Tickets to the Super Bowl will be punched on Sunday in Philadelphia and Kansas City. We have two intriguing matchups, and I'm on one side with my NFL predictions.
This weekend, I'm on the Commanders at +6 or better, and I laid out my favorite player props on "The Action Network Podcast" with Stuckey. Check out our previews there before diving into my massive preview of both matchups below.
Let's get that shmoney!
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Commanders vs. Eagles
Jayden Daniels likely won’t see as many blitzes as he did in the Commanders' 36-33 upset of the Eagles in Week 16. Philly defensive coordinator Vic Fangio blitzed him on 43.5% of his dropbacks, and Daniels averaged 9.4 yards per attempt (YPA) with three touchdowns and one interception to 4.0 YPA with two touchdowns and one interception when he was not blitzed. He’s been even better against the blitz in the postseason.
- Not blitzed: 65.6% completion percentage, 6.5 YPA, 10.0 yards per completion (Y/C), three TDs, zero INTs, one sack
- Blitzed: 73.5% completion percentage, 10.5 YPA, 14.3 Y/C, one TD, zero INTs, zero sacks
Daniels is quickly ascending to “pick your poison” levels of QB play, but a less blitz-heavy scheme tends to limit explosives, which should result in more attempts and completions, and longer drives that could limit overall possessions.
Fangio only blitzed Daniels on 12.8% of dropbacks in the first meeting and had success, holding Daniels to 191 yards with one touchdown and one interception. What makes things interesting this time around is the Eagles struggled when they didn’t blitz Matthew Stafford last week:
- Stafford not blitzed: 17-of-29 (58.6%) for 239 yards (8.2 YPA), three sacks
- Stafford blitzed: 9-of-15 (60.0%) for 86 yards (5.7 YPA), four sacks
We should see a more balanced target distribution for the Commanders than we saw in either of the first two matchups.
1) In the first matchup, Kliff Kingsbury still wasn’t moving Terry McLaurin and the rest of his wide receivers around to get advantageous matchups. With Fangio leaving seven in coverage, the wide receivers were nearly invisible, drawing only 11 combined targets on Daniels’ 32 attempts.
2) In the second matchup, Fangio’s blitz-heavy scheme invited Daniels to target wide receivers on 26 of 39 attempts.
3)Zach Ertz would be the biggest beneficiary if the Eagles don’t blitz as much. He has been targeted on 21.5% of routes when the defense doesn’t blitz compared to 16.5% vs. the blitz.
4) Jamison Crowder and Luke McCaffrey could see the field more at the expense of the RBs and TE2 John Bates. The Commanders went with empty sets on eight plays in the first matchup and 14 in the second. Even with Nakobe Dean out and Quinyon Mitchell (shoulder) expected to play, the Eagles' cornerback depth has been more vulnerable in coverage than the linebackers, and empty sets would be a way to force the Eagles to use CB4 Isaiah Rodgers, who allowed four catches for 97 yards last week.
Sam Cosmi’s ACL injury and the presence of Jalen Carter will likely dictate that the Commanders' run game is reduced to perimeter runs from Daniels, which sets up better for Austin Ekeler than Brian Robinson Jr. but ultimately will largely fall on the shoulders of Daniels. The Eagles were slightly below average against designed quarterback runs out of shotgun this season.
Saquon Barkley posted nearly identical rushing lines in both games: 26-146-2 (longest rush of 39) in Week 11, and 29-150-2 (long of 68) in Week 16. The health of Dallas Goedert (questionable, ankle) could be a factor. The Eagles rushing EPA is nearly three times higher with Goedert on the field than with him off. The same is true for center Cam Jurgens (questionable, back). Jurgens has a 70.1 PFF run-blocking grade compared to 49.0 for backup Nick Gates. Hurts and Gates don’t have live game reps together with Gates at center, so the quarterback-center exchange could be an issue.
Outside of those developments, the key to handicapping this game from the Eagles’ perspective is to unpack their two playoff games, because the final scores don’t tell the whole story.
Wild Card: Eagles 22, Packers 10
Keisean Nixon fumbled the opening kickoff and the Eagles recovered at the Packers' 28-yard line, scoring three plays later to take a 7-0 lead at the 13:21 mark of the first quarter. For the next 50:53, the Eagles were outscored 10-9 despite not allowing Green Bay’s first points until late in the third quarter.
