Super Bowl LVII

The 5 Most Exciting Super Bowls Ever

Will Super Bowl LVII match up to these classics?

By Elena Mejia, Maya Sweedler and Jay Boice, Elena Mejia, Maya Sweedler and Jay Boice and Elena Mejia, Maya Sweedler and Jay Boice

Feb. 7, 2023, at 6:00 AM

There are plenty of reasons to think Sunday’s Super Bowl between the Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs will be an instant classic. The teams are evenly matched, led by a couple of great quarterbacks, and there is no shortage of star power on either side. But of course, if the history of the Big Game tells us anything, it’s that we have a hard time predicting which Super Bowls will turn out to be thrillers, and which will be duds. Only in retrospect can we truly quantify the games that left us on the edges of our seats until the bitter end.

And to do that, we’re breaking out what is known as the “excitement index,” using data provided by ESPN that contains every play in Super Bowl history and its associated change in win probability. We summed the net changes in win probability associated with each play to rank the Super Bowls by excitability. A full ranking can be found in the table at the bottom of the story.

The top five games are charted below. Because we’re looking at the sum of all swings, the games you see included here might not feature the most exciting individual plays (apologies to anyone who was hoping to see the Helmet Catch) or even the wildest finishes (it’s safe to read on, Atlanta Falcons fans). For the most part, they’re low-scoring, close-fought games that saw late lead changes. But out of these close-fought brawls came some of the most iconic and heart-stopping moments in Super Bowl history.

Two years before Super Bowl XXXVIII, the Panthers and Patriots were in very different places. The 1-15 Panthers, who had joined the NFL as an expansion team less than a decade prior, had one winning season in franchise history; the Patriots had just won their first Super Bowl with a first-year starter named Tom Brady. 

But by February of 2004, both teams had played their way into the big game. Entering the Super Bowl, the Panthers — with a strong ground game and tough defensive front seven — were 7-point underdogs against the Patriots, who had a rangy secondary and an emergent star in Brady. And as you might expect in a battle between two grind-it-out teams, this one didn’t start with a lot of promise. But a torrent of late scoring in both halves would see this matchup turn into the most exciting game in Super Bowl history by our metric. 

The two teams were initially locked in a defensive battle, holding one another scoreless through the first quarter. The Patriots broke open scoring after forcing a fumble at Carolina’s 20-yard line and scoring a touchdown with 3:05 remaining in the first half — the longest scoreless period to open a Super Bowl in history. That unleashed a cascade of points: The Panthers answered with a two-minute, 95-yard touchdown drive, then the Patriots needed less than a minute to drive 78 yards for another touchdown, and Carolina ended the half by kicking a field goal. By the time the dust settled, 24 points had been scored in 185 seconds, and New England had a 14-10 lead going into the game’s infamous halftime show.

The second half started off much the same as the first, with neither team finding the end zone in the third quarter. The Patriots added 7 more points in the opening seconds of the fourth quarter, extending their lead to 11, but after two consecutive touchdowns from the Panthers — the second of which was an 85-yard catch-and-run from Jake Delhomme to Muhsin Muhammad that remains the longest passing touchdown in Super Bowl History (and the biggest play of the game by win-probability swing) — Carolina had both the lead and were favored in win probability for the first time. The teams would trade touchdowns in another feverish final three minutes, and after Delhomme found receiver Ricky Proehl in the end zone from 12 yards out, they were tied at 29 apiece with 1:13 remaining in the game. It was after this touchdown that Panthers kicker John Kasay made an error that swung the win probability by 7 percentage points: He sailed the kickoff out of bounds, giving Brady and crew the ball at the 40-yard line. Brady found receiver Troy Brown on three consecutive completions totaling 46 yards, then tacked on another 17-yard completion to Deion Branch. With each completion, the Patriots’ chances rose, and as kicker Adam Vinateri’s field-goal attempt with 9 seconds left in the game sailed through the uprights, finally reached 100 percent — ending the roller-coaster ride of the most exciting Super Bowl.

If you just watched the beginning of Super Bowl XXIII, you probably wouldn’t have guessed that it ended with an edge-of-your-seat fourth quarter to make this game the second-most thrilling Super Bowl in history.

In fact, the first half was … kind of boring. The Cincinnati Bengals and San Francisco 49ers — who had met in the Super Bowl seven years earlier (in a game the Niners led wire-to-wire) — traded field goals deep into the third quarter. Cincinnati quarterback Boomer Esiason struggled against a muscular San Francisco defense, taking five sacks and passing for just 144 yards on 11 completions. His counterpart, two-time Super Bowl winner Joe Montana, was a much more efficient 23-for-36 for 357 yards, including six completions that went for at least 20 yards, but didn’t throw a touchdown until the final quarter.

It wasn’t until Bengals running back Stanford Jennings broke off a 93-yard kickoff return that either team found the end zone. But within a minute and a half, Montana drove the Niners 85 yards to tie the game at 13. Cincinnati added another field goal after a five-and-a-half minute drive, at which point it had a 3-point lead and a 72 percent chance to win the game. But as the rest of the NFL learned time and time again, any amount of time was too much time for Joe Cool. With 3:04 remaining, Montana and the Niners got the ball on their own 8-yard line and proceeded to march down the field. The drive saw several plays that produced pretty big swings in win probability — most notably a 4-yard rush from running back Roger Craig on third-and-2 and a 27-yard completion to eventual MVP Jerry Rice on second-and-20 — but it wasn’t until Montana found receiver John Taylor in the end zone from 10 yards out that the Niners actually took the lead. The 34 seconds left on the clock weren’t enough for a response from Esiason and Co. Legendary Niners coach Bill Walsh was able to retire after this game as a champion once again.

That this game ranks in the top five should come as no surprise, as it features the game-changing play that launched an entire offseason of think pieces and commentary. In the final 30 seconds of the game, should the Seattle Seahawks, trailing by 4 points and in possession of the ball at the New England Patriots’ 1-yard line, have handed the ball off to likely Hall of Fame running back Marshawn Lynch?

Well, they didn’t, and Patriots cornerback Malcolm Butler made perhaps the most famous end zone interception of all time, denying the Seahawks a second consecutive Super Bowl.

But even before that final thrilling play, Super Bowl XLIX had been pretty exciting. It was a one-possession game throughout most of the first three quarters, with the teams trading the lead. Seattle’s Legion of Boom secondary played a smart game, holding Brady to less than 6.6 yards per attempt. The Seahawks opened up a 10-point lead five minutes left in the third quarter, scoring a touchdown to go up 24-14. But the Patriots scored on consecutive drives in the next quarter, holding the Seahawks to three-and-outs in between, to kick off with a 4-point lead and 2:06 left on the clock. Quarterback Russell Wilson orchestrated a pitch-perfect two-minute drill, completing three of his five attempts (including a would-have-been-iconic 33-yard bobbled catch by Jermaine Kearse) to take the Seahawks from their own 20-yard line to New England’s 5-yard line. After a 4-yard run from Lynch, Seattle was on the 1-yard line with 26 seconds remaining. But instead of handing it off, Wilson tried to find Ricardo Lockette on a slant route that Butler read perfectly, bumping the receiver before stepping in front of the ball at the line of scrimmage. Butler’s pick created an 81-point swing in win probability, making it the single-most-impactful play in Super Bowl history. The Patriots took over, kneeled twice and walked away with the fourth Lombardi Trophy of the Brady-Bill Belichick era.

Raise your hand like Cowboys running back Dan Reeves if you remember this game! The oldest game on the list, Super Bowl V, is as famous for its series of bloopers as it is for being Baltimore Colts legend Johnny Unitas’s only Super Bowl victory.

Dallas and Baltimore both brought solid defenses to the game. The Cowboys’ defense had allowed just one touchdown in the six games leading up to the Super Bowl, while the Colts had picked off opposing quarterbacks 25 times. 

But in the Super Bowl, it was Baltimore that struggled to keep control of the ball. Unitas threw two interceptions and lost a fumble before being knocked out of the game in the second quarter with a rib injury, and replacement Earl Morrall would later throw another pick in the end zone. All in all, the Colts turned the ball over seven times in the game while scoring just one touchdown in the first three quarters. (In keeping with the “Blunder Bowl,” as it came to be known, the Cowboys blocked the Colts’ first extra point attempt.) Dallas, meanwhile, put up two field goals and a touchdown in the first half but also committed 10 penalties for 133 yards, which hamstrung quarterback Craig Morton and company. Dallas held a 13-6 lead throughout the third quarter.

Watch: https://abcnews.go.com/fivethirtyeight/video/chaotic-fictional-football-coach-fivethirtyeight-74531599

As odd as the mistake-filled first three quarters were, the fourth quarter got even odder. Five of the game’s record 11 turnovers occurred in this quarter, as did one of the strangest plays in Super Bowl history. The Colts ran a flea-flicker that was tracking to pick up at least 20 yards until receiver Eddie Hinton fumbled the ball, setting off a scramble in the red zone that saw no less than a half-dozen players fail to recover. The ball rolled out of the end zone, giving Dallas the ball at its own 20-yard line. But Morton threw an interception three plays later that Colts safety Rick Volk brought down to the Dallas 3-yard line. The Colts punched it in two plays later, tying the game at 13 and giving them their best odds of winning thus far, at 59 percent.

After trading possessions, the Cowboys drove into Colts territory with less than two minutes on the clock. However, a holding penalty pushed Dallas out of field goal range and cost them 25 percentage points of win probability. The next play was even worse: Morton threw his second interception of the game, a ball that bounced off the hands of Reeves and landed in the arms of Colts linebacker Mike Curtis, who then returned the ball 13 yards to the Cowboys’ 28-yard line. In the final minute of play, it was easy money. The Colts called two runs and booted a 32-yard field goal with nine seconds remaining, finally sealing the game. It wasn’t a masterpiece by any means, but sometimes a series of back-and-forth blunders can also produce big swings in win probability — and an exciting finish.

Surprised to see the second iteration of Giants-Patriots here, rather than the first? We were, too — until we remembered that the biggest upset in NFL history remained within 4 points throughout the entire game. The rematch, four years later, was a much more back-and-forth affair. Scoring opened with a safety (of all things) after Brady was called for intentional grounding six minutes into the game. The Giants notched one more touchdown before the Patriots put up 17 unanswered points in the second and third quarters. With 11:13 remaining in the game, New England had a 82 percent chance to avenge its loss in Super Bowl XLII.

But there was a lot more game to play. The Giants kicked two field goals in the back half of the third quarter, but the fourth quarter was consumed by two long drives that both ended in punts. Down by 2 points with 3:46 remaining, the Giants started their final drive on their own 12-yard line. On the first play of the drive, quarterback Eli Manning uncorked a 38-yard pass to Mario Manningham, who made a toe-tapping catch along the left sideline to improve the Giants’ chances from 30 percent to 47 percent. Four more short completions and two gains on the ground followed; by the time running back Ahmad Bradshaw fell backwards into the end zone to put the Giants up with 1:04 remaining, Giants fans were wondering if they had left too much time on the clock for Brady.

And the Patriots did give them a scare! With under 40 seconds to go, Brady had back-to-back completions that moved the ball 30 yards. But three incompletions later, the clock hit zero and the Giants — 3-point underdogs coming into the game — were once again Super Bowl champions.

Those were just the top five Super Bowls by excitement index. Below is the full list of games, ranging from that Pats-Panthers shootout at the top to the 49ers’ one-sided rout of the San Diego Chargers in Super Bowl XXIX at the bottom. Where will Super Bowl LVII rank on the list? The entire football-following public must watch on Sunday to find out.

Check out our latest NFL predictions.

NFL

How Massive The NFL Really Is, In 4 Charts

By Ryan Best

Feb. 6, 2023, at 6:00 AM

The NFL has had quite an eventful year. In fact, the 2022 season has been characterized by a series of controversies that, when taken together, seem like a microcosm of the criticisms and existential threats facing the league as a whole. In just the past year, there have been major stories centered around how the NFL handles (or downplays) sexual assault allegations against its star players, scary concussions, the physical brutality of the sport and the league’s racial regressiveness — especially in disadvantaging Black coaches in a predominantly Black league. 

But while it might be reasonable to expect the league to take a hit from this slew of negative attention, the NFL seems to have a Teflon-like ability to keep scandals from sticking. Fans are still watching games in droves despite all the controversies, even giving the league its highest-rated regular-season game on record this Thanksgiving. So, with the Super Bowl just around the corner, we wanted to take a few different looks at just how massive the NFL really is — and why rumors of its decline continue to be greatly exaggerated.

First, take the Big Game itself. This Sunday, tens of millions of Americans will tune in as the Kansas City Chiefs take on the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl LVII. Every year, the Super Bowl is by far the biggest cultural event in America — or, maybe more accurately, it is the defining event for American culture. While similar events grapple with fractured media environments and the rise of streaming, millions more Americans still turn on their TVs and sit down on their couch with friends or seven-layer dip (or both) to watch the Super Bowl than any other major sports championship in the country.

But of course, football’s grip on American sports fandom expands well beyond just watching the Super Bowl. More generally, Gallup has been asking Americans about their favorite sport to watch since 1937¹ — and for the past half-century, American sports fans have come to a pretty clear consensus: Football is king. Football first claimed the top spot from baseball in 1972, and nothing has come close to it ever since. Meanwhile, baseball is on a precipitous decline — only 9 percent of all respondents said it was their favorite sport in 2017, the lowest total since Gallup first asked the question 80 years earlier.

We also can see football’s seemingly unimpeachable position as America’s favorite sport in how many fans it is able to draw to each game. Put simply, NFL games are massively bigger spectacles than contests in any other American sport, with thousands more people showing up to NFL stadiums during football season than we see at MLB, NBA or NHL games.

The Washington Commanders drew the smallest crowds in the NFL in 2022 — with just over 58,000 fans showing up to the average game at FedEx Field — while the Los Angeles Dodgers had the biggest games of any team outside the NFL in the same year. Their games averaged more than 10,000 fewer fans than the Commanders’. Yes, some of this is a function of venue capacity — no basketball or hockey arena can contain even 35 percent as many fans as the NFL’s smallest stadium (Soldier Field in Chicago) — as well as the NFL’s once-a-week business model, which stands in contrast with other leagues’ more daily scheduling rhythms. But even so, the NFL draws big enough crowds to justify massive stadiums and make its once-a-week model worth it. Simply put, the sheer drawing power of pro football is undeniable.

And these unencumbered decades of unwavering attention and butts-in-seats have helped NFL franchises themselves grow to enormous proportions, too. Of the 50 most valuable sports franchises in the world according to Forbes’ 2022 rankings, 30 are NFL teams.² The Dallas Cowboys top the list as the most valuable team in the world, with an estimated worth around $8 billion — $1.6 billion higher than the second-ranked New England Patriots. Combined, all the NFL teams on the list are worth a staggering $136.8 billion.

Any way you slice it, the NFL is simply America’s No. 1 obsession. And while it does face some real existential threats (including reports of declining popularity among the next generation of would-be fans), it’s still a behemoth that dominates America’s culture and economy. The NFL is so far out ahead of any other sport that a competitor usurping its title as America’s favorite league probably won’t happen for decades — if at all.

Check out our latest NFL predictions.

Watch: https://abcnews.go.com/fivethirtyeight/video/chaotic-fictional-football-coach-fivethirtyeight-74531599

NFL

Which Stars Are Going To Blow Up In Super Bowl LVII?

By Neil Paine and Josh Hermsmeyer and Neil Paine and Josh Hermsmeyer

Feb. 1, 2023, at 6:00 AM

The teams are set for Super Bowl LVII, and now it’s time for the longest two weeks in sports — the wait between the NFL’s conference championships and the Big Game itself. One upside of the layoff, however, is the chance it will give fans to get to know the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles inside and out. So with that in mind, we wanted to highlight a handful of the key players on each side of this matchup who are certain to play a central role in determining the outcome.

Philadelphia Eagles

QB Jalen Hurts

Any discussion of the Eagles’ Super Bowl flight has to begin with Hurts, Philadelphia’s field general and one of the league’s five MVP finalists. The Eagles are 16-1 in games Hurts has started this season (including playoffs) and they are scoring a league-best 29.5 points per game in those starts.³ But what really has enabled Philadelphia’s rise to the edge of a championship has been Hurts’s individual passing improvement this season, one of the largest year-over-year leaps in performance by any young Super Bowl QB since the merger:

Before this season, Hurts was merely a solid starter, with roughly a league-average passer rating index (according to Pro-Football-Reference.com), and the Eagles went 8-7 in his starts. But in 2022, Hurts improved his index by nearly 25 points, rising to become one of the league’s most efficient passers — and in turn, Philadelphia’s offense, which had been decent but not great last year, ended up ranking second in scoring. (This mirrors the same sudden, championship-caliber improvement we’ve seen from other young Super Bowl signal-callers over the years, most recently with Cincinnati’s Joe Burrow last season.) Add in Hurts’s 760 rushing yards with 13 rushing TDs — easily the most among QBs — and you can see why he made this Philly offense nearly impossible to defend all season long. Without Hurts giving the Eagles such a dramatic upgrade under center, it’s hard to imagine them soaring anywhere near as high as they have this year.

WR A.J. Brown

As impressive as Hurts’s growth has been in leading Philadelphia’s offense, he has hardly done it alone. For one thing, he was supported by a balanced system that featured the league’s second-best run-blocking offensive line (according to ESPN’s win rate statistics) and a multi-pronged rushing attack led by Miles Sanders — one of only five runners with at least 1,200 yards and double-digit TDs this year. Even more importantly, Hurts had an improved group of receivers to target, headlined by the huge addition of A.J. Brown in a trade from the Tennessee Titans. During his first season as an Eagle, all Brown did was tie for third in the league in receiving TDs (11) and rank fourth in yards (1,496), giving Philly its most prolific receiver by yards per game since Mike Quick in 1983. But that’s only scratching the surface of what Brown brought to this offense.

If you look at yards per route run — a great measure of production per opportunity for receivers, since it blends the ability to get downfield, get open and reliably catch the ball — only Miami’s Tyreek Hill ranked ahead of Brown this season. And what sets Brown apart is that he is also one of the best at running after the catch, particularly after adjusting for where he is catching it. According to NFL Next Gen Stats, Brown was fifth-best in the NFL at gaining more yards after the catch than expected per reception. Basically, Brown gave Philadelphia a unique threat that defenses needed to respect before, during and after the ball was thrown — and that opened up chances for his teammates to shine. For instance, fellow wideout DeVonta Smith continued to blossom alongside Brown, notching 1,196 yards while using the extra operating space to post one of the highest catch rates ever for a player with that many yards. And for his part, Hurts went from completing a smaller share of his passes than expected to ranking fourth in completion percentage above expected while throwing to his revamped receiving corps.

DE Haason Reddick

When the Arizona Cardinals drafted Haason Reddick with the 13th pick in 2017, they did so assuming Reddick was too small to rush the quarterback. Instead they envisioned him as an inside linebacker, a position Reddick had never played in college, and one of the least valuable position groups in the NFL. It took Reddick demanding a position change back to edge rusher in his final season in Arizona⁴ for his career to finally flourish. Since 2020 Reddick has registered 39.5 regular-season sacks, third most in the NFL over that span behind only Myles Garrett and T.J. Watt.

When the Eagles signed him as a free agent prior to this season,⁵ making him the 17th-highest-paid edge rusher in the NFL, they certainly expected him to get after the quarterback. But they couldn’t have expected the season Reddick and the rest of the defensive line put together in 2022. 

The Eagles improved from 31st in the league (29) in sacks in 2021 all the way to first (70), the largest year-to-year improvement in NFL history. Four different Eagles finished the regular season with 10 or more sacks — also an NFL record. For his part, Reddick led the league with 18.5 sacks created, was tied for second in sacks (16) and finished the season second in overall pass rush win rate. And despite the prolific totals put up by his teammates, Reddick wasn’t just padding his numbers: He was out there beating double-teams at a near league-leading rate.

CB Darius Slay

The Eagles run a version of Vic Fangio’s defense and rely heavily on Cover 4 — or Quarters — coverage, where four defensive backs split the responsibilities for covering the deep part of the field. In those coverages Slay was typically asked to play man-to-man, or “man match”⁶ on the left side, and he did a good job: Slay ranked 17th in the league in man coverage on 101 snaps, according to Pro Football Focus. 

But where Big Play Slay really shined was when he was asked to play zone and cover a full third of the deep part of the field. In these Cover 3 defensive looks, Slay was the best defender in the NFL, according to PFF.

Slay is dangerous when he can keep his eyes on the quarterback while dropping into coverage, and the Eagles like to run “inverted” coverages where deep defenders switch roles. On these calls, the Eagles turn what looks like a four-deep, three-under coverage pre-snap into a three-deep, four-under coverage post-snap to help take away the short and intermediate routes. With Patrick Mahomes’s ankle injured and the Eagles pass rush elite, Philly may want that extra defender underneath in the Super Bowl to defend against short, quick passes. If they do, they can rely on Slay to do his job and lock down his third of the field.

Kansas City Chiefs

QB Patrick Mahomes

For the next few weeks, the entire focus of the football world will be on one body part: Patrick Mahomes’s right ankle. The 2022 MVP favorite sprained it against the Jacksonville Jaguars during the divisional round, hobbled to the finish of that game, and then gritted his way through the pain in the AFC title contest. But while Mahomes picked up the most important gain of the game with his feet, he was limited to eight rushing yards in the game and it’s a safe bet that his trademark mobility could be hampered against the Eagles as well. But will that matter? One of the many special things about Mahomes is that he can beat you as a pocket passer every bit as well as he can using his improvisational magic. Since his debut as a starter in 2018, Mahomes’s overall wizardry has made him the NFL’s best quarterback by Total QBR — but he actually ranks higher in QBR from within the pocket (No. 2) than outside the pocket (No. 3) over that span, and his raw QBR between the two categories has been essentially identical.

Perhaps that helps explain why the Chiefs’ record when Mahomes isn’t a factor with his legs — an .818 winning percentage when he is their primary QB but has single-digit rushing yards — is actually slightly better than their .776 winning percentage when he cracks double digits on the ground. The best part of having Mahomes at QB is that when a defense (or an injury) limits one aspect of his brilliance, his Plan B is still better than just about anyone else’s Plan A.

C Creed Humphrey (and friends)

Of course, we have seen the limits of Mahomes’s greatness when the protection in front of him completely breaks down. (The highlights from Super Bowl LV can be hard to watch for that reason.) And the Eagles pose a particular risk for a repeat of that performance, given that they recorded the third-most sacks in a season in NFL history. But for a team known for its explosive skill-position talent, one of the Chiefs’ most important weapons is their ability to block would-be pass-rushers in the trenches, starting up the middle.

According to ESPN’s pass block win rate metric, the highest overall success rate for any pass blocker in the entire league this season belonged to center Creed Humphrey, who sustained his block for at least 2.5 seconds in 97.9 percent of encounters with opposing pass-rushers. But Humphrey was merely the strongest link in a very strong chain, as the second-best pass block win rate (96.9 percent) also belonged to a K.C. lineman — guard Joe Thuney. And so did the seventh-best, for that matter, with guard Trey Smith (95.9 percent). The NFL average for tackles is lower than for centers and guards, but both bookends on the Chiefs line — Orlando Brown Jr. and Andrew Wylie — were above average for their position as well.

As a result, the Chiefs’ offensive line had the No. 1 pass block win rate in the league, with the gap between them and the No. 2 Chicago Bears roughly equaling the gap between the Bears and the No. 12 Eagles (of all teams). And with Mahomes hobbled against the fearsome Philadelphia pass rush, the stalwart Kansas City blockers could be the antidote to one of K.C.’s biggest potential trouble spots.

DE Chris Jones

As impressive as Reddick’s 2022 season was, Chris Jones’s might have been better. Why? Well, for one he plays a different position (interior defensive line), which typically doesn’t lend itself to sacks — unless your name is Aaron Donald. Yet Jones notched just a half-sack less (15.5) than Reddick on the season. 

Second, Jones did it without the supporting cast that Reddick enjoyed: Rather than four rushers with 11 or more sacks, the Chiefs trotted out Jones and three other players with six or fewer.⁷. Teams could game plan for Jones in ways they couldn’t against Reddick.

But perhaps most impressively, Jones nearly matched Reddick’s production while being double-teamed over five times more often (251 vs. 48 for Reddick). In fact Jones was double-teamed more than any other player in the league. 

It wasn’t like teams had much of a choice, either. They doubled Jones because they had to — because when they didn’t, he wrecked the game. Jones’s pass rush win rate versus single-teams was the fourth-highest in the league. That kind of production from the middle of the line is rare, and against a Philly offensive line that’s one of the league’s best, the Chiefs will need “the most unstoppable man in football” to show up big.

CB L’Jarius Sneed

Chiefs cornerback L’Jarius Sneed was a key part of an underrated Chiefs defense all season. Typically lining up across the opposing team’s top receiver, Sneed tied for the team lead in interceptions with three, and led all Chiefs in passes defensed with 11. Among NFL cornerbacks, Sneed ranked seventh in PFF WAR, a measure of how many wins a player adds to the team.

What may surprise, particularly given Jones’s exploits in 2022, is that Sneed was the third-most valuable Chief this season according to PFF WAR, trailing only Patrick Mahomes (shocker) and tight end Travis Kelce.

In the AFC championship game, Sneed suffered a concussion while tackling Bengals running back Samaje Perine early in the first quarter, leaving his availability for the Super Bowl in question. If PFF WAR is any indication, losing Sneed is no small thing. If he’s able to play, his skills will surely help the Chiefs game plan to stop A.J. Brown and the rest of the Eagles passing attack. And if he can’t go, Jones and the rest of the Kansas City pass rush is going to have to conjure up a repeat of their performance in the AFC championship game, where they pressured Joe Burrow relentlessly to help cover for the loss of their best defensive back. Only this time they’ll be going against one of the most dangerous mobile quarterbacks in the league, potentially without one of their most valuable players.

