We already had a good idea what the path to this winter’s NFL playoffs would look like. Now we know the exact twists and turns.
The NFL’s 2023 schedule reveal dropped 272 games of gridiron goodness onto our laps, giving football fans something to talk about in the barren farmland better known as May. While we knew all of the upcoming season’s opponents, we now understand which games come when, who’ll be playing overseas and what this year’s prime-time matchups will be.
Some of these games will matter more in fantasy football standings than the real thing. But others will shape the 14-team bracket that separates this fall’s contenders from the NFL’s also-rans. Let’s dig into the former and perform a too-early biopsy on the showdowns set to define this year’s road to Super Bowl 58.
In the spirit of casting the widest net possible, I’ll limit each team’s appearance on this list to one game each — otherwise we’d get bogged down with Bills and Chiefs and Eagles games. These are the seven matchups that will shed light on how this year’s postseason will unfold.
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Cincinnati Bengals at Kansas City Chiefs
When: Week 17
This whole list could be made of Chiefs games thanks to a tough schedule, but Kansas City did luck out despite drawing eight games against 2022 playoff teams (and one against whatever the Aaron Rodgers Jets turn out to be). Their toughest away game is either against those Jets, the Los Angeles Chargers or Jacksonville Jaguars. The Buffalo Bills, Miami Dolphins and Philadelphia Eagles all travel to Arrowhead Stadium this fall. No game may be more important than a New Year’s Eve showdown with the Bengals, however.
Joe Burrow has faced the Chiefs four times in his budding NFL career. He’s won three of those contests, splitting a pair of AFC title games along the way in games decided by last-second field goals. Over that stretch he’s got a 9-3 touchdown-interception ratio and a 107.1 passer rating — the latter a number high enough to lead the NFL in 2022 if he’d done it over the course of a full season.
Kansas City had several holes to plug this offseason and has questions to answer in both the secondary and the pass rush. Limit Burrow here and you’ve created hope that a unit that’s traditionally leveled up in the postseason can handle its business should the two meet with a Super Bowl on the line for the third straight season. Get roasted again (Burrow’s 138.8 passer rating versus the Chiefs is the highest he has against any opponent) and the Chiefs are looking at a coin toss, at best, in another Cincinnati-Kansas City showdown in January.
The Bengals have their own secondary issues to be sorted. Jessie Bates III, Vonn Bell and Eli Apple are all gone and Chidobe Awuzie hasn’t played more than half the season in either of the last two years. Cincinnati addressed this issue with high value draft picks over the last two seasons, but the NFL learning curve becomes a mountain with Mahomes on the other side of the ball.
The Chiefs are lacking proven wideout options, but are flush with athletic young playmakers who can thrive in Mahomes’ improv offense. Can Cam Taylor-Britt rise to the occasion and stop them? Dax Hill? DJ Turner II? We’ll know more moments before the calendar flips over to 2024 in Week 17.
Detroit Lions at Minnesota Vikings
When: Week 16
The Lions gave the world another whiff of the Vikings’ fraudulence last season with a 34-23 victory in Detroit (in fairness, there was still a lingering stink from Minnesota’s 40-3 frogstomping at home against the Dallas Cowboys three weeks earlier). Minnesota finished the year 13-4 with a negative-three point differential, then lost to Daniel Jones in a home playoff game. As a result (and thanks to Aaron Rodgers’ long-running decoupling from Green Bay), those surging Lions have emerged as +110 favorites to win the NFC North.
That makes this Christmas Eve showdown in the Twin Cities a potential division title game. Minnesota hasn’t lost to Detroit at home since 2017, but Dan Campbell has stood on the verge of a breakthrough each of the last two seasons despite teams that were churning through darkness at the time. It took a 54-yard Greg Joseph buzzer-beating field goal for the Vikings to beat a 3-13-1 team in 2021. Last fall, a touchdown in the final minute erased a 10-point fourth-quarter deficit and kicked off a five-game losing streak for a disheveled Detroit team. It feels as though the clock is ticking on a Lions win at US Bank Stadium.