By the time Jake Elliott hit a field goal to put the Eagles back up by two scores, 19-10, Jordan Love was down to WR4/5/6 on the depth chart after entering the game down Christian Watson (torn ACL the week prior) and then losing Romeo Doubs (concussion) and Jayden Reed (shoulder) in the third quarter. Love also lost starting left guard Elgton Jenkins four snaps into the game and saw his replacements combine for four penalties, including three holds.
The Eagles were out-gained 302-290 but won the turnover battle 4-0.
Divisional Round: Eagles 28, Rams 22
Jalen Hurts was a better passer than his final stat line (15-of-20, 128 yards), which doesn’t capture A.J. Brown’s two dropped passes that would have totaled at least 41 more yards, including a 35-yarder that would have set the Eagles up with first-and-goal at the Rams' 2-yard line on a drive in which they ultimately failed to come away with points.
At the same time, Hurts was far worse than his passing numbers alone would otherwise indicate, because he gave nearly half of the yardage back by taking seven sacks for 63 yards. Those sacks directly led to two points for the Rams via a safety, and indirectly cost the Eagles a shot at six more points because two of them knocked the Eagles out of field goal range.
Jake Elliott missed two of three attempted extra points, so this could have been an Eagles blowout.
The Eagles defense let the Rams drive within 13 yards of the go-ahead touchdown before making back-to-back stops on third and fourth down, so this also could have been an Eagles loss. The Rams also lost two fumbles once the snow picked up in the second half that gave the Eagles a 2-0 turnover edge.
The Eagles had TD runs of 44, 62 and 78 but averaged 2.9 yards per play on their other 58 plays and were out-gained 402-350. They have been out-gained by four of the last five playoff teams they’ve faced.
Commanders-Eagles Conclusion
All in all, the Eagles have become less dominant and more inconsistent than they were at their midseason peak. The key for them has been minimizing turnovers by playing conservatively, and they’re all but certain to continue to lean into that approach after watching the Lions over-agressiveness become their undoing last week. That may be their best path to victory, but it works against them in terms of covering a six-point spread.
There's also some hidden downside with the Eagles because they’ve yet to trail this postseason, but Hurts — similar to Lamar Jackson — is more efficient when playing with a lead, whereas Daniels has been even better when playing from behind.
- Hurts when leading/tied: 8.2 yards per attempt (YPA), 5.2% TD percentage (TD%), 6.5 net yards per attempt (NYA)
- Hurts trailing: 7.4 YPA, 4.6% TD%, 6.0 NYA
- Daniels leading/tied: 7.5 YPA, 4.3% TD%, 6.3 NYA
- Daniels trailing: 7.7 YPA, 6.7%, 6.9 NYA
The Commanders have played man coverage 56% of the time this season but went 74% zone against the Lions. Hurts averages 5.0 yards per dropback against zone compared to 6.3 against man, so we could see the Commanders go zone-heavy again.
Marshon Lattimore was deployed as a stationary right cornerback last week and was targeted only once on 42 pass snaps. He had far less success shadowing Mike Evans in the Wild Card Round (6-6-84-1) and Brown in Week 16 (10-5-68-1). Lattimore played the same role in Week 3 with the Saints against Hurts, and Hurts targeted him on only two of 38 attempts. Brown, DeVonta Smith and Jahan Dotson all line up on each side of the formation at similar rates, but Smith would be least affected because he runs the majority of his routes from the slot.
That's why I'm on Smith to score a touchdown along with Sean Koerner.
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Bills vs. Chiefs
This may not be the best Bills team the Chiefs have faced in the Patrick Mahomes era, but it’s, in my opinion, the smartest and most well-schemed.
Bills defensive coordinator Bobby Babich made a great adjustment last week against the Ravens. The Bills are typically zone-heavy, but after going 80% zone on the first drive and getting shredded, they went 54% man the rest of the way. It proved to be the difference in the game, as Jackson went 12-of-12 for 180 yards and 2 TDs against zone over the course of the game, but just 6-of-13 for 74 yards with two turnovers against man.
The Bills will likely return to their zone-heavy ways in this spot, however, because Mahomes averages 5.9 yards per dropback against zone compared to 5.5 against zone. In the three games since Marquise Brown returned, those splits have been even more pronounced: 7.7 against man, 4.9 against zone. Still, having the ability and willingness to adjust on the fly is important to have in your back pocket against the Chiefs. Mahomes’ only postseason loss not involving Tom Brady came against the Bengals in a game in which Lou Anuromo’s adjustments enabled his otherwise mediocre defensive unit to hold the Chiefs to 3 points after halftime.
