles are well-known, but he hasn’t had Derrick Henry to take the pressure off. Henry ran for 162 yards when the Ravens grabbed hold of the AFC North in a Week 16 win over the Steelers. I expect he’ll be the focal point again in an ugly Baltimore victory.
Prediction: Ravens 20, Steelers 9
(5) Los Angeles Chargers at (4) Houston Texans
Saturday, 4:30 p.m. ET on CBS
Spread: LAC -3 (42.5)
Although the Texans are division champs and will host the Chargers, Jim Harbaugh’s team is a three-point favorite. Houston went 1-5 against playoff teams and was outscored by an average of 11 points in those contests. The lone playoff team it beat was Buffalo. Los Angeles, meanwhile, faced what ESPN’s Football Power Index believes was the easiest regular-season schedule of any team.
This isn’t an ideal matchup for either club on offense. I’ll start with the Texans, who have been a mess all season and likely qualify as the most disappointing attack in the entire league. Coordinator Bobby Slowik hasn’t found a way to get the offense going on early downs, which has left C.J. Stroud under siege on third-and-long. The Texans have faced third-and-9 or longer 91 times this season, a figure that was topped only by the Browns. The league converted just over 20% of the time in those situations.
Trying to survive by converting third downs is a bad idea against any team, but it’s extremely messy against Los Angeles, which leads the league in defensive success rate on third downs this season. The Texans have been a mess in the red zone, where they rank 26th in touchdown rate. The Chargers have held teams without touchdowns on 55% of their red zone possessions, the best rate in the NFL.
Under new defensive coordinator Jesse Minter, the Chargers have relied heavily on zone coverages, which they use at the league’s fourth-highest rate. They’re a heavy quarters coverage team. The 2023 version of Stroud picked apart these kinds of defenses by ripping deep posts for huge gains, but he hasn’t done the same this season. He ranks 27th in QBR against zone coverages, the worst mark of any starting quarterback who made the postseason.
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Why Tyler Fulghum likes the Chargers in Houston
Tyler Fulghum gives the reasons he’s backing the Los Angeles Chargers to cover when they head to Houston for wild-card weekend.
Stroud ranks 13th against man coverage, which Los Angeles is even more unlikely to run now that Elijah Molden is on injured reserve (leg). Molden is a big loss, and Asante Samuel Jr. (shoulder) hasn’t played for most of the season, but the Chargers have managed to get by with contributions from Tarheeb Still and Cam Hart. Minter also just got back starting safety Alohi Gilman from injured reserve in last week’s win over the Raiders. Stroud has to hit big plays against zone coverage to make this game competitive.
Justin Herbert has been excellent at protecting the football this season, but the drastic reduction in his interception rate has come with a habit of taking more sacks. He has been sacked on 7.7% of his dropbacks and 24.1% of the plays when he’s pressured, both of which are well below league average. The Texans have an elite set of edge rushers in Danielle Hunter and Will Anderson Jr., but the Chargers’ biggest strength is across from those players at tackle, where Rashawn Slater and rookie Joe Alt deserved Pro Bowl consideration. It might come down to what happens in the middle, as Denico Autry hasn’t looked like his self after serving a PED suspension to begin the season. He has three sacks in 10 games and missed Week 18 with a knee injury.
As a passer, Herbert has been most successful throwing to slot receivers. His QBR on throws to receivers who began the play there is 89.4, which ranks fourth. Houston has had the league’s best defense by QBR against slot receivers by a full 11 points, but its top two defenders there — Jalen Pitre and Jimmie Ward — are out for the postseason with injuries. The logical matchup would be to line up Derek Stingley Jr. against Los Angeles’s top wideout Ladd McConkey, but Stingley has been in the slot for just 12 coverage snaps this season. The star corner has two picks in those limited snaps — both of which came against the Dolphins — but he’s clearly more comfortable outside.
McConkey operating out of the slot might be the difference in this outcome. The Texans are heavily dependent upon their stars playing at a high level if they want to beat playoff-caliber competition, and outside of Nico Collins, they don’t match up well with L.A. If the tackles can battle Hunter and Anderson to a draw, that might be enough for the Chargers to advance.
Prediction: Chargers 23, Texans 17
NFC wild-card weekend
(7) Green Bay Packers at (2) Philadelphia Eagles
Sunday, 4:30 p.m. ET on Fox
Spread: PHI -4.5 (44.5)
Which quarterbacks are going to play? As I write this, it’s unclear whether Jalen Hurts (concussion) or Jordan Love (elbow) is going to suit up. Even if one or both do, there are fair questions about how they’ll perform. Will the Eagles be as aggressive with Hurts as a runner or on tush pushes? Will Love’s sore elbow prevent him from throwing accurately? Something compromising either of these quarterbacks could decide this game.
Let’s assume there is something close to the usual level of play from Hurts and Love. Eagles fans would understandably see that as a plus. These teams played in Brazil to open the season, and it went well for Philadelphia, which prevailed 34-29. Saquon Barkley hinted at his spectacular season to come by scoring three touchdowns, while fellow free agent addition Zack Baun sealed the win by sacking Malik Willis on a Hail Mary attempt.
The Eagles turned the ball over three times, including twice in the first quarter, but that was something they didn’t do again this season. After turning the ball over eight times across the first four weeks, they had just seven turnovers in their remaining 13 games. They posted a minus-6 turnover margin during their 2-2 start and a plus-17 mark the rest of the way, which is one of the many reasons they won 13 of their final 14 contests.