2023 would be the perfect time to do it. Detroit’s “house money” draft may not have generated the kind of positional value analysts can appreciate, but Campbell added four of 2023’s top-45 draft picks to a roster that closed out 2022 on an 8-2 run. More importantly, Campbell was able to restore Jared Goff to pretty-goodness while reminding the world that, yep, there was a time where he was a valid MVP candidate (see also: Derek Carr in 2016).
Over that 10-game stretch, Goff’s 0.299 adjusted expected points added (EPA) per play was best in the NFL by a significant margin. He threw 17 touchdown passes against one interception and basically gave off “2019 Ryan Tannehill, but without the running” vibes with his efficient play.
Now the defense tasked with dragging him back to earth overhauled its secondary by swapping out Patrick Peterson for Byron Murphy and adding a pair of mid-round draft talents in Jay Ward and Mekhi Blackmon. Will they be able to stop an upgraded Lions defense? Will it even matter with Kirk Cousins coming off the least efficient season of his career as a starter? If the Lions win in Minneapolis in Week 16, it could make the rematch in Michigan two weeks later a moot point.
Philadelphia Eagles at Dallas Cowboys
When: Week 14 (Sunday Night Football)
It’s possible the top-2 teams in the NFC reside in the same division — though counting out the San Francisco 49ers, even without a quarterback, remains a fool’s gambit. This means we could be in for a trilogy of Eagles-Cowboys throwdowns — and this December matchup could dictate where the third and final battle takes place.
These two split last year’s series with each side coming away with a home victory en route to playoff berths. Those games were dictated by turnovers (three for the Cowboys in their loss, four for the Eagles in theirs), backup quarterbacks for each defeated team (Gardner Minshew for the Eagles, Cooper Rush for the Cowboys) and the unique stipulation that the team with more total yards of offense lost.
This is all to say we don’t really know how these two teams match up against each other because they haven’t faced each other at full strength or without mitigating circumstances. The world deserves a proper Jalen Hurts-Dak Prescott showdown with each at the height of his powers. Hence, 2023.
The Cowboys bolstered a top-3 defense with common sense draft picks that address their needs and should only improve on 2022. The Eagles did more of the same, using their draft assets to land undervalued physical marvels capable of filling some of the holes free agency wrought (Javon Hargrave, CJ Gardner-Johnson, Miles Sanders, T.J. Edwards and others all signed elsewhere this spring).
Will those young additions be able to plug holes on both sides of the ball? Will Prescott regain his form after a too-sloppy 2022 following his return from a thumb injury (15 interceptions in 12 games)? Both sides have questions left to be answered, though they pale in comparison to some of the NFC’s other potential contenders. This game — and the Cowboys/Eagles firefight that precedes it — will answer them.
Buffalo Bills at Miami Dolphins
When: Week 18
Buffalo went 2-1 against the Dolphins last season, including a wild card win to end Miami’s season. But Tua Tagovailoa wasn’t around for the playoffs and had a muted impact in his Week 3 win in Coral Gables — a victory in which Tagovailoa appeared to suffer his first head injury of the season.
Concussion protocol concerns aside, that win was… weird. Miami was out-gained by nearly 300 yards, only forced one turnover, ran 39 offensive plays to the Bills’ 90 and still, incredibly, walked off the Hard Rock Stadium turf with a win. Just ridiculous stuff, and it’s arguably the high water mark of the team’s season.
That creates a definite goal for Mike McDaniel’s team in 2023; beat the Bills and leave no doubt. Miami nearly pulled it off in the wild card round despite starting Skylar Thompson (220 yards on 45 pass attempts, two interceptions and a 44.9 passer rating) at quarterback. Now it readies for another run at the AFC East title behind a healthy Tagovailoa — who finished 2022 with the league’s top passer rating (albeit in just 421 dropbacks thanks to injury).