Check out our latest NFL predictions.

NFL

The Chiefs And Eagles Made The Super Bowl With Grit, Talent, Heart And (Yes) Luck

A FiveThirtyEight Chat

Jan. 30, 2023, at 4:15 PM

maya (Maya Sweedler, editor): We have our Super Bowl! And just like we all predicted in last week’s chat, it’ll be the Philadelphia Eagles versus the Kansas City Chiefs. (My crow … it’s delicious.) The two teams advanced Sunday in games that, at least in the moment, felt as though they were defined as much by injuries as they were by the play itself.

As Tony Romo discovered while calling the AFC championship game on CBS last night, sometimes the best comparison for a football game in 2023 is an NBA game from the 1990s. So in the spirit of that, I ask: Are we looking at the 1996 NBA Finals, in terms of the inevitability of the two No. 1 seeds advancing?

joshua.hermsmeyer (Josh Hermsmeyer, NFL analyst): Googles the NBA

I guess I would push back on inevitability, just because these games were coin flips in the betting markets heading in.

Salfino (Michael Salfino, FiveThirtyEight contributor):  I feel like the Eagles were more of a true No. 1 seed than the Chiefs, especially given the uncertainty of quarterback Patrick Mahomes, physically.

neil (Neil Paine, acting sports editor): To me, both K.C. and (especially) Philly were extremely lucky to advance. 

Not saying they are not deserving.

But practically any team in the league could have beaten San Francisco and their zero QBs yesterday. And the Chiefs benefited greatly from timely calls by the officials.

Salfino: I think it’s legit to question what, if anything, the Eagles have proved not just this postseason but down the stretch of the regular season, too, given the quality of their opponents/QBs faced.

joshua.hermsmeyer: Neil, that was NOT a 31-point offensive performance. Around 10 expected points added came from net penalty advantage, and 10 EPA came off turnovers, net. That was an 11-point offensive performance by Philly.

neil: I just don’t think we can take anything away from that game whatsoever.

It was basically the same as that Denver Broncos game during the COVID-19 season, when they had to start a WR at QB.

Salfino: Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts seemed to play very tight. That’s what I’m taking away from it. It was one of the worst throwing performances by a winning championship game that I’ve ever seen. Maybe the year Peyton Manning was playing on fumes compares. I can’t remember one good pass by Hurts, though I guess there had to be a couple.

neil: There was one Hurts pass that produced a great “catch”, Mike!

joshua.hermsmeyer: The rushing wasn’t great either, Mike — 3.36 YPA!

maya: Wait, guys, we’re still talking about a 14-3 team that has almost 80 sacks on the season and a quarterback who’s rushed for 15 TDs on the year.

That’s not nothing.

Salfino: Yes, Hurts has been so good so I think that NFC championship performance is more descriptive than predictive.

neil: Oh yeah, I don’t actually think we should doubt the Eagles based on that game. The script of the game very quickly became obvious — gain a lead and don’t turn the ball over, chew clock, and it will be impossible for the Niners to come back because they literally cannot throw.

The stats on either side of a game like that are going to be warped.

Salfino: Right, it was clear that the Eagles just had to avoid beating themselves and maybe it’s harder to play that way. Hurts seemed really tight and maybe that’s just always thinking of not making a mistake instead of just playing. Maybe he was aiming those throws too much.

joshua.hermsmeyer: There was hope, for one fleeting moment, that Christian McCaffrey could put the Niners on his back. But after his long, almost impossible touchdown run, the Niners never sniffed the goal line again. In fact they ran zero (0) plays in the red zone.

neil: That was never going to be sustainable.

Salfino: My thinking after the CMC TD was “Brock Purdy’s probably not even good and Josh Johnson can be just as good as he would have been, maybe.” But then, Johnson got concussed and it was Game Over.

neil: This is why they should have an emergency backup QB in the stadium at all times. You know how they have an emergency backup goalie in hockey? A random goalie off the street who can play for either team if needed? We need that in football, too. Because if a team has no functional QB, the game becomes a sham.

maya: Yeah. But credit where credit is due — the Eagles controlled the pace of the game, coach Nick Sirianni had some smart situational calls (including the hurry-up play after the fourth-and-3 “catch”) and I didn’t see a ton of mistakes in either the box score or the game itself.

Salfino: I’d argue the Eagles made their own QB luck with that pass rush. They legit got two KOs.

joshua.hermsmeyer: I’m not really giving the Eagles credit. They had one of the easier paths to the Super Bowl I can think of. They are a good team, but we still just don’t really know anything about Hurts and his shoulder and what a comeback push out of this team might look like.

Sorry, Eagles.

Salfino: Maya, I do not get Kyle Shanahan not challenging when the offense clearly is telling you they maybe got a good call by hurrying up. Plus that play had the threshold of down and distance to warrant a challenge that early.

maya: I can’t decide what I’m looking forward to less, two weeks of speculation on Hurts’s shoulder, Mahomes’s ankle or being inundated by the Kelce brothers storyline.

Salfino: The last team that had this easy a postseason draw was the 2007 Patriots, who beat David Garrard and then faced Philip Rivers with a torn ACL in the AFC championship game. I forget what happened next.

neil: Nothing historically notable.

maya: LOL

neil: So yeah, that’s a point well taken, Mike, that you do kind of make your own QB injury luck with a ferocious pass rush. But I would have liked to have seen a full game of the 49ers with Purdy against the Eagles. It’s a huge what-if, and we were robbed of what was supposed to be an NFC title game classic.

maya: Yeah, this was a matchup that, on paper, looked so promising. Strengths versus strengths, question marks versus question marks (with the exception of Purdy versus that pass rush, I guess ). But let’s take a step back. I know we’ve been pretty down on the NFC as the weaker conference throughout the season. Should we go as far as to read the Eagles’ overall season as a function of that? Or just their postseason?

joshua.hermsmeyer: The Eagles’ regular season was legit across the board. It wasn’t positive variance all over the place (though the Eagles were one of the least-injured teams). I just think the postseason casts doubt on our ability to know the true strength of this team at the moment.

Salfino: Josh, I’m curious about your view on whether the Eagles are showing that maybe building around pass rush (over pass coverage) is a smart defensive model. I know analytics says the opposite.

joshua.hermsmeyer: Well “analytics” are not a monolith. I’m of the school that pass rush is more important, Eric Eager has done studies when he was at PFF that show pass coverage is more impactful, at least as a unit. The issue is pass rush is more individual and predictable, and pass coverage is a weak-link system where player performance varies wildly each season. So I lean pass rush as the better way to build a team, at least initially.

Salfino: The Eagles are truly great in net yards per attempt for minus allowed, my favorite predictive stat. They are 7.1 for and 4.9 allowed, for a plus-2.2 margin. That’s just massive. Win that stat by any margin since the merger, and you win about 75 percent of games, irrespective of anything else. And the Chiefs were plus-1.9, by the way. So these are two of the strongest teams in history facing off in the Super Bowl. 

It’s rare when both teams are around plus-2.0. This is just the second Super Bowl since the 1973 season with two teams that were at least 1.8 yards better in net YPA than their opponents. (The other was in 2019, Chiefs vs. Niners.) And including this year, only 86 teams have done it in the Super Bowl era.

neil: Yeah, I don’t want us to get to a place where we’re saying these teams are frauds to get to the Super Bowl or something.

They played like Super Bowl teams all year long.

maya: Oh thank goodness. Someone else sticking up for the Eagles. I cannot in good faith defend them any longer.

What am I, the Empire State Building?

joshua.hermsmeyer: LOL

neil: That was the saddest NYC moment in a long time.

joshua.hermsmeyer: Sad when the social media account of a once-great building is hacked.

Salfino: I saw the lights and thought the New York Jets traded for Aaron Rodgers.

maya: Honestly, what bummed me out the most was knowing that the lights were definitely designed for the Jets, but the building has never needed to use them.

Salfino: As a Jets fan, I would have been happier with the Eagles colors last week. I think that whole thing is weird. It’s like the Empire State Building is trying to be a national building instead of a local one with sports, but just look at your own name.

And in terms of the NFC being weaker, it’s so weird when the conferences are this different. But that’s a function of the QB position.

maya: Ooh, say more, Mike.

Here’s my thing: I am fully confident that the mean quarterback in the AFC is better than the mean quarterback in the NFC. But the AFC is so top heavy that if we were to look at the median, I’m not sure we’d see as large a gap.

Salfino: Does the AFC have more terrible QBs? That’s interesting. I haven’t thought about it this way. I’m just thinking the top four in the AFC are all championship-caliber, plus the fifth is Trevor Lawrence probably. And we’re sort of forgetting about Lamar Jackson.

maya: The bottom of the AFC this year, in terms of Total QBR, was Davis Mills, Mac Jones, Russell Wilson and Matt Ryan.

Salfino: Russell Wilson being down there is just mind-blowing, Maya.

joshua.hermsmeyer: Yeah, the NFC got all his best years, I guess?

neil: Matt Ryan’s, too.

But again, if we’re looking at QBR, we’re getting Nos. 1 and 4 in QBR across the whole season, in Mahomes and Hurts. 

(Pay no attention to Josh Allen and Tua Tagovailoa sandwiched in between them.)

So the Super Bowl really is the cream of the crop, even if the conference title games were decided by factors that you can’t always count on.

maya: I’m still kind of impressed that Kansas City had a quarterback with one working ankle and was missing four of its top five wide receivers (though not top five pass-catchers) by game’s end and still managed to move the ball enough to get the win.

Salfino: Barely enough and oddly not really at all on the winning “drive.” But yeah, Mahomes is just amazing. He is probably the GOAT, and what he did on that ankle with the receivers out was off-the-charts greatness. But he did not look healthy to me, at all. And I don’t see this ankle getting better. So if the Eagles win, people will say they were lucky in not facing the “real” Mahomes.

joshua.hermsmeyer: The Chiefs had the only pass-catcher that matters. Our King Kelce. 

Salfino: The mayor of Cincinnati has to pipe down. That dude was way out of his lane. 

But I will say that I don’t think the Cincy trash-talking had any impact on the game. Mahomes is going to be just as motivated regardless. The man is dangerous. He’s a killer.

joshua.hermsmeyer: I think motivation has to matter. It did for Michael Jordan.

neil: We’ve seen the Flu Game. This was the Taped-Up-Shoe Game.

Salfino: When was Jordan not motivated?

joshua.hermsmeyer: Insert “and I took that personally” meme.

maya: I didn’t think Mahomes was the only guy playing out of his mind. Chris Jones looked terrific. He got his first two career postseason sacks, and on his 38 defensive snaps as a pass-rusher, had a pressure rate of 21.1 percent.

Salfino: Chris Jones was the best player on the field. Massive impact on that game.

neil: Yes, Jones and the K.C. pass rush got to Joe Burrow five times after the Bills had only sacked him once. That especially played a big role early, and it made the Bengals adjust their scheme on the fly.

Salfino: They got four sacks while the first beer was still cold. That really mattered. It staggered the Bengals. Took them out of whatever their game plan was.

joshua.hermsmeyer: The Chiefs deserved to win, but the Bengals and their fans have a legit argument that penalties decided the game. K.C. lost 2.3 points to penalties, the Bengals 6.9. That’s more than the difference in the game.

neil: That was, uh, not a crisply officiated game.

Anytime the refs are declaring do-over plays, there might be some problems.

Salfino: My biggest problem with the officiating was the Marquez Valdes-Scantling reach. You don’t get to treat a yard marker like the goal line. He pulled the ball back. You don’t even get a re-spot on a review if you don’t get the first down, either. I just don’t understand that call. 

maya: Zac Taylor kept it together admirably.

joshua.hermsmeyer: Germaine Pratt did not keep it together after the game was over. 

Salfino: That flag on the hit out of bounds has to be called. People are saying, “You can’t decide the game.” But if you don’t call an obvious foul, you’re deciding the game.

neil: Yeah, it was the correct call.

I feel for Joseph Ossai. He was taking it HARD after the game. He literally made a Rookie Mistake.

joshua.hermsmeyer: I think K.C. should honor Ossai. Name a hot sauce after him or something.

Salfino: This is the Bengals version of the Gastineau roughing call against Kosar. Only worse. That play will never be forgotten.

maya: I think this Cincy team is still in the early days of its championship window. There were so many small moments in the game yesterday where I found myself just sitting there, mouth open.

I keep going back to the 35-yard downfield pass to Ja’Marr Chase on fourth-and-6. 

joshua.hermsmeyer: I mean I was agog, but the process seemed not so great to me?

Salfino: I’m not a big fan of “early in the championship window.” It closes fast. I think it’s closed for the Bills, who will never forget those 13 seconds last year. That was their window.

joshua.hermsmeyer: The down and distance, the coverage … 

Salfino: I liked the Chase play, Josh. They were a two-man passing offense with Tyler Boyd hurt. The pass rush didn’t give you a chance to go through progressions. Let your great player make a great play. I like those odds.

joshua.hermsmeyer: These types of plays are hard to reason through when you know the result. To be fair, at least one model liked the call to go for it, though it was of course silent on the actual play design. But I don’t think I want my team attempting that play.

Salfino: A play like that won the Super Bowl for Mahomes when it was to Tyreek Hill.

joshua.hermsmeyer: On the other hand, lots of TDs were scored on drives extended by fourth-down plays this weekend. So, huzzah. 

maya: Sure, there’s definitely an element of ex post facto here. If it had been a turnover on downs, we certainly wouldn’t be talking about it. On the other hand, I thought the late-down play-calling was pretty terrific, generally, in that game yesterday. Only the QB-less Niners had negative EPA on third- and fourth-down plays yesterday.

Neil: They may also have felt like it was necessary to strike right then and there after the Mahomes fumble.

You’re at their 41 and down by a TD. They just gifted you a chance to get back in. And you know neither Burrow nor Chase are afraid of that moment.

I can’t say I am 100 percent sure the better team won. But the heart both teams showed was great to watch.

Salfino: I think Burrow was too aggressive on the pick he threw on the third down deep to Tee Higgins. That was four-down territory. It was only third-and-3.

joshua.hermsmeyer: Oh, you don’t like the play that didn’t work, and you like the play that did work? I mean, we are really resulting now.

neil: Live by Burrow’s swagger, die by Burrow’s swagger.

Salfino: Burrow was outplayed pretty significantly by one-legged Mahomes. That was unexpected. This loss is on Burrow.

maya: There were both some aggressive play calls and some surprisingly non-aggressive ones. What about the K.C. punt with 2:36 left in the game? It was fourth-and-8 on the Cincy 37.

neil: Maya, I was somewhat surprised the Chiefs punted there, for the same reasons.

maya: Felt very un-Andy-Reid-like to me.

neil: This after multiple times trying a hook-and-lateral 20 yards downfield in the ordinary flow of the offense earlier in the game.

Salfino: I don’t think Reid had any confidence in his receivers on that fourth down after the Bengals first accepted and then declined (wisely) the penalty. If they fail to convert there, it’s likely game over given the short distance to get into field goal range. Or at least a lot more likely to lose than by punting.

maya: But speaking of Reid, we have a one-man Reid bowl! The winningest coach of the Eagles will be on the opposite sideline in two weeks. Any matchups you guys are particularly looking forward to?

neil:I don’t have the stat on this, but has a Super Bowl coach ever faced a team that he is the all-time coaching wins leader of?

Reid is Philly’s wins leader and it is not remotely close.

Salfino: Maybe Weeb Ewbank versus the Colts in Super Bowl III, Neil?

neil: Great pull, Mike! 

Salfino: Even if not, this certainly has the same vibe as that game, given that Weeb won two championships for the Colts.

joshua.hermsmeyer: The Chiefs had a 91 percent pass block win rate against the Bengals, according to ESPN. I don’t expect that to continue, but that battle in the trenches is the one I’ll be watching closely. 

maya: Yeah, Chris Jones vs. the world should be a good one. I also am curious to see how the Chiefs defend the Eagles’ two-tight end sets.

joshua.hermsmeyer: I’ll also be keeping tabs on the injury status of K.C.’s best coverage player, L’Jarius Sneed. Hopefully two weeks is enough time to recover from what looked like a concussion when he tried to tackle Samaje Perine in the first quarter.

maya: And I guess the next obvious factor is Mahomes’s ankle and mobility.

neil: Yes. And that matters a lot because, in many ways, this is also a battle of balance (Philly is good on offense and defense) versus one-dimensionality (K.C. is elite offensively and below-average on defense. Plus, K.C.’s special teams have been among the worst by EPA all season; Philly is solid there.)

In fact, you could really just distill down to the team that is good (if not great) at everything — the Eagles — against the team that is really only good at one thing (K.C. passing). But in that one thing, they are far and away the best.

maya: Gasps in Isiah Pacheco.

neil: K.C.’s rushing offense this season was merely average by EPA.

(Sorry, Isiah. And I know that unit’s personnel has morphed over the course of the season. But even after weighting recent games more heavily, they are basically average.)

Salfino: Is the Chiefs defense underrated, Neil? OK, the 33 TD passes they allowed in the regular season are out of control. But their yards allowed and net YPA were very good. TDs are lucky. I put way more stock into average gain including sack yards and sacks as plays.

maya: Also, given we’ve spent approximately 30 seconds discussing special teams this season (basically entirely the light razzing of Dallas’s kicker), how important will that be?

joshua.hermsmeyer: Who can ever say?

Salfino: Special teams may be randomly important.

neil: Special teams is always an afterthought … until it’s not.

Salfino: Harrison Butker is shaky on extra points, seriously. 

maya: I thought that was the biggest factor in why K.C. punted from the 37-yard line. But Butker looked solid on the game winner.

Salfino: That barely cleared from a distance perspective. It was weird.

Mahomes is still going to be very limited. This is not the team you want a stationary QB against. I think the Eagles are going to keep reminding Mahomes he’s hurt, whereas the Bengals didn’t. Hurts’s mobility will give the Chiefs a lot of problems where the Niners are so fast defensively, it wasn’t a factor.

Add in the WR injuries and I see this being a TD win at least by the Eagles. 

maya: OK, Mike on the record for the Eagles!

Salfino: (Only because of Mahomes’s ankle, which is bad.)

neil: I think that’s right, Mike. I think that Philly’s terrifying pass rush will cause particular problems for Mahomes because of the ankle, and I think the Eagles’ offensive balance is going to cause problems for a K.C. team that is weak defending the run in particular.

It seems like a bad matchup for K.C.

Salfino: If the Eagles win, are the Mahomes Chiefs the new 1990s Atlanta Braves? (Complete with the same annoying/inappropriate tomahawk chop.)

maya: Please give in basketball terms, Mike.

neil: LOL.

joshua.hermsmeyer: I like two weeks of rest for Mahomes. They were lucky to avoid overtime and not put more stress on the ankle. He’ll have some of his banged-up receivers back. Couple that with my uncertainty about what the Eagles even are at this moment, I’m going Chiefs.

Salfino: That two weeks isn’t going to mean anything. This is a months-long injury.

maya: We don’t know that!

joshua.hermsmeyer: Dr. Salfino, please enlighten.

Salfino: We hear all the time that high ankle sprains limit a player for a season. It’s not getting better in two weeks, Josh. We’ve seen these injuries a million times. Mahomes looked like a different player out there and that ain’t changing.

neil: I will say, god knows what they injected in it seemed to at least get him through Sunday’s game enough for a solid performance.

joshua.hermsmeyer: He said he took no jabs!

neil: Then I have no idea what they did, but whatever it was, it made him functional!

Salfino: Oh, no, Neil. No “North Dallas Forty” situation here. We were ASSURED that Mahomes didn’t shoot up. (Who cares?)

neil: That’s between the Chiefs trainers and Mahomes’s ankle, none of my business.

Salfino: (I don’t believe it anyway; this is all LEGEND OF MAHOMES stuff.)

joshua.hermsmeyer: Plus Mahomes has his brother and wife cheering for him up in the booth, and posting on TikTok. Chiefs by 21.

neil: The brother is cringe. That knocks at least a TD off.

maya: Does Mahomes need this ring for his legacy?

This is three Super Bowls in five seasons.

Salfino: Yes, Maya. You can’t go to five straight championship games and win one Super Bowl. We heard Tom Brady even get knocked for this for a while.

I mean, that’s going to be the narrative. I’d take one championship game as a Jets fan.

maya: When the Empire State Building is lit green and white for the right reasons …

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NFL

What To Watch For In The NFL’s Conference Championship Games

By Drae Harris

Jan. 27, 2023, at 1:03 PM

If this weekend’s conference championship games feel as if they were predestined, it’s no accident. In fact, many prognosticators projected a version of this for these four teams — the San Francisco 49ers and Philadelphia Eagles in the NFC and the Kansas City Chiefs and Cincinnati Bengals in the AFC — as the season began. That means we could be in for an outstanding weekend of games between the very cream of the NFL’s crop.

In the NFC, this is a matchup of the conference’s top offense (the Eagles) versus its top defense (the 49ers). Philadelphia played like the NFL’s best team all season behind their Most Valuable Player award finalist Jalen Hurts at quarterback. However, uncertainty crept in as Hurts injured his shoulder late in the season (and his replacement, Gardner Minshew, appeared to be in over his head). Nonetheless, when Hurts returned from injury he regained the form that made Philadelphia one of the most dangerous teams in the league. Somehow, being injured and missing games only solidified his MVP case — only in his absence did we see just how valuable he truly is. 

Hurts is protected up front by arguably the NFL’s best offensive line — they ranked first in ProFootballFocus’s pass-blocking grade and third in run-blocking — led by center Jason Kelce, who could find himself in Canton when his career concludes. And when given enough time, Hurts has been able to efficiently get the ball to his dynamic wide receivers. DeVonta Smith had 1,196 yards on the season while his teammate A.J. Brown had 1,496. But the Eagles also have a well-balanced offensive attack. Running back Miles Sanders was fifth in the NFL in rushing yardage this season, eclipsing the 1,200-yard mark, and he wasn’t even the team’s leading rusher in the divisional round win over the rival New York Giants (that would be third-stringer Kenneth Gainwell, showcasing just how much depth Philly’s offense has). The Eagles also have the best defense by yards per game allowed, anchored by an elite pass-rusher in 2023 Pro Bowler Haason Reddick. And on the back end, they boast what most would consider the league’s best secondary with Darius Slay, C.J. Gardner-Johnson and James Bradberry — all considered in the upper tier at their respective positions in the NFL.

Lest you think the Eagles are alone in their across-the-board strength, the 49ers similarly boast a healthy balance of efficient offense paired with an exceptional defense. San Francisco sets the tone for its top-ranked defense by dominating the line of scrimmage. The Niners’ ability to generate pressure with their front four affords defensive coordinator DeMeco Ryans great schematic flexibility. (And his ability to effectively implement his scheme is part of what has made him a hot head-coaching candidate this offseason.) It also helps to have one of the league’s premier pass rushers in Nick Bosa, who led the NFL in sacks this season. At the second level, Fred Warner and Dre Greenlaw are a formidable linebacking tandem and compliment each other’s style of play as well as any pair in the league. San Francisco’s secondary is solid — Charvarius Ward, signed from K.C., has been their most consistent cornerback, and Jimmie Ward continues to be a leader on defense — while 2023 Pro Bowler Talanoa Hufanga has been a breakout star.

Watch: https://abcnews.go.com/fivethirtyeight/video/chaotic-fictional-football-coach-fivethirtyeight-74531599

Offensively, do-everything running back Christian McCaffrey has arguably been one of the best mid-season acquisitions in NFL history, when considering his immediate impact on a Super Bowl-caliber team. He brings another dynamic dimension for one of the league’s preeminent play-callers, Kyle Shanahan, in what will be a matchup of teams with more similarities than differences. This game might come down to how well rookie seventh-round pick Brock Purdy can continue to play under center. San Francisco’s offense hasn’t missed a beat with Purdy at the helm. Purdy is undefeated since taking over as starter. He continues to manage the game and get the ball into the hands of the team’s best playmakers. 

But given how strong both teams are in all facets of the game, this is likely to be a hard-fought game. The FiveThirtyEight model gives the Eagles a 59 percent chance of winning at home and advancing to the Super Bowl, and I don’t disagree with the idea of a narrow Philly victory.

If the NFC championship is a tale of two of the NFL’s best defenses, the AFC championship could very well be a showdown between the league’s most prolific offenses. 

The Bengals were the Cinderella story of 2021: In what was believed to be a “make or break” year for head coach Zac Taylor, all he did was guide Cincinnati to knock off the team that was favored to return to the Super Bowl, en route to Cincy’s own appearance in the Big Game. You’d think the Bengals would not sneak up on anyone again, but they upset another team considered the Super Bowl favorite this year — the Buffalo Bills — when Buffalo seemed poised for a huge win at home. The NFL even pre-sold over 50,000 tickets for a potential neutral-site AFC championship game between K.C. and Buffalo before the outcome of the Bills-Bengals game had been decided.

Last week’s win over Buffalo solidified the notion that Cincinnati has indeed found its franchise quarterback in Joe Burrow. Affectionately nicknamed “Joe Cool” for his unflappable demeanor, particularly in big games, he has led his Bengals to three consecutive victories over the Chiefs (including the postseason). He also has help: The Bengals’ offensive line, which has been an Achilles’ heel of sorts in the past, has played much better this season than last, when Burrow was sacked more than any QB in the NFL. The line could be missing as many as three starters heading into the AFC title game, but it has played its best down the stretch in 2022. Plus, Burrow has helped the protection some by getting the ball out more quickly to his dynamic weapons Tee Higgins, Tyler Boyd and Ja’Marr Chase. And Joe Mixon continues to run the ball effectively, helping give this team balance offensively. 