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Sal Pal: All smiles in Philly with Hurts’ return to practice
Sal Paolantonio reports on Jalen Hurts’ injury status as he returned to practice for the Eagles.
Another reason for Philly fans to be optimistic is that the defense got much better after an inconsistent start to the season. The big change came during the Eagles’ bye week, when they inserted rookie Cooper DeJean into the slot for Avonte Maddox. DeJean played at a Pro Bowl level the rest of the way, and fellow rookie corner Quinyon Mitchell wasn’t far off from that level of play all season. With the defense mostly staying healthy outside of losing ageless edge rusher Brandon Graham to a triceps tear, Philly heads into the postseason as arguably the league’s best defense.
Guess who’s right alongside it? The Packers have quietly been excellent in Jeff Hafley’s first season as coordinator. They lead the league in Total QBR allowed this season. The Eagles rank third in EPA per play allowed on defense, but just below them, less than one one-hundredth of a point of EPA per snap behind, is Green Bay. These are two excellent defenses.
The Packers thrive by doing one thing really well, and it’s something that would have me worried if I were an Eagles fan. In that Week 1 game, Hurts hit A.J. Brown for a 67-yard touchdown on a fade route past Jaire Alexander. Hafley’s defense apparently got so furious that it decided to stop allowing big plays. At all. That long Brown touchdown was the last time the Packers allowed a team to gain 40 yards or more — all season. Green Bay hasn’t allowed a gain of 40 yards or more on American soil.
To put that in context, every other team has allowed at least six 40-plus yard gains this season. Philly, a great defense with a coordinator in Vic Fangio whose espoused goal is to avoid giving up plays over the top, have allowed seven. Only one defense since 2000 has gone the season without giving up a 40-yard gain.
The Eagles really need those to thrive on offense, where their 19 gains of 40 or more yards ranked second, behind the Ravens. As good as they are at their best, they ranked 16th in success rate on offense, which shows how they can be frustrating within stretches of games. Hurts takes too many sacks. Barkley, for all his brilliance, had 59 carries go for a loss or no gain. Those are issues offenses can mitigate when they’re producing huge plays on a weekly basis. If Green Bay squeezes those big plays, Philly might struggle to adapt.
And although the Eagles have rightfully earned attention for growing into one of the league’s best teams since their bye, the Packers have also improved. Since Week 10, when they had their bye week, there have been two signal-callers in the league to post a Total QBR of 80 or more. One is Josh Allen, who is in the thick of the MVP discussion. The other is Love, whose 82.8 mark tops those of Jared Goff and Lamar Jackson. Love finished the season fifth in QBR, just ahead of Goff and five spots ahead of Hurts.
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The book to slow down Love this season has been to blitz. He went 6-of-12 for 38 yards against the Philly blitz in Brazil, and his QBR dropped from sixth without opposing teams blitzing to 19th against extra pressure. Defenses have noticed, as he has been the league’s most-blitzed quarterback.
The Eagles, though, don’t really blitz. They send extra rushers just 20% of the time, the fifth-lowest rate. They have a great front four, which allows them to control the line of scrimmage with their pass rush, but Fangio likes to drop into coverage and trust that he can win with his defensive line. There’s nothing wrong with that philosophy, but it might not be the best fit for beating Green Bay.
The first game between these two teams was a high-scoring affair. I expect the rematch to be more defense-driven, especially with two quarterbacks playing at less than 100%. This is the sort of game that might come down to a field goal. And given how Jake Elliott and Brandon McManus have fared, that feels like the sort of edge that could help preserve an upset for the underdogs.
Prediction: Packers 19, Eagles 17
(6) Washington Commanders at (3) Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Sunday, 8 p.m. ET on NBC
Spread: TB -3 (50.5)
Here’s another rematch from Week 1. The Buccaneers manhandled the Commanders in the opener, going up 37-14 before a late Jayden Daniels score. The Commanders were lucky the final score was within 17 points, as they recovered all three fumbles on the day yet were still blown out.
Daniels carried the ball 16 times for 88 yards and two touchdowns that day, the sort of rushing workload Washington would do a much better job of avoiding with its rookie quarterback as the year wore along. He is better now. The Bucs don’t have Chris Godwin, who led all receivers with 83 yards and a touchdown, but they will have a more significant role for Bucky Irving, who was still the backup behind Rachaad White in September.
What’s unclear for the Buccaneers is who will line up in the secondary. They didn’t have safeties Antoine Winfield Jr. and Jordan Whitehead and starting corner Jamel Dean for the must-win Week 18 game against the Saints. Second-year safety Christian Izien is on injured reserve, and late-season addition Mike Edwards got hurt in the fourth quarter and didn’t return. By the end of the game, they were down to Kaevon Merriweather and Ryan Neal at safety, with the latter having played eight defensive snaps all season entering the game.
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Orlovsky details Jayden Daniels’ path to success vs. Bucs
Dan Orlovsky joins “The Pat McAfee Show” and explains why Jayden Daniels could be in line for a big performance at Tampa Bay on Sunday.
The injuries in the secondary, a problem for most of the season, have led Tampa Bay to be more conservative than usual, as it ranks 13th in blitz rate and last in man-to-man coverage rate. Daniels has found a lot of success attacking zone coverage this season, as he ranks fourth in EPA per play versus zone. The Bucs don’t have the defensive backs to switch up things and play more man-to-man coverage.