Upgrading his offense with McDaniel’s playcalling and the presence of Tyreek Hill vastly expanded his game. His average completion traveled 5.5 yards downfield in 2021, 24th-best in the NFL. Last fall, that number rose to 8.8 yards — tops among starting quarterbacks and 1.3 yards deeper than second-place Josh Allen. After completing 12 of 25 deep balls in 13 games in ’21, he upped those numbers to 51 such throws and 27 completions in the same number of games.
That’s a sticking point against a talented Bills secondary that’s getting old at safety and has yet to see Tre’Davious White return to pre-injury form. Allen has the chops to counterpunch in any kind of high-scoring slugfest, but he ran out of gas toward the end of 2022; his 0.110 EPA/play after Week 9 ranked 12th among 27 qualified QBs last year. Adding Dalton Kincaid to the tight end mix will help buoy his production, but the lack of a true WR2 behind Stefon Diggs could create a blueprint for stopping his offense.
The Bengals held Diggs to 35 yards on 10 targets in Buffalo’s divisional round playoff loss last January. Now, he’ll have to contend with a passing defense that was a weakness in Miami last season (25th in DVOA) but added a true shutdown corner by trading for Jalen Ramsey. Seeing as this is the season finale, there’s a chance it’s a game where both sides rest their starters with nothing left to play for. There’s also a chance it decides who wins the AFC East.
Seattle Seahawks at Baltimore Ravens
When: Week 9
There are a lot of similarities between the way Pete Carroll wants to win and the way the Ravens have traditionally been successful. Both Baltimore and Seattle have excelled when built around smothering defenses and run-heavy offenses. After reloading this offseason, both sides should be stingy, albeit in different ways. The Seahawks’ defensive strength is their secondary. The Ravens will mash you into paste up front. Either way, both good.
The question is how both will build around their newly extended quarterbacks. Geno Smith was one of 2022’s best stories, but his efficiency waned as the season wore on (his EPA/play over the back half of the season ranked 17th out of 27 QBs). Seattle rewarded him with a modest extension that effectively allows Carroll to cut bait after one season or stick with his veteran revival. Adding Jaxon Smith-Njigba and Zach Charbonnet should help insulate him from any similar late-season funk in 2023.
Jackson’s deal is much more lucrative, tying him to the Ravens through at least 2026 (and with $35 million in dead salary cap commitments in 2027, probably that year too). The 2019 unanimous regular season MVP has to fend off questions about his own noticeable decline. His passer rating, completion rate, yards per catch and EPA/play are all down significantly since that second-year breakthrough. His passer rating of 88.9 over the last two years ranks only 22nd among 30 quarterbacks who’ve started at least 20 games in that space.
Of course, that neglects to account for the damage Jackson can do with his legs, or the fact he missed 10 games the last two seasons due to injury, or the fact his receiving corps, aside from Mark Andrews and one year of Hollywood Brown, has been made up of a bunch of very dedicated NFL cosplayers. Time will tell if the injury problems become a trend, but the Ravens have worked to overhaul his wideouts this spring, signing a 30-year-old Odell Beckham Jr. and drafting Zay Flowers in the first round. The stage is set for a Jackson rebound.
That leaves this cross-conference battle as a showdown between two likely playoff contenders with a real chance to take down their divisions. Both the Seahawks and Ravens will be following a similar path on their hopeful road to Super Bowl 58. This Week 9 showdown will give us a better idea who can actually pull it off.
San Francisco 49ers at Jacksonville Jaguars
When: Week 10
The Jags won’t get a lot of competition to defend their division crown. Both the Colts and Texans are building from relative nothingness after horrible 2022s (and for the Texans, horrible 2020 and 2021s as well). The Titans have gotten diminishing returns from Ryan Tannehill and Derrick Henry and may be eyeing a rebuild of their own. Their biggest tests will have to come from elsewhere.