Mixon is key to the Bengals’ chances, as they will need to maintain an effective running game to ultimately keep the Kansas City offense on the sideline. Defending the prolific Chiefs offense will be a tall task for a Cincinnati pass defense that has been somewhat inconsistent this season. The Chiefs are led by a trio that are all but certain future Hall of Famers: coach Andy Reid, tight end Travis Kelce and possible two-time NFL MVP Patrick Mahomes.⁸ Mahomes orchestrates the wildly innovative Chiefs offense and all of their talented weapons. Rookie seventh-round draft pick Isiah Pacheco runs with a type of physicality that is a healthy complement to the Chiefs’ finesse passing game. Receivers Marquez Valdes-Scantling and JuJu Smith-Schuster offer a bigger physical presence, in contrast to the smaller “race car” types of Skyy Moore, Kadarius Toney and Mecole Hardman. And tight end Kelce is a matchup nightmare for defenders between the numbers.

For these reasons, the Chiefs are nearly impossible to consistently stop while at full strength. But it’s important to note that Kansas City’s most important player may not be fully healthy for Sunday’s game — Mahomes suffered a high ankle sprain early in K.C.’s divisional win over the Jacksonville Jaguars. While the Chiefs’ QB says he will be “ready to go” for the game against Cincinnati, there are lingering questions about how much the injury will limit Mahomes’ trademark mobility and ability to make plays with both his arm and legs.

In large part because of those injury concerns, the Chiefs might even be considered underdogs in this game according to the Vegas oddsmakers. (The game is listed as a toss-up now, but Cincinnati had been favored earlier in the week.) With all the talk that the Bengals have overtaken the Chiefs as the prettiest girl at the AFC dance, you can be assured that Reid will have his team motivated and ready to play. Since Mahomes is expected to start,⁹ the FiveThirtyEight model has K.C. installed as 58 percent favorites, and I personally would not be surprised if the Chiefs win by convincing margin.

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NFL

How The Eagles Built A Winner By Overdrafting Quarterbacks

By Josh Hermsmeyer

Jan. 26, 2023, at 6:00 AM

According to most of the football world, Jalen Hurts should not be a Philadelphia Eagle. Even Hurts was incredulous at the beginning. When his phone rang on draft day and the area code was 215 — a Pennsylvania number — at first Hurts thought it was the Steelers calling. Instead, it was Eagles general manager Howie Roseman telling Hurts they were selecting him with the 53rd pick of the 2020 NFL draft. 

“I had no idea I would come here,” Hurts said on New Heights with Jason and Travis Kelce.

Hurts wasn’t alone. Philadelphia fans — folks not known to be particularly temperate in expressing their emotions, even at the best of times — were apoplectic. NFL talking heads said the pick didn’t make sense; that Hurts couldn’t help enough immediately to justify his second-round selection; that owner Jeffrey Lurie should fire everyone if the Eagles moved on from 2019 starter Carson Wentz. Even sharp young analysts with an analytical bent declared it extremely unlikely that Hurts would ever deliver value to the Eagles. It seemed as if the entire football world was convinced Roseman had bungled things badly.

Perhaps the world can be forgiven for not imagining a future where Wentz would lose his job, or that just two short years later, Hurts would lead the Eagles to the NFC championship game. After all, Wentz was coming off a solid year in 2019 (6.7 YPA, 27 touchdowns, seven interceptions for a 62.8 QBR) and had led the team to the wild card while staying healthy. Perhaps more importantly, he’d just signed a $128 million extension the previous June. Most viewed Hurts as either an expensive insurance policy taken out against another Wentz injury, or an upscale version of the New Orleans Saints’ do-everything gadget player Taysom Hill. But no one gave the notion that Wentz could suddenly turn into a pumpkin any real credence … until it happened the very next season. In 2020, Wentz led the league in sacks (50), tied for the lead in interceptions (15) and ranked 28th in QBR. By the end of the year, Hurts was starting; soon after the season, coach Doug Pederson was fired and Wentz was traded.

Did the Eagles see the implosion coming when no one else did? Probably not. In his news conference after the Hurts pick, Roseman said that having a strong QB room was the bedrock of the team’s philosophy. When Roseman said, “Our priorities are that … quarterback position,” he was expressing the attitude that having multiple quarterbacks was simply sound team-building — not that Wentz’s downfall was assumed to be imminent.

We should probably take him at his word. Just look at how Roseman has allocated draft capital since he reclaimed personnel power over the Eagles in December 2015. If we include trades involving first-round picks,¹⁰ the Eagles have spent more draft capital (as defined by the net expected future value of each pick plus the net future value of players acquired for traded picks) on quarterbacks than any other position besides wide receivers — and they’ve used three times as many picks on receivers.

In fact, the Eagles’ allocation of draft capital has been nearly identical to what “the analytics” say about positional value. From the series of trades that landed the Eagles the No. 2 overall pick (ultimately used on Wentz); to the Hurts pick; to the nine selections that the team has spent on wide receivers;¹¹ to the eight picks spent on edge rushers and the four shots taken on interior linemen¹² to provide a stout inside push (allowing those edge rushers to flourish): Roseman has followed an evidence-based approach to team-building almost perfectly. 

And when Wentz went all pear-shaped in 2020, that approach helped save the team. It certainly wasn’t Roseman’s ability to “pick the right players.” Every team misses on picks, and the Eagles are no exception. Roseman spent a first-, fourth- and sixth-round pick to move up three spots and draft tackle Andre Dillard at No. 22 in 2019. Dillard is a first-round bust who still hasn’t played more than 35 percent of the team’s offensive snaps in a season. Second-round cornerback Sidney Jones was waived after just three seasons in Philadelphia. And most egregiously, Roseman missed out on perhaps the best receiver in the league in 2020. He bet and lost on wide receiver Jalen Reagor in the same draft that he took Hurts, picking Reagor one spot ahead of future Minnesota Vikings superstar wideout Justin Jefferson. Reagor was eventually traded to the Vikings (of all teams) this past August for a 2023 seventh-rounder and a conditional 2024 pick.¹³

Yet despite all the failure, the power of allocating draft capital to high-value positions is that it gives a franchise the cushion to absorb the calamity of a missed premium pick, an unexpected injury or a precipitous decline in performance. It can even help a team survive the chaos of firing the only Super Bowl-winning head coach in franchise history. 

Spending premium draft capital selecting extra quarterbacks is an expensive insurance policy, but it’s insurance that should become table stakes across the league. It’s so obviously advantageous to have a better-than-average Plan B for your starting quarterback, as both the Eagles and the 49ers have shown, that other teams can’t help but take note. And it’s why it shouldn’t be shocking if the Eagles use a high pick on yet another quarterback this offseason. Injury or ineffectiveness lurks around the corner every year, and preparing for the worst is the most important thing a GM can do. 

So Hurts’s rise proves that another famous Philadelphian, Ben Franklin, had it backward: When it comes to quarterbacks, if you’re not planning to fail, you’re failing to plan.

Check out our latest NFL predictions.

CORRECTION (Jan. 26, 2023, 2:20 p.m.): A previous version of this story said Philadelphia Eagles cornerback Sidney Jones was traded to the Seattle Seahawks for a sixth-round pick. Jones was waived by the Eagles and later traded to Seattle for a sixth-round pick by the Jacksonville Jaguars.

NFL

We Are No Longer Disrespecting The Cincinnati Bengals Or Brock Purdy

A FiveThirtyEight Chat

Jan. 23, 2023, at 3:24 PM

maya (Maya Sweedler, editor): After an almost (sorry, New York teams) equally fabulous divisional round, we’re looking ahead to some fabulous football in next week’s conference championships, when the San Francisco 49ers travel to Philadelphia to take on the Eagles and the Cincinnati Bengals head to Kansas City to play the Chiefs. We’re going to discuss all four games in more detail, but let’s get right into it.

Are these the four best teams in football right now?

neil (Neil Paine, acting sports editor): I don’t see how you could say they aren’t. They are four of the top five teams in our full-strength Elo ratings and four of the top six in points-per-game margin across the entire season. And the only interlopers in those categories are the Buffalo Bills and Dallas Cowboys, who just lost head-to-head (and not in particularly fluky fashion). In a top-heavy season, these are the cream of the crop by far.

ty (Ty Schalter, FiveThirtyEight contributor): The easy answer is “yes” — not just because they’re the last four teams in the tournament, but because the tournament seeding captured team strength well, and the results have been rather chalky. The only upset this weekend, the Bengals’ 27-10 road win over the Bills, looked definitive. But even including playoffs, the Bills (No. 3, 155.03) and Cowboys (No. 4, 137.22) bump the Bengals (No. 6, 125.44) and Kansas City Chiefs (No. 5, 131.16) out of the top four in total expected points added, per ESPN’s Stats & Information Group. Going by straight scoring margin gives us the exact same 1-6 ranking, by the way. DVOA still loves Buffalo so much that even recency-weighted DVOA has Buffalo at No. 2 overall.

joshua.hermsmeyer (Josh Hermsmeyer, NFL analyst): Agreed, Neil and Ty. In point margin this year through the playoffs, the only real outlier was the Giants, way down at No. 23 with negative-30 points. So the only real question is: What does that say about the strength of the Eagles relative to the rest of the playoff teams that had to face real tests this weekend?

neil: For me, the Eagles’ big question was about Jalen Hurts’s health, given how he looked in the regular-season finale and those reports about him not being 100 percent on Saturday morning. But let’s just say he dismissed those concerns.

The Giants are a bad defensive team, but that would have been a clinic against anybody.

joshua.hermsmeyer: I guess I would have liked to see Hurts be a bit more prolific with his arm, as 6.4 YPA and 154 passing yards isn’t incredible.

neil: There was no need Josh, given how the Eagles got off to literally the best start possible.

maya: Right, he didn’t have to be more prolific! The Eagles had 44 called runs in a game where they dominated time of possession by more than 11 minutes.

joshua.hermsmeyer: It was the week of one-handed tight end catches. Dallas Goedert’s first-quarter touchdown started the Eagles rolling on Saturday against the Giants, and George Kittle’s one-handed double-bobble reception against Dallas sparked the 49ers’ lone touchdown drive.

maya: I think if you had given me these semifinalists a month ago, I would’ve said no way are these the best four teams. But here is where I owe the city of Cincinnati a serious apology. I wrote this team off way too early and didn’t pay that much attention to the offensive resurgence they’ve had over the past few months. Cincy put up 51 combined points against two top-3 scoring defenses in back-to-back weeks.

ty: I’m with you on Cincy, Maya. Last year I rang the bell on the Bengals early and often — but when they started the season 4-4, I slept on them not losing a single game after that.

joshua.hermsmeyer: Joe Mixon looked like he was running on a different surface than the Bills defenders. It was wild.

neil: Talk about clinics. I understood the Eagles getting off to that start against the Giants (even though I picked the G-Men for vibe reasons, LOL), but what I did not expect at all was for Cincinnati to get out to a pretty similar start against the mighty Bills, in Buffalo.

Buffalo had ranked second in fewest PPG allowed during the regular season. Joe Burrow and company made them look like, IDK, the Texans.

joshua.hermsmeyer: The Bills needed Allen to put the team on his back like Mahomes does with such regularity. They have a very good team, but they need Allen playing his best ball to win Super Bowls, and he didn’t do that this postseason.

neil: What’s crazy, though, is that he had zero turnovers until that garbage-time pick late.

If you’d told me the Bengals went into Buffalo and won like that, I would have said for SURE that Allen turned it over four times or something.

joshua.hermsmeyer: He looked lost quite a bit though. His average time to throw was 3.2 seconds, higher even than Daniel Jones against the Eagles.

maya: I felt like Allen was spending a bit too much time looking downfield and not enough time looking for situational gains. I don’t want to call it hero ball, because that’s not really what it was, but he played more aggressively than I would’ve expected. As a result, he had the second-biggest gap between his air yards per attempt and actual yards per dropback this week, behind only Jones.

maya: Burrow should be first in that category, right? The Bengals had the most yards after the catch this week with 140.

Not bad for a team that came in with just one receiver in the top 40 in terms of regular-season YAC (Ja’Marr Chase, who tied for third on the weekend with 42 yards after the catch).

neil: One of the problems was that Cincy put them in a two-TD hole with just a little under 4 minutes left in the first quarter. Buffalo was battling back from that all game, and it seemed to send Allen into that aggressive mode early.

But the Bengals defense also shut down the Bills’ patented explosive offense, for the most part. They were fourth in explosive plays per game (7.1) during the regular season, but only got three of those Sunday (none of which went for scores).

joshua.hermsmeyer: Josh definitely chucked it up there, but he was off the mark in ways Buffalo fans aren’t accustomed to. Seeing Diggs yelling at him with his arms in the air on the sideline was a scene.

maya: His off-target rate of 15 percent this weekend was only off his regular-season average by three-tenths of a percentage point, though. Say more about how he was off the mark, Josh?

joshua.hermsmeyer: I’m thinking specifically of a sideline throw to Diggs that was overthrown, and the interception intended for Beasley. On passes over 10 air yards, ESPN charting has his off-target rate in the game at 26.7 percent, off his season average of 21.8 percent.

maya: Let’s move to the other team remaining in the AFC: The Kansas City Chiefs, who had a flawless first drive and then appeared to have a one-legged quarterback for most of the rest of the game. How much does a high ankle sprain for Patrick Mahomes cap the Chiefs’ ceiling?

neil: It seems like a significant problem for K.C. Mahomes ranked second in passing yards outside the pocket this regular season, so his ability to make those magic plays with his mobility is a key component of this Chiefs offense.

And with apologies to Jacksonville, the Bengals aren’t the Jaguars.

maya: Yeah, the out-of-pocket passing seems to be an issue. Per ESPN Stats & Info, Mahomes’s numbers were similar before and after the injury (he still managed a ridiculous QBR rating of 97.9 against man coverage on the game, the weekend’s best) — but he did not throw a single pass from outside the pocket after getting hurt.

ty: For what it’s worth, Mahomes has been No. 1 in raw QBR from inside the pocket all year.

joshua.hermsmeyer: If anyone not named Kyle Shanahan can design a game plan around a backup QB, it’s Andy Reid. But that’s probably small consolation to the Chiefs.

neil: Maybe this version of the Chiefs can survive a hobbling Mahomes more than, say, the 2020 version could. Their pass protection is much better this season, and they’ve relied on quick passing much more than in the past.

(If Mahomes plays, that is.)

maya: Mahomes has never beat the Burrow-led Bengals — Cincinnati is 3-0 against Kansas City since Burrow got there. Just sayin’!

joshua.hermsmeyer: Is this where we are supposed to mention the Chiefs’ improved run game?

neil: Give us the Isiah Pacheco love, Josh!

joshua.hermsmeyer: The seventh-rounder learned everything he knows from the first-round pick. You can’t spell Pacheco without C-E-H!

maya: Let’s return to the NFC, and the matchup we’ve got coming down the pike there. What’s the biggest wild card for the Eagles and the Niners?

joshua.hermsmeyer: I think the Eagles will need to continue to win on the ground, and I’m not sure how much success they’ll have if they try to do it the way they did against the G-Men. But most of their success — 11 of 16.6 EPA on runs — came outside the tackles. With the Niners’ rangy linebackers (that Fred Warner pass breakup on CeeDee Lamb was bananas), they will probably have to switch things up.

neil: Yes, the Niners defense is simply on another level compared with the Giants.

ty: The Eagles will need to cover the middle of the field. Per NFL NextGen Stats, the 49ers have targeted in-breaking routes at the highest rate in the league each of the last five seasons — and we saw Brock Purdy working those areas effectively against the Cowboys.

maya: How could it not be effective when you’re throwing to guys who need only one hand and one face to catch a ball?

neil: For San Francisco, I think one big wild card is that now they aren’t facing an opponent who will find ways to botch the end of a game in increasingly comical ways like the Cowboys did (and always do).

I don’t think the Eagles will be trotting out … whatever that last play call was by Dallas.

joshua.hermsmeyer:

maya: The Eagles also don’t need to game plan around keeping their kicker off the field for as long as possible.

neil: Hah, yes, although Brett Maher made a few in the end! (After yet another botched extra point.)

Who would have guessed Maher would be so low on the blame list for Dallas losing?

ty: In theory, Neil, I like lining up skill-position players as ineligible “linemen” if you’re doing a planned many-laterals play. But whatever practice time was dedicated to installing that (a) clearly wasn’t enough, and (b) should have been spent on getting the punt team ready to line up faster at the end of the previous series.

neil: Let’s just say that play had a lot of “Colts punt vs. the Patriots” energy.

joshua.hermsmeyer: As someone who revels in the pain of Cowboys fans, it was the perfect ending.

ty: As I said on Twitter, that second-to-last possession was really where the Cowboys lost the game. Dak had time to execute a full, normal game-winning drive, and he immediately threw what should have been a pick, severely underthrew an open receiver on what would have been a chunk play, and took a bad sack.

neil: Oh yeah, for sure. Mistakes had already been made long ago.

In fact, their win probability slide began with that decision to take an intentional delay of game at the Niners’ 40 and then punt.

That was literally the last time they were above 50 percent to win.

ty: Yeah, that tight end Dalton Schultz made an absolute hash of nearly all those endgame boundary passes wasn’t the difference here.

neil: (Although that didn’t help! LOL.)

maya: That was tough to watch. There were just mistakes across the board. The Cowboys had the second-highest drop rate on the weekend, and while I don’t want to fully blame Prescott for some bad decisions, we’ve known his turnovers have been a problem for a while now …

joshua.hermsmeyer: Instead of blaming Dak, I’m giving credit to Purdy. He once again did the unthinkable for the last pick of the draft, and led all passers in the divisional round with 7.38 YPA.

ty: Iiiiii’m still blaming Dak. After he was so superlative against Tampa, I hoped we’d see him at at least close to his best again this week — instead, his performance was in his personal bottom-four games played this year per raw QBR, completion percentage over expected, adjusted net yards per attempt, and passing EPA.

maya: This game convinced me that Purdy is Good. He was so cool under pressure, zipping balls all over the field for his bajillion weapons. This was his seventh start. His SEVENTH!

joshua.hermsmeyer: Niners are Super Bowl bound, baby.

neil: On the one hand, this was Purdy’s second-lowest QBR in a start (53.1), a far cry from the 89.4 he had against Seattle in the wild card.

On the other hand, if the floor is a 53.1 QBR, that’s not bad! Only 17 QBs were above that for the entire season, and big names like Tom Brady were not among them.

joshua.hermsmeyer: He should be expected to struggle! But as Maya mentioned, he is always looking to make plays, and his scrambles are mostly smart, not panicked. He’s a game manager in the very best sense.

maya: I think the difference for Purdy was a bit more pressure this week. He faced almost twice as many blitzes this week than last, and had a contact rate almost 5 percentage points higher against Dallas than against Seattle.

But even against pressure, he wasn’t that bad! Purdy took pressure on a career-high 14 dropbacks, going 3-of-10, but he didn’t turn the ball over. Plus, he completed a career-high 84 percent of his passes when not pressured, per ESPN Stats & Info.

joshua.hermsmeyer: He also completed more passes than expected — a knock against him in the Shanahan system, where for most of the year he’s had a negative CPOE.

neil: Now let’s see what he does against the defense that had 15 more sacks than any other team this season …

maya: Given how talented the skill players are in San Francisco, I’m particularly interested to see how the Eagles generate pressure.

joshua.hermsmeyer: I actually think that Dallas D-line was a great test for what he’s about to face in Philly. I remain all-in!

neil: Well, the Cowboys have one Micah Parsons. The Eagles have four of them. (Or at least, four guys with at least 11 sacks, which is insane.)

maya: It felt like every quarter featured a different Niners receiver popping free. Brandon Aiyuk! Kittle! Deebo Samuel! Christian McCaffrey! And Elijah Mitchell just scampering through every gap whenever the team needed to wind down the clock.

joshua.hermsmeyer: CMC even took large portions of two quarters off.

(I know because I bet the under on total carries for him, and was sweating it all game.)

maya: LOL. Hope you took the under on the point total, too.

joshua.hermsmeyer: Anyone think the NFC champ wins the Super Bowl? Or are the AFC teams the toast of the league?

I’m torn, hopefully NOT like Mahomes’ ankle.

maya: I think if the Chiefs win but Mahomes isn’t 100 percent, it’s going to be like that 2021 Buccaneers-Chiefs Super Bowl. I would take either the Niners or the Eagles in that case.

neil: So much of it depends on the Mahomes injury. But conditional on K.C. winning the AFC, you’d think that would mean he was healthier than we might think right now.

joshua.hermsmeyer: The Bengals disrespect remains. Still, they almost lost to a Lamar-less Ravens team.

neil: No Bengals disrespect here! This final four is all pretty evenly matched now. 

So I don’t think there’s any huge lopsided conference imbalance in a potential Super Bowl matchup, and the conference title games are also fairly close to 50-50.

The football should be really good next weekend.

maya: OK folks, I think it’s time to get everyone on the record. Let’s have your conference championship picks with some scorelines. I want circulate-on-Twitter-with-the-caption-freezing-cold-takes level stuff.

neil: I tried that last week, Maya.

(RIP Danny Dimes.)

maya:

joshua.hermsmeyer: Niners 27, Eagles 10

Bengals 35, Kansas City 28

maya: Bengals 28, Chiefs 24

Niners 12, Eagles 7

ty: I’ve been saying for the past couple of weeks that the experience of lucking into a Super Bowl appearance last year might have given them the experience they need to go head-to-head with the AFC’s best and win decisively. Zac Taylor is coaching his brains out, and the patched-together offensive line has handled as strong a test they’ll face. I’ll take the Bengals in a barnburner, 37-34.

On the other side, I think Purdy’s magic toe shoes run out of magic. Eagles 27, Niners 17.

neil: Eagles 24, Niners 21

Bengals 27, Chiefs 24

maya: Did we overcorrect on the Bengals disrespect? I can’t believe all of us are picking against Mahomes!

joshua.hermsmeyer: I have a bad feeling about this …

neil: The entire NFL season revolves around his ankle!

(Also, Cincy literally beat K.C. in December, 27-24, LOL.)

joshua.hermsmeyer: That’s cheating, Neil.

ty: And of course, this is literally a rematch of last year’s AFC championship game, which the Bengals also won … 27-24.

neil: Also Maya, 12-7? Why not just pick a Scoragami and get it over with.

joshua.hermsmeyer: Fire.

maya: Ooh, I should’ve done that. How low-scoring can I go without making it too weird?

Regardless, these games should be terrific. I’m looking forward to them almost as much as I’m looking forward to never seeing those Verizon commercials with Paul Giamatti as Albert Einstein again.

neil: That’s something we can ALL agree on.

joshua.hermsmeyer: One more crypto ad, for the memories. All I ask.

Check out our latest NFL predictions.

NFL

Patrick Mahomes And The Chiefs Are Still Improving On Excellence

By Neil Paine

Jan. 19, 2023, at 6:00 AM

The Patrick Mahomes-led Kansas City Chiefs have crossed over into that rarest territory of sports dominance — teams so consistently good that it’s easy to take them for granted if you’re not careful. With a 14-3 record this year, K.C. just wrapped up its fifth consecutive regular season winning at least 70 percent of its games, joining an exclusive club:

Now the team will face the Jacksonville Jaguars in a home playoff game this weekend, with an 84 percent chance of victory according to the FiveThirtyEight forecast — putting Mahomes and the Chiefs one win away from their fifth consecutive conference championship game appearance as well. (That would place K.C. in an even more exclusive club: one with only three other members in pro football history.)¹⁴ 

Again, it’s all a very familiar sight for Kansas City, but it would be a mistake to view the Chiefs’ ongoing success as inevitable. The parity-obsessed NFL is designed to keep teams from staying at the top for long, and in some ways K.C. was facing more of those headwinds — talent departing, defenses specifically evolving to limit their best plays — than many would-be dynasties. Against factors that might have caused a lesser team to regress, however, Kansas City’s greatness lies in the fact that it instead continues to improve.

For one thing, the Chiefs were down a substantial amount of talent heading into 2022. The headline loss was speedy receiver Tyreek Hill, who’d piled up 1,239 yards and nine receiving touchdowns for Kansas City in 2021 before being shipped to the Miami Dolphins in March. But according to Pro-Football-Reference.com’s approximate value (AV) metric, the Chiefs lost 32.6 percent of their roster’s production over the offseason, in terms of value produced by players in the 2021 season who did not return to the team in 2022. That ranked 15th in the league, in the same neighborhood as famously unstable franchises like the Browns and New York Jets.

And that 2021 Chiefs squad wasn’t without its moments of uncertainty, anyway. At one point in the middle of the season, the team was 3-4 and facing major concerns about whether opposing defenses had found a formula to slow down its vaunted passing attack. Kansas City was saved by an abrupt defensive turnaround while Mahomes and head coach Andy Reid counter-adjusted their offense on the fly, but Mahomes’s first career slump still represented a crack in the armor — one that seemingly widened when K.C. blew a 21-3 lead at home in the AFC championship game against the Cincinnati Bengals, with Mahomes rendered totally ineffective in the game’s second half.

Facing personnel losses and a growing playbook on how to hinder their greatest strength, plus a division that looked stacked on paper, the Chiefs were far from a sure bet to extend their run of dominance this season. Based in part on the history of similar teams from throughout NFL history,¹⁵ our preseason forecast model called for Kansas City to finish 10-7, with just a 66 percent chance of making it back to the playoffs. 

So naturally, all the Chiefs did was fix many of the issues that were plaguing them, and post their best regular season in years.

In fact, according to our classic Elo ratings, Kansas City finished the regular season with a rating of 1729 — not only its highest season-ending rating of the Mahomes era, but also the best mark in franchise history.