Tampa Bay can throw the ball around, too. And the cornerback Washington acquired at the trade deadline might not be available to go up against longtime rival Mike Evans. Marshon Lattimore has played just two games for the Commanders, with a nagging hamstring issue keeping him out of the lineup after he arrived and then a reaggravation costing him the past two games. The Commanders are reportedly optimistic about his ability to play in the postseason, but they also weren’t expecting their big-ticket addition to miss most of the second half when they acquired him.
Evans will be a major mismatch if Washington don’t have a healthy Lattimore. Benjamin St-Juste has struggled for consistency, and although rookie Mike Sainristil has impressed after being moved out of the slot role he was expected to play, it’s a lot to ask a rookie corner to go up against a future Hall of Famer.
On the other hand, the Commanders are structurally sound and do a great job of dealing with the sort of extended plays where Baker Mayfield excels. They rank second in QBR allowed on throws in which the quarterback holds the ball for four or more seconds. They’re fourth on throws from outside the pocket, where Mayfield usually sparkles, as he ranks third in QBR when he gets outside, usually as the play breaks down. He might have to create from inside the pocket here, but if Lattimore can’t go, Tampa Bay should have no trouble finding Evans.
This likely will be a close game, and what might decide things could be who ends up playing in the secondary for either team. With the Bucs playing at home, I lean narrowly toward them.
Prediction: Buccaneers 27, Commanders 24
Minnesota Vikings (5) at Los Angeles Rams (4)
Monday, 8 p.m. ET on ESPN/ABC/ESPN+
Spread: MIN -1 (47.5)
The Vikings might be the best wild-card team in NFL history. They’re the first to win 14 games and end up as a wild card, and while that’s partly a product of the 17-game schedule, they have a narrowly better winning percentage than the past 13-3 wild-card squads. That list includes the 1999 Titans, who used the Music City Miracle to beat the Bills before advancing to Super Bowl XXXIV and nearly toppling the Rams. (Those Titans hosted a wild-card game, which is why that famous play isn’t called the Lake Erie Lateral.)
The Rams don’t seem worried. Coach Sean McVay could have clinched the 3-seed in Week 18 with a win over the Seahawks and avoided playing either the Lions or Vikings in the wild-card round, but he sat virtually his entire first-team offense and played defensive standouts Jared Verse and Braden Fiske only on obvious passing downs. The Rams came within a drive of winning anyway, but the loss means they end up playing the Vikings instead of the Commanders.
McVay might feel as if there isn’t much to be worried about; after all, the Rams went 10-7 and won the NFC West despite facing the league’s second-toughest schedule, per ESPN’s Football Power Index. They played the Lions tough in Week 1, as Detroit needed a last-minute field goal at home to send the game to overtime, where it ran over Los Angeles. McVay’s team then beat the Vikings in October, with Matthew Stafford throwing for 279 yards with four touchdowns.
That game was Puka Nacua‘s first after missing six weeks with a sprained PCL, and it’s difficult to overstate how his return has transformed the L.A. offense. He averaged a league-best 3.7 yards per route run this season, with A.J. Brown and Nico Collins the only other wideouts over 3.0. And although his absence aligned with injuries to the offensive line that resolved around the same time, the Rams averaged 0.11 EPA per play with Nacua on the field and 0.00 EPA without him. That’s the difference between being the Bucs or Eagles with Nacua on the field and the Jets without him.
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While Minnesota coordinator Brian Flores’ defensive pressures present problems for every club the Vikings face, the Rams might be uniquely built to attack those pressures. They are one of the NFL’s best blocking teams on the edge for screens, which help provide answers for the Vikings’ all-out blitzes. No one threw for more yards against Cover 0 than Stafford this season. Cover 0 means some form of man coverage across the board, and that’s not a place teams want to be against Nacua and Cooper Kupp.
The Vikings also love to disguise their coverages, showing all-out blitzes before the snap but then dropping into zone shells afterward. As you might suspect for a guy who has seen so much over his career, Stafford does a great job of diagnosing and reading those looks; he ranks second in completion percentage and sixth in EPA per play on passes against disguised coverages this season.
One person who didn’t handle the blitz well recently was Vikings quarterback Sam Darnold. Although he didn’t throw an interception, the prime-time loss to the Lions in Week 18 might have been his worst performance of the season. He missed T.J. Hockenson twice on third down for early conversions and then left what looked like four different touchdowns on the field inside the 10-yard line. Some of those were overthrows, but Darnold simply didn’t seem willing to throw a pair of would-be touchdowns to Jordan Addison on pick plays, even as his feet and helmet were pointed in that direction.
It’s good that the Vikings were generating open receivers and getting into the red zone, but Darnold played poorly at an inopportune time. His 34.2% off-target rate was the second worst of his career, trailing only the infamous “Seeing Ghosts” game against the Patriots in 2019. Darnold was also hit on nearly 30% of his dropbacks and was limping on the sideline by the end of the game.
While I don’t believe elevating Daniel Jones to the active roster will be meaningful for the Vikings this postseason, Darnold’s performance worries me. Any quarterback can miss a throw or two, but I’m not sure anybody has left more big plays and potential touchdowns on the field with missed throws in a single game this season than Darnold did last week. He looked, mentally and physically, different from the guy who had been so impressive in December. And if I can see that, well, so can the Rams.
Prediction: Rams 27, Vikings 17
AFC divisional round
(3) Baltimore Ravens at (2) Buffalo Bills
After three first-time matchups in the wild-card round, we’re getting rematches the rest of the way in the AFC. The Ravens blew out the Bills in Buffalo in September, as Lamar Jackson went 13-of-18 for 156 yards and scored three touchdowns, including one on the ground. The focal point of the offense was Derrick Henry, who took a carry 87 yards to the house in the first quarter and finished with 199 rushing yards.