Fortunately, there are several opportunities for that. Winning the South means games against the Chiefs, Bengals and Bills. But since we’ve covered each team already, let’s look to a cross-conference showdown that could have significant seeding complications right around the season’s halfway point.
The 49ers have significant questions to answer after 2022. Their quarterback is either Trey Lance or Brock Purdy. Their dominant defense lost its coordinator (but replaced him with Steve Wilks, who brings his own track record of success). The offensive line that helped Purdy excel as a rookie is currently looking at a Jake Brendel-Spencer Burford-Colton McKivitz combination from center to right tackle, which could be a problem.
2023 will provide several measuring stick moments for the Niners, who have the NFC East in intra-conference play and the AFC North as their crossover. This November game against the Jaguars may be the most interesting. San Francisco’s relentless push up front creates pressure without blitzing and creates a smothering effect for a unit that’s ranked in the top seven of overall DVOA each of the last four seasons (and ranked first in 2022).
Trevor Lawrence had some down performances in a breakthrough year against top-10 defenses last season — notably the Eagles and Broncos. But his cupboard is more stocked than ever assuming Calvin Ridley can live up to his pre-suspension standard and 2023 Day 2 draft picks Brenton Strange and Tank Williams can have immediate impacts at tight end and tailback, respectively. Can his defense do enough to shut down the Niners’ playmakers and give him a chance to earn a statement road win? Or will Jacksonville’s ascension have to wait?
Green Bay Packers at Atlanta Falcons
When: Week 2
Let’s wrap this list with a game that could be sneakily important to the makeup of the NFC side of the bracket despite coming in the second weekend of 2023. The Packers are breaking in Jordan Love at quarterback, but still fielded a team that landed one win shy of the postseason in a year where Aaron Rodgers EPA ranked 20th among 31 starting quarterbacks. Drafting Lukas Van Ness in the first round should bolster a pass rush that ranked in the top 10 in pressure rate last fall (23.6 percent) as well as pass defense DVOA. If Love can be a league average quarterback he can pilot Green Bay to the postseason in a depleted NFC.
The Falcons are following a more specific version of that blueprint. Atlanta has a similarly unproven quarterback in Desmond Ridder but the benefit of playing in a division that didn’t field a single team with a winning record last fall. Its champion, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, are replacing Tom Brady with either Baker Mayfield or Kyle Trask. There is an opportunity here, and general manager Terry Fontenot spent 2023 adding win-now veterans in order to seize it.
The Falcons’ likely game plan is an absolute horror show for the Packers. Green Bay has been a disaster against the run, ranking higher than 27th in rush defense DVOA just once since 2018. That unit gave up an even 5.0 yards per carry last season and at least 100 rushing yards in 13 of 17 games. In the past Aaron Rodgers has been able to overcome that (and a significant deficit when it comes to time of possession) thanks to his ability to lead a quick strike offense, particularly in the fourth quarter. We don’t know if Jordan Love can do that yet, but comparing him to a legendary four-time MVP is… well, oof.
We know Atlanta is going to strike at that weakness because that is what Atlanta is built to do. The Falcons ran the ball a league-high 559 times last season, then used the eighth overall pick to draft Bijan Robinson, who is considered the best and most complete running back prospect since Saquon Barkley. With Ridder behind center, Arthur Smith is going to run the ball, grind clock and trust his defense to win rock fights en route to a playoff invitation.
That makes this game a sticking point. If Smith’s game plan doesn’t work against the perpetually-scrambling-to-stop-the-run Packers, who will it work against? If Green Bay’s years-upon-years of first round defensive studs can’t force stops against Desmond Ridder in big moments, what chance does Jordan Love have to bring his team to the postseason in his debut season as a starter?
This game might not be bound for prime time, but it might be awesome. Or the Falcons could control the ball for 40 minutes while Love gets sacked six times. Still, it’ll shed some light on the NFC’s second tier.
