Exploiting the Matchups: NFL Conference Championship Games

Many years ago I read an article (can't find it now, sorry) outlining the tendency for teams with superstar QBs to outperform their Pythagorean expectation, i.e., win more games than one would expect based on point differential. Peyton Manning's Colts were the prime example, doing it year after year (though not necessarily in the playoffs), with Dan Marino's Dolphins and Tom Brady's Patriots not too far behind*.

It makes sense, even from a layman's standpoint. A lot of close games come down to not only how well your team throws the ball but how well it does so when the opponent knows you're going to pass. Stuff like play-action fakes and play sequencing cease to matter when the clock dictates passing, and a lot of QB-driven teams pretty much stop running the ball anyway when they're tied or losing in the fourth quarter of a close game (even if they technically still have enough time to run).

I'm pretty sure the original article that I'm thinking of and can't find came from the now-defunct Football Outsiders, but I did dig up this excellent Football Perspective post (albeit from 2012) in which Chase Stuart showed career-long Pythagorean differential for every QB with at least 100 NFL starts. At the top, we largely see the best of the best (Manning/Brady/Marino/Elway), though there are also a few encroachers like Dan Pastorini and Jake Plummer**.

At the bottom – guys who won fewer games than you'd expect based on point differential – we mostly see good-but-not-elite QBs that were attached to some beastly teams. Think Donovan McNabb, Terry Bradshaw, Bart Starr, Trent Green, Troy Aikman and Ron Jaworski.... though we also see Len Dawson and Steve Young, who were arguably the best statistical passers in the league for portions of their respective careers.

I bring this up in part because Patrick Mahomes has become the new poster boy for (among other things) the phenomenon of top QBs winning more games than their teams' point differentials suggest they should, although this year's Chiefs actually were an exception with an 11-6 record being nearly identical to their Pythagorean expectation of 10.8 wins. You're probably well aware that Mahomes has done quite well in close playoff contests, going 6-2 in one-score games with the only losses coming against teams led by Brady and Joe Burrow.

This naturally has led to some accusations of referee bias or jokes about "the script", which seem to be more popular than ever now that the Chiefs are romantically linked with Taylor Swift and her legion of millions. Never mind that the Chiefs lost a key game to a rival seven weeks ago in large part due a penalty that normally goes uncalled... and then saw that same rival successfully overturn a massively important ruling last week on a challenge that arguably didn't quite meet the burden of "incontrovertible visual evidence" (I think Mecole Hardman lost the ball before his hip/butt touched the ground, but I'm still not 100 percent sure).

Anyway, one of the takeaways here is that you might want to bet the moneyline if you back the Chiefs, or bet the spread if you're going against them. And then you might say the opposite for a team like the 49ers with a less-daunting QB but a dominant roster overall, though I'm not quite as confident about that one given how well San Francisco performed this year in obvious passing situations like 3rd-and-longs (not to mention the three-point win in a playoff game just last week).

NFL Next Gen Stats actually has a filter to show how a QB performed in situations when the down, distance and score suggested there was more than a 75 percent chance of a pass play. Among our four remaining quarterbacks, Purdy was the leader in success rate (44.0 percent) and YPA (8.9) in those spots while also ranking second overall in EPA per dropback (0.29, behind only Dak Prescott's 0.37).

Mahomes wasn't too far behind (42.5 success rate, 7.7 YPA, 11:3 TD:INT) to be fair, nor was Jared Goff (43.0 percent, 7.0 YPA, 8:3 TD:INT). Lamar Jackson is the straggler here – closer to league-average by most measures – though his 38.3 percent success rate and 7.1 YPA are perhaps somewhat offset by throwing for twice as many TDs (eight) as Purdy in those situations.

Still, I'd say Jackson provided value by keeping Baltimore out of those situations more so than thriving in them (and yet still had 28 more qualifying dropbacks than Purdy). As a diehard Ravens fan, all of this is making me a little nervous. I know Baltimore has the better team than Kansas City but don't know how much that matters if it's a close game heading into the final eight minutes or so. The Ravens are much more likely to win a blowout, but I'd argue that a Chiefs win by three is just as likely as a Ravens win by three.