Henry is no average back, but I would be surprised if he could do that again against the Bills, who ranked fifth in success rate against the run. In this case, I’d expect better personnel to make life tougher for him, especially at linebacker. In the Week 4 blowout, the Bills’ three linebackers were Baylon Spector, Dorian Williams and Nicholas Morrow. Spector spent much of the second half of the season on injured reserve (calf). Williams has been phased into a part-time role over the past six games, and Morrow was released by the Bills before rejoining them after Spector’s injury.
The linebackers on the field in this divisional round matchup should be Matt Milano and Terrel Bernard. They will represent a major upgrade for Buffalo, although Milano is still getting back to 100% after missing more than a year with a broken leg and a biceps tear. He played two full regular-season games before suffering a groin injury against the Lions, which cost him another contest in December. It’s a small sample, but Milano has a 33.3% missed tackle rate since his return. I don’t love that against Henry and Jackson.
There’s another structural concern for the Bills against these Ravens: They don’t blitz. Buffalo blitzes at the league’s fifth-lowest rate, but opposing defenses have learned to blitz Jackson out of sheer desperation. Some of those are green-dog pressures where a potential QB spy adds on to the rush, but Jackson has been blitzed at the second-highest rate of any quarterback this season.
When opposing teams don’t blitz, Jackson usually picks them apart. He has 25 touchdown passes and one interception against teams dropping into coverage this season. The Bills blitzed Jackson only three times on 18 pass plays in the September matchup, and he went 12-of-15 for 139 yards and two touchdowns against four-man rushes. The Bills can’t survive playing their usual style of defense against this version of the Ravens.
The loss to the Ravens was one of Josh Allen‘s worst games of the season and seemingly an aberration relative to how he played the rest of the way. Allen, who took 14 sacks all season, was taken down three times in that game. One came on a trick play, but the Ravens generated two others with exotic pressures. The Bills went 3-for-13 on third down, their second-worst performance of the season, including going 0-for-5 on third-and-long. The Baltimore defense in those spots looked more like the all-or-nothing unit Vikings coordinator Brian Flores runs in passing situations, where the Ravens showed all-out blitzes and either sent the house or dropped into unique coverages. Allen often can find quick solutions to those coverages or run his way out of trouble, but he couldn’t do either consistently against Baltimore.
Although they’ve changed personnel, the Ravens have been good against scrambling quarterbacks. They allowed only 10 scramble yards per game to opposing quarterbacks in the regular season, the fourth-best rate of any defense. Allen had a total of 7 scramble yards in the September game, the second-fewest scramble yards he had this season. He’s talented enough to thrive without needing to use his legs, but if the Ravens limit his scrambling, that erases one of the key ways the Bills generate easy yardage.
And as good as he is, I’m not sure Allen can exploit Baltimore’s weakness in pass coverage, which is defending the middle of the field. The Ravens rank 30th in QBR allowed on throws to the middle of the field, which is still an issue despite improvements after their defensive personnel changes. Allen ranks 19th in QBR on throws between the numbers and fourth on throws to the outside, which is the strength of Baltimore’s defense with corners Marlon Humphrey and rookie Nate Wiggins.
The Ravens aren’t going to have the same success they had against Allen earlier this season, but they’re a tricky matchup for the Bills star and have been excellent over the past month. If the right version of Baltimore’s defense shows up and Milano can’t hold his own, Buffalo is in serious danger of getting run over by Henry yet again.
Prediction: Ravens 23, Bills 20
(5) Los Angeles Chargers at (1) Kansas City Chiefs
No Jim Harbaugh-led team is going to fear any opponent, and the Chargers believe they have a real shot at upsetting the Chiefs. In the first game between these two teams in September, the Chargers got out to a 10-0 lead before surrendering 17 unanswered points. They led the December rematch late until a field goal by backup kicker Matthew Wright doinked off the uprights and in. Could the Chiefs be rusty? Maybe. Most of their stars will not have played for 24 days when they line up in the divisional round. It didn’t seem to bother the Ravens last season, when they sat Lamar Jackson and the rest of their key players for 20 days before their 34-10 win over the Texans. The Chiefs made it to Super Bowl LV in 2020 after resting their stars during the final week of the regular season and having a bye during the wild-card round.
My concern for L.A. revolves around Kansas City’s additions late in the season. Coach Andy Reid finally got back Hollywood Brown from a preseason shoulder injury, and the wide receiver was promptly targeted eight times on 14 routes in his debut. Then, after cycling through Kingsley Suamataia and Wanya Morris at left tackle, the Chiefs moved Joe Thuney from guard before signing D.J. Humphries, who made one start before a hamstring injury.
Getting the young, struggling tackles off Patrick Mahomes‘ blind side qualifies as addition by subtraction. It doesn’t seem like a coincidence that Kansas City had two of its highest-scoring games of the season with Brown in the mix and Morris on the bench (he did play a handful of snaps at right tackle when Jawaan Taylor left the Texans win).
The time off should give the Chiefs the ability to get replacement-level players out of their offense. Humphries should be closer to 100% at left tackle, and Taylor should be back on the right side. Running back Isiah Pacheco, who has split time with Kareem Hunt, should take on a larger workload. Brown should take more snaps away from JuJu Smith-Schuster and Justin Watson. And rookie first-round pick Xavier Worthy, notably, has played two of his best games after Brown’s arrival.