Unlike last season, when K.C. hit its midseason lull, the 2022 Chiefs never once had a losing streak — their losses were such isolated incidents that they all came in separate months. Along the way, K.C. improved its offense relative to league average, ranking No. 1 in points per game (29.2) for the first time since 2018, Mahomes’s first season as starter. Mahomes himself bounced back from a “down” 2021, going from fifth in Total QBR¹⁶ to leading the league once again. Even more importantly, he dramatically improved his relative standing in QBR in multiple areas where he had ranked surprisingly midpack last season when defenses forced him to adjust:

It wasn’t just Mahomes, of course. Tight end Travis Kelce became more of a focal point for the K.C. offense, ranking second in the league in receiving TDs (12), third in catches (110) and eighth in receiving yardage (1,338). He was by far the most productive tight end in the league this year, and finished with the second-most fantasy points by a TE ever in a single season (behind Rob Gronkowski’s 2011 campaign). And led by center Creed Humphrey, guard Joe Thuney and tackle Orlando Brown Jr., the Chiefs’ offensive line easily led the league in ESPN’s pass block win rate statistic, prevailing in 74.7 percent of their battles in the trenches. Mahomes, Kelce, Humphrey, Thuney and Brown were among the seven Chiefs named to the Pro Bowl, tying the Dallas Cowboys for the second-most all-star nods of any team in the league this season. 

This Chiefs team isn’t perfect. It was in the middle of the league in points per game allowed (21.7, 16th-fewest), which was its lowest ranking on defense since placing 24th in 2018. Its special teams this season was the worst of the Mahomes era, finishing 30th in expected points added per game. But the depth of Kansas City’s core, along with the coaching of Reid and the brilliance of Mahomes to counter the adjustments of opposing defenses, has allowed the Chiefs to keep rolling without missing a beat. And by virtue of having the AFC’s top seed, they will get the most lopsided matchup of the divisional round against Jacksonville, setting them up well to advance to yet another AFC title game — or beyond. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Check out our latest NFL predictions.

NFL

Saquon Barkley And Daniel Jones Are Finally Making The Giants Look Good

Once derided as questionable draft picks, the duo has New York up and running in the playoffs.

By Alex Kirshner

Jan. 18, 2023, at 10:21 AM

The New York Giants were built to run. Their problem in recent seasons — or, more accurately, one of their many problems — was that their rushing ability never matched the roster-construction dreams of their former general manager, Dave Gettleman. The executive arrived fresh off a tenure leading the Carolina Panthers from 2013 to 2017, a time when the Panthers had a stronger running identity than any team in the league.¹⁷ Gettleman wanted the Giants to bang around in a similar fashion, and he showed it in how he drafted. In his first draft, he spent the No. 2 overall pick on Penn State running back Saquon Barkley, cutting against an anti-tailback conventional wisdom. In the second round, Gettleman took UTEP guard Will Hernandez, whom Gettleman saw as the ideal road grader to open lanes for Barkley. The next year, Gettleman used the No. 6 overall pick on Duke quarterback Daniel Jones. Jones was not strictly speaking a running QB, but with sack yardage filtered out, he had carried for a 5.7-yard average on 321 attempts in three seasons. And in 2020, to both protect Jones and run-block for him and Barkley, the Giants spent two of their first three picks on offensive tackles. 

Barkley had produced big numbers as a rookie and solid ones the next season before an injured, ineffective few years sidetracked him. Jones developed slowly enough that, before this season, the Giants declined the fifth-year option on his contract. In their first three seasons with Jones and Barkley together in the backfield, the Giants got nothing special from their rushing attack: From 2019 through 2021, they averaged 0.01 expected points added per rush, 20th in the NFL. Their 4.4 yards per carry placed them 15th, their 42.7 percent success rate 25th. Jones didn’t put up gaudy passing totals, either, and so the Giants ran out of avenues to a good offense. In those three seasons, the Giants ranked 31st in the NFL in EPA per play (-0.05) and 27th in yards per play (4.98). Gettleman’s Giants never won more than six games. He retired shortly after the 2021 season, and a day later, the franchise fired Joe Judge, one of his two failed head-coach hires. 

But it’s funny how life works, and the 2022 Giants — under a new GM (Joe Schoen) and new head coach (Brian Daboll) — have gone a long way toward realizing Gettleman’s vision. Barkley played in 16 games after injuries limited him to 15 the previous two years combined, and while he didn’t get back to his rookie numbers (5.8 yards per touch and over 2,000 scrimmage yards), he gave the Giants much more than he did in 2020 or ‘21. Meanwhile, Jones basically doubled his rushing attempts over any of his previous seasons, while also ranking among the league’s most efficient quarterbacks overall. The Giants jumped to fifth in the league at 4.8 yards per carry, helping them get to ninth in EPA per play (0.05) and improve their scoring output from 18.0 points per game in Jones’s first three seasons to 21.5, the difference between being 30th in the NFL and 15th. And on Sunday, they beat the Minnesota Vikings in the wild-card round of the playoffs 31-24, in 2022 Giants-y fashion. Barkley and Jones carried 22 times for 134 yards, excluding kneel-downs. Jones also threw for 8.6 yards per attempt, his seventh-best figure as a pro. When Jones clears 8.0 yards per throw in his career, the Giants are 9-0.

The running game has finally come full circle to resemble something like what the Giants’ old leadership dreamed up nearly five years ago. And it’s all happened because Barkley and Jones have made such strides, and fit each other so well. 

For starters, Barkley finally appears healthy. The only game he missed this season was in Week 18, when the Giants had already secured a playoff spot. Anyone watching him can tell he has more pep in his step than he did during his limited appearances in 2020 and 2021. According to NFL Next Gen Stats, Barkley reached a maximum speed of 21.3 mph in play, after getting as high as 21.9 as a rookie but never higher than 20.7 in the two prior seasons.

It isn’t just modern medicine, though. Barkley has adjusted his running style too. In each of his first four seasons, Barkley spent between 2.9 and 3.1 seconds behind the line of scrimmage on his average carry, according to ESPN’s Stats & Information Group. That made him one of the league’s more patient backs as he searched for holes. (The league average for running backs during Barkley’s career is 2.8 seconds spent behind the line.) Out of 57 qualifying tailbacks from 2018 to 2021, Barkley spent the seventh-most time per carry in the backfield. But he was much less deliberate this year. Out of 41 qualifying backs in 2022, Barkley spent the sixth-least time in the backfield, at 2.7 seconds. 

He doesn’t reach the same speeds he once did, but in this way, a decisive Barkley now moves more quickly on his way downfield. Barkley averaged 2.72 yards before contact this season, a night-and-day difference from 1.96 in 2021 and more in line with his numbers from his strong years in 2018 and 2019. His own explosiveness and aggression may have made the difference, because the Giants offensive line has not been much help. Pro Football Focus ranked the unit 30th in the league, noting that it is essentially comprised of star left tackle Andrew Thomas and, uh, everyone else. In 2021, the Giants were 14th in ESPN’s run block win rate, but this year, as Barkley improved, the line tumbled to 26th. 

Part of that contradiction — Barkley returning to form as his offensive line falters — comes down to his quarterback. Jones has always had ball-carrying chops, but the Giants did not lean fully into that part of his game in his first three years, when he never exceeded 65 carries. This year, he ran 120 times. About half (53, according to ESPN) were scrambles, with the rest being designed runs. Jones has averaged 7.6 yards on the scrambles and 5.9 yards overall. But it’s his utility as a designed runner that might do the most for Barkley. The Giants ran 81 option carries, seventh-most in the NFL, and it’s easy to see how that schematic decision benefited both quarterback and tailback. The Giants’ offensive line may be crummy, but math is math — and on a read concept, the Giants can leave an unblocked defender who might choose to worry about Jones. That gives Barkley a blocking advantage when Jones gives him the ball: 

Conversely, the threat of a Barkley run often gives Jones free rein to carry the ball off-tackle for chunk gains. Option runs of this variety are a college football staple, but most NFL teams do not like using their quarterbacks as ball carriers to the same extent as college programs. Jones is an exception, and the Giants now have him running the ball roughly as often as he did at Duke. And when Jones does take off, rather than handing the ball to Barkley or another back, he gives defenses a good reminder of why they need to account for him in the first place: 

The Giants remain a work in progress. Jones, for all his recent improvement, still has never reached 7.0 yards per throw over a full season and looked on the way out of New York as recently as a few months ago. Everything positive that one could say about the Giants rushing offense could be countered with something negative about the team’s rush defense, which finished 31st in yards allowed per attempt. Meanwhile, against the pass, New York’s defense intercepted just six throws all year, tying for last place. The lack of picks has contributed to the offense having the 25th-best starting field position in the league, at its own 27-yard line. (At least Jones and Barkley have had plenty of grass in front of them as they’ve honed their rushing repertoires.)

The team’s still-serious flaws are why it is a 7.5-point underdog against the Philadelphia Eagles in Saturday’s divisional-round meeting. But the Giants moving on again wouldn’t require magic, nor would the franchise remaining relevant in the NFC East over the next few years. A team doesn’t need supernatural intervention when it has a solid foundation. The Giants finally do — just a few years later than their old management planned.

Check out our latest NFL predictions.

NFL

After A Surprisingly Tense Wild-Card Weekend, Are Blowouts Looming In The Divisional Round?

A FiveThirtyEight Chat

Jan. 17, 2023, at 3:16 PM

maya (Maya Sweedler, editor): The 2022 NFL playoffs started off with some exciting games that produced unexciting results, with only the New York Giants and Dallas Cowboys knocking off a higher-seeded team (though the Cowboys, who had a better record, entered the game favored by 2.5 points). But the chalkiness of the results belies how close some of these games were. 

One major throughline of Super Wild-Card Weekend was many games were a tale of two halves. Whether it was Jacksonville coming back from a 27-point deficit against Los Angeles or both Seattle and Baltimore up by 1 point over San Francisco and Cincinnati, respectively, at the half, we saw some pretty significant differences in play between the first two quarters and final two. What stood out to you about these halftime adjustments?

joshua.hermsmeyer (Josh Hermsmeyer, NFL analyst): In the Jaguars-Chargers game, the second-half adjustment was that the Jags were somehow able to shake off a half where they experienced pretty much all the adversity the game of football can throw at a team.

I’m not much of a believer in the hot hand in football, but I do think negative momentum is real. Meltdowns are real. And the Jags were having one. And that’s why it’s so impressive that Trevor Lawrence was able to bounce back. That really was the adjustment — just play the kind of ball he played all season. Because the Chargers really didn’t play great football in the first half, with almost all their points coming off turnovers. 

neil (Neil Paine, acting sports editor): My predictable nerd-take is that most of what we call halftime adjustments is just regression to the mean, and the Niners-Seahawks game seems like a classic case of that, with Geno Smith just not being able to sustain a high-level performance against the S.F. defense for an entire game. The clock struck midnight for one of our favorite Cinderellas at halftime of that game.

But the other games didn’t really subscribe to that regression-is-everything theory. No amount of positive regression alone can pull you out of a 27-0 hole, and in other cases (like the Bills and Dolphins), there was barely any regression to speak of in favor of the favorite. 

Salfino (Michael Salfino, FiveThirtyEight contributor):  Peyton Manning agrees with Neil:

neil: Although, for Lawrence, I guess not throwing a pick every sixth pass is a form of good regression! 

joshua.hermsmeyer: The Lawrence interceptions were interesting. One was an opportunistic defensive play, which came on a tipped pass by Joey Bosa. Then the second interception came on a fourth-and-7 play that seemed like it could have been called for interference. After that Lawrence appeared to be in shock. He got tunnel vision on a few passes, either staring down receivers or missing defenders, like on his third interception to Asante Samuel Jr.

maya: Yeah, Lawrence struck me as a little nervous at the outset of the game (understandable, it’s his playoff debut!). He had a fairly clean pocket most of the game — his contact rate of 9.1 percent was third-lowest of any game this season. But he was getting rid of the ball somewhat quicker than usual in the first half, below his regular-season average of 2.58 seconds.

Salfino: The Jags actually scored a TD at the end of the first half that I think is really underrated in their comeback.

joshua.hermsmeyer: Yes, Mike! And the defensive stand after the muffed punt near the end of the half. 

Salfino: Right, and then forcing that Justin Herbert fumble on third-and-1 the next drive was huge. They go in 27-0, it’s a different game.

neil: That end-of-half TD really sparked a basketball-style “run” that you don’t often see in football (at least not to that degree/extreme). Including that drive, the Jags scored on all five of their remaining drives, including four TDs.

Salfino: My take on Lawrence is that it’s the rare player who bounces back from disaster within the same game to the level that Lawrence did. That’s a greatness trait. Especially to do it in your first postseason game. Very, very impressive.

neil: And you scoffed at my Peyton comparison for him a few weeks ago!

Really, that game was a microcosm of his first two NFL seasons in 60 minutes.

joshua.hermsmeyer: If only every young QB could play the Chargers in their first playoff game.

Salfino: Now, it is the Chargers, so anything is possible. The Jaguars did adjust on the TD drive at the end of the half in going more downfield since the Chargers defense was squeezing the shallow routes. But a big problem for the Chargers is they are not built to hold a lead. They have no reliable running game. Austin Ekeler is not a move-the-chains back as a runner. His success rate was well below average all year plus the Jaguars are a decent run defense. So the criticism of them running, when they can’t really run, is unfair, IMO.

neil: Don’t you know that the real reason they lost is because Brandon Staley is disrespectful to the game?

joshua.hermsmeyer: They certainly couldn’t run in that game. As a team, the Chargers rushed for just 2.9 yards per attempt. But Herbert passing for almost a full yard per attempt through the air under his seasonal average — which was already low — was not smart football. 

Salfino: Herbert also did not have a good game. He left a couple of touchdowns on the field to Keenan Allen, specifically.

maya: I mean, it was certainly a weird time for Staley to get conservative.

The other Saturday game saw the 49ers turn what was a close first half into a blowout. A lot of us were riding high on the Niners in these playoffs — did any of you see anything on Saturday that changed that?

neil: Not really. Brock Purdy had an 89.5 Total QBR. As long as he keeps playing well, they are scary.

Salfino: Seattle’s defense is hot garbage, but you have to be impressed with Purdy. The Niners have so many weapons that there are big plays to be made on just about every play, but Purdy, to his credit, made them.

maya: To be fair, he wasn’t asked to do too much. He attempted only 30 passes, which was the second-lowest figure on the weekend (behind Tyler Huntley). 

joshua.hermsmeyer: Purdy started the game like you would expect for a rookie seventh-round pick, and he made passes in the second half that you would not expect from a rookie seventh-round pick. I don’t think they win it all with him. But I hope they do. And their defense gives them a solid shot.

Salfino: Purdy has to have the best setup of any rookie QB ever. A good defense so he can play in hitter’s counts with the lead. Three elite weapons in Christian McCaffrey, Deebo Samuel and George Kittle and a very good one in Brandon Aiyuk. And a master playcaller.

My takeaway from the Seattle-S.F. game is that the Niners pass defense is vulnerable. You wish they were as good against the pass as they are against the run. Or that it was flipped. Having the best run defense in football is pretty meaningless.

neil: And yet, even there, they clamped down when they needed to. Geno’s QBR dropped from 84.9 in the first half to 26.9 in the second.

maya: Miami’s Skylar Thompson, the other seventh-round pick to make his playoff debut this weekend, also has some pretty elite weapons in Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle, and a playcaller from the Shanahan coaching tree. Why weren’t the Dolphins able to replicate the Niners’ success against an admittedly stronger opponent?

neil: They almost did!

That game was supposed to be a laugher, and the Dolphins were in it to the bitter end. If Miami had won, it would have been hands-down one of the most improbable upsets in playoff history.

joshua.hermsmeyer: Thompson was 18-for-45 for 4.9 YPA. He wasn’t anything approaching good. But the Bills defense looked porous, and that was my takeaway from the game. They need to be able to stop teams from scoring — like on that 11-play, 75 yard drive they gave up in the third quarter — even when they are given short fields due to Josh Allen miscues. 

neil: (Also they need to not have Josh Allen miscues.)

Salfino: Well, the Bills are a real defense. Miami’s offense was mostly turnover driven. They had less than 250 total yards. They also have no real running threat and problems on the offensive line. Plus seventh-round picks should be expected to be terrible and in that regard Thompson does not disappoint. He’s not competent. He couldn’t even get plays called as they flirted with delays on almost every snap. McDaniels has to take a lot of blame here, too, especially on the last drive when he turned fourth-and-1 into fourth-and-6 — that was a brutal penalty.

maya: Both Thompson and Allen seemed to struggle against press coverage. When both outside corners played press (which Miami and Buffalo did at the weekend’s highest rates), the two QBs saw their completion rates drop quite a bit.

But it was a real killer for Thompson. Both his interceptions came against this coverage. He had a completion rate of just 36 percent against press in the second half. In the first half he made almost 50 percent.

Salfino: Thompson had no downfield game, either: He went 4-for-17 on passes of 10-plus air yards.

neil: The fact that Allen barely out-QBR-ed Thompson (26.1 to 22.6) at home in a playoff game is concerning.

Salfino: Allen has all the tools but sometimes no tool box. He’s very Brett Favre-like. It’s going to be very hard for him to ever navigate the full playoff slate with this playing style.

maya: The Bills get the Bengals next week, who amassed 234 yards of offense Sunday — second-fewest of the season. Does this bode well or poorly for Allen getting back into rhythm?

neil: Speaking of teams that should have lost if not for miscues by a backup thrust into starting a playoff game …

joshua.hermsmeyer: The Ravens always play the Bengals tight, and DC Mike Macdonald had the Ravens defense well prepared. I think that was probably the worst the Bengals offense will look all postseason, win or lose. 

Salfino: The Bills almost beat themselves, but the Bengals were actually badly outplayed, IMO. Plus their offensive line, with the Jonah Williams knee injury, has gone from passable to non-passable.

neil: Bengals were lucky. That end-to-end fumble return TD off of Huntley’s sneak might end up being the highest-leverage play in these playoffs in terms of EPA and/or WPA swing. 

maya: Burrow was sacked four times against the Ravens, his most during the team’s nine-game win streak, despite averaging 2.38 seconds on his throws, tied for second-quickest in his career.

Salfino: The Bills are going to make Burrow’s life miserable on Sunday with relentless pressure.

joshua.hermsmeyer: Speaking of that Huntley play — Lawrence did the same thing and got away with it. 

neil: I hate that play. It’s such a gamble if you don’t actually break the plane.

maya: I see outstretched arms and I get so nervous.

Salfino: That’s the dumbest play in football but they were lined up to just push him in, which would have been the play of course. You sneak there by going low, not high.

neil: Totally agree.

Or maybe just give it to J.K. Dobbins …

Salfino: I like the sneak there. But Dobbins would be fine too.

joshua.hermsmeyer: Yes, Neil. Greg Roman is completely lost in the red zone.

Salfino: Why don’t teams just snap the ball to RB? Can’t you practice it? How do you stop a RB or say Mark Andrews on a direct snap there? Impossible. 

joshua.hermsmeyer: Well, Roman tried a handoff to Andrews earlier in the game. It didn’t end well. 

Salfino: No handoff. Just put him under center.

Of course, it needs to be practiced. But why have the QB sneak when there is no surprise on these plays, typically? 

maya: Especially when you compare it to some of the imaginative offensive plays teams like the Jaguars pulled out (T formation, anyone?), the Ravens’ play-calling definitely felt a little staid.

Salfino: Love that Jaguars play. Doug Pederson is such a good coach.

joshua.hermsmeyer: That was Travis Etienne’s longest run of the game — 25 of his 109 yards. In the game’s biggest moment. Incredible play call. 

maya: Pederson is one of three Super Bowl-winning coaches left in the playoffs, alongside Andy Reid and Mike McCarthy. And only one will advance out of the divisional round in the AFC, as the Jags travel to Kansas City next weekend.

neil: Reid and Pederson, both ex-Eagles coaches, LOL. (You’re good too, Nick Sirianni!) 

maya: And those Philadelphia Eagles will be coming off their bye to face a very familiar team in the New York Giants. The Giants lost both regular-season matchups, but after dispatching the Minnesota Vikings on Sunday in the only significant upset (again, sorry to Tampa Bay), what are you liking about this team?

neil: Obviously you have to love the Daniel Jones-led offense, the peak of their breakout improvement under Brian Daboll so far.

It was hilarious to hear the cherry-picked “first time a QB threw for 300-plus yards with two or more TDs and ran for 75-plus yards in a playoff game” stat, but at the same time … that IS impressive.

joshua.hermsmeyer: All season Daboll and Mike Kafka have put Jones into good situations with great play sequencing. I think that is their secret weapon heading into the next game — that and a fully weaponized Saquon Barkley. 

Salfino: The Giants compensate for their ham-and-egg receivers with Jones’s proactive running. He had the perfect balance of run/pass versus the Vikings, who of course are the worst 13-win team ever and can’t play defense to save their lives. Still, Jones made it look easier than anyone expected.

neil: Yes, to be fair, the Vikings were well-established frauds. And Kirk Cousins did exactly what you would expect of Kirk Cousins, throwing way short of the sticks on fourth-and-8 to end Minnesota’s season.

But I still think the G-Men were impressive. 

maya: Jones just seemed totally oblivious to pressure. I thought his quickness was most evident when he got outside of the pocket. But he was effective both inside and out! When Jones ran outside the left or right tackle, he averaged 8.2 yards a rush, including three first downs (that’s where he gained 41 of his 81 yards). When he ran toward the guards or up the middle, he averaged 5 yards a carry — but also rushed for four first downs.

Salfino: I’m reminded with Jones, who looked like he was going to be out of the league this time last year, of what Bill Parcells told me once for an article on draft busts — almost all are coaching/organization failures, not player failures. Jones has optimal coaching now and this offense isn’t even complete given the deficiencies at WR. Ironically, Jones is set up to be the 2023 Jalen Hurts now. What a difference a year makes.

maya: OK, but let’s get real — can these Giants match up against the Eagles?

joshua.hermsmeyer: No. On the other hand…

Salfino: Yes. The Eagles are very turnover dependent and the Giants avoid turnovers. Jones has the lowest interception rate in football. Their defense just shut down Vikings receiver Justin Jefferson. The Eagles passing game is of course more diversified but if you take A.J. Brown out of the game, you have a chance.

joshua.hermsmeyer: If you take Brown out of the game, you’re probably getting gashed by Hurts on the ground.

neil: We sort of have two conflicting data points on this. On the one hand, the Eagles handed the Giants a 48-22 thrashing on Dec. 11 that might have been their most dominant victory in what was a banner season. On the other hand, in a game they needed to win for seeding, with Hurts at QB, they barely beat the Giants’ backups on Jan. 8.

Salfino: Yes, the Giants just played the Eagles tough with their backups.

joshua.hermsmeyer: In terms of matching up on paper, this isn’t close. Now, variance is a thing. But come on. 

Salfino: I agree, Josh. Probably. But is Hurts healthy enough to take on that kind of rushing workload? I would find out if I were the Giants. 

neil: Right. The Eagles’ fate depends on how right Hurts is coming back from that injury. Last time we saw him, he was not quite his MVP-caliber self. But he’s had an extra week of rest since!

However, let’s just say this: Would I be surprised if the Giants were hanging with the Eagles throughout the game? Not at all. This is not the Bills versus the Dolphins and their third-string rookie QB, where I was stunned it was a ballgame late. 

Salfino: Jones has a better chance to advance than Dak Prescott, IMO. 

joshua.hermsmeyer: I hope it’s close. I can’t remember a better week of football … if you remove the Bucs game Monday night.

maya: Speaking of, we haven’t really touched on the Cowboys-Buccaneers matchup. Does anyone have thoughts, or should we just send thoughts for Brett Maher this morning and move on?

Salfino:

neil: Only time Tom Brady and the opponent’s melting-down kicker can relate to each other.

joshua.hermsmeyer: Never thought I would see four interceptions and four missed extra points in the same wild-card weekend.

maya: Both came from winning teams!

neil: But in all seriousness, that was the game the Cowboys needed to make a case that this is actually, finally the year for them.

Salfino: NARRATOR: This was not the year for them.

My thought is that Brady is done. He just can’t make downfield throws anymore — 4-for-14 on 10-plus air yards. Only Thompson was worse. And that interception in the red zone was UNCONSCIONABLE.

neil: Oh yeah, he clearly needs to retire.

He stayed one year too long. 

Salfino: I don’t think Brady retires, Neil.

neil: I am not sure either, I just know he should.

joshua.hermsmeyer: Maya, I recall in a chat earlier this year you said: Imagine blowing up your family just to lose in the wild card. Prescient.

maya: Brady was bad. But I also very much blame Todd Bowles for this loss. The Buccaneers already ran by design on an NFL-low 32 percent of plays in the regular season, but they ran by design on only 12 of their 80 plays Monday, the third-lowest designed rush percentage in the last 15 postseasons.

Salfino: Bowles is the worst coach and this is the worst staff in football.

maya: Sigh. I liked Bowles in New York and thought he should’ve been given one more year. But I wasn’t super impressed by him this year.

neil: Yeah but Maya, they had the worst YPC in football this year. I don’t blame him for abandoning the run. I think the Buccaneers would have preferred to establish the run all season to keep pressure off Brady. But it never worked well enough to be remotely viable.

And I agree with Marcus Spears: Brady just can’t win games for you and elevate a bad team anymore.

Salfino: Brady can’t elevate good teams anymore.

joshua.hermsmeyer: That punt in the second quarter was a fireable offense for Bowles.

Salfino: I’m not giving the Cowboys props for beating this downright bad Tampa Bay team. First road playoff win since 1992, BTW, which produced the famous, “How ‘bout them Cowboys!” Jimmy Johnson locker room clip.

maya: My impression of this Super Wild-Card Weekend is it successfully weeded out the weaker teams and has left us with four good to great divisional-round matchups. Does anyone want to make a case for an eliminated team?

neil: No. They all deserved what they got. Some just hung tougher than others.

Salfino: I feel badly for Chargers fans, all five of them.

maya: Low-hanging fruit, Mike.

joshua.hermsmeyer: The Ravens with Lamar Jackson would have been dangerous. It’s unfortunate that we didn’t get to see Lamar in the tournament. And I wonder if we’ll see him on the Ravens again.

