The NFL football weekend that some consider the best in the NFL is here. The Divisional Round playoffs will take place with two games Saturday and two games Sunday between the league’s elite eight, presenting two more days of playoff action with less chance of blowouts.
It’s also possible for unforeseen events to happen, so let’s take a look at five bold predictions for the upcoming divisional round of football.
1. The Bills become the first to miss the conference title game despite being a top-two seed for three straight seasons.
Did you know that there has never been a team, since the NFL playoff seeding began in 1975, to place in the top two seeds in three consecutive seasons and miss the game conference championship in those three seasons? That’s according to CBS Sports Research, but the second-seeded Buffalo Bills (2022-2024) will become the first team to achieve this notorious distinction after losing to the third-seeded Baltimore Ravens on Sunday night.
How did this never happen before you asked? Well, one reason is if a team was a top two seed, it was probably good enough to win a playoff game or two. Second, before the playoffs expanded to add a seventh team in 2020, the top two seeds received a first-round bye in the 12-team format used from 1990 to 2019. This meant that the top two seeds only needed to win one game to be on the verge of appearing in the Super Bowl.
This is also a bold prediction because of the game’s location in Buffalo. The Bills currently have a 42-game home streak as a favorite, which is the sixth-longest streak among any team in the last 30 years, according to CBS Sports Research. It’s rare for the Bills to lose at home. They are currently a one-point underdog at home as of this writing, according to Caesar’s Sportsbook, which could change by kickoff Sunday.
A Bills loss to the Ravens would also be surprising for several other reasons. The Bills are 9-0 in Buffalo this season, including the playoffs. Quarterback Josh Allen is averaging both the highest total yards per game (329.1) and total touchdowns per game (2.6) in NFL playoff history, with a minimum of five games played, according to CBS Sports Research. He also has the best passing touchdown-to-interception ratio in NFL playoff history (23-4, 5.8), among those with at least 300 postseason pass attempts. Allen also went from being a turnover machine, leading the league with 102 from 2018 to 2023, to averaging the lowest percentage of plays with a sack, fumble or interception (4.17%) by any which QB in a season since the 1970 AFL/NFL merger. , minimum 500 plays.
However, none of that will matter because the Ravens offense has a schematic and personnel advantage that the Bills won’t be able to overcome. Baltimore defeated Buffalo, 271-81, in the first meeting of the year between these two teams in Week 4 in a 35-10 rout of the Ravens. The score may not be as lopsided as last time, but the matchup problem remains. Baltimore’s duo of quarterback Lamar Jackson and running back Derrick Henry have the most rushing yards (2,836) and total yards (7,201) by a duo in a season in the NFL history, according to CBS Sports Research. Now let’s move on to the benefit of the scheme. The Ravens are using at least two tight ends in their formations at the highest rate in the NFL (47.9% of their plays) in 2024, and they are using multiple running backs, primarily Henry and the 6-foot-3 fullback. inches and 300 pounds Patrick Ricard. , with the third highest play rate (38.4%) in the league.
This is a terrible matchup for the Bills, who are playing their base defense at the lowest rate (4 percent of their plays) in the league this season. This means that Buffalo strongly prefers to use the speed of sub-packages like the nickel (five defensive backs on the field), the dime (six defensive backs on the field), or the quarterback (seven or more defensive backs on the field). Buffalo was in their base defense at a much higher rate than normal, 26%, in Week 4, but that didn’t help them much.
They will lose on Sunday to make a whole new story despite Allen’s historic playoff production and effective 2024 campaign.
NFL rushing champion Saquon Barkley shredded the Rams for a career-high 255 yards and two rushing touchdowns on 26 carries in a Week 12 road victory. In the playoff rematch playoffs in Philadelphia, he will aim for less than 100 yards. How is this possible? Well, 162 of his 255 rushing yards came after contact in the regular season, according to NFL Pro. There’s no way Los Angeles misses enough tackles and takes enough bad angles to allow it again.
Yes, Barkley totaled 829 rushing yards before contact this season, the most by any player in a season since at least 2017, when the NFL’s Next Gen stats began tracking that metric. However, a hot Rams defense – see more below – will contain the league’s best running back under the century mark on Sunday.