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This isn’t ideal for the Chargers, who have ranked fifth in EPA per play against three-plus wideout sets but 10th when teams reduce to two wideouts and get bigger, something the Chiefs love to do with Travis Kelce and Noah Gray. Coordinator Jesse Minter’s defense plays two-high shells at the league’s fourth-highest rate in the NFL, but no team has more experience beating those looks over the past two years than Mahomes, who has grown to be incredibly patient at taking safe completions against defenses terrified of his ability to throw deep.
Los Angeles will also have its problems responding to Kansas City coordinator Steve Spagnuolo’s blitzes. Justin Herbert was excellent against blitzes during the regular season, posting the NFL’s fourth-best QBR (89.3) when teams send extra rushers. In his two games against the Chiefs, though, he struggled. He had an 89.3 QBR when opponents who aren’t the Chiefs blitzed him. His QBR fell to 46.1 when Spagnuolo sent pressure.
The Chargers didn’t have Ladd McConkey for the second game between these two teams, although Herbert actually struggled more in the early-season matchup, when the rookie second-rounder had five catches for 67 yards and a touchdown. Unfortunately for Los Angeles, it has one clear lead receiver who prefers to line up in the slot, and Kansas City has one clear top cornerback who is perfectly happy to line up there, too. Most of McConkey’s damage in Week 4 came away from Trent McDuffie. I’d be surprised if McDuffie didn’t follow McConkey in this rematch.
The way to attack the Chiefs is up the sidelines and deep against their weaker cornerbacks. That means this game might come down to Quentin Johnston or Joshua Palmer, who is questionable to play because of a foot injury. While acknowledging that Johnston is coming off his career-best game (13 receptions for 186 yards in Week 18), this feels like a contest where one key drop breaks the Chargers’ hearts.
Prediction: Chiefs 27, Chargers 21
NFC divisional round
(4) Los Angeles Rams at (3) Tampa Bay Buccaneers
One downside of the Rams losing in Week 18 is having to travel to Tampa to face the Bucs instead of playing this game at home. It’s also a fun reunion between Sean McVay and Baker Mayfield, the latter of whom revitalized his career as a waiver wire pickup in Los Angeles after disappointing in Carolina. He started only four games for the Rams and was playing behind second- and third-stringers up front because of injuries, but he did just enough in two victories to attract interest from the Buccaneers, who signed him the following spring. Oh, and his offensive coordinator that day was Liam Coen, who was allowed to leave for Kentucky after the season before returning to the league in 2024 in that same role for Tampa Bay.
Mayfield should have some success if he gets to play the Rams again. The Bucs are a heavy screen team — only the Dolphins and Bears completed more screens than they did this season. The Rams don’t do well against them, as they rank 31st in EPA per play allowed against screen passes. The Bucs, for what it’s worth, are one of the league’s two best screen defenses, alongside the Chargers.
L.A. also likes to create a different post-snap look for opposing quarterbacks, as it runs the disguised coverages I mentioned earlier at the highest rate of any defense. That’s not a problem for Mayfield. He leads the league in completion percentage (75%) and ranks third in QBR against disguised coverages this season.
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Tampa Bay might also like its chances stylistically on the ground. The Rams rank 29th in success rate against gap-scheme runs (duo, power, trap, etc.) this season. The Bucs led the league in yards per carry on gap-scheme runs (5.8) and gained the fourth-most yards per game. They’re not a great zone-running team, but they don’t need to do that often against L.A.
Meanwhile, L.A. has revitalized its run game by getting away from the zone concepts McVay excelled with earlier in his career, but that plays into Tampa Bay’s strengths. The Bucs are the second-best run defense in terms of success rate against gap runs, limiting opposing teams to a league-low 3.1 yards per carry. They also saw fewer gap runs than any other team, which could be a combination of a small sample and the fact they have immovable object Vita Vea at defensive tackle.
I mentioned Tampa Bay’s zone-heavy approach on defense earlier, though, and that’s going to be a problem against Matthew Stafford. He ranked sixth in QBR against zone coverage this season, and that jumped to fourth with Puka Nacua on the field. The Bucs don’t have great answers to deal with Nacua and Cooper Kupp, not that many teams do. The Rams also run play-action at a rate well above league average, and that’s a concern for the Bucs, who rank 24th in QBR allowed and EPA per dropback against play-action.
This feels like a shootout, and frankly, it might come down to which side is healthier. Tampa Bay is already down Chris Godwin, is waiting to see about tight end/power slot receiver Cade Otton and has injuries tearing apart its secondary. L.A. has battled injuries, but this might be the healthiest McVay’s team has been all season, as it expects to get safety John Johnson back from injured reserve this week. If the playoffs are a battle of attrition, that favors the Rams.
Prediction: Rams 31, Buccaneers 24
(7) Green Bay Packers at (1) Detroit Lions
Detroit should have running back David Montgomery (knee) available for the divisional round, which might quietly be a slight negative. In addition to Jahmyr Gibbs excelling in the every-down role, the Lions were better on 787 snaps without Montgomery on the field this season (0.16 EPA/snap) than they were on 381 snaps with him on the field (0.14 EPA/snap). Having Montgomery spell Gibbs should be valuable, but they averaged 35 points without Montgomery over the final three weeks of the season.
Montgomery led all Lions with 84 yards from scrimmage in the December victory over the Packers, which gave the Lions a sweep of their divisional rivals. It was also a big game for a missing Packers player in Christian Watson, who racked up 114 yards in a one-sided matchup against Carlton Davis, albeit while also losing a critical fumble to a Davis punchout in the second quarter. Watson is out for this rematch after tearing his ACL, as is Davis, who suffered what is believed to be a season-ending jaw injury last month.