Salfino: I think we could have four blowouts this weekend. If Josh is right about the Eagles.

maya: I’m not actually sure who wins in a blowout in the Bills-Bengals game — who’d you have in mind, Mike? 

Salfino: Bills are going to smash the Bengals given that offensive line sliding into “problem” territory.

Lamar is not taking $133 million guaranteed if Deshaun Watson got $230 million. So that’s at an impasse.

joshua.hermsmeyer: This game is dangerous. If any athletes deserve guaranteed money it’s football players. Skip me with the crying about guaranteed money by management. 

Salfino: Totally agree. But the owner in Baltimore is dead set against fully guaranteed money. (Reportedly.)

maya: OK, so I was going to end by asking for everyone’s conference championship predictions. Mike, safe to say yours are Bills vs. Chiefs and Eagles vs. Niners?

Salfino: Yes, Bills-Chiefs on a neutral field indoors will be like a Super Bowl game. And Eagles-Niners, too. The Niners are the most complete team right now but do have a rookie QB so there is no obvious leader of the pack, for me. Plus that Niners pass defense like I said is just OK.

maya: Honestly, I think my picks are the same. But I would love the chaos of Giants vs. Niners.

joshua.hermsmeyer: I will eat the chalk again along with Mike. Chiefs-Niners Super Bowl, with the Chiefs the champs.

Salfino: The Bengals to be clear are down three offensive linemen now. I can’t see Burrow overcoming this.

But the Chiefs have exactly one dynamic skill player. And he’s a tight end. I’m far from sold on them. Their defense is meh, too.

Mahomes is maybe the GOAT though, so … ?

neil: I wanna pick some upsets, but it’s hard to. Niners are a tough draw for the Cowboys, whom I want to pick to just be contrarian.

Salfino: If you try to imagine tomorrow’s headlines, a rookie QB spitting the bit is not exactly surprising.

neil: But San Francisco just seems like such a complete team; I can’t in good conscience pull the trigger on Dallas beating them. So I’ll go K.C. vs Buffalo in the AFC and, what the heck, Giants (!) vs. Niners in the NFC.

Feels like one of those Giants seasons where they seem very mid in the regular season but go on a postseason run — see 2007 and 2011.

joshua.hermsmeyer: Lawds. 

Salfino: Calm down, Neil.

neil: LOL. I’ve been burned by Giants devil-magic too much in the past.

maya: I would love a road-warriors Giants run. Those are FUN. 

neil: Although there are no Patriots or Packers for them to beat this postseason …

So maybe I need to re-think this.

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NFL

Brock Purdy Was Mr. Irrelevant. Now He’s Mr. Impossible.

By Josh Hermsmeyer

Jan. 13, 2023, at 6:00 AM

Joe Montana. Steve Young. Yelberton Abraham Tittle. Some of the best quarterbacks to ever set foot on an NFL field played for the San Francisco 49ers, but none did what Brock Purdy has done this season.

You want wins? Purdy is one of only three rookie quarterbacks since the merger to start five or more games and go undefeated as a starter. The two others played for the Steelers: Mike Kruczek in 1976 (6-0) and Ben Roethlisberger in 2004 (13-0). Both rookie quarterbacks’ teams went on to play in the conference championship.

Are touchdowns more your thing? Only Deshaun Watson had a better TD rate in his rookie season (9.3 percent vs. 7.6 percent for Purdy), and Hall of Famer Dan Marino checks in at a distant third (6.8 percent). 

Perhaps you prefer a measure of overall efficiency? Purdy’s passer rating of 107.3 is the best ever for a rookie with 50 or more pass attempts. Or maybe you don’t like raw passer rating (I can’t really fault you). Purdy is also tops all time in rookie Passer Rating Index,¹⁸ which adjusts for player era, beating out Marino by 3 points (128 vs. 125). He’s also first in adjusted yards per attempt index, besting Roethlisberger by 1 point (127 to 126).

And Purdy did all of this after being picked dead last in the 2022 draft? Somebody make it make sense.

Starting the year as the backup quarterback to Jimmy Garoppolo, who was himself the backup to Trey Lance, Purdy’s eventual opportunity was part of a trend that shaped the league in 2022. Sixty-eight quarterbacks started at least one game in 2022 — the second-most starters used in a season in NFL history, according to ESPN’s Stats & Information Group. 

Due in part to all the injuries, teams attempted passes at the lowest per-game rate in 13 years, and that lack of passing led to teams posting the fewest passing yards per team game (218.5) over that period. But it wasn’t just passing volume; quarterback efficiency also suffered. Leaguewide adjusted net yards per pass attempt dipped below 6.0 for the first time since 2017, another season notorious for the number of injuries to top QBs.

Yet despite being a third-string, seventh-round talent — just the sort of player you’d expect to contribute to the leaguewide QB slump — Purdy transcended the league’s environment and strung together five games of production that is unprecedented in league history. It’s difficult to overstate just how surprising this is.

As a point of comparison, consider the case of Watson, a quarterback who missed most of the past two years due to a suspension stemming from accusations of sexual misconduct by more than two dozen women. It shouldn’t be surprising for even a formerly elite player to have trouble playing at a high level physically and mentally after a layoff of that length. That makes Watson’s return late in the season a reasonable comp for the hurdles Purdy had to overcome when his number was called.

And while it’s not a perfect comparison — the 49ers defense is superior to that of the Browns, and Kyle Shanahan is a better coach than Kevin Stefanski — it’s pretty clear that coming into the year, most would have bet on the former All-Pro first-rounder putting up better stats than whomever Mr. Irrelevant wound up being.

Instead, over the last five games of the regular season, Purdy bested Watson in every meaningful statistical category.

Remarkably, Purdy’s YPA, passing touchdowns, TD-to-INT ratio and off-target throw percentage either tied for or led the league over that period. Meanwhile Watson’s 19 sacks — and never forget that sacks are a QB stat — was the highest total in the league over the final five weeks.

All of which is to say that being a quarterback in the NFL is hard, even if Purdy somehow made it look sort of easy. And maybe that’s because, well, it kind of was. There’s evidence on tape that Shanahan did everything he could to make the game as simple as possible for his rookie starter. Purdy’s best plays by EPA came on calls like rollouts, which gave Purdy defined, half-field reads, or on passes to running back Christian McCaffery and tight end George Kittle that featured more yardage after the catch than through the air. There were even wild orbit motion, double-fake passes with a “Y-leak” thrown in that went for scores.

Still, Shanahan’s genius for scheme only explains so much. Eventually Purdy had to stand in the pocket, process the defense past his first read, and deliver the ball downfield on time and on target.

Those are the throws we expect NFL starters to make — throws that teams draft QBs in the first round to execute. The fact that Purdy made them with regularity when the league took 261 players before him is revealing. Not even the 49ers — the team that ultimately took a chance on Purdy (with its ninth selection of the draft) — can escape embarrassment completely. After all, if any QB can run Shanahan’s system, why spend three firsts and a third-round pick to trade up for Lance just a few years ago?

The truth is, no one really knows anything about projecting quarterbacks to the NFL. If they did, Brock Purdy would be impossible. Instead, the Niners are 9.5-point favorites over the Seahawks this weekend with a starting QB who was drafted after four punters and a placekicker. And instead of impossible, Purdy and the Niners somehow appear inevitable. 

Check out our latest NFL predictions.

NFL

The Chalky AFC Is Stronger Than The Schlocky NFC

By Ty Schalter

Jan. 12, 2023, at 6:00 AM

NFL watchers have been talking about how stacked the AFC is all season — not just that its top teams, like the Buffalo Bills, are better than the NFC’s best, but that second- and third-tier AFC squads would dominate some NFC divisions.

But the season is long, and the football gods are fickle. In December, injuries to top quarterbacks Lamar Jackson of the Baltimore Ravens and Tua Tagovailoa of the Miami Dolphins kneecapped the stacked AFC, and ruled-dead-at-the-trade-deadline NFC teams like the Detroit Lions roared. Going into Week 18, some of the league’s hottest teams had chances to qualify on the NFC side of the bracket, and squads our Elo model doesn’t like at all (like the 23rd-ranked Tennessee Titans) could claim AFC berths.

But the 10th-ranked Jacksonville Jaguars kicked the Titans out, and the ninth-ranked Los Angeles Chargers made their way in. The Ravens and Dolphins’ QB-adjusted Elo ratings would be tied for third and fifth, respectively, if their starters weren’t hurt, but with their likely quarterbacks for this weekend, they are well below-average for sixth- and seventh-seeds. Even so, the AFC’s top seeds are strong enough to drag the 2022 AFC field nearly up to the average of the conference fields produced in the last three seasons:¹⁹

Each of the AFC’s top four seeds this year carries an Elo rating better than the average for that seed-line since 2020. This stands in sharp contrast with the NFC, which is the weakest field of the 14-team playoff era and whose top four seeds are all worse than the average for each slot.

But what’s a strong playoff field worth, anyway? If you, like our NFL round-tablers this week, were looking forward to dangerous wild-card teams pulling off some big upsets, well, manage your expectations. The strength of the AFC’s top seeds may pay off with great matchups down the line, but it also makes for some lopsided wild-card matchups.

The Bills (1708 Elo), Cincinnati Bengals (1666) and Jaguars (1540) are the first-, second- and 10th-ranked teams in our model, and they’re much more likely to win their opening-round contests this weekend than average No. 2-through-No. 4 seeds since 2020:

The disparity between the conferences occurs up and down the seedings. The AFC’s weakest division champ is Jacksonville, with an Elo rating 36 points higher than the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ (the NFC’s weakest division champ, and the only playoff team with a losing record) — and the AFC’s No. 7 seed, the Dolphins, is stronger by Elo at full strength than the fourth-seeded Bucs, sixth-seeded New York Giants or seventh-seeded Seattle Seahawks. But the Dolphins aren’t playing anyone in the NFC — they’re up against the highest Elo-rated team, Buffalo.

Miami split its two prior matchups against the division-rival Bills this year, winning by two points at home in 90-degree heat, and losing by three points on the road in 29-degree cold. But adjusting for the fact that Tagovailoa won’t be playing, and third-stringer Skylar Thompson likely will be, our model considers Buffalo overwhelming favorites (-20 points, 95 percent win probability). Should Miami pull off the big upset, as the bottom seed it would travel to Kansas City next week and face the top-seeded Chiefs. But if the Bills take care of business, they’ll be Elo favorites at home against any of the Chargers, Jaguars or Cincinnati Bengals.

The Baltimore Ravens must play a second straight game in Cincinnati a week after losing there without Jackson, who seems unlikely to play. In large part due to the unpopular-in-Baltimore question of Jackson’s playoff availability, our QB-adjusted model has the Bengals as 9.5-point favorites this weekend, with an 80 percent chance of advancing. If they do, they’d be pitted against the highest remaining non-Chiefs team — the Bills, quite likely, against whom they’d be underdogs. Otherwise, our model would consider them stronger than either the Chargers or Jags.

Finally, we have Chargers-Jags. It’s easily the most competitive of the three AFC games, with a nearly even Elo matchup (Chargers 1543, Jags 1540), and Jacksonville’s home-field advantage accounting for essentially all of the model’s 2.5-point spread. Though our model ranks these two contenders as the ninth- and tenth-strongest teams in the league, whichever one wins would still be a decided second-round underdog at any of the possible second-round road matchups: Buffalo, Kansas City or Cincinnati. Should the Dolphins and Ravens both pull out miracles, though, the winner of Chargers-Jags would actually host Baltimore. That might seem like a winnable game — but Baltimore’s lugging around a negative-92-point Elo adjustment for Jackson’s absence. 

And then there’s the NFC side of the bracket. Last week actually weakened the field there: The Lions and Green Bay Packers combined to go 11-4 between their Week 10 and 18 meetings, and according to ESPN’s Stats & Information Group, in that stretch they ranked fifth and ninth, respectively, in offensive and defensive expected points added. They respectively finished as our model’s 11th- and 13th-strongest teams at full strength. But the 24th-ranked Seattle Seahawks claimed the last NFC playoff berth on the last day of the regular season (at the Lions’ and Packers’ expense); the Seahawks and 16th-ranked New York Giants helped make this year’s NFC the weakest seven-team conference field our model’s ever seen.

In fact, the NFC field is so weak that, despite its wimpy wild cards, their higher seeds are much more likely than average to get upset in the opening round. The San Francisco 49ers (1700), Minnesota Vikings (1553), and Tampa Bay Buccaneers (1504) are, on average, 13 percentage points more likely to lose than their AFC counterparts. And the Bucs, despite their higher seed and home-field advantage, have just a 40 percent chance to beat the Dallas Cowboys.

For all the seeding and scenarios, all the roller-coaster seasons and nail-biting finishes, we come back to the same conclusion we started with: The AFC is much stronger than the NFC, and the only real challengers to the AFC’s top seeds are each other.

Check out our latest NFL predictions.

NFL

Will Wild-Card Weekend Give Us The Upsets We Crave?

A FiveThirtyEight Chat

Jan. 9, 2023, at 3:20 PM

maya (Maya Sweedler, editor):  After 18 weeks of football — of thrilling comebacks, electric plays, baffling coaching decisions and disappointing quarterbacking (and all this just from the Minnesota Vikings!) — the 2022 NFL regular season has come to an end, and we’re staring ahead at three days of wild-card play next weekend.

The playoff matchups are set, and we’re pretty excited about a lot of them. But let’s take a beat to talk about Week 18 and how we got here before we turn to the playoffs and the season as a whole.

There were three spots up for grabs entering Week 18, the AFC South title and the final wild-card spots in both conferences. So firstly, congrats to the Jacksonville Jaguars, Seattle Seahawks and Miami Dolphins for making it at least one more week into January. Jacksonville was 3-7 going into its bye, but finished the season 6-1. Other than Trevor Lawrence’s sophomore leap and, uh, ditching the guy from Ohio State, what explains this team’s jump?

joshua.hermsmeyer (Josh Hermsmeyer, NFL analyst): I think the Jags just played great team football this season. They ended the year with an underrated defense — above league average by expected points added. That and the steadying influence of first-year head coach Doug Pederson stand out to me.

neil (Neil Paine, acting sports editor): Yeah Josh, they improved from 28th in points allowed to 12th.

The offensive improvement under Lawrence in his second year (32nd to 10th) was more dramatic, but the defense should get credit for the turnaround, too.

dre.waters (Andres Waters, FiveThirtyEight contributor): Pederson’s impact on the team has been huge; like Maya said, they started slow but once they got into rhythm they really did look like the best team in their division.

neil: And it helped that the Titans slid into oblivion in the second half of the season.

dre.waters: I think it’s also really impressive that with the same core from last season, the Jags also look like a team that could get even better on offense going forward. The addition of Calvin Ridley around the trade deadline could really elevate the offense next season.

neil: And I know we always have to temper our enthusiasm about RBs, but Travis Etienne’s delayed debut in the NFL was exciting — he had over 1,400 yards from scrimmage. Loved seeing that Clemson connection with him and Lawrence carry over in the pros.

joshua.hermsmeyer: I will say I was disappointed in Lawrence’s play in his biggest game yet as a pro, though; 212 yards and a 43.5 Total QBR won’t get it done in the playoffs.

neil: That’s true. Just when hope was fading, the Jags offense was bailed out by Josh Allen on that not-an-incomplete-pass-at-all fumble return TD. But I’m not sure you can count on that kind of thing to save you again.

dre.waters: Don’t they say you need a little bit of luck as well?

joshua.hermsmeyer: That or a guy named Josh Allen.

neil: Any Josh Allen will do!

joshua.hermsmeyer: Anyone taking the Bolts over the Jags? DraftKings Sportsbook had the Los Angeles Chargers as 1.5-point favorites (they are now 1-point favorites). I think that’s preposterous.

neil: So Josh, I take it you think the Jags should be favored? FWIW, our model has that as the closest of the wild-card games, at 59-41 for Jax.

maya: I’m a big believer in momentum, and the Jags got it!

neil: They also have home field.

dre.waters: And they’re not cursed.

joshua.hermsmeyer: Yep, I don’t think the Chargers are ~3 points better than the Jags. Chargers coach Brandon Staley played his starters in a meaningless game and wide receiver Mike Williams injured his back so severely he needed to be helped onto the team bus after the 31-28 loss to the Denver Broncos yesterday. Seems like a bit of a clown show to me.

neil: (Anytime the phrase “loss to the Denver Broncos” is used in 2022, that qualifies as a clown show.)

maya: No, in all seriousness, I think this a pretty good matchup. I’m willing to throw out the Jags’ 28-point win earlier this season, as it came around the high point of the Chargers’ injury woes, but even so, I would take this Jacksonville offense against the admittedly impressive Los Angeles defense. I think Etienne is juuuuust enough of a threat on the ground to make the Jaguars unpredictable.

neil: In a world where both of the other AFC wild-card games will very possibly feature backup QBs, I’m also excited for the Lawrence-Herbert matchup. Herbert’s numbers were down a bit from a year ago, but it’s still a battle of two stellar young passers, each under age 25.

maya: Both have great potential! Only one can win! Neither can rent a car!

joshua.hermsmeyer: Lamar will start, Neil! (I hope.)

neil: I’ll believe it when I see it.

dre.waters: Ughhhhhhhhhhhhh. I don’t even want to begin to think about Lamar not starting this playoff game.

maya: Speaking of clown shows, let’s talk about the NFC North. With Seattle’s win, there were two notable teams left on the outside looking in. Despite their valiant efforts (the Lions to pull the season together, the Packers to maybe tank theirs), Detroit and Green Bay will not be in the playoffs. Is this the last we’ve seen of Aaron Rodgers in green and yellow?

neil: Sure seemed that way when Rodgers and Randall Cobb walked off the field together at Lambeau last night.

joshua.hermsmeyer: I’m not sure about him returning to Green Bay, but I think there’s almost no chance Rodgers retires. You’re telling me the quarterback with the lowest interception rate in NFL history‘s last NFL play was an interception? Skip me with that. Rodgers cares too much about his stats and his legacy.

maya: He’s tried to force a trade out of Green Bay before — what’s to stop him attempting it again?

I can think of a few down-on-their luck teams with quarterback drama who might want to trade for Rodgers to get fans in the seats. (Cough, Vegas, cough.)

joshua.hermsmeyer: Or Houston. Or Detroit.

neil: Detroit? Goff was the best QB on the field last night.

(Sort of kidding, sort of not … Who knows anymore with either of those guys.) 

dre.waters: Now Houston officially has the second overall pick to put on the table in any offer as well. 

maya: There were a couple of truly funny moments this season, but I gotta say, the Texans converting multiple fourth-and-10-plus plays to win a game they needed to lose in order to snag the first overall pick is up there for me.

Wish it didn’t cost Lovie Smith his job, but here’s hoping he lands on his feet with a less snakebitten franchise.

joshua.hermsmeyer: Houston fired the wrong guy, first of all. GM Nick Caserio deserves more of the blame here than Lovie. And second, God bless Smith for winning that last game on his way out the door. Absolute legend.

maya: Lovie Smith has been a legend since ’06. Anyone who takes Rex Grossman to the Super Bowl is an absolute champion in my book.

neil: There needs to be a better way than setting up a situation where a fan base gets (rightly?) outraged at the team — and the coach gets fired — for winning a game and therefore losing draft position. I know many have pondered the problem of tanking, with few (if any) solutions. But something like yesterday really makes the whole process stand out as absurd.

If it’s any consolation to the Texans — given how much of a crapshoot highly touted QBs are — it’s anybody’s guess whether Bryce Young will actually be worth that pick they lost anyway.

joshua.hermsmeyer: Agreed 100 percent about our inability to project QB play, Neil. And given the way they treated Smith, I kind of hope the Texans lose their QB bet this year.

dre.waters: Agreed, Josh. It really felt like when they hired Lovie there wasn’t much intention to keep him long term, given all the reports about their interest in Josh McCown.

maya: But to bring it back to Detroit — is this team one that can win with Jared Goff, or should they start looking for a new signal-caller?

Honestly, given how young this roster is and how solid Goff has looked, I’m inclined to give him another year or two. The problem with this team was its defense, but based on the play of its rookies, I think the Lions have some real talent in the pipeline.

joshua.hermsmeyer: The Lions’ future is so hard to forecast.  I think the answer comes down to the Lions defense. Detroit was second to last in defensive EPA this year, while its offense ranked third. It’s a good bet the offense takes a step back next season — it’s hard to maintain that level of play without an elite QB. And while Goff is underrated, he’s not in Mahomes-and-Allen territory, so the defense will have to make up the difference. That’s a tough ask. It’s hard to rely on defense in general, and from Week 10 on the Lions didn’t improve much (28th-ranked defense by EPA).

neil: But really, it wasn’t Goff’s fault they missed the playoffs. Their offense ranked fifth in scoring!

Goff was fifth in QBR!

Maybe he is actually an elite QB? 

maya: LOL OK Neil.

dre.waters: Elite is a stretch LOL.

neil: What even is an elite QB, after this season?

Goff, Geno Smith, Daniel Jones and Jacoby Brissett were all top 10 in QBR this season. 

maya: (I will note that at one point, when we looked at NFL quarterbacks with the same alma mater, Goff and Rodgers had Cal up there at No. 3 in terms of average of Total QBR, behind No. 1 Alabama’s Jalen Hurts and Tua Tagovailoa.)

neil: All I’m saying is that we always talk about teams not being able to win without elite QB play. But when you look at QBs who were elite this season, it’s not at all who we would have predicted before the season. So what do we really know about whether a team will or won’t have elite QB play?

It felt like a paradigm-shifting season in that regard. 

maya: What a great segue into the Seahawks!

We’ve been pretty pro-Geno here this season, so I’d be remiss if I didn’t offer this fun factoid:

neil: That’s pretty hilarious, even granting that a lot of these single-season records are getting broken due to the 17-game schedule.

maya: Shh, Neil, don’t ruin it.

neil:

joshua.hermsmeyer: Do Seattle fans even remember Russell Wilson?

maya: Geno finished the 2022 season as the most accurate qualified passer in the league! That’s not nothing. The Seahawks probably wish they had drawn anyone other than the division-rival 49ers — who beat them twice in the regular season — in the wild-card round, but who other than Geno (and maybe Jalen Hurts) can give this rangy Niners secondary a run for their money?

joshua.hermsmeyer: I really want to root for Geno, but there are some other factors at play here. First, while his rise from the ashes is a great story, it’s not better than Brock Purdy doing what he’s done as a rookie and entering the league as the last pick in the draft.

Second, always pay your gambling debts!

dre.waters: I think you’re right, Josh. Purdy has definitely been the biggest surprise of the season. Even with a third-string QB, the 49ers still have the second-best odds to make it to the NFC championship game and fourth-best odds to make it to the Super Bowl, according to our model.

That’s wild.

neil: It hasn’t been a drop-off from Jimmy G to Purdy at all. If anything, Purdy has the better numbers in many categories.

maya: Here goes nothing …*

* my attempt to trigger the “defend Jimmy G” portion of the chat

… but the Niners have proved they can advance to the NFC championship game with a second-rate quarterback. I’m not yet sure if Purdy is that (small sample size caveats!), but I wouldn’t be so surprised if they did it again.

neil: They’re averaging 33.6 points per game since Purdy became starter. Under Garoppolo, it was just 24.5.

joshua.hermsmeyer: Jimmy G remains handsome even when injured. That’s all I got.

neil: Handsomeness never slumps.

maya: To play devil’s advocate here, though, Purdy starting coincided with the integration of Christian McCaffrey into the offense. There’s a lot going in this team’s favor is all I’m sayin’!

neil: That’s fair, Maya. But when we’re talking about the Niners’ potential this year (as opposed to Purdy’s in the long term), it doesn’t really matter who’s driving the bus as long as that bus is going very fast.

(What a weird bus metaphor I made there at the end.)

maya: The Niners are a Tesla on autopilot. Clear 101.

joshua.hermsmeyer: I’m picturing Sanda Bullock and Keanu Reeves on an L.A. interstate right now.

maya: The Niners-Seahawks game is one of three intradivisional wild-card grudge matches we have on the docket next weekend. Are there any matchups you guys are particularly looking forward to?

joshua.hermsmeyer: Dallas at Tampa Bay looks to be a close game. For some reason I’m not actually very excited to watch either team, though. I feel like it’s a competition to see who will lose the following week.

neil: Same, Josh. And that’s the Monday night game!

maya: I will absolutely watch if it’s a ManningCast. If not …

But yeah, Josh, I feel similarly. I’m definitely looking forward more to the AFC 4-versus-5 matchup, which we’ve already discussed.

dre.waters: Fandom aside, I’m interested in Ravens-Bengals but not for the game, just to see if Lamar plays or not. If he doesn’t, I think the QB carousel in the offseason could get crazy 

joshua.hermsmeyer: Andres, as a fellow Ravens fan — it’s time for Greg Roman to go, right?

maya: Oh wow, Dre, are you saying you think Jackson is outie after this season, depending on whether he plays?

dre.waters: Roman has to go. No exceptions

And Maya, if he doesn’t play this weekend, I could definitely see Baltimore listening to offers. Because they clearly don’t want to pay the man

joshua.hermsmeyer: The worst thing for everyone is to limp along on franchise tags with Lamar. I hope they either commit or set him free.

neil: He’s such a fascinating case. I know there are better stats than QB Winz, but just for illustration purposes: Jackson is one of just three active QBs (along with Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes) to win 70 percent of his career starts, including playoffs. Clearly, when he plays, he is a huge difference-maker. But availability has not been his greatest ability over the past few years.

maya: Yeah, and I think that becomes a self-defeating cycle. I think he’s very much a victim of the biases against running quarterbacks and fears around their longevity.

There are two more playoff games we’ve left unmentioned thus far — Giants at Vikings on the NFC side and Dolphins at Bills on the AFC. Anyone see a potential upset in either of those?

joshua.hermsmeyer: The Dolphins are such a massive underdog (-11) it can’t be them — even if Tua plays.

neil: Just so we’re clear — would it be an upset if the Vikings beat the Giants or if the Giants beat the Vikings?

