Buffalo Bills: Run defense
Defending the run has long been a sore spot for the Bills – they finished the season 25th in defensive rush success rate. Inside, they lack mass, and are too easily pushed around by teams committed to a smashmouth approach. Outside, they struggle with discipline and technique. Against Jacksonville last weekend, both fell apart. The Jaguars rushed for 154 yards, with 119 of those yards coming on outside runs. It was the Jags’ highest total on outside runs this season. This weekend, against a Broncos offense that is happy to punch anyone in the mouth, that could put the Bills in a lot of trouble.
But Sean McDermott is a defensive mastermind. And his answer to the run game woes has been, effectively, to give up. McDermott has stopped trying to load the box or reinforce the front. He is happy, it seems, to concede steady yards on the ground if the Bills do not cough up an explosive run (10-plus yards). And by not adding extra bodies to the box, he’s been able to maintain schematic flexibility in the secondary. McDermott has now centered his defense around disguises on the back-end secondary, betting that, eventually, opposing offenses will want to throw the ball even on run-obvious downs. Blurring the coverage, without superstar talent, is the best way for a coach to induce mistakes.
McDermott put on a clinic against the Jaguars, baiting Trevor Lawrence into errant throws that forced Jacksonville off the field. Sticking with that plan moving forward is the Bills’ best way out of the mess.
Chicago Bears: Creating pressure
The Bears are living a charmed life on offense. They have a water-tight scheme. They hammer people with the run. And with Caleb Williams, they have a quarterback capable of creating something out of nothing.
Defensively, however, they are more limited. They have lived on turnovers this season, leading the league in takeaways. In the playoffs, that doesn’t cut it. You’re facing the best of the best – and they’re the best precisely because they don’t turn the ball over. All season long, Chicago have worked around their lack of a pass rush. They finished last in the league in the regular season in pressure rate with a four-man rush (a necessity in the playoffs) and in time to pressure from those four-man looks. Defensive coordinator Dennis Allen, a true warlock of a coach, has counteracted that by going hog-wild with blitzes. He has pressured creatively and relentlessly. But coaching can only cover up so much. Even the Bears’ blitz package has been ineffective, generating pressure at the lowest rate among the remaining playoff field.
Some coaches blitz selectively, and that’s key in the playoffs when the best quarterbacks can pick apart defenses that send extra rushers. No quarterback has been as potent against the blitz this year as the Rams Matthew Stafford, who the Bears faces this weekend. Allen hasn’t been able to be selective. He needs to fire extra bodies into the line of scrimmage to make the quarterback uncomfortable. Against the Rams, he’ll likely roll the dice again, hoping that enough pressure gets home that Stafford panics or is moved off his spot, where he is less effective. From there, the Bears will have a chance to snag the turnovers that have kept their head above water all season. It will be a gamble, but it’s Allen’s only path forward.
Denver Broncos: Bo Nix
Nix is the great unanswered question of the playoffs. Is he a needle mover at quarterback? Or is he surviving in a solid scheme, supported by an outstanding defense?
Everything else is in place for the Broncos. They have the best offensive line in the postseason, the top pass-rush and a future Hall of Fame coach. They also have enough firepower at wide receiver to go toe-to-toe with anyone in the AFC, from the reliable Courtland Sutton to the explosive threats of Troy Franklin, Pat Bryant and Marvin Mims. Even with that cast, at some point Nix will need to make big throws on third-and-long.
Nix has already debunked many ideas about his game. He isn’t a game manager; he takes risks down the field. He isn’t a point guard; he can scramble around and extend plays. According to PFF, he ranked behind only Stafford and Dak Prescott in big-time throws this season. Where Nix has struggled is taking the easy openings and moving on with the game. But he has been able to offset some poor decision-making by avoiding sacks and turnovers. The Broncos won’t ask him to be anything else during the playoffs. And if he can hit those difficult third-and-longs, he could put together the kind of playoff hot streak we’ve seen from Joe Flacco and Nick Foles.
Houston Texans: Passing game
The Texans’ performance against the Steelers on Monday was an outlier. They were able to run the ball and sustain a long drive. For much of the season, they’ve been reliant on a brittle passing game and the odd explosive play to launch them down the field. Even when in scoring position, their performance in the redzone has been brutal.
It was Houston’s defense that kept them alive against Pittsburgh. Without a dominant performance, it would have been a game characterized by CJ Stroud’s unusual mid-game meltdown. The Texans cannot afford a repeat performance from their quarterback. Given the lack of talent along the offensive line, they’re unlikely to repeat their success on the ground. It will need to be Stroud who puts them over the top. He has the talent – and he’s done it in the postseason before. The problem, however, is that the passing game has been inconsistent. The Texans have to work hard for their yards. There are few easy buckets. It’s a system reliant on receivers making tough, contested catches or Stroud creating out of structure. That’s a thin tightrope to walk, especially when the team’s No 1 receiver, Nico Collins, is out with a concussion.