While the Lions blew out the Packers the first time these two teams played, Green Bay might feel good about playing Detroit much closer when it traveled to Michigan. The latter game came down to third and fourth down, with the Packers going 1-for-5 on third down and not attempting a fourth-down conversion, while the Lions went 4-for-5 on fourth down. The lone failure led to a short field and a Packers touchdown, but the four conversions included two touchdown passes and a run that set up the game-winning field goal without giving Green Bay a chance to answer.
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And yet, even that version of the Lions from December is different from the one we’ll see in two weeks. Defensive tackle Alim McNeill left the Packers game hurt, returned the following week and tore his ACL. Davis played every snap. Cornerback Terrion Arnold was carted off in Week 18 against the Vikings with a foot injury, although the reports have been positive about his chances of playing in the postseason. Defensive end Pat O’Connor, himself an injury fill-in, also left the Vikings game injured. The reports on his calf haven’t been as promising, and he was already assuming a significant workload on the defensive line.
By the time the Vikings game was over, the Lions were down their top four pass rushers, a starting linebacker and their top two cornerbacks. And while they were happy to get the victory and brave to play so much man coverage against the Vikings — as I mentioned in the Sam Darnold section — there were plenty of plays to be made. Darnold just didn’t make them. This defense allowed 31 points to the Packers, 48 to the Bills and 34 to the 49ers over the past five weeks.
Can Jordan Love take advantage? He should be well-positioned to do so. The Lions have leaned into heavy doses of man coverage and the league’s highest blitz rate since losing Aidan Hutchinson, then upped those habits even further in the win over the Vikings. Love can beat man coverage. He ranked seventh in Total QBR against man-to-man looks this season. He hasn’t been quite as impressive against the blitz, but the Lions blitzed him more than 62% of the time the last time these two teams played, and he went 9-of-14 for 160 yards with a touchdown and just one sack.
Given the sheer number of injuries up front, I also have my concerns about the Lions being able to hold up against the Packers’ run game. Detroit ranked 22nd in success rate against gap schemes, and that was with lots more help along the defensive line. Green Bay averages the fifth-most gap scheme yards of any offense, picking up even more yards per carry on gap schemes than the Lions do. (Detroit is better on zone runs.) Without the depth other teams have up front, the Lions have had to rely more on their starters late in the season than they probably would have liked. Those guys will get a week off, which helps, but will they be tired late in the game?
I have serious reservations about the Detroit defense. Can the Packers hold up and shut down the Lions? They’ll have to find a way to get pressure. Jared Goff was 9-of-16 for 61 yards when Green Bay pressured him in their two games this season, but he was nearly perfect — 41-of-47 for 367 yards with four touchdowns and one pick — when they didn’t get home. The book on every quarterback is to get pressure, of course, but Goff has been more susceptible to nightmare games when the opposing team gets steady pressure than others. The Packers ranked 22nd in pressure rate this season, so the idea of them blowing up Goff the way they did in the 2023 Thanksgiving Day victory seems unlikely.
The Packers also struggle defending the middle of the field, where Goff picks apart opponents on a weekly basis. Green Bay ranked 24th in QBR allowed on throws between the numbers this season, and Goff went 38-of-45 for 363 yards with a 10.1 completion percentage over expectation (CPOE) throwing there against the Pack. Green Bay got one interception on a Keisean Nixon slant and otherwise was mostly hopeless against Goff’s greatest strength.
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The Packers were even better when they inserted Edgerrin Cooper into the starting lineup at inside linebacker. The rookie second-round pick was sparingly used early in the season and played about two-thirds of the snaps in the first game these two teams played, but with Quay Walker injured, he has become an every-down player over the past two weeks of the season. He has played at a Pro Bowl level when on the field, with 13 tackles for loss while suiting up for just 55% of the defensive snaps. Walker returned to practice this week, but I would be shocked if the Packers didn’t find significant snaps for Cooper in the postseason. He’s just too valuable of a player to leave off the field.
And yet, having expressed those concerns, the Packers ranked third in EPA per play allowed against the pass this season. They were No. 1 in QBR allowed, in part because they faced the fifth-toughest slate of opposing quarterbacks. They have the third-best defense against play-action, which the Lions use more often than any other team. This is a great pass defense, and it has forced the fourth-most takeaways in the league.
Green Bay is also a very healthy defense, especially now that Walker and Evan Williams have returned to practice. It has two starters on injured reserve in Watson and cornerback Jaire Alexander. That’s rare for a team this late in the season, and it’s a stark contrast to its NFC North rivals. I’m not sure the Packers can do much to slow down the Lions, but I’m even less confident in an injury-compromised Detroit’s chances of slowing down Green Bay.
Prediction: Packers 38, Lions 34
AFC Championship Game
(3) Baltimore Ravens at (1) Kansas City Chiefs
What a nice piece of symmetry! The AFC Championship Game is a rematch of the first game of the season, when the Ravens arguably outplayed the Chiefs but lost after going 1-for-4 in the red zone. The third and final missed opportunity came down to Isaiah Likely‘s shoe size on the last play of the game. This is also a replay of last season’s AFC Championship Game, when Baltimore made just one trip into the red zone and didn’t score after Zay Flowers fumbled at the 1-yard line.
That’s two games with one touchdown in five trips to the red zone. What makes that so ridiculous, of course, is that the league’s best red zone offense over the past two seasons has been those very same Ravens, who have converted just under 70% of the time against all other teams. There’s only a 3% chance a team that scores as often as the Ravens do in the red zone would go 1-for-5, which is both a testament to Kansas City and the incredible randomness of a small sample. If Likely’s foot were one size smaller and Flowers got a little more air on his dive into the end zone, the Ravens would be 3-for-5. And maybe they’d win both those games.