Pass Probability >75%, 2023 Regular Season

TTT = Average time to throw (in seconds)

*I'd also argue that kickers matter more in close games, and it's possible that explains a portion of Manning and Brady's success winning one-score contests, though Mike Vanderjagt's overall success famously didn't translate to the postseason. Manning did play with reliable kickers from there on out, including Brady's former teammate Adam Vinatieri (whose first year in Indy coincided with Manning's only ring there).

**Jake Plummer is perhaps best remembered for being a not-great QB on some loaded Broncos teams, which we might expect to land him on the other side of the Pythagorean coin. But those Broncos teams were pretty much normal in terms of point differential translating to wins. Plummer's overall outperforming of Pythagorean expectation mostly comes from his Arizona days when his late-game heroics allowed some awful teams to do pretty well in close games while also losing a lot of blowouts (the '98 Cards notably went 9-7 with a -53 point differential).

Now, on to the upcoming games...

Kansas City Chiefs at Baltimore Ravens - 3:00 ET

Betting Odds

Over/Under: 44.5  / Line: Ravens -3.5

Implied Totals: Chiefs (20.5 - 4th) at Ravens (24.0 - 2nd)

The Chiefs have fielded their best defense and worst offense of the Mahomes era, finishing the regular season 15th in points scored (21.8) and second in points allowed (17.3). I do wonder if there's been a slight overcorrection here, as defensive performance doesn't have as much predictive value / stability as offensive performance – generally speaking – and the Chiefs defense played better in the first half of the season than the second half. As a Ravens fan, KC's offense (i.e. Mahomes/Kelce/Reid) is still what scares me most.

We should also note that the Chiefs were much better at defending the pass (4.9 NY/A, 3rd) than the run (4.5 YPC, 25th), even ranking 18th in rushing yards allowed (1,925) despite landing in a lot of positive game scripts. The same is essentially true for Baltimore – middling run-defense stats mixed with dominant pass defense, though in the Ravens' case they were even more impressive shutting down opposing QBs (4.7 NY/A , 18:18 TD:INT, league-high 60 sacks).

So you can definitely argue that both teams are more vulnerable to running backs than quarterbacks... I'm just not sure how much it matters strategically when the QBs are Mahomes and Jackson. Sure, the Chiefs have made Isiah Pacheco more of a priority lately, but I still think they'll want the ball in Mahomes' hands more often than not, and lots of passing tends to lead to a higher-scoring game even if it isn't especially efficient.

The tweet above is interesting enough to be worth mentioning, and Sharp does a decent job backing it up by controlling for stuff like point spreads. On the other hand, there's still a good chance it's just smallish-sample noise, or else something the NFL is aware of and has informed the officiating crew to be mindful of.

NFL conspiracy theorists, of course, will say the league is aware of the trend and that's why they've assigned Shawn Smith's crew to the game. Nonsense, even though it's possible Smith was aware of the human tendency to favor home teams and then overcorrected by being too generous to visitors. 

But if he's aware of that, then certainly he (and the NFL) are now aware of his road-friendly track record the past three seasons. And in light of some recent controversies surrounding officiating, the league's interest lies in having the game refereed as equitably as possible, Swifties be damned.

And even if you do think the NFL favors certain storylines or that refs are conscious of tv ratings, it's not like the Lamar Jackson-led Ravens are a bust there. The league is basically assured of a fascinating Super Bowl given the four teams remaining, and the overall product is probably better long term with some AFC diversity instead of the Chiefs winning the conference nearly every year.

If the Chiefs do have any advantage officiating-wise this week, it's the same edge they always have – their QB has become an incessant whiner, lobbying the refs for DPIs and roughing-the-passer penalties the same way Tom Brady did later on in his career. And because of who Mahomes is, it probably works more often than it should. On the other hand, his complaining surely annoys some officials and could thus end up working against him at times.