3. Eagles QB Jalen Hurts’ five-game playoff streak without an interception ends
Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts has 12 playoff touchdowns (seven passing, five rushing) and two interceptions in six career playoff starts. He hasn’t thrown an interception in the postseason since his first career postseason start in the 2021 playoffs against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, meaning he has five straight Football Playoff starts without interception. That’s tied for the second-longest playoff streak by a quarterback since the 1970 AFL/NFL merger, behind only Patrick Mahomes’ six consecutive games.
He’ll throw one Sunday afternoon against a Rams defense — led by a big, young front of Jared Verse, Braden Fiske, Byron Young and Kobie Turner — that has allowed fewer than 10 points in each of its last four games in using their inputs. This excludes Week 18 against the Seattle Seahawks, in which they rested players.
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PPG |
8.3 |
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Total YPG |
294.3 |
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Bags |
17 |
* Held all four opponents under 10 points (SF, NYJ, ARI, MIN)
Hurts also thrives against man coverage, averaging an NFL-best 9.6 yards per attempt, but that’s not what the Rams do. They cover 77.8% of their defensive plays, the third-highest rate in the NFL this season. It’s not an ideal matchup for Hurts, who averaged 7.3 yards per pass attempt against zone, 18th in the NFL. Los Angeles will continue its hot streak, which includes sacking Minnesota Vikings quarterback Sam Darnold an NFL record nine times in the first round, to intercept Hurts on Sunday.
4. Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes commits turnover in first division round
Patrick Mahomes, a three-time Super Bowl MVP, has won 15 of his 18 career playoff games and totaled 5,135 passing yards, 41 passing touchdowns and committed only nine turnovers (eight interceptions and one lost fumble). He also totaled 524 yards in the playoffs. No player in NFL history has ever had 18 regular season games with more than 5,000 passing yards, more than 40 passing touchdowns, more than 500 rushing yards and fewer than 10 interceptions.
Mahomes is also preparing to play his best playoff round, the AFC Division One on Saturday against the Houston Texans. He is 6-0 in his career in the divisional round with 16 total touchdowns and an impeccable zero turnovers. This 6-0 record is the best record by a quarterback in a playoff round in NFL history. One element of this division’s success changes Saturday: Mahomes will turn the ball over.
The Texans are coming off a 32-12 victory over the Los Angeles Chargers in the wild-card round in which they became the first team since the historic 2000 Super Bowl champion, the Baltimore Ravens, to the Super Bowl against the New York Giants, to allow a completion. below 45% completion percentage and totaling at least four sacks and four interceptions. Houston did it against Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert, who entered the playoffs with 23 passing touchdowns to just three interceptions this season.
Houston’s cornerbacks – Derek Stingley Jr. (42.7% completion percentage allowed this season) and Kamari Lassiter (44.6% completion percentage allowed this season) – are the two best players in the NFL in completion percentage allowed this season, among those who have been targeted at least 50 times. Houston third-round rookie safety Calen Bullock is the only NFL rookie leader in takeaways (six), interceptions (five) and passer rating allowed (31.5, minimum 200 snaps) . This group is big enough to turn over Mahomes at least once, something he’s never done before in the divisional round.
5. Chiefs aren’t kidding, beat Texans by multiple scores
The Chiefs went 15-2 this season, a record that gave them the most wins in a season in franchise history. This is ironic because they tied the 2022 Minnesota Vikings for the most one-score wins (11) in a season in NFL history and a point differential of plus-59, the lowest ever recorded for an NFL team that won at least 14 games.
They will face a Houston team that outscored the Los Angeles Chargers in the first round 32-6 over the final three quarters after trailing 6-0. Kansas City beat the Texans 27-19 in Week 16, but this time they will beat Houston by at least two possessions in the divisional round. For what? Rest. There’s always a rest versus rust conversation every postseason about whether a first-round bye is actually a good thing. For a team like the Chiefs, rest is exactly what they need. They lean on 35-year-old Travis Kelce, Mahomes — who seems to suffer from an initially scary lower-body injury every year (something that happened in Week 15 of this season) — and tackle defensive end Chris Jones, who is now 30 years old. old, to show the way. Rest will allow back-to-back Super Bowl champions to feel refreshed and ready to embarrass a team inferior to them, like the Texans.