It’s tough to believe the Ravens will continue to fail so significantly in the red zone against Kansas City, especially with a full season of Derrick Henry added to the equation. And although Likely didn’t have a breakout season after his career-high 111 receiving yards in Week 1, the Chiefs led the NFL in yards allowed (1,191) and yards per attempt (8.8) on throws to tight ends in 2024. The Ravens used 12 personnel more than any other grouping and had a 55% success rate while doing so; that dropped to 43% in their 11 personnel package, as an example. It’s fair to say Kansas City could struggle with the combo of Likely and Mark Andrews.
In the season opener, it felt as if Jackson had the weight of the AFC championship loss on his shoulders. The reigning MVP carried the ball on 16 designed runs and scrambles, his largest rushing workload of the season by a considerable margin. That successfully led to 122 yards and seven first downs, and the Ravens could opt for a similar approach in these playoffs. Only two teams allowed more yards on scrambles than the blitz-happy Chiefs this season.
The biggest problem? The Chiefs do a great job of inhibiting passes in Jackson’s typical range. He has been great throughout his career at hitting intermediate throws (between 11 to 20 yards), especially on digs and crossers. Kansas City knows how to prevent those throws, however, as it allowed opposing passers to attempt 93 passes in that range, the third fewest of any defense.
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Another advantage for Kansas City is that it has defensive tackle Chris Jones, who should be able to torment Baltimore guards Patrick Mekari and Daniel Faalele, the weak spots on Baltimore’s offensive line. Jackson is a wizard when it comes to moving around the pocket and sneaking out, but Jones, who has 80.5 career sacks and has taken over playoff games by himself at times, isn’t a normal pass rusher.
And on the other side, I just don’t know whether the Ravens have the ability to slow down Patrick Mahomes. They didn’t blitz often this season, preferring to run sim pressures in which they can drop seven into coverage and create an overload on one side of the protection. Baltimore ran sim pressures on a league-high 3.1% of its snaps and blitzed at the sixth-lowest rate. Mahomes has traditionally been the NFL’s best quarterback against the blitz, which discourages teams from sending extra rushers at him, but I’m not sure a (relatively) heavy dose of sim pressures will work either. He’s just too good at sniffing out those concepts, too slippery to take down with a free rusher and too dangerous when the overload doesn’t get home. The lopsided pressures also create exit paths for him to take off with his legs.
The place to beat the Ravens has been the middle of the field, where their 87.1 QBR allowed ranked 30th in the league this season. That’s where Mahomes goes to move the chains. Jared Goff is the only quarterback who threw for more first downs in that area than Mahomes in the regular season. It’s where Travis Kelce settles in the soft spots of coverages, where DeAndre Hopkins can get open on slants and glances, and where Mahomes finds late solutions as a scrambler. The Ravens improved after changes at linebacker and safety, but the Chiefs can still attack them there.
Baltimore matches up well on offense with what Kansas City doesn’t do consistently. The Ravens have been much improved on defense over the past month, which makes them a scarily complete opponent. And they probably won’t hit on only 20% of their red zone possessions moving forward. But the Chiefs are at home, and they have Mahomes and Jones. The Ravens might not have the necessary defenders to keep the Chiefs out of the end zone.
Prediction: Chiefs 24, Ravens 20
NFC Championship Game
(7) Green Bay Packers at (4) Los Angeles Rams
The Rams probably weren’t counting on hosting the NFC Championship Game, but the top three seeds have all been eliminated in this scenario. This sounds unlikely, but the Rams hosted the 2021 NFC Championship Game under the same circumstances, when they were the 4-seed. They ended up with a home game against the 6-seed 49ers, who beat the 1-seed (Packers) and 3-seed (Cowboys) in the first two rounds.
These two teams played in Week 5, with the Packers prevailing 24-19, but the Rams were without star wideouts Puka Nacua and Cooper Kupp. One of their starting guards was Logan Bruss, who finished the season on the Titans. They didn’t have tight end Tyler Higbee, who returned to the team late in the season. The Packers, conveniently for our purposes in this preview, didn’t have receiver Christian Watson or cornerback Jaire Alexander available, and Romeo Doubs was suspended by the team, which meant Malik Heath ran as a starter at receiver.
Even without Kupp and Nacua, Matthew Stafford did his best to try to unlock the league’s best downfield pass defense. He went 1-of-7 for 24 yards with an interception in the process. Kyren Williams was excellent, turning 22 carries into 102 yards and a touchdown with a 59% success rate, but L.A. mustered only two scoring drives. A pick-six on a Jordan Love attempt to avoid taking a safety helped make the score closer, but it seems fair to say the Rams will hope to do more on offense with Kupp and Nacua this time around.
Will the Rams mix up their personnel packages? Even without Kupp and Nacua in the first game, they stayed in 11 personnel on nearly 95% of their offensive snaps, where coach Sean McVay has usually been comfortable. He had shifted toward more 12 personnel packages two weeks earlier in the win over the 49ers, but that change didn’t stick for long. They went back to it for stretches against the Vikings and Patriots later in the season, but over the final seven games, they were in 11 personnel about 87% of the time.
McVay’s offense was more successful in 11 personnel than it was in 12 over the whole season, so change for the sake of change might not be helpful. But the Packers were the league’s best defense by EPA per play against 11 personnel and ranked 25th against 12 personnel, so with Higbee back in the fold, a Green Bay matchup would seem to be the right time to play more 12 personnel groupings.