Weather

The Sunday forecast in Baltimore calls for rain, but there definitely won't be snow and probably not much wind. It's also supposed to be about 25-30 degrees warmer than it was for last week's game against Houston, potentially giving us just the second AFC playoff game with "good" weather conditions this year (the Browns-Texans had a closed roof). All the others have been quite cold, though it hasn't seemed to matter much in terms of scoring, which often is the case if frigid temperatures aren't accompanied by strong winds and/or precipitation.

Injuries

Chiefs Injuries

OUT - G Joe Thuney (back)

OUT - DT Derrick Nnadi (triceps)

Questionable - S Mike Edwards (concussion)

Questionable - LB Willie Gay (neck)

Questionable - RB Isiah Pacheco (toe)

Questionable - CB L'Jarius Sneed (calf)

Nnadi missed last week's game entirely, while Thuney, Edwards and Gay left early with injuries. Morris is just the team's swing tackle and therefore unlikely to get more than a few snaps even if he's cleared to play for the first time this postseason.

Pacheco and Sneed are the names that stand out, but it sounds like they'll be fine, so the real question is what happens with  Edwards and Gay. While only Thuney is a high-quality starter, Nnadi and Gay are perhaps more important than usual because they're better at defending the run than the pass and happen to be up against arguably the league's best rushing offense this week.

Thuney is always important, but he also has a good backup in fifth-year pro Nick Allegretti. KC's interior line is so good that it would still be one of the best in the league with Allegretti replacing Thuney next to C Creed Humphrey and G Trey Smith (both beasts).

Ravens Injuries

OUT- WR/RS Tylan Wallace (knee)

Questionable - CB Marlon Humphrey (calf)

Questionable - TE Mark Andrews (ankle)

Questionable - CB Rock Ya-Sin (knee)

Wallace had a walk-off punt return TD earlier this season but was only in that position because a now-healthy Devin Duvernay was on injured reserve. Wallace's expected absence for another week shouldn't really impact anything for Baltimore.

CB Marlon Humphrey practiced Wednesday for the first time since injuring his calf in a Week 17 win over Miami. He then upgraded to full participation Friday, suggesting he'll join Andrews in returning to the lineup. If so, the Ravens would be almost unthinkably healthy for this time of the year, with no starters inactive and only one on IR (RB J.K. Dobbins). 

The other remaining teams have also been lucky in that sense... just not quite as lucky as the Ravens. Being a No. 1 seed helps, of course, especially when the spot was clinched before Week 18. Note that three of the four surviving teams rested starters in the regular-season finale, and the fourth (Detroit) probably should've.

Strengths/Weaknesses

Chiefs Greatest Strength: QB Patrick Mahomes & HC Andy Reid

Chiefs Greatest Weakness: Run Defense

As outlined above, the Chiefs were merely average stopping the run this year. If you prefer advanced stats to the traditional YPC/yardage stuff, Kansas City was 18th in EPA allowed per carry (-0.06) and 28th in First Downs Over Expectation (+4, though it's probably not a stat worth caring about).

Baltimore's run offense finished only eighth in EPA per carry (-0.01) but first in carries (541) and yards (2,661) and fourth in success rate (44.5%). Some of the efficiency stats probably would be even better if the Ravens hadn't been in so many blowout situations where they were running the ball against defenses that knew they would run and/or had backups in the game. If we remove fourth quarter stats, Baltimore jumps from eighth to fifth in EPA per carry (0.02)

I was more worried about the WR group last week, but the run defense is more of a concern against Baltimore, especially with TE Travis Kelce looking like his old self during the playoffs and thus taking some of the heat off of the Chiefs' lackluster wide receivers. 

Ravens Greatest Strength: Pass Defense 

Ravens Greatest Weakness: Obvious Passing Situations (Offense)

Last week I mentioned 'fourth-quarter struggles' as the relative weakness of a Baltimore team that Mahomes doesn't believe to have any weakness (see: his post-game interview last week). But really, it's been a long time since the Ravens melted down in the fourth quarter, and just last week we saw them outscore Houston by 24 points in the second half of a playoff game. 

So, I'll defer back to the weakness of past years – throwing the ball when the opponent knows you're throwing it. That's also what I discussed in the intro of this article, and while the other remaining playoff teams did a better job of it, we should also note that the Ravens weren't bad in these situations this year. They made progress relative to past seasons, and Lamar Jackson's overall passing has been better than ever. So yes, it's nitpicking, but that tends to be the case anyway when discussing the four teams remaining in late January. 

Other teams are perhaps better-equipped to erase a multi-score deficit. Of course, no team is better at avoiding that situation in the first place... such is the case when your offense, defense and special teams are all excellent.

What We Know

1. Baltimore will try to run the ball. Always, and forever (or at least until Jackson retires)
2. Kansas City will try to get the ball to Travis Kelce and Rashee Rice when passing

What We Don't Know

1. If Mark Andrews and Marlon Humphrey will play
2. If the Chiefs will stick with their newfound balance on offense or fully lean into Mahomes
3. If the Chiefs will blitz heavily and repeatedly or mix things up more
4. If RB Dalvin Cook will have more of a role after mostly playing in garbage time last week

Expanding on the third point, we've seen a lot of teams this year go blitz-heavy against Jackson, with the Texans taking it to an extreme last week and sending at least one extra rusher more than two-thirds of the time. Jackson's passing stats against blitzes during the regular season were quite good (8.1 YPA, 8:2 TD:INT), but it was still the best way to stop him because his sack rate rose to 10.1 percent and his scramble rate dropped to 6.9 percent. 

Facing four rushers or fewer, Jackson also produced 8.1 YPA but with a much, much lower sack rate (4.7 percent) and much, much higher scramble rate (16.3 percent). He was remarkably good at avoiding negative plays on non-blitz snaps this year, and even had the third best completion percentage (70.1) among qualified passers. If you sit back and play conservative coverages, he'll either complete an easy pass, run the ball or use his legs to buy time and break down the coverage angles.

So the easy answer is that yes of course the Chiefs will blitz. They did so at the seventh-highest rate during the regular season (32.9 percent) and now will face a QB who dominates four-man rushes. But then you have to consider that blitzing is less effective when you're doing it over and over without any element of surprise. So I guess the question becomes whether you're blitzing Jackson at a normal-ish rate like 35 percent of dropbacks or doing what the Texans did and rushing five/six guys as the default.

Divisional Round Advanced Box Scores

Baltimore Ravens (vs. HOU)

Kansas City Chiefs (at BUF)

DraftKings Plays

QB Lamar Jackson ($7,700)

RB Isiah Pacheco ($6,500)

RB Justice Hill ($4,800)

WR Rashod Bateman ($3,600)

TE Travis Kelce ($6,600)

D/ST Ravens ($3,200)

D/ST Chiefs ($2,900)

Detroit Lions at San Francisco 49ers - 6:30 ET

Betting Odds

Over/Under: 51.5 / Line: 49ers -7.0

Implied Totals: Lions (22.25 - 3rd) at 49ers (29.25 - 4th)

The moneyline here is Detroit +270, FWIW, and I think that's my favorite bet. Partially because of the stuff I discussed above suggesting San Francisco might not be that scary in close games, and partially because the Lions are good enough that I don't think any NFL team is really a 3:1 favorite to beat them. Can they shut down the 49ers offense? Absolutely not. But maybe they can come up with a couple turnovers, and they might be able to throw up a ton of points against a 49ers defense that's merely good, not dominant.

Weather

The forecast looks ideal for offense and kicking, with temperatures in the mid-to-low 60s and minimal wind. No precipitation is expected in the Bay Area until the middle of next week. 

Injuries

Lions Injuries

OUT - LG Jonah Jackson (knee)

OUT- WR Kalif Raymond (knee)

Questionable - LB Alex Anzalone (ribs, shoulder)

Questionable - C Frank Ragnow (knee, ankle)

Ragnow and Anzalone will play through injuries, just as they did last week against the Bucs. Raymond missed the first two rounds of the playoffs and isn't practicing this week, leaving the Lions without their No. 4 receiver and punt return specialist again.

The biggest news here is Jackson missing a second straight game and undergoing surgery for a minor meniscus tear. A return for the Super Bowl isn't out of the question, if Detroit gets there.

49ers Injuries

Questionable - WR Deebo Samuel (shoulder)

Strengths/Weaknesses

Lions Greatest Strength: Offensive Line / Playcalling

Lions Greatest Weakness: Pass Coverage

Detroit's pass defense is the most glaring weak link for any of the four remaining playoff teams. The Ravens, Chiefs and 49ers simply don't have anything comparably exploitable; they're well-rounded teams that can throw the ball, run the ball, defend the pass and stuff the run. The Lions can do all of that, except for stopping opponents from passing.

They gave up the sixth most passing yards (4,205) during the regular season, ranking 29th in NY/A (6.7) and 28th in EPA per dropback (0.01) despite pressuring QBS at the seventh-highest rate (39.2 percent of dropbacks). Their "top" cornerback, Cameron Sutton, allowed the most yards into his coverage of any player in the league (according to both PFF and Pro Football Reference, which use slightly different systems).

The flip side is that their offense is [perhaps without any weakness. It's arguably insulting to Amon-Ra St. Brown and Sam LaPorta that I'm referring to the offensive line and OC Ben Johnson as the team's greatest strength. ARSB, LaPorta and Jahmyr Gibbs make for an awesome and diverse trio of skill-position weapons, and Jared Goff is a good QB playing the best ball of his career. 

My biggest concern is that Goff has some pretty severe home/road splits for a third year running, and while I'd still expect that to dissipate over (more) time, it does make more sense in the context of Detroit being a dome team. Playing outdoors against San Francisco, on the road, isn't the same as beating up on NFC North teams indoors.

49ers Greatest Strength: Loaded with Superstars

49ers Greatest Weakness: Interior O-Line

I'm pretty much just going to repeat what I wrote last week... in addition to the playmakers on offense, San Francisco can make a case for having the best offensive lineman in the league (LT Trent Williams), the best inside linebacker (Fred Warner) and one of the better cornerbacks (Charvarius Ward). The 49ers have an interior lineman (Javon Hargrave) with 25.5 sacks over the past three seasons and he isn't even considered one of the best players on their team. You've also probably heard about their coach, Kyle Shanahan, whose offense is among the two or three best-designed in the league (if not No. 1).

The weakness here is essentially non-existent, but if we're going to nitpick, the interior line doesn't really impress. C Jake Brendel, LG Aaron Banks and RG Jon Feliciano are all unremarkable, though Feliciano surprisingly has the fourth-best PFF grade among qualified guards in his age-31 season after years of mediocre play for the Raiders, Bills and Giants. The problem, from Detroit's standpoint, is that it might not matter much. The Niners don't need their interior linemen to dominate in the run game, they just need them to be mobile and not miss assignments.

And while the D-line has been the relative strength of Detroit's otherwise subpar defense, the Lions got only eight sacks out of their interior guys this year, including five from DT Alim McNeill. Perhaps McNeill and Aidan Hutchinson can battle the Niners O-line to a draw... but I wouldn't count on it. Brock Purdy should have time to throw, and open receivers to throw to (even if Deebo doesn't play).

What We Know

1. The 49ers will feature Christian McCaffrey, feeding him early and often.
2. The Lions also will feature their RBs, with work split between Gibbs and David Montgomery.
3. WR Brandon Aiyuk and TE George Kittle will have opportunities for big plays.

What We Don't Know

1. Whether or not Deebo Samuel will play, and if so, how effective he can be
2. If the Lions will test the perimeter more than usual to avoid San Francisco's excellent LBs   
3. If QB Jared Goff can pretend he's at home; the weather will be good, and the 49ers don't have an especially loud crowd/stadium.

Divisional Round Advanced Box Scores

Detroit Lions (vs. TB)

Earlier this week in Box