I can’t tell which.

Kidding aside, this will be the fourth playoff game featuring two teams who had negative regular-season point differentials, joining Minnesota vs Atlanta in 1982, Pittsburgh-Houston in 1989 and Seattle vs St. Louis in 2004. Fun!

joshua.hermsmeyer: I’ll go with my preseason pick for “Guy who could turn out to be above average” and take Daniel Jones and the G-men for the upset. Why not? Both these teams are exceedingly mediocre.

maya: That piece was so prescient that I now go to Josh for stock tips.

Let’s wrap up this week with everyone’s favorite activity — writing down award predictions that will shortly be proved false! I’d like your votes for MVP, Offensive Player of the Year, Defensive Player of the Year and Coach of the Year as well as the last four teams standing. And prepare to defend any sus picks (I have a few).

dre.waters: MVP: Patrick Mahomes

Offensive Player of the Year: Geno Smith

Defensive Player of the Year: Micah Parsons

Coach of the Year: Pete Carroll

maya: MVP: Patrick Mahomes (but if he didn’t miss those games at the end of the season, I absolutely would’ve cast my vote for Jalen Hurts)

OPOY: Justin Jefferson

DPOY: Quinnen Williams (even though my gut says it’ll probably go to Nick Bosa)

COY: Brian Daboll (I etched this in stone after he went for two in Week 1 and can’t change it, sorry!)

joshua.hermsmeyer: MVP: Mahomes

OPOY: Mahomes

DPOY: Bosa

Comeback Player of the Year: Geno

COY: Doug Pederson

neil: MVP: Patrick Mahomes ( )

OPOY: Christian McCaffrey!

DPOY: Micah Parsons

Coach of the Year: Doug Pederson

maya: And now your final four teams, please!

dre.waters: NFC: Niners vs. Eagles

AFC: Chiefs vs. Bills

(I tried to go with a team that’s not a favorite, but I just don’t see it happening this year.)

joshua.hermsmeyer: NFC: Niners vs. Eagles

AFC: Chiefs vs. Bills in the Real Super Bowl

maya: NFC: Vikings vs. Niners (I’m leaning into whatever witchcraft is going on in U.S. Bank Stadium and no one, not even beloved former sports editor Sara Ziegler, can talk me out of this)

AFC: Chiefs vs. Bills (we deserve this)

neil: NFC: Niners vs. Eagles (), Niners win.

AFC: Chiefs vs. Bills (location, uh, TBD?), Bills finally get it.

I couldn’t pull the trigger on the Cowboys actually making the NFC title game.

dre.waters: Because they won’t LMAO.

neil: LOLOL

And I agree, Andres, about it being tough to find underdogs who feel like they have a shot this year. 

These conferences are really top-heavy.

joshua.hermsmeyer: Before we go, I also need a prediction on whether Sean McVay leaves the sunny shores of L.A. or not.

maya: I’m gonna say no, he returns for one more year and leaves with Matthew Stafford after a fairly ignominious season just under .500.

joshua.hermsmeyer: I like the cut of your jib, Maya.

neil: I kind of want to say yes? It’s the time-worn path of:

• Win with a team that sells out its future
• See how bleak things will be afterward
• Go do TV for a year or two
• Latch on with a different team who has a better future

joshua.hermsmeyer: How do you leave L.A., though? For what, Houston? Yuck.

dre.waters: I doubt he leaves after this season but I agree with Neil and Maya — definitely feels like he’ll be out of there soon.

maya: Maybe Vegas!

neil: Post-Belichick Patriots

 (Honestly not sure that’s any better, LOL)

joshua.hermsmeyer: The one benefit of heading to New England is that you can pull up tapes of all your old practices before games against your previous team.

neil: Bahahahaha.

That’s the winner.

A programming note — we will be back with our wild-card coverage on Tuesday, Jan. 17.

Check out our latest NFL predictions.

NFL

NFL Leadership Wasn't Prepared For Damar Hamlin's Injury

A FiveThirtyEight Chat

Jan. 3, 2023, at 4:51 PM

maya (Maya Sweedler, editor): Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin is still in critical but stable condition after going into cardiac arrest during a game in Cincinnati Monday night. That much we know. As of this writing, we do not know what caused the cardiac event; what his current status is; and whether or how the game will be made up, though the NFL did confirm that the Bills-Bengals game would not be resumed this week. His family released a statement earlier this morning thanking people for their support and said it would release updates once possible. 

There’s a lot to say about Hamlin, but I thought former NFL player and ESPN analyst Ryan Clark put it best: 

Today’s chat will begin with the events of last night before ending on a brief discussion of where the league stands heading into the final week of the regular season. 

Ty Schalter (Ty Schalter, FiveThirtyEight contributor): As ESPN commentator Booger McFarland said during the delay, “football is entertainment,” and nothing could be further from entertainment than the horror of seeing a human being in mortal peril. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has reportedly long been “terrified” of the impact an on-field death might have on the sport — and everything we saw and felt last night is why.

maya: For as long as I’ve been a football fan, I’ve felt this tension between the violence inherent to the sport and the beauty of its strategy. Sometimes it’s easier to brush aside the qualms associated with the former and focus entirely on the latter; sometimes, even admitting to myself that I find beauty in the game is challenging.

neil (Neil Paine, acting sports editor): I feel exactly the same way, Maya. And we’re not alone in that cognitive dissonance between enjoying the game while also worrying about the devastating injuries players are routinely subjected to.

A Morning Consult poll from October asked Americans whether head injuries — which, to be clear, are different from what Hamlin suffered Monday night — affected their interest in watching NFL games. Overall, 71 percent of U.S. adults said they had “no impact,” and although that number dropped some among younger fans, 62 percent of Gen Z fans answered in the same way. This is despite other polling which shows that the vast majority of fans do consider serious injuries to be a major problem for the league. We recognize the dangers but find ways to compartmentalize them. And I don’t know if seeing something as scary as what happened to Hamlin will change that.

maya: Violence is not unique to American football. There are plenty of other contact sports in which participants experience grievous or life-altering injuries. But there’s something about the way violence — collision, explosiveness, contact — is celebrated in American football that makes it feel like such a central part of the experience. And when something like this happens, I think it’s natural to question whether that’s something we as sports fans and members of the media are OK with condoning. It’s something that I’ve found myself thinking about more and more, especially as the league has so publicly struggled to address these concerns and the TV rights deals get bigger and bigger. 

joshua.hermsmeyer (Josh Hermsmeyer, NFL analyst): Like many people, I had a mix of strong emotions watching the broadcast. The concern on the players’ faces reflected everyone’s feelings in that moment. And then the confusion about whether or not the game would continue was worse than distracting — it seemed to trivialize the seriousness of something that so obviously took precedence over football.

neil: Definitely. ESPN continuously cutting back to Suzy Kolber when nobody really had anything to say just made things worse. (And it wasn’t her fault — she was thrust into just about the most difficult scenario in broadcasting.)

maya: That to me made Clark’s thoughts so powerful — in professional sports, where it’s so easy to take an individual story and distill it into a concept like “comeback” or “perseverance,” it sometimes takes that reminder to keep the person at the center. This is a 24-year-old man whose heart stopped beating.

Ty Schalter: I’ve often criticized the NFL for pretending the first 80 years or so of pro football didn’t happen. The NFL might prefer not to talk about starting out as a hyperviolent sideshow founded by bookies and bettors — but there are fans alive today who grew up watching 49ers linebacker Hardy Brown intentionally knock as many opponents unconscious as he could. The game really has changed; I’ve lived through generation after generation of former players complaining that it’s “soft” now compared to when they played. But it is still football. Considering Goodell’s reported fear of a moment like this one (and his having been party to an active, decades-long coverup of football brain injuries and cognitive disabilities), you’d think the league would have been better prepared to handle its decision-making and messaging in the hours following Hamlin’s collapse.

joshua.hermsmeyer: The NFL has in the past produced a video and other materials on how to address sudden cardiac arrest on the field, but whatever planning was done by the NFL ahead of last night didn’t translate to viewers as an organization oozing with competence.

neil: Right. For instance, we’re still not sure where Joe Buck got his information about the game potentially resuming after a five-minute warm-up period; NFL executive VP Troy Vincent denies that the league ever floated that possibility. But even the confusion there was indicative of just how unprepared the league and the network seemed to have been for a situation like this. It felt like there was no framework in place for an injury that goes above and beyond the typical theme-song-in-a-minor-key treatment we see all too often on broadcasts.

Ty Schalter: In the age of social media, organizations can’t just hope people calmly wait for a complete set of verified facts to be announced. More than three hours passed between Hamlin’s collapse and Vincent’s public insistence that everything was handled appropriately — and everyone in this chat knows that’s enough time not just to tweet speculation, but to report, write and publish entire articles about what we all saw happen during an NFL game.

The NFL’s statement today, which made clear that the league would not attempt to resume the game this week, is exactly the kind of proactive communication we needed earlier last night.

joshua.hermsmeyer: It seems that Buffalo believed that the game would continue. The Bills defense lined up on the field before Bengals head coach Zac Taylor walked over to the Buffalo sideline, and then both teams left the field minutes later. I’d be interested to know why the Bills felt the game would go on.

neil: It would not be out of character for the NFL — or really any sports league, for that matter — to push through something like Hamlin’s injury. There’s a long history of particularly horrible things happening in auto racing, and the governing organizations just don’t stop the race. It’s a mentality of “the show must go on” that seems to often override everything else. So in some ways, it was surprising that they didn’t ultimately choose to pick things up again quickly.

(On the other hand, our senior designer and my fellow hockey fanatic Emily Scherer reminds me that the NHL has seen a few mid-game cardiac incidents in recent seasons, causing that league to postpone games.)

maya: Given how this league has handled scary injuries in the past — I think back to Pittsburgh Steeler Ryan Shazier’s spinal injury in 2017 — a play stoppage felt particularly unusual.

joshua.hermsmeyer: That mentality would fit with the way the Miami Dolphins handled quarterback Tua Tagovailoa’s situation earlier this season, Neil. Tua was rushed to the hospital in Week 4 against the Bengals when Miami allowed him to start despite being injured the previous week (and letting him continue to play) against the Bills.

neil: I suspect many of the reasons why the league took so long to make the call to postpone the game at all simply came down to economics and logistics. It doesn’t take schedule disruptions lightly when advertisers have bought in during a specific time slot — as it was, the NFL-centric ads they kept running throughout the delay were particularly jarring — and it is true that moving or canceling the Bills-Bengals game will have cascading effects on the rest of the schedule. Both teams are set to play other teams on Sunday, so Monday’s game may have to be moved to another date — if it gets completed at all. (For what it’s worth, the Bills have arrived back in Buffalo now.) 

And on a note of much more minor importance, if the league just considers Monday’s game a tie, it would very likely hand the Kansas City Chiefs the AFC’s No. 1 seed and home-field advantage throughout the playoffs, while forcing both Cincinnati and Buffalo to play an extra postseason game. Obviously these are secondary concerns at the moment, and it’s unclear when either Cincinnati or Buffalo will feel comfortable playing again. But it all helps explain some of the decisions that were weighed Monday night.

joshua.hermsmeyer: I don’t think there is any question that economics played at least some role in how things went down last night, and I’d be surprised if they don’t factor in moving forward. A Bengals-Bills tie would have other knock-on effects, as well: It would make the Bengals’ Week 18 season finale against Baltimore moot, since the Bengals would win the AFC North division championship. I’d imagine both the Bengals and the Ravens would then end up resting their key starters. In the end, that might be the best outcome for the players, if not the league’s pocketbook.

maya: Acknowledging that we’re about to turn to the playoffs, which feel so much less important than what we’ve discussed above, seems insufficient, but here we are. Regardless of what happens with this particular game, the NFL has confirmed there are no additional changes to Week 18, which is currently slated to start on Saturday and the playoffs the following week. 

So we’re going to take them as they come. We were off Dec. 26 for Christmas and yesterday for New Year’s, so there’s a lot of football that’s happened. 

The short of it is the playoff picture is mostly in focus. We don’t know who will hold the top seed or the final wild-card spot in either conference, and the AFC South division title remains up for grabs. But for the most part, we know who will be playing in January. 

The NFC East is still pretty strong, with three teams headed to the playoffs (sorry, Washington, you’re the odd man out) — but both Dallas, on a short win streak, and Philadelphia, missing its quarterback, could win the division and the top seed. Minnesota continues to be baffling, and both Green Bay and Detroit have rebounded after tough starts to the season to take the dream of a playoff berth into Week 18. The AFC, meanwhile, has seen a pretty significant reordering. The Los Angeles Chargers are somewhat healthier and in possession of a playoff spot; the Tennessee Titans and Jacksonville Jaguars are going to play for the AFC South division title next week; and after giving their tortured fan bases just enough hopium to make them believe, the Miami Dolphins and New York Jets are both riding five-game losing streaks.

Let’s start with the final wild-card spots. Who do you guys think is in pole position in each conference?

joshua.hermsmeyer: Our model thinks the Jaguars — who, as you noted, can also win their division outright — and the Packers are the best bets. I’m all-in on the Jags as the feel-good team of the AFC.

maya: I’m fairly confident that the Jaguars are going to win that division. Can the Titans offense survive defenses selling out the passing game to stop Derrick Henry? If you look at how Tennessee fared against strong running defenses like Philadelphia and Buffalo, the answer to me is a clear no.

joshua.hermsmeyer: Yeah Maya, I would be very surprised — and disappointed, frankly — if Jacksonville can’t take care of business and wrap up the division against Tennessee. The probability of a Jags’ division title is quite high (75 percent), and if they lose to the Titans, they’ll need a lot of help to make the tournament.

neil: And over in the NFC, the Packers seem like the best bet of any of the teams in limbo, at least according to our model — they’re at 61 percent to make the playoffs — and this is pretty shocking given: a) where they were when we last chatted, and b) how Aaron Rodgers hasn’t been especially amazing during that stretch.

joshua.hermsmeyer: Rodgers is no Brock Purdy.

Ty Schalter: The Packers ranked 23rd leaguewide in offensive expected points added after their Week 9 loss to Detroit (-12.34); since then, they’re ranked seventh (36.26). On the other hand, though, the Lions’ offense improved from 18th in Weeks 1-9 (11.36), to No. 1 in Weeks 10-17 (76.9). But Jared Goff and company are going to be fighting a lot of ghosts (and a prime-time Lambeau crowd), not just Rodgers.

Considering the Lions have only won three road games against the Packers since 1992 — all while Matthew Stafford was quarterback — going into Lambeau and beating Rodgers seems insurmountable, especially when they also need the Seattle Seahawks to eliminate themselves against the decimated Los Angeles Rams.

maya: Anyone willing to go out on a limb for the Dolphins?

neil: Ty and I have been card-carrying Tuanon members all season, but he’s out (and so might be Teddy Bridgewater) for Week 18. The Dolphins don’t control their own destiny, and I wonder if the early-season Miami magic has just run out.

joshua.hermsmeyer: I believe the Dolphins are the favorites if the Jags lose, but Tua being hurt means that, what, the Patriots are in position to make another run? Buffalo might sit some starters…

Ty Schalter: Yeah, Neil, Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel hasn’t quite been able to muster the any-quarterback-will-do magic his mentor Kyle Shanahan has in San Francisco.

maya: Astonishingly, that has opened the door for Mac Jones, with that brief assist from Bailey Zappe, to get some playoff experience.

Ty Schalter: I can’t believe we’re going to live through the roller-coaster comeback season of our lives just to have Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers and either the Steelers or the Patriots right back in the playoffs.

maya: Let’s turn to the seedings. On the NFC side, four teams could theoretically finish with at least 13 wins: the Eagles, Cowboys, 49ers and Vikings. Who is in the best position to grab that bye?

joshua.hermsmeyer: I’m kind of shocked that the Eagles: 1) haven’t clinched their division but 2) have a 93 percent shot at a first round bye. Those things seem to not go together.

maya: The Eagles lost only one game with Jalen Hurts at quarterback; in his two starts, Gardner Minshew doubled that. Entering Week 16, Philly needed only one win (or one Dallas loss) in its final three games to clinch the NFC East and a first-round bye. Philadelphia will probably need to play its starters against New York to secure a first-round bye it needs more than probably any other team in the conference.

neil: I bet the Eagles won’t play Nate Sudfeld out of spite in that one.

joshua.hermsmeyer: The Eagles offense has sputtered badly since Week 15, accumulating -13.8 EPA, good for 23rd in the league. (And one of those games was started by Hurts.) They need some Jarrett Stidham-esque production from their backup.

Ty Schalter: This is several layers of Not The Point of this week’s chat — but Josh McDaniels/Derek Carr/Stidham might be the most fascinating on-field story in football right now.

neil: If we’d had a chat last week, I’d have said McDaniels is clearly scapegoating Carr for his own bad coaching debut in Vegas. But then Stidham sort of vindicated him? Now I don’t know what to think. 

Ty Schalter: Anyway, this is going to be a fascinating iteration of the rest-your-starters debate. Eagles coach Nick Sirianni was probably right to assume they could win two out of these three games running at less than full throttle, and no amount of regular-season wins will matter if Hurts isn’t healthy for the playoffs. But will they be able to rev it up enough this week to earn the bye? And then, if they do, will they be able to take a week off without slowing down again?

maya: The only other NFC team our model gives more than a 1 percent chance of winning the bye is the 49ers, who have the quietest nine-game winning streak I’ve ever seen (and I’m from the Bay Area!). I get the math is tricky with the win-out-win-bye situation the Eagles have, but are we discounting the Niners?

Ty Schalter: Not at all. For all the heat he (rightfully, I think) took over his handling of Trey Lance and Jimmy G, he’s primed to walk over the Cardinals with Brock Purdy and — with the Giants’ help — into the No. 1 seed. It’s an achievement.

joshua.hermsmeyer: I was in the Bay Area recently, and the feeling there is nothing but optimism for another Super Bowl berth. The East Coast Media Bias (TM) is strong, but so is the Shanahan mystique. I don’t think the Niners and their gaudy win streak are being slept on.

neil: But I agree, Maya, that 7 percent in our model feels low for the Niners’ chance at the top seed — all they need is to beat the woeful Cardinals and have a suddenly ordinary Eagles team lose to a bitter rival. I could easily see both scenarios happening.

(The Vikings already did their part for San Fran’s cause as well, taking themselves out of the NFC top-seed race with that ugly loss to the Packers.)

maya: Are they the scariest team on the NFC side of the bracket, with or without the bye?

joshua.hermsmeyer: It’s such a weird year. I wouldn’t call the Niners scary — particularly if their defense plays like it did against the Raiders. Since Week 15, the Niners defense is 13th-best in the league by EPA. They’re not overwhelming offenses lately. But they’re winning, and I’m not sure there’s a reasonable alternate adjective.

maya: Part of me is prepared to be surprised by the Cowboys. Part of me is not. 

neil: Same. Dallas has the NFC’s best Simple Rating System, but some of that was driven by beating an Eagles team that SRS didn’t know was missing Hurts. And some of it is that the Cowboys need to prove they can win in the playoffs after a strong regular season, because we’ve seen this movie too many times before.

Ty Schalter: As loath as I am to invoke vibes in a FiveThirtyEight chat, closing the season with an average point differential of 4.5 against the Texans, Jaguars, Hurts-less Eagles and Tannehill-less Titans doesn’t exactly radiate Big Playoff Energy. 

maya: We’re going to leave it at that. We’ll be back next week to wrap up the 2022 regular season, and in the meantime, like the rest of the NFL and its fans, we’ll be keeping Hamlin in our thoughts.

Check out our latest NFL predictions.

NFL

Can The Dallas Cowboys Avoid Another Playoff Flop?

By Andres Waters

Dec. 22, 2022, at 6:00 AM

Among die-hard NFL fans, there are really only two ways to feel about the Dallas Cowboys: Either you love them or you hate them. And around this time of year, as we get into the final stretch of the season, both of those sides are itching to be right about how and when the season will come to an end for “America’s Team.”

Cowboys fans have been on the wrong side of that debate in recent years. Despite entering the playoffs with 10 or more regular-season wins seven times since 2002, the organization has yet to make the NFC title game since its Super Bowl XXX win in 1996. And with Dallas sitting at 10-4 this season, the Cowboys could find themselves in a familiar position once again. 

Coming off a 40-34 overtime loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars on Sunday — a game in which the Cowboys held a 27-10 lead with just over five minutes remaining in the third quarter — Dallas needed the New York Giants to beat the Washington Commanders for the Cowboys to clinch a playoff berth. (Which did happen.) It wasn’t exactly the most convincing way to make the case that the league’s most polarizing franchise will finally make it past the divisional round. So why should this year be any different in Big D?

Even following the loss, there are plenty of reasons for optimism for this year’s Cowboys squad. Dallas currently sits in second in the NFC East, the league’s most competitive division this season, and the defense has played a key role in getting the team to this point. The unit is tied for the seventh-best scoring defense in the NFL, allowing just 19.2 points per game, and ranks fifth in defensive efficiency (63.75). The defense also boasts 3.56 expected points added per game, which ranks fourth this season. 

In addition to those top-line numbers, Dallas has recorded 49 sacks, second to only the Eagles, and forced a league-leading 26 turnovers this season. And the team is holding opposing offenses to just 324.6 yards per game, the eighth-fewest in the NFL. (No wonder star linebacker Micah Parsons was so confident during a recent interview with Von Miller on The VonCast.)

The offense has been productive as well, which could be a result of balanced playcalling. The Cowboys’ run/pass ratio has been nearly perfectly 50-50 through Week 15, as the offense has called for only one more passing play (442 pass attempts) than it has rushing plays (441 carries). That balance has helped the unit maintain its status as one of the most prolific offenses in the league. This season, Dallas is averaging the third-most points of any team this season, with 28.1 points per game, and it has the seventh-highest offensive efficiency rating (58.26) according to ESPN’s Stats & Information Group. That efficiency may be most evident in the red zone. When inside the opponent’s 20-yard line, the Cowboys are scoring touchdowns 71.7 percent of the time, which ranks behind only the Eagles (73.5).

Even with all that appears to be going right for Dallas, the team also has its share of obstacles, which could make the path to breaking its divisional round curse difficult. Perhaps health is the biggest issue Dallas is facing: The defense already has lost multiple starters for the season, in cornerbacks Jourdan Lewis and Anthony Brown and defensive tackle Johnathan Hankins. Starting linebacker Leighton Vander Esch also left Sunday’s game with a neck injury, while the offense lost starting right tackle Terence Steele for the season last week due to a knee injury.

Additionally, any assessment of Dallas’s chances should also consider the NFC’s potential playoff landscape. For as good as the Cowboys have been this season, a strong argument could be made that they’re still only the third- or even fourth-best team in the conference, depending on which metric you look at.

Among NFC teams, Dallas trails Philadelphia and the Minnesota Vikings in winning percentage and is behind Philly and the San Francisco 49ers in points-per-game differential. The Eagles have the league’s best record and appear primed to win the NFC East and claim the No. 1 seed in the conference. San Francisco has won seven straight games, and has dropped only one home game all season. The Vikings, despite a 40-3 blowout loss to Dallas in Week 11, still hold the No. 2 seed in the conference and showed the resilience of a team that could be a threat to anybody in the postseason after pulling off the biggest comeback in NFL history last weekend. The Cowboys might be favored in a playoff game against Minnesota or San Francisco, but they wouldn’t be versus Philadelphia — and none of those games figures to be easy either way.

And even though Dallas already has clinched a playoff berth, the team currently holds only a wild-card spot, meaning it would have to go through the NFC South winner (most likely the Tampa Bay Buccaneers) to even get to any of those other NFC foes. 

FiveThirtyEight’s model gives the Cowboys an 8.1 percent chance to win it all, which ranks fifth among all NFL teams. But they have only a 32.5 percent chance to make the conference title game (worst among any team with at least 4 percent Super Bowl odds), in large part because getting out of the first round — and then getting past one of those other heavy hitters in the conference — is no guarantee. That means there’s roughly a 2-in-3 chance that we will find ourselves asking why the Cowboys can’t make it past the divisional round yet again, despite how good Dallas has looked for much of the 2022 season.

Check out our latest NFL predictions.

NFL

We’re Still Processing Week 15’s Most Mind-Blowing Finishes

A FiveThirtyEight Chat

Dec. 19, 2022, at 4:26 PM

maya (Maya Sweedler, editor): Quick show of hands, who else is still picking themselves up off the floor from Sunday?

neil (Neil Paine, acting sports editor):

maya: One day after the largest comeback in NFL history, Sunday’s games brought some of the wildest finishes, thrilling sequences and (sorry to New England) funniest game-losing plays I’ve ever seen. Week 15 saw THREE 17-point comebacks! The AFC playoff picture couldn’t be any messier than it is right now! Jalen Hurts is now one rushing touchdown away from tying the NFL record for quarterbacks, and there’s a nonzero chance we’re not going to get to it today!

Instead, we’re going to start with the four most, for lack of a better phrase, bonkers games of this week.

Each of us has picked one of this week’s win probability Hall of Fame entries — the Minnesota Vikings’ massive comeback against the Indianapolis Colts, the Cincinnati Bengals’ rally over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the Jacksonville Jaguars’ overtime victory over the Dallas Cowboys and the Las Vegas Raiders’ walk-off over the New England Patriots — and talk through one key trend or stat that led to the wild swings we saw. 

Salfino (Michael Salfino, FiveThirtyEight contributor) The first game was Colts vs. Vikings, so I’ll start there. It’s the revenge of Frank Reich game, since he authored the biggest comeback in NFL playoff history and this is the first in regular-season history where a winning team had trailed by at least 30 points (it was 33-0 at halftime).

joshua.hermsmeyer (Josh Hermsmeyer, NFL analyst): Matt Ryan might be bad at holding leads. So weird!

neil: I feel bad for the guy at this point.