Rams defensive coordinator Chris Shula, meanwhile, might look back at his blitz packages and think he should lean further into sending extra rushers at Love in the rematch. Love went 11-of-15 for 217 yards with two touchdowns without being blitzed, but he was just 4-of-11 for 7 yards with a pick and seven pressures when the Rams blitzed. L.A. already blitzed him at its second-highest rate in any game all season, so it probably couldn’t get much more aggressive, but given that he struggled against the blitz while also being blitzed at the highest rate of any starter over the season, it seems worth going after him and seeing whether he can prove Shula wrong.
If the blitz isn’t working, I’d be worried about the Rams’ chances here. They’ve managed to survive on defense by being extremely fortunate with their red zone performance. They rank 30th in EPA per snap outside the red zone, but that improves to fifth once teams get inside the 20. They’ve allowed touchdowns on 50% of opposing trips inside the 20, also the fifth-best rate in the league.
It’s tough to count on that sustaining into the postseason. Take the 2023 Bucs, for example, who were 22nd in EPA per play on snaps outside the red zone and second inside the 20-yard line during the regular season. The Lions went 3-for-4 in the red zone against them in the divisional round and knocked them out. Bend but don’t break isn’t a sustainable thing. If a defense is not good outside the red zone but manages to thrive inside the 20, it gets figured out eventually.
While I’m giving the Rams some benefit of the doubt in terms of their season being split into the parts with and without Kupp and Nacua, this isn’t a close matchup by advanced metrics. DVOA had the Packers as the NFL’s third-best team on a play-by-play basis, just ahead of the Bills and Eagles. The Rams ranked 17th, behind the Cardinals and Bengals. Even giving L.A. credit for being a better team with its two star wideouts, Green Bay is the more talented squad. And although the Rams would be at home, it’s not hard to imagine how many Packers fans would travel to Los Angeles for this game. They wouldn’t regret the trip.
Prediction: Packers 27, Rams 16
Super Bowl LIX
(7) Green Bay Packers vs. (1) Kansas City Chiefs
What a fun set of storylines. Kansas City looking for its third straight title. A rematch from the very first Super Bowl. Andy Reid, in what could be his last game as a head coach, going up against the organization where he started as a tight ends coach in the 1990s. Jordan Love would get a chance to avenge the team that beat him in his first career start, when he went 19-of-34 for 190 yards in a 13-7 defeat in 2021. The Chiefs would be the much higher seed and have the superior record, but by metrics such as DVOA and ESPN’s FPI, the Packers were the better team during the season.
And yet, I think this would be a Chiefs blowout. This is a terrible matchup for the Packers, whose weaknesses hit Kansas City’s strengths and vice versa.
I’ve mentioned Love’s issues with the blitz this season. Well, guess who loves to blitz? Chiefs coordinator Steve Spagnuolo would have no qualms about bringing heavy blitz packages, and he would have two weeks to dial up new pressures for Love and Matt LaFleur to break down. Love is a great player — and the Chiefs don’t have the same caliber of defense that they had with L’Jarius Sneed a year ago — but the best way to attack Kansas City is by throwing downfield up either sideline. The player best suited for that receiving role, Christian Watson, tore his ACL in Week 18.
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The other way to attack the Chiefs is to lean into the run. The Packers run quite a bit, but Josh Jacobs hasn’t been anywhere near as effective as highlight reels might suggest. He has been fantastic breaking tackles, and his best runs linger in the memory, but he has fumbled four times and gets caught for losses or minimal gains that take the Packers off-schedule too often. He posted a below-average success rate and ranked 25th out of 31 backs by EPA per rush attempt. They were better by EPA per play with Jacobs off the field (0.10) than they were with him on it (0.06). If they can’t get Jacobs going on early downs, they’ll end up in third-and-longs, which is where Spagnuolo can torture Love with blitzes.
On the flip side, while the Packers are incredible at taking away the big play, patient teams capable of marching down the field have success eating away at them underneath. Even as Green Bay has ranked fourth in EPA per play allowed, it ranks 21st on success rate on defense. The exact sort of team the Packers don’t want to face is one capable and willing to stay on schedule, take what’s available and avoid trying to create something explosive.
That’s the modern version of the Chiefs’ offense, which ranks sixth in success rate and 11th in EPA per play. The Packers can squeeze big plays and are great at dealing with scramble drills, which should slow down Patrick Mahomes‘ improvisational abilities, but the future Hall of Famer is entirely capable of picking apart a defense 6 yards at a time and moving the chains on third down. What seems like an unsustainable outlier for other offenses on money downs is a yearly trend for Kansas City.
There are scenarios in which the Packers could win this matchup, of course. They’re the league’s best defense when they get pressure on the opposing quarterback, and even with D.J. Humphries at left tackle, the Chiefs can’t feel as if they’re settled on Mahomes’ blind side. Jacobs is talented and could rip off a few huge plays. Green Bay has enough talented receivers to perennially have a mismatch against Christian Roland-Wallace or Joshua Williams in the secondary, and Love is more than capable of identifying and attacking that mismatch. And as good as Reid is as a game-planner with time to prepare, LaFleur might be his match. What LaFleur did to build a plan around Malik Willis after Love’s early-season knee injury might have been the most impressive schematic work done by any coach all season.
All of that is true, but I’ve picked the Chiefs each of the past two seasons. I’m not stopping now.
Prediction: Chiefs 27, Packers 13