Like the Texans, the Bills are strong at outside corner and more vulnerable over the middle of the field, so we could see another big game for Travis Kelce and quiet games for DeAndre Hopkins and Marquise Brown. Brown is playing in the slot 43% of the time, so he’s a better bet to bounce back, as he could be deployed a lot like Worthy has been. The Chiefs have a more complete receiving corps this time around, so I’m not sure it makes as much sense for the Bills to sell out to stop Kelce again (3-2-8-0 in Week 11). Buffalo allowed Mark Andrews (5-61-0) and Isiah Likely (4-73-1) to combine for 9 receptions, 134 yards, and a TD last week, though they should be better than that here now that they can revert to more nickel without having to worry about getting gashed by Derrick Henry.
The Chiefs have two running backs (Kareem Hunt and Isiah Pacheco) with a carry prop of 8.5, which is notable because they've had two running backs carry more than eight times in just two of six games this season with Pacheco and Hunt both active, and one 19 playoff games in the Mahomes era. Pacheco is more likely to take a backseat after posting a fifth straight game of under 4.0 yards per carry (YPC) last week (5-18-3.6-0) while Hunt (8-44-5.5-1) averaged at least 5.0 for the second time in three games.
Pacheco hasn’t been in sync with the offensive line since returning from injury, averaging just 2.9 YPC on 64 carries. Pacheco has especially struggled since Joe Thuney moved to left tackle, totaling 94 yards on 33 carries (2.8 YPC) compared to 55-234 (4.3) with Thuney at guard. Hunt rushed 14 times for 60 yards against Buffalo with Pacheco out in Week 11. The Bills held Henry to 16 carries for 84 yards last week after Henry had recorded at least 20 carries for 138 yards in each of the past four games.
Bills offensive coordinator Joe Brady, meanwhile, is on some whole other shit – and I mean that as high praise. He has essentially removed all of the downside of passing while preserving all of the upside – removed all of the downside of Josh Allen while preserving all of Allen’s upside. On 597 dropbacks, Allen has taken 17 sacks and thrown six interceptions while averaging 7.8 yards per attempt with 30 TD passes. And he only loses 4.4 yards per sack, 2.2 less than the NFL average. He’s also rushed 120 times for 597 yards (5.0) and 14 TDs while losing two fumbles.
Allen has turned the ball over just eight games in 18 games, meaning he’s averaging less than one-half turnover per game and less than one (inconsequential) sack per game while 44 total TDs. To put that into context, Mahomes had the same amount of turnovers Allen had all year in his first six games alone, and surpassed Allen’s sack total before halftime of his ninth game. To catch up to Allen in the TD department, Mahomes needs 15 more TDs than Allen this Sunday.
Brady has also made the Bills unpredictable and extremely difficult to prepare for by deploying a wide variety of formation/personnel usage and play-calling tendencies all season long. In the two most important games of the year, Allen is averaging just 24.0 pass attempts per game – which may be somewhat unexpected in itself – but a lot of what the Bills are doing run counter to what you’d expect from them, or from NFL offenses period, for that matter.
Brady is clearly still directing Allen to minimize risk, as evidenced by Allen attempting only two passes that led to contested-catch situations, but both have gone to his smallest receiver (190-pound Khalil Shakir). Allen’s longest TD pass (55 yards) went to the wide receiver who had the lowest aDOT during the regular season (Curtis Samuel, 4.4). Buffalo’s worst pass-catching wide receiver (Mack Hollins) leads the team in yards per reception (15.5), aDOT (17.0), and total air yards (68).
Among the Bills’ top four in aDOT are two tight ends (Dawson Knox, 13.2; Dalton Kincaid, 12.4) and a running back (Ty Johnson, 11.4) – with the better blocker in Knox being targeted farther downfield, of course. Buffalo’s top three perimeter wide receivers – Keon Coleman, Amari Cooper , and Hollins – have two catches each this postseason, and among those three, only Cooper has a game with multiple receptions. Coleman is averaging 5.0 yards per reception. Cooper is averaging 4.0 yards per reception.