Also, I love weirdo coincidences like that, Mike — there was no reason for Frank Reich to be connected to both games, except the Football Gods wanted it.

Salfino: I can’t really get on Jeff Saturday here or even Matt Ryan. I know it’s very convenient to criticize both, given Ryan blowing that Super Bowl and now this game, and Saturday being a TV studio-to-sideline joke.

maya: I remember watching that Falcons-Patriots Super Bowl and feeling some sense of inevitability around seven minutes into the fourth quarter. I certainly was not feeling that on Saturday (perhaps the difference between having peak Tom Brady under center vs. Kirk Cousins), but given how the Vikings have been playing this season — always somehow finding a way to win — perhaps I should’ve.

neil: When it became clear the Vikings could make it a one-score outcome, you knew they were going to win.

(Because that’s just what they do.)

Salfino: So after the big comeback to get to one score, where the Vikings always win for some reason, the Colts fumble and stop the Vikings. They get the ball back and really the game comes down to a QB sneak. After all this. After all the win probability frittered away, the Colts have a fourth and a foot at the Vikings 36-yard line and Ryan, who was 9-for-11 on sneaks since 2020, does not convert. QBs are 82.4 percent getting a yard or less on third and fourth down since 2020. And 82.5 percent this year. But should a TE or someone take that snap? A real runner? Would that make it near 100 percent?

While those probabilities are on plays needing up to a yard, this was about a third of that.

Why not do the new play that should be outlawed where a real runner gets pushed by two guys behind him?

That Eagles play.

neil: We call that the “Reggie Bush.”

joshua.hermsmeyer: I just want to point out that as much grief as Cousins takes, he’s certainly above average. You always need luck to win in this league, and the Vikings are getting it.

maya: The wonderful thing about this Vikings team is that their expected win-loss total, based on point differential, is 7-7. They’re four wins over that. How many more until we can call them the luckiest team in the history of the NFL?

neil: There’s a very strong case for them as the LOAT (Luckiest Of All Time). Among all NFL or AFL teams with at least 10 games played, they have the largest gap between actual and expected winning percentage, beating out the <checks notes> 1929 Orange Tornadoes:

joshua.hermsmeyer: Why do the Tornadoes gotta be orange?

Salfino: Yeah, that’s weird.

neil: They played in Orange, New Jersey!

joshua.hermsmeyer: Aha!

Salfino: Awesome!

neil: Interestingly, the 2022 Eagles are also on that list …

maya: They’re just doing it without the drama.

We’ve been skeptical about how long this luck would last for quite some time, but so far, it hasn’t run out. I might just sit back, let myself believe and simply enjoy the Justin Jefferson show. Catch you all in the divisional round …

Salfino: Maybe the Eagles are the poor man’s Vikings when it comes to luck, yet everyone thinks the Eagles are a legit Super Bowl favorite and no one respects the Vikings (rightfully, IMO).

maya: Does anyone respect the Vikings more for this comeback?

joshua.hermsmeyer: I do, Maya! It was the greatest comeback ever. That it came against one of the worst head-coaching hires since, well, Urban Meyer, shouldn’t take away from that. Much. 

maya: I do too. I’m just repeatedly impressed by this team’s discipline. Even when they’re down big, they don’t get frantic and/or sloppy. Not sure if that’s because Minnesota has some experienced players or because they’re well-coached, but I allow for both.

Salfino: Incredibly it was 36-7 late in the third quarter. But, no.

Are the Colts worse since hiring Saturday and firing Reich? I don’t see that, honestly. 

neil: Well, I mean, they were 3-5-1 under Reich and are 1-4 under Saturday.

Reich probably could’ve gone 1-4 too.

Salfino: I just mean that the Colts with Saturday are performing like a random team with an interim coach. It seems to me.

maya: To be fair, they haven’t exactly played a cupcake schedule since firing Reich. Cowboys and Eagles in the first four games?

neil: That’s true. Maybe I am just measuring it against Jim Irsay’s justifications for the move.

He “sensed something with the team” (or whatever) and needed to change it.

But honestly, they were going nowhere before and they’re going less of anywhere now.

maya: I don’t feel at all bad about devoting this much space to a team that tied (TIED) the Houston Texans in Week 1.

Salfino: That was the tell, Maya.

neil: Hey, the Texans have given the Cowboys and Chiefs fits in recent weeks!

joshua.hermsmeyer: Back-to-back weeks, even.

maya: I was much more willing to write off last week’s tumble in Texas as a fluke until yesterday afternoon.

But speaking of! Let’s turn to some of those other games.

joshua.hermsmeyer: My pick for the stat that decided the Tampa Bay-Cincinnati game is turnovers. The Bucs had four second-half turnovers that directly led to 21 points. What’s interesting, though, is that the Tampa Bay defense gave up more points than we’d expect. The EPA on those turnovers was just under minus-15. So It wasn’t all Brady’s fault! Also, Joe Burrow might be good.

Salfino: Brady had four turnovers.

joshua.hermsmeyer: One was at the mesh point, hard to put it all on Tom Terrific.

Salfino: OK, he had “three-plus.” Everyone goes out of their way to ignore the obvious fact that Brady is toast. He’s averaging 6.3 yards per attempt this year.

joshua.hermsmeyer: If you grind the film fine enough, you’ll see that Brady’s arm is still good, Mike. You just need to watch the games correctly.

Salfino: I confess to not grinding.

joshua.hermsmeyer: It was interesting how the Bengals defense confused him on the first interception. They showed a full-on blitz with seven players on the line of scrimmage, then only rushed three!

Salfino: The Bucs score how many points per game? Even including that garbage-time TD yesterday?

neil: They’re averaging 17.6, Mike — or 4.4 worse than NFL average. That’s easily the worst offense that ever had Brady as its primary QB, relative to the league. (In fact, it’s the only time he’s ever led a below-average offense.) 

And yet the Bucs will win their division and host a playoff game. (And they will scare approximately no one.)

Salfino: That ranks 28th, Neil. But I guess you’re right. We get the Ghost of Brady in the playoffs, and the Cowboys clearly can lose to anyone.

maya: Brady has been bad under pressure for years. The fact that three of his turnovers came under pressure yesterday was neither surprising nor evidence that he’s washed — it’s been a feature of his play for at least the last decade and a half.

Just google “Tom Brady Super Bowl XLII.”

joshua.hermsmeyer: Yeah, that second pick was when they brought pressure, Maya. Was an impressive interception that Jim Nantz was sure hit the turf.

maya: Brady was 1-for-6 against seven pressures in the second half with two picks and a fumble.

Salfino: What would prove Brady is washed if not this entire season? 

Everyone else is in the “Where will Brady play next year?” camp. It’s just me saying: the broadcast booth, hopefully, for his sake and ours.

neil: It’s weird, Mike. Brady’s individual numbers are not horrible. His adjusted net yards per attempt is basically league average still. Yet the Bucs offense is horrible.

We’ve seen Brady have meh numbers on teams that won anyway. We’ve seen Brady have all-time numbers on all-time offenses. But I don’t think we’ve seen Brady have OK numbers on a team where it didn’t translate to points.

Salfino: I hate adding TDs and picks to YPA. Just use YPA where he’s GRUESOME. It’s not like the Bucs are scoring points, either. So who cares about that adjustment?

neil: I don’t really want to get into a YPA vs. ANYPA argument this morning, LOL.

Salfino: Plus 10 of his 20 TD passes have been in the fourth quarter. He has 10 — TEN — in the first three quarters.

neil: Yes, he has been the king of “do nothing for 45-plus minutes and then try to furiously come back at the end” this season.

Salfino: The circus leaves town for everyone eventually. Brady is low-key 2015 Peyton.

joshua.hermsmeyer: Woof.

neil: Without the 2015 Broncos defense.

maya: Ouch.

neil: (Not that the Bucs defense is bad or anything, but you need to be one of the best ever to overcome such an ineffective offense.)

maya: Let’s move onto the next game. I’m gonna take the Jaguars’ win over the Cowboys.

I thought about going with Dak Prescott’s interceptions. He’s had seven in the past four games, for a total of 11 on a season in which he’s played only nine games. But that feels a bit facile — Dak isn’t the reason the Cowboys lost Sunday.

The Jaguars put up 503 yards. FIVE HUNDRED AND THREE. In just 27 minutes and 42 seconds of possession.

So this one goes out to Trevor Lawrence, who has indeed arrived and is making a killing on short passes across the entire width of the field.

Salfino: The Jaguars are fun. It’s fun to see a franchise QB announce himself to the world.

Dallas’s defense is regressing before our eyes when we just assume that defense is not stable more year-to-year than week-to-week.

joshua.hermsmeyer: I am an absolute child.

neil: Good use of analytics, or bad use of analytics? LOL.

joshua.hermsmeyer: But yes, I am on Team Trevor.

maya: I’m particularly impressed with his outside-the-numbers passes. Through Week 15, he’s got a raw QBR of 77.3 on passes outside the numbers this season, the fifth-best in the league.

Yesterday, he put up 159 yards and threw two touchdowns on passes outside the numbers at any depth. 

That’s like a whole-ass Zach Wilson gameline.

Salfino: Holding fire on Wilson being the Jets’ whipping boy. Pins and needles, needles and pins … 

neil: We just compared Brady to Peyton at the back end of his career. So why not do another comparison? Feels like Lawrence is making that leap Peyton did after a rough first season-plus at the beginning of his career.

(Both led the league in picks as rookies but improved dramatically during Year 2.)

Salfino: Well, I am old enough to have been there, and no one (I mean NO ONE) didn’t think Peyton wasn’t going to be great as a rookie. Most of those picks came early. And picks weren’t as big a deal then.

neil: But no one didn’t think Lawrence would be great either.

Salfino: So Lawrence as a rookie was way different/worse than Peyton. 

neil: Lawrence was probably the most hyped QB prospect since Peyton.

maya: Since Andrew Luck, I’d say.

Neil: OK, sure.

Salfino: But I’d bet a lot of money that Lawrence will continue to be great/a true franchise QB.

joshua.hermsmeyer: I like Luck as the anchor there, Maya. It leaves open the possibility that Lawrence is good, but not a Hall of Famer. 

maya: I’ve also really come to appreciate how horrendous Urban Meyer was.

The difference between this year’s version of the Jags and last year’s is as clear to me as it is to Rayshawn Jenkins:

Salfino: Any thoughts on Dak? This is his worst QBR season. Is he in the average QB bucket?

neil: I was thinking about that too, Mike. The Cowboys offense is one of the best in the Dak era, yet Dak himself isn’t having one of his best statistical seasons.

Is that good or bad for the Cowboys? Who knows.

joshua.hermsmeyer: The Cowboys feel like a team at the end of their window, and their window wasn’t particularly large to begin with. 

Salfino: The window for teams with four playoff wins since 1995.

ABC. Always. Be. Closing (the window). 

Dak needs the Glengarry leads.

joshua.hermsmeyer: He already stole the money, hey-o.

Salfino: America’s team is the Lions.

maya: We will absolutely get to them, but before we do — Neil, bring it home with the last of Sunday’s crazy games! 

Perhaps the craziest of them all …

neil: Uh, yes. My important stat was going to be the Pats’ defense and ball control in the second half against Vegas, when they clamped down on Derek Carr and ran roughshod with Rhamondre Stevenson. Instead, it became the fact that this was only the second go-ahead defensive TD with zero time on the clock in regulation in NFL history.

(And who could forget the previous, Chuck Shonta for the Boston Patriots — of all teams — versus the New York Titans in 1960?)

BTW, I liked this headline: 

“Pats players say costly laterals were improvised”

Oh really? I thought maybe Belichick drew it up that way.

But seriously, that was maybe the dumbest way a team ever lost a game in NFL history. Growing up, one of my favorite VHS tapes was the NFL’s 100 Greatest Follies.

No. 1 on the list was Jim Marshall’s wrong-way run. I think this might have been dumber.

Salfino: 

joshua.hermsmeyer: Jakobi Meyers threw the game to protect his boy Josh McDaniels’s job, prove me wrong.

Salfino: The Colts did get a break this weekend, in no longer having the most ill-advised play in NFL history. 

maya: For a former high school quarterback, Meyers certainly threw one of the worst-looking passes I’ve ever seen …

maya: And poor Mac Jones! The last potential tackler before the end zone.

joshua.hermsmeyer: Jones got stiff-armed into oblivion. 

neil: When it became clear Chandler Jones only had to truck Mac Jones to score a walk-off TD, I started laughing so hard. It was so ridiculous.

Salfino: They really picked the wrong-way run, Neil? I think this is in another category. But we will be talking about it in 60 years. Well, not me. But it will be talked about.

neil: Take it up with NFL Films in 1993, Mike.

BTW, what was Mac Jones going to do with it anyway? (Even if he had somehow caught it.) Nothing about it made any sense.

maya: That’s a great point.

Salfino: The stiff arm was the coup de grâce. And right, Neil. Jones can’t throw it forward.

joshua.hermsmeyer: If the pass was to Justin Fields, it would have made some sense.

maya: It honestly might’ve made more sense if it were going to Bailey Zappe …

Salfino: Jones is lucky because we’re all too distracted by the play to talk about how horrible he was. Again.

neil: What’s crazy is that Kyle Dugger had an amazing pick-six earlier in the game on one of the best reads to jump a route I’ve ever seen. And it wasn’t even the best “pick-six” (yes, I know technically Jones’s was a fumble return) of the game.

joshua.hermsmeyer: That was an amazing jump Dugger got on the ball. Kind of collected it with one hand while moving at light speed. 

Salfino: BTW: 

neil: Bahahahahaha

joshua.hermsmeyer: Never forget that the Patriots signed Drew Bledsoe to the largest ever contract while Brady was already on the team, too.

maya: OK, so we’ve hit on all four of these games. Which one produced the biggest WTF moment, and which one will be most important come January?

I think my jaw hit the floor on the Pats’ woebegone lateral, but I see the Jaguars’ win actually mattering the most for the playoffs (for them, though — despite their loss, the Cowboys still locked up a playoff spot with the Washington Commanders’ loss on Sunday night).

Salfino: I think the games were most important for the Bengals, who to me are a true Super Bowl contender and right there with the Bills and Chiefs, if not better/more balanced. They pretty much win the division now. 

joshua.hermsmeyer: I’m not sure I’m as sold on the Bengals, but I am also biased because of my Baltimore fandom. I am all-in on the Jags though. I noted last week the Jags and the Lions would make my top eight teams I don’t want to face in the playoffs, and both won this week. 

Salfino: Neither team plays any defense though. That’s a problem in January. If they get there.

neil: The Pats/Raiders WTF moment didn’t really matter for Vegas much — their playoff odds went from 4 percent before the week to 5 percent now. But it did really destroy the Pats’ odds (39 percent to 19 percent) and opened the door for some other AFC bubble teams as a result.

maya: It feels like the entire AFC is on the bubble at this point.

Salfino: Again, the Lions are America’s team. But they got that game gift-wrapped. Special teams TD. Robert Saleh/Jets selling out on fourth-and-1 at midfield and giving up a TD with a four-point lead in the final two minutes (the play was essentially meaningless beforehand). And then the gross, just disgusting clock/timeout management by Saleh, who took a TO in the locker room, called his first of three with 19 seconds left and had to kick a 58-yard FG on first down. 

joshua.hermsmeyer: The roar is restored though. They hit their preseason win total (6.5) over with weeks to spare. 

neil: And hey, the Jets have better playoff odds than the Patriots at this point!

(Twenty percent to 19.)

Salfino: I think I can speak authoritatively that that Jets loss was a top-three most disgusting loss in their history. As far as just giving a game away.

joshua.hermsmeyer: LOL

Salfino: The only loss clearly ahead of it was the playoff loss in Pittsburgh when they missed a couple of field goals, which lead to them drafting a kicker in the second round the next year.

maya: Fourteen months ago, Neil — a wonderful colleague, as many of our faithful readers have likely surmised — made a “distracted boyfriend” meme about Zach Wilson and Mike White that I started using as my avatar on Slack. I’ve never regretted keeping it, and after Sunday, I don’t think I ever will change it.

joshua.hermsmeyer: Neil is a prophet, it is known. He speaks in meme to those who will listen.

Salfino: Maya, this loss is 100 percent on the head coach and not Zach Wilson. An enterprising beat reporter would have asked Saleh if he can look his team in the eye after that game and then trashed him when he, like Zach weeks ago, took ZERO accountability.

maya: Oh, I disagree! He doesn’t deserve all the blame, but that third-quarter interception was on Wilson.

Salfino: OK, he threw a pick. He also made enough plays to win. The coach lost the game, there is no question.

maya: But after the pick, he started missing open guys all over the field. Garrett Wilson basically disappeared. 

Salfino: I’m not even defending Wilson. I don’t care about him. White is very overrated, though, to be fair. His QBR is barely better than Wilson’s. But whatever. This was a coaching error that could have been obviated by paying some low-level assistant $75,000 to just manage the clock and timeouts. Instead, the Jets are probably out of the playoffs now.

maya: It’s definitely not looking great for the Jets. But right now, the only team that’s joined last week’s eliminated teams is Arizona. Meaning the 4-9 Rams and 4-9-1 Colts are still mathematically in the hunt.

Salfino: Wilson is playing again Thursday versus the Jags, 100 percent. No way does White, who has a broken rib, get cleared to play.

joshua.hermsmeyer: I would feel safer if the Jets don’t make the playoffs, to be honest. I don’t need Saleh going full Liam Neeson on the people he has receipts on. 

Check out our latest NFL predictions.

NFL

NFL Games Have Never Been Closer. Here's Why.

By Josh Hermsmeyer

Dec. 15, 2022, at 6:00 AM

If it seems like there are a ton of tight games each week in the NFL this season, you’re definitely not imagining things. When it comes to close contests, 2022 is shaping up to be an all-timer. So far this season, 92 games (90 decisions and two ties) have been decided by 6 points or fewer, the most through Week 14 in NFL history. To put that in perspective, at least half of all games played in nine out of 14 weeks were decided by 6 points or fewer.

All these close games have led to some incredibly exciting finishes. The most recent example is Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott’s last-minute drive Sunday against the Houston Texans, a win that saved the Cowboys from the embarrassment of losing to a 17-point underdog. On Thursday in L.A., we were also treated to an improbable Baker Mayfield-led comeback against the Las Vegas Raiders — a win that came just two days after he joined the Rams. And there have been 75 more game-winning drives where those came from since the season started.

In fact, teams are on pace to record 101 game-winning drives in 2022, 12 more than in any other season since the merger. And even after adjusting for the added games from a 17-week season, the pace is historic: The NFL is averaging 5.5 game winning drives per week. Mercy.

What’s going on here? Who pumped up the parity to such preposterous proportions, and should we expect it to continue?

One partial answer is that teams have become more conservative in their passing attacks for most of the game, checking down more than in any season since at least the mid-2000s. Nearly 24 percent of all pass attempts have been at or behind the line of scrimmage in 2022, up 5.8 percentage points from 2006 (our first season with data) and the highest figure we’ve seen since that year. The average depth of target across the NFL has fallen from 8.74 to 7.47 yards over that span and, in a not-so-shocking twist, the shorter passing has led to lower passing yardage: Yards per completion have also hit a 16-year low, at 10.95. 

The net effect of the dip in downfield passing has been fewer passing touchdowns and a decrease in overall scoring. NFL teams are averaging 22.0 points per game in 2022, down from an all-time high of 24.8 just two seasons ago. Part of the dip in offense could be explained by the increase in two-high-safety coverages across the league, but the evidence for that theory isn’t terribly strong. (It could also just be all of those Justin Herbert checkdowns.)

In some ways, the league has morphed from one where gunslingers fill the air with downfield bombs into one that the power run-loving Vince Lombardi might appreciate. For instance, interceptions per game, which have been on a steady decline since the 1950s, are now at their lowest levels since 1930. Meanwhile, rushing has never been more efficient. Yes, that’s right: NFL teams have been passing so much that it’s gotten easier to pick up yardage on the ground. Yards per rushing attempt has increased from last season’s high-water mark of 4.4 to 4.5 yards per carry, the most in league history. 

But it’s not just old-school conservatism that’s leading to the close games. One part of the game Lombardi would not recognize (and probably wouldn’t approve of, either) is the continued popularity of going for it on fourth down. On a per-game basis, coaches are going for it the second-most frequently since at least 1984,²⁰ and they’re converting those tries at the seventh-highest rate in that same span. The majority of the league (20 teams) have gone for it 15 or more times this season.

The main benefit of fourth-down aggression is that it allows teams to extend drives. Time of possession per drive (2:48) is the second-highest it’s been since 2000 (2:32), a 16-second increase over that period. The drawback for offenses is that longer drives means fewer possessions per game. 

A little modeling shows that we should expect teams to lose about a drive per game for every 15-second increase in time of possession per drive.²¹ And in 2022, teams are right at 10.9 drives per game — exactly one drive per game fewer than in 2000. Fewer, longer drives are a solid recipe for close games, especially when those drives are filled with runs and quarterbacks throwing short of the line of scrimmage.

This mixed bag of conservatism and aggression is making for close scores and compelling finishes. Teams are playing it safe most of the way, passing short to avoid turnovers through the air and running the ball to take advantage of the two-high safety looks they’re seeing more often. But when they fall behind and need to pass late, offenses aren’t hesitating to use all the downs that Walter Camp has bestowed on them.

If these trends continue, there’s no reason to expect the close games to go away. The lack of scoring might make for less-than-exciting play early in games — but if it means tight scores late in the fourth quarter and a record-breaking volume of contests decided on the final drive, that seems like a trade-off well worth making.

Check out our latest NFL predictions.

NFL

How The Entire NFC East Can Make The Playoffs

By Andres Waters

Dec. 14, 2022, at 12:28 PM

It’s the holiday season, and the playoff race in the NFC East could give us an unprecedented gift: All four teams in one division making it to the postseason, which has never happened in the 90-year history of the NFL playoffs. Although the New York Giants’ loss to the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday pushed the odds of that happening in the wrong direction, the entire division is at least two games above .500, meaning there’s still a surprisingly decent chance that it could happen.

Right now, the NFC East has a 23.8 percent chance of sending all four of its teams to the postseason, according to FiveThirtyEight’s NFL forecast model. The only other division with even a remote possibility to do the same is the AFC East — but its odds are just 0.5 percent.

With the Philadelphia Eagles having already clinched a playoff berth and the Dallas Cowboys not too far behind — we give them a better than 99 percent chance —  the hopes of getting all four NFC East teams in really just hinge on the Washington Commanders (73 percent) and New York Giants (45 percent). Those two teams happened to have tied each other just a few weeks ago; now the pressure is on each to help its division make NFL history.

Last week’s game between the Eagles and Giants was a golden opportunity to increase those odds. With a New York win, the odds of the entire division making the postseason would have leapt from 24.1 percent to nearly 40 percent (38.1). Instead, the Giants’ loss dropped those odds, which were only salvaged by the Seattle Seahawks’ home loss to the Carolina Panthers later that day.

The Giants will get a few more chances to atone for that slip-up. Their last three games of the season — against the Indianapolis Colts, the Minnesota Vikings and the Eagles, respectively — are the three most crucial for getting the whole division into the playoffs, in terms of how much they would boost the probability of that scenario happening. Each could swing those chances by more than 21 percentage points, if the Giants win. 

Interestingly, though, the upcoming Week 15 Giants-Commanders game is one of the least important games for getting the entire division into the playoffs. A win or loss for either team only swings the odds by 4.9 percentage points. (This is because one team’s win is the other’s loss — it doesn’t change much for the division in the aggregate.)

After the Giants’ last three games, the Commanders’ Week 17 game against the Cleveland Browns and Week 16 game against the San Francisco 49ers are the most impactful. A Washington win in either game would boost the odds by 11.5 and 10.4 percentage points, respectively. 

Of course, while a 23.8 percent chance is not nothing, it’s much more likely that we’ll see only three of the NFC East’s teams in the postseason. And that would be a rarity in itself. According to Sports Illustrated, three teams have made the playoffs from the same division just nine times since 2002, when the league changed to four divisions per conference.²² Entering Week 15, the 2022 NFC East has a 70.1 percent chance of joining that club. 

Though the chances are only a little over half those of the NFC East, the AFC East — which at one point also looked primed to get four teams into the playoffs — could also send three teams into the postseason. After the New England Patriots’ victory on Monday night, the division has a 42.6 percent chance of pulling off the feat. And if both East divisions were to get three teams in, it would be only the second time two divisions each had three playoff representatives in the same year. 

The odds of that happening are 30.4 percent, according to our model — a bit better than the chances of seeing all four teams from one division make it. With so many different scenarios floating around this season, fans anticipating NFL history might just see their wish come true. 

Check out our latest NFL predictions.

NFL

The Dolphins Take Another L, The Lions Grab Another W, And The NFL Playoff Picture Gets Clearer

A FiveThirtyEight Chat

Dec. 12, 2022, at 4:27 PM

maya (Maya Sweedler, editor): With four weeks remaining in the regular season, the NFL playoff picture is beginning to shape up quite nicely. But there’s still a fair amount of uncertainty remaining, with a couple of yesterday’s outcomes — the L.A. Chargers hanging on to defeat the Miami Dolphins, the Detroit Lions (who have won five of their last six games) taking a look at the Vegas line and going “yeah, OK” against the Minnesota Vikings, the Jacksonville Jaguars solidly beating the division-leading Tennessee Titans to remain within two games — adding to that.

We’re going to hit on the team that clinched a berth, the eliminated teams and the teams that found success with new quarterbacks (I can’t guarantee we won’t get to the obligatory “defend Jimmy G.” part of the chat), but let’s first talk about those three games.