Los Angeles Rams: Special teams
The Rams having a punt blocked against the Panthers in the opening round of the playoffs was no anomaly. They’ve had a special teams blunder in three of their five losses this season.
It’s not just a season-long issue, either. It’s institutional. Over the last five years, the Rams rank 32nd in special teams EPA, and there is a chasm between the Rams and the second-worst team over that spell. In successive postseasons, they’ve flirted with disaster, only to be bailed out by their offense and defense. This year’s errors led Sean McVay to a first: firing a coach during the season. But the change in coordinator hasn’t had the desired effect. The Rams have become more effective at limiting kick returns, which has helped their starting field position on defense. But they remain just as prone to bone-headed lapses when they’re kicking the ball themselves.
As they move into the final eight, there is no margin for error. The Rams have all the ingredients of a championship team: they can win in any way on offense, their defense creates havoc in the pocket and they have the quarterback. But they have ignored the third phase of the game for too long. So far, they’ve been able to outrun it. But if they fall apart between now and the Super Bowl, it will probably come down to another untimely kicking mistake.
New England Patriots: Pass protection
Like the 49ers and Bears, the Patriots’ defense does not create a ton of pressure on defense. But they do have a pair of one-on-one winners – Milton Williams and Harold Landry – who could flip a game on their own. The concern is with their own protection.
Late in the season, New England discovered their run game. After struggling for much of the year to move the ball on the ground, the Patriots have a 46% rushing success rate since week 12. That’s helped support a bombs away passing attack that has been the bedrock of the league’s leading offense. But even with the return of first-round left tackle Will Campbell, they allow too much pressure on quarterback Drake Maye. They finished the regular season with a 38.7% pressure rate conceded, which puts them 28th in the league. And the Patriots don’t just concede pressure; they give it up quickly and often unblocked. It makes what Maye has done this season more of a minor miracle.
Maye, for all his brilliance, is prone to taking drive-killing sacks. But against the Texans this weekend, the Pats line could be in big trouble. They struggle with power-based pass-rushers, and Houston have the best duo in the league: Will Anderson and Danielle Hunter. Squeak past the Texans, and the Broncos could be on deck, a team who pressure and sack quarterbacks at the highest rate in the league.
The Patriots need to be able to run the ball to mitigate the risk, and then hope Maye can deliver some flashes of brilliance under duress.
San Francisco 49ers: Pass rush
Robert Saleh deserves credit for dragging the Niners’ defense this far. He has been able to keep a no-name defense competitive throughout the year, despite a battery of injuries and a lack of a pass-rush.
Against the Eagles on Sunday, Saleh loaded the box to stop the run and dared Jalen Hurts and Philly to throw. Against a high-school caliber offense, it was effective. Against tougher opposition, though, it will be tough to make up for.
Saleh, for all his brilliance, runs a fairly simple scheme. He doesn’t disguise coverages. The Niners led the league this season in their use of zone coverage, and those coverages fall into just three buckets. He’s not a blitzer, either, relying on four players to detonate the pocket and attack opposing quarterbacks. It’s difficult to navigate through the playoffs with such a static, predictable scheme without unrelenting pressure. Across the season, the Niners finished with a 22% pressure rate with a four-man pass-rush, 31st in the league and almost half the typical threshold for Super Bowl winners. Against the Eagles’ offense, with all its faults, that figure fell to 11%. That won’t cut it against the Rams, Seahawks or whoever comes out of the AFC, unless Saleh has a late-season curveball he can throw.
Seattle Seahawks: Sam Darnold
Darnold put together a magical first half of the season. He was a front-runner for MVP, driving the ball to all areas of the field, creating plays with his legs and adding newfound refinement to his game. He was hitting difficult, tight-window throws deep down the field at a historic clip. But much of that has dried up in the second half of the year. As Seattle’s defense has risen to match the league’s best and the team’s run-game has come alive, Darnold’s game has soured – at least by his early-season standards.
Since Week 11, Darnold ranks 22nd in the league among eligible starters in the RBSDM composite, which measures the value of a play and how much the quarterback can be deemed responsible for the value. That’s the lowest of any remaining quarterback in the playoffs. His turnovers are up, and the deep ball has withered.
The rest of Seattle’s roster is good enough to cover up for Darnold. Facing the Niners in the divisional round could also prove to be a get-right game, given San Francisco’s defensive frailties. But Darnold has never been to the final eight before, and the Seahawks offense isn’t playing with great rhythm. No single player serves as a bigger pivot point of the postseason. If Darnold limits turnovers, the Seahawks are the front-runners. If he can tap back into his early-season form, they will be the runaway favorites. But if he has a repeat performance of last season’s playoff outing for Minnesota, the Seahawks will be heading home early.