The one player seeing his typical usage in the Bills postseason passing attack has been Shakir, who has six-plus targets, six-plus catches, and 60-plus yards in both playoff games. Shakir also led the Bills with eight receptions for 70 yards in the Week 11 meeting. Trent McDuffie is one of the rare shadow corners that can play outside or in the slot, so he could shadow Shakir now that Jaylen Watson is back to solidify one of the perimeter spots. Allen targeted McDuffie only three times in Week 11, but made a point to go after Nazeeh Johnson, who allowed 9-103-1 on 12 targets.
If McDuffie travels with Shakir, Johnson would likely be matched up with Cooper most often, which would be Advantage: Cooper — though the same was true last week and amounted to a goose egg in the box score. This is probably the bottom of the market for Cooper, who has upside as anytime TD or receiving ladder bet, though it’s still dicey with Brady calling the passing game like he forgot to disable CPU Auto-Reorder Depth Chart or download the latest roster update.
Ultimately, Brady has treated the passing game like something to do to pass the time between handoffs to James Cook. The Chiefs allowed the second-fewest YPC to running backs (3.78) during the regular season, behind Baltimore (3.46) and ahead of Denver (3.86), meaning the Bills will have faced a top-three unit in each playoff game. Cook went off for 23-120-1 against the Broncos and posted a solid 17-67-0 against the stingier Ravens. The Bills have used a fullback and/or sixth offensive lineman on 43% of their snaps this postseason, so a strong run defense isn’t a deterrent to them like it would be to most teams.
Kansas City’s defense struggled to contain Joe Mixon (18-88-1) last week, allowing 2.8 yards before contact per carry. The Bills are unlikely to get blown out, so Cook will likely remain the centerpiece of the offense, with Allen being deployed in the run game in high-leverage situations. One of Allen’s six interceptions came in Week 11 against the Chiefs on a season-high 40 attempts, so it wouldn’t be surprising to see Brady rein Allen in a bit here and continue to feed Cook. I got on Cook over 13.5 rush attempts before it moved to 14.5 late in the week, but I'd still play the over on 14.5 up to -135.
The Bills have played 11 postseason games since Allen made the leap to one of the NFL’s elite passers in 2020, and Brady has been the offensive coordinator for the last four. While the Bills scoring output has been similar, they were a lot more pass-heavy pre-Brady.
- Pre-Joe Brady (seven games): 27.9 points, 68.2% pass rate, 40.6 designed passes, 18.9 designed runs, 2.43 pass TD, 0.86 rush TD
- Joe Brady (four games): 28.3 points, 48.7% pass rate, 33.5 designed passes, 35.3 designed runs, 1.50 pass TD, 1.75 rush TD
Because many of the Bills’ playoff offensive tendencies have gone against many of their regular-season tendencies, it creates a somewhat unique situation where the market is pretty far off from the simplest, and perhaps, most likely potential scenario, which is the Bills simply continuing to follow their most recent trends, which in turn creates a lot of correlated parlay opportunities for their passing unders and rushing overs (and also correlate with Bills spread or ML).
The following props have hit in both postseason games and would all be correlated:
- Josh Allen: Pass attempts under 31.5, completions under 20.5, interceptions under 0.5
- James Cook: Rush attempts over 13.5, rush yards over 56.5, longest reception under 9.5
- Dalton Kincaid: Receptions under 3.5
- Mack Hollins: Receptions under 1.5
- Keon Coleman: Receptions under 1.5, receiving yards under 20.5, longest reception under 13.5
- Amari Cooper: Receiving yards under 16.5, longest reception under 13.5
- James Cook: Longest reception under 9.5
Note: Allen under rushing yards under 47.5 and longest rush under 12.5 have also hit in both games, but I would expect them to positively correlate most strongly with Cook’s rushing overs. and inversely correlate to the receiving unders. Scramble yardage accounted for 45 of Allen’s 55 yards in the first matchup but only 24 of his 66 rushing yards this postseason, so it could go either way in regard to correlation with his passing volume unders.
Bills vs. Chiefs Conclusion
In the regular season and postseason combined, Mahomes is 27-9-1 (75%) ATS as a ‘dog or favorite of three or fewer points. Against Buffalo, he's just 3-4 ATS in that spot, but all four losses have come in the regular season and all three wins have come in the postseason. In the postseason as a dog or favored by three or fewer, Mahomes is 8-2 ATS, with both losses coming against Tom Brady.
I personally don’t bet against Mahomes in these spots based on principle (and potential referee shenanigans), but I think the Bills are the better team and make this game a coin flip only because the Chiefs are at home.
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