A week after the San Francisco 49ers defense executed their game plan to perfection against Tua Tagovailoa and the Dolphins’ receiving threats, the Chargers defense got right up on the line of scrimmage and held Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle to a combined 112 yards. Why was that so effective? Have teams learned how to stop this insanely talented Miami offense?

neil (Neil Paine, acting sports editor): One big thing for L.A. was taking away the deep passing. Tua came into the game ranked third in QBR on passes of 15-plus air yards, but he was the second-worst QB of Week 14 on deep throws, with a 9.9 QBR (ahead of only Geno Smith). Those deep numbers are UGLY: 1-for-9 with a -26.6 completion percentage over expected. 

joshua.hermsmeyer (Josh Hermsmeyer, NFL analyst): I think the Chargers did three things well:

1. They were physical with the speedy receivers at and even behind the line of scrimmage. And not just the corners playing press — Kyle Van Noy got some shots in on Waddle and Hill.

2. They handled motion really well. Heading into Week 14, Tua led the NFL in dropbacks with motion at the snap, and he had a raw QBR of 63.5 on those plays. Against the Chargers, he had a QBR of just 29.9 on 12 dropbacks with motion at the snap.

3. They played press on all but five snaps. I’m not sure how much this is something other teams can emulate, though. Hill’s long touchdown came against press-man coverage. I think that’s going to be the likely outcome in a game more often than not for DBs on teams that try and copy L.A., but the Chargers were up to the task on the rest of their snaps.

Salfino (Michael Salfino, FiveThirtyEight contributor): Things aren’t perfect for Tua now. Waddle has been banged up. Hill hurt his ankle at the end of the second half (when the Dolphins were already dead offensively, to be fair). The Dolphins offensive line has some injuries. The test of a QB isn’t how they play when things are perfect and against terrible defenses. It’s how they perform when circumstances are far from ideal, and Tua has failed over the past two weeks. I did see this film analysis on why Tua was so clearly confused:

maya: Is press coverage against the Dolphins this year’s version of cover-2 defense against the 2021 Chiefs? How does this compare to the game plan the Niners rolled out last week, which seemed to rely less on removing the deep ball and more on Fred Warner and the rangy Niners secondary forcing Tua to throw to the sideline?

joshua.hermsmeyer: It was different from the Niners, to answer that part. The 49ers used quarters coverage about one-third of the time against Tua, while the Chargers only played cover-4 once.

Chargers coach Brandon Staley spoke about this when he was asked after the game about the similarities between the two team’s approaches. He said “They didn’t play press stuff like we did tonight. They played quarters off most of the time or two-deep, so their game plan was completely different from ours.”

neil: Staley trying to get out ahead of the “Niners did it first!” comments.

“We didn’t just copy them!!!”

Salfino: I think the Dolphins made the classic mistake of playing to your perceived strength vs. attacking the opponent. The Chargers are among the league’s worst run defenses, and nine of the Dolphins’ 12 plays were pass plays — and they punted three times. If teams are playing cover-2, you have to run them out of that. 

neil: That’s an interesting question, Mike — where is that line between taking what the defense wants to give you versus doing what you want to do? Clearly the Dolphins didn’t figure it out. 

maya: To be fair, there are pretty fundamental differences between the Niners and Chargers defenses — the base (Niners play 4-3, Chargers play 3-4), the (sorry!) level of talent.

Salfino: Also, the Niners defense is great and the Chargers defense is bad.

joshua.hermsmeyer: Yeah, Maya, I think the key was how physical they were and taking away the Dolphins’ favorite concepts, like jet motion. Here’s an example where they do both, with Van Noy blowing up Waddle in the backfield.

 I just think the Dolphins weren’t ready for this defense.

Salfino: This is a great plan against the Dolphins, Josh, because Tua wants to get the ball out quickly so if you disrupt the route initially, the entire play has already gone sideways.

neil: Right. One other interesting aspect of that was that Tua did have time to throw. He was pressured only 6.1 percent of the time, one of his lowest rates of the season.

Yet he did nothing with the extra time.

joshua.hermsmeyer: Absolutely. Tua has one of the lowest average times to throw in the league. 

maya: Is that on Mike McDaniel, the Dolphins more broadly or Tua?

I’m not trying to call down TuaNon — I think Tagovailoa has acquitted himself quite well this season — but the fact of the matter is he’s a gifted but young quarterback who remains somewhat skittish in the pocket.

Salfino: Well in fairness, Tua obviously has an A game (especially against the bad defenses, i.e., most of the NFL). But does he have a B game? This may just be Tua’s limitation, not McDaniel’s lack of planning/making adjustments. 

neil: And it’s a bad time for him to have a few games that seemingly “expose” him the way his critics have been hoping to see all year.

joshua.hermsmeyer: I think the Dolphins could have won this game if Waddle and Tua had been on the same page — or if Waddle had won his one-on-ones. 

Salfino: The Buffalo Bills are on deck. Murder, She Wrote.

The Dolphins might not make the playoffs.

neil: If they lose to the Bills, their playoff odds somehow drop below 70 percent, Mike. (That hadn’t been true since Week 7.) 

Salfino: They’re probably behind the Jets after next week.

maya: And what about the Chargers? 

It’s been pretty clear for weeks that this AFC West division wasn’t going to be the juggernaut that a lot of folks predicted preseason. But even if the division title is out of reach (literally or spiritually), could the Chargers — who today have a 59 percent chance of making the playoffs, according to our model — do some damage?

Salfino: Herbert was fantastic and had his starting receivers for the first time since Week 1. Not a coincidence. 

neil: Also, the Dolphins thought they had a plan against Herbert — bring pressure with the blitz, where he had been ranked 21st in QBR (59.8) going into the game. He proceeded to have an 89.7 QBR against the blitz Sunday night.

Here are some numbers from ESPN’s Stats & Information Group:

“The Dolphins tried to hurry Herbert all night, blitzing on 26 of his 56 dropbacks (46%), the most blitzes he has faced in a game in his career. He was unfazed by the extra rushers however, completing 15-of-24 passes against the blitz for 133 yards and 8 first downs.”

Salfino: My problem with the Chargers is they have a very slow, unexplosive offense and can’t stop the run, which is a bad combination against good teams.

joshua.hermsmeyer: I’m not sure how deep L.A. goes into the playoffs, if it makes it. It’s such a slog watching the offense sometimes. Maybe that’s why people get really excited when Herbert makes a great throw. You’re so annoyed at that point, it is cathartic. 

neil: That’s what makes Herbert and Tua such an interesting juxtaposition. When Herbert has a great throw in a sea of checkdowns, people go wild; when Tua has a bad game or two after a season of amazing deep passing, people see it as pure doom and gloom.

Salfino: Who has the amazing deep passing been against, Neil?

neil: I mean, they haven’t played the toughest schedule, but also not THE easiest.

Salfino: I’m sorry. Tua is not an amazing deep passer. You just have to look at him throwing to see that. I don’t care about the stats.

joshua.hermsmeyer: Tyreek Hill disagrees.

neil: “I don’t care about the stats.” — you heard it here on FiveThirtyEight, folks!

Salfino: Well, I just mean you don’t have to statify EVERYTHING. His receivers are great at getting very open against most defenses. But Bills, Patriots, Niners … we’ll see how Tua does against the Jets. Is any defense afraid of him? They’re afraid of Tyreek, but good defenses can limit his damage.

maya: Speaking of different standards, let’s move on to the Lions, whose offense and defense are in totally separate classes. 

The Lions came in as 2.5-point favorites over a 10-2 Vikings team we’ve been skeptical of all year (though perhaps not as skeptical as Vikings fans themselves — we see you, self-hating Minnesotans) and … beat them by 11. How does this no-defense, high-flying offense do it?!? 

neil: Jared Goff is having a great year, and I kinda love to see it.

Last year was such a pile-on. He gets dumped by the Rams, and then they win a Super Bowl?

Salfino: The Lions are well positioned with that Rams pick and their pick to rebuild their defense. I’m interested in whether Josh thinks they should replace their QB, who may not be championship caliber but seems good enough.

maya: Yeah, Mike, that’s true. But I will point out this is a team with really good bones on both sides of the ball — the fifth-ranked offense by points scored, two fantastic rookie defensive players in defensive lineman Aidan Hutchinson (who leads all rookies in sacks and first pressures) and linebacker James Houston (who is second among rookies in sacks) and a very likable new talent in wide receiver Jameson Williams. How could you not cheer when his first career catch was that beautiful 41-yard touchdown? All this, plus a likely 2022 top-five pick, suggests that this is a team that could really find its rhythm in a year or two.

neil: Goff making the playoffs — we see you, Lions, at 20 percent — while the Rams don’t would be pretty poetic.

joshua.hermsmeyer: Some would say Goff should get limited credit for his production this year; that he’s a play-action passer who gets manufactured looks. I don’t know. I saw some nice third-down throws yesterday from Goff. He may not be as good as his numbers, but as Neil said, everyone roasted him for his poor numbers last year. Seems unfair not to give credit now.

neil: He gets the double-standard treatment like Tua.

Salfino: Any No. 1 overall pick can make throws. Goff has a very loaded offense and is playing in a QB-friendly scheme. The issue is whether he can get just a good — not great — team over the hump.

joshua.hermsmeyer: You mean can he make a Super Bowl?

maya: LOL Josh.

neil: Haha

Salfino: Yes, could they be a Super Bowl team with Goff in that three-year window?

I mean, we’re probably getting ahead of ourselves. The Vikings defense is straight trash, and the Lions and Goff next have to go into MetLife to face the Jets defense. I think we’d all agree that’s not going to be pretty.

neil: I do think that’s right, Mike — that Lions game probably said a lot more about the Vikings than anything else.

Salfino: (Goff has already made the Super Bowl.)

neil: (We know …)

maya: (We don’t need to talk about how the Rams offense looked in that Super Bowl.)

Salfino: (Yet they still almost won.) But here’s the thing, Neil, most defenses are garbage. If the Lions hit on some defensive studs in April, can they win 12 games with Goff? One-hundred percent.

neil: “Most defenses are garbage,” LOL.

Certainly we can’t reliably predict they won’t be!

Salfino: Bill Walsh said you really only have to worry about eight teams, and that’s still true today.

joshua.hermsmeyer: In college you only have to worry about 2.5.

maya: OK, so who are those eight teams?

joshua.hermsmeyer: That’s a great question!

maya: I think we’re all on the same page about the Bills, Chiefs and Eagles.

Probably the Cowboys. Niners. Maybe the Bengals? 

joshua.hermsmeyer: Not the Bucs … 

maya: Yeah I would scratch out both the AFC and NFC South.

neil: The Titans have gone from “looking solid” to “total mess” in under a month.

Maybe the Ravens if Lamar is healthy?

Maybe.

But yeah, that might be it.

joshua.hermsmeyer: Gosh, I think if the Lions or Jags make it to the playoffs, they’d make my list of top eight I’d be worried about. 

Salfino: The teams no one wants to play … You need at least one dominant side of the football or no weaknesses. The Niners, for sure. The Bengals have no obvious weakness. The Dolphins, if the conditions are right and those receivers are healthy. I don’t think any playoff team would want to play the Jets and that defense. That’s about it.

maya: Mike, I so admire how hard you ride for this Jets team.

neil: I’m with you on the Jets! They’ve shown at least the potential to make life uncomfortable for a better team.

(The Bills did not have an easy time with them this week, either.)

maya: Neither did Mike White, though — once George Fant briefly went out, it felt like he was under pressure every play. This patchwork offensive line isn’t enough to keep a pocket clean for Tua, let alone White.

Salfino: If you asked the Bills if they want the Jets in the playoffs, they would unanimously say, “No.”

As for the Titans and New York Giants, show me a team that has to win with coaching, and I’ll show you a team with cleat marks on their foreheads. You can’t make chicken salad out of chicken shit. (If we’re allowed to say that.)

joshua.hermsmeyer: I’m still trying to get my wind back after watching White take all those shots to the ribs. What a painful day. 

And this was without Von Miller!

maya: Rookie Greg Rousseau, with two sacks yesterday and seven pressures the last two games, is a pretty impressive replacement.

Salfino: Mike White showed me something and showed the Bills something, too:

He left the locker room in an ambulance, Rocky II stuff. No way does Zach Wilson play again. The Jets are winning out with White, regardless of whether Miami needs the game (they will). 

maya: Does Wilson start another game this season?

… Does Wilson start another game for the Jets?

neil: Does Wilson ever start in the NFL again?

joshua.hermsmeyer: If he doesn’t, I have nothing but respect for New York’s ability to move on from failed top draft picks at the QB position. And I mean that sincerely. 

neil: Although Sam Darnold was a winner this week …

(Against Geno Smith. An all-ex-Jets matchup.)

joshua.hermsmeyer: Speaking of Geno, regression is real.

Salfino: Geno still made some big throws, but the turnovers were a problem. I think Geno is legit good.

joshua.hermsmeyer: This is from Kevin Cole, and I thought it was surprising: “The first four weeks of the season, Smith was a top-five efficiency quarterback, but ranks 18th from Week 5 on. In fact, Smith’s total EPA was higher the first four weeks (30.9) than the following nine (29.7).” 

neil: It’s interesting that Geno is still top-five on the QBR board for the season as a whole.

Even yesterday, he ranked 11th among all qualified QBs.

maya: To be fair, the offense has seen some pretty major injuries that have required rejiggering the run game multiple times.

neil: Right, no Kenneth Walker or DeeJay Dallas this week.

Salfino: The Seahawks also lost their running game after Week 5. From that point on, they’ve had a rushing success rate of 36 percent. The league average over that period is 46 percent. So that has hurt Seattle’s passing efficiency, I think. I mean, Geno is not Mahomes. He needs some help.

joshua.hermsmeyer: Geno is still making some great throws. He’s just also making more big mistakes. 

Salfino: He’s playing in a lot of pitcher’s counts now.

neil: It’s sad because that was another feel-good surprise story that is sort of evaporating. The Seahawks are now only 55 percent to make the playoffs, down from 84 percent after Week 9.

maya: I blame the NFC East.

Speaking of … Is the best team in that division the one that’s currently leading it?

Salfino: The Eagles took care of business against an inferior opponent, while the Cowboys were slow dancing with the Texans for some reason.

neil: It’s hard to be an Eagles skeptic after that beatdown they laid on the Giants.

And right, Mike, the Cowboys were not exactly blowing the doors off the worst team in the league.

Salfino: The Eagles are a complete team with explosive receiving weapons. Jalen Hurts is playing at an MVP level (when he doesn’t get too run-happy).

neil: But I do get your overall point, Maya, that by the advanced metrics the Cowboys are basically the co-best team in the NFC East with Philly.

The metrics always love the Cowboys more than us skeptical football-watchers, I think.

joshua.hermsmeyer: I respect Elo, but I am all-in on the Eagles. I’m not sure how much to weigh the nearly averted catastrophe against Houston, but I much prefer Philly to the Cowboys.

neil: I’m with you, I don’t quite buy it.

It’s not even just Elo, it’s EPA, DVOA, SRS, all of them basically have those teams tied.

But statistically, the Eagles have the better offense, while the Cowboys have the better defense and special teams. That Christmas Eve game should still have stakes because the Eagles can’t clinch a first-round bye next week. I’m here for this rivalry again. 

Salfino: I don’t think Dak Prescott is playing anywhere near Hurts’s level. They’re not in the same universe this year to me. Hurts is averaging almost 1 more yard gained per pass attempt, which is massive.

The Eagles are also built to beat the Cowboys with that running game, though I’ll add that Hurts and Co. were very disappointing in their last matchup.

neil: To be fair, that was a Cooper Rush game.

(Then again, Rush might be good.)

Salfino: (Rush isn’t good.)

neil: LOL.

Salfino: (Josh is with me here, I can feel it.)

joshua.hermsmeyer: Rush is fine.

Salfino: Purdy >> Rush.

And Maya wants to call him replacement level!!

joshua.hermsmeyer: All hail our new QBR King.

maya: He’s a very accurate passer, yes! And he maybe brings a type of deep ball that Jimmy G. seems unwilling or unable to uncork (small sample size caveats please). But I need like four more weeks.

Salfino: Todd Bowles sleepwalked through that game, it’s true.

maya: I could put 35 points up on the Bucs at this point.

No I couldn’t, I’m 5-foot-3. But I remain skeptical that Purdy isn’t simply inheriting a great game plan and gifted skill players. 

neil: Isn’t that most successful QBs, Maya?

maya: Sure! But when your team rushes for over 200 yards, you’re getting an extra little boost there.

Salfino: Are the Niners QB-proof? Josh? If so, why so many resources on QB?

I say “Josh” because Josh wants to draft a QB every year until you find Mahomes.

joshua.hermsmeyer: I do not think they are QB-proof. Just look at their record when Jimmy G. is not on the field! But they are like those watches that are water resistant down to 25 feet.

neil: Haha, I love that analogy.

That also implies Purdy is not in the depths of the Mullenses or Beathards (or Lances? ).

Salfino: What is the line adjustment in Vegas now with Purdy vs. Jimmy G.? 1.5 points, tops? Less? I can’t believe the disrespect I’m giving to Jimmy G.

I’m saying the Niners’ Super Bowl odds from two weeks ago should be … unchanged?

maya: The Niners’ last four games are Seattle, Washington, Las Vegas and Arizona. With the possible exception of the Washington game (though I think the Niners defense is more than capable of handling their three-headed monster of a receiving corp), you could do that with a snorkel.

Salfino: The Commanders are the NFC’s Jets. That game will not be easy.

joshua.hermsmeyer: I thought this explained QBs under Shanahan pretty well: 

Salfino: I don’t think Shanahan is QB-proof without Christian McCaffrey, though. He was the best player on the field BY FAR.

neil: And you guys say RBs don’t matter …

Salfino: (I know, a RB. I hate myself for saying this.)

joshua.hermsmeyer: I agree, CMC’s catch for a touchdown was very good.

maya: If the Niners beat the Hawks next week, San Francisco will clinch the division, joining Philadelphia (currently the only team with a guaranteed playoff berth). 

Salfino: So the Niners will clinch the division.

joshua.hermsmeyer: It’s been almost a decade since I called myself a Niners fan, but I may end up rooting for them this year.

Salfino: I am a secret Niners fan. I’ve always loved that team. I started because I hated the Cowboys and loved passing.

neil: I had a Trey Lance dynasty in Madden last year. But we don’t need to talk about that.

joshua.hermsmeyer: This explains so much …

Salfino: Purdy or Lance next year?

(I couldn’t resist. I get it’s ridiculous. It might become a low-key White vs. Wilson, though.)

maya: I still would love to see Lance run the triple option with Deebo Samuel in San Francisco

Just for the pure chaos.

Let’s end with a brief requiem for the three teams that have been eliminated from the playoffs: the Houston Texans, Chicago Bears and Denver Broncos. What went wrong for each of these teams, and what should be their biggest offseason priority?

neil: 

Texans: Davis Mills and Lovie Smith weren’t who we thought they were

Bears: Remember when Chicago was known for its fearsome D?

Broncos: Russ is cooked.

joshua.hermsmeyer: I still don’t know what exactly happened to Russell Wilson, but I think I know what needs to change. The head coach and the offensive coordinator are both in over their heads. Nothing they called this week worked. They can’t even execute screens for positive yards when the defense is playing deep and off. Everyone seems to know what’s coming. It’s terrible. Burn it all down.

Salfino: There is no Wilson solution. They take a $107 million hit if they cut him after this year. If they cut him after June 1, 2024, they take a $35 million hit in 2024 and an $18 million hit in 2025. 

Wilson is getting sacked a sickening 9.8 percent. He’s not escaping much anymore and he still has a hard time seeing over the lineman from the pocket. Sacks are mini-turnovers.

maya: The Bears need to fix their defense, but I’m looking forward to seeing Justin Fields next season. The Broncos need a new offense and the Texans a full rebuild.

joshua.hermsmeyer: The Texans also need to get a new GM. I think their head coach is fine. The opposite will happen though, probably, and it will lead to more failure. 

Salfino: The Texans are getting the QB reset at least. I hope they choose wisely.

The GM has to bring in his own coach though, Josh.

maya: RIP to these three teams’ seasons. I’m excited to not have to talk about Russell Wilson for the next few months.

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NFL

How Geno Smith Found Redemption In 2022

By Drae Harris

Dec. 9, 2022, at 1:23 PM

It’s fair to say that both Geno Smith and the Seattle Seahawks entered the 2022 season with very low expectations. Coming off a disappointing 7-10 season in 2021 that saw the team finish last in the NFC West, Seattle was considered to be in full rebuild mode after trading away or releasing core players — a group that included team captains Bobby Wagner (a six-time All-Pro) and Russell Wilson (a Super Bowl-winning franchise quarterback). Smith, starting in Wilson’s place, was entering his 10th year in the NFL and had spent most of those years as a backup. Indeed, he hadn’t been an opening-day starter since 2014.

This year, though, both Smith and the Seahawks have enjoyed a resurgence that few could have predicted. After beating the L.A. Rams on Sunday on a last-minute drive, they currently sit a game back in the NFC West and would make the playoffs if the season ended today. Meanwhile, Smith finds himself ranked fifth in ESPN’s Total QBR, behind only Patrick Mahomes, Tua Tagovailoa, Josh Allen and Jalen Hurts. Although Smith’s play has seemingly come as a surprise to everyone else in the NFL, the Seahawks — and Geno himself — always knew this was a possibility.

So let’s examine the circumstances surrounding his development and the environment which may have led to his success in this career year. 

Smith’s development path 

Smith’s talent level and ability to play the position should have never been questioned as much as it has been over the years. In fact, coming out of Miramar High School in Florida, he was a prolific passer, breaking many records on his way to the third-best quarterback career in Broward County history. When he entered West Virginia, Smith was the No. 3 ranked dual threat QB in the nation. At West Virginia, he finished with the school’s career records for TD passes (98), total offensive yardage (12,004) and passing yardage (11,662) while setting the single-season records for passing yards (4,385) and TDs (42). 

So Smith has been an effective passer of the football at every level he’s played. However, when he was taken by the New York Jets in the second round of the 2013 NFL Draft, Smith was anointed as the starter for what would soon become a very bad Jets team. Then a sucker punch by a teammate broke his jaw and sidelined him for a significant amount of the 2015 season. This happened to coincide with his backup, Ryan Fitzpatrick, having the most prolific passing season in Jets history. Going with the hot hand, then-Jets coach Todd Bowles decided to stay with Fitzpatrick, firmly entrenching Geno as a backup. 

However, one may consider this to have been a blessing in disguise.  

During the intervening years spent holding a clipboard, Smith would back up potential future Hall of Fame quarterbacks in Eli Manning (2017 New York Giants), Philip Rivers (2019 Los Angeles Chargers) and Wilson (2019-21 Seahawks). These were three different prominent QBs with three different leadership styles. Surely watching how they prepared, led and approached the game had an effect on Smith. The backup QB is similar to an additional quarterbacks coach. When the starter exits the field between drives, he often talks to the backup QB and reviews what he saw in the defense from a sideline perspective. Having played this role for three all-time greats likely contributed to Smith’s development as a player.

An improved environment

Quarterbacks drafted in higher rounds rarely transform bad teams into winning ones. Among starting QBs for the top 10 teams in FiveThirtyEight’s Elo ratings,²³ only Allen (7th overall), Mahomes (10th), Joe Burrow (1st) and Ryan Tannehill (8th) were drafted among the top 10 overall picks. Meanwhile, five others (Dak Prescott, Jimmy Garoppolo, Hurts, Kirk Cousins and Tom Brady) weren’t even selected in Round 1. 

The prevailing thought is that the teams who pick in the top 10 have significant roster-construction deficiencies — and oftentimes infrastructural issues — which make it a challenge for a young QB to excel. And that is precisely why they’re selecting where they are in the draft: It’s a vicious cycle of NFL life, which frequently sees teams set their signal-callers up for failure.

While everything runs through the quarterback and they touch the ball on every play, they are far from the only players who matter to the offense. In Seattle’s case, there have been issues with the supporting cast — particularly the offensive line — in years past. The unit projected to have quite the learning curve in 2022, with two rookie tackles and a left guard in only his second year playing that particular position. However, they, too, have exceeded expectations and given Smith time to deliver the football from the pocket. According to data from ESPN’s Stats & Information Group, Smith ranks eighth among qualified passers this season with an average of 2.54 seconds in the pocket per throw.

With time to throw, and with his prodigious physical gifts, Smith is tracking for one of the most accurate seasons in NFL history. His completion rate of 72.7 percent is the third-highest figure among qualified quarterbacks²⁴ since 1950, behind only two Drew Brees seasons. 

Geno’s ability to play on schedule and deliver the ball on time has contributed to the early success of the team’s young tackles. And in turn, the improved offensive line has also played well enough to give Seattle an effective running game, which has further aided Smith. The Seahawks’ ability to make defenses respect the run has allowed Geno to throw against advantageous matchups: According to Stats & Info, 9.2 percent of Seattle’s passes have been against defenses with eight or more defenders in the box (sixth-most of any team). Kenneth Walker, October’s Offensive Rookie of the Month, has been outstanding; he wasn’t even at the top of the depth chart to open the season, but as it currently stands, he has 649 yards rushing and nine touchdowns. And it’s on both sides of the ball: The play of rookie Tariq Woolen (who is tied for first in the NFL with six interceptions) helps get the offense the ball back.  All of these environmental factors have contributed to Smith’s 2022 success.

Ultimately, Smith’s resurrection is a case study in what happens when both development and environment sync up to help boost a quarterback’s career. His steady leadership through adversity and his command of the offense have both drastically improved over the course of his career. Smith’s ability to be “just one of the guys” (as Seahawks coach Pete Carroll calls him) could both be seen as a slight to Wilson and also as a compliment to Smith. In many ways, Smith’s ascension has been in parallel to that of the Seahawks as a team. Things started with low expectations from the outside, but cautious optimism — and plenty of motivation — from within, all of which has led to a surprising resurgence as we approach the back stretch of the schedule. Now Smith is even on the outskirts of the MVP conversation. Who aside from Geno and his teammates would have ever imagined that before the season?

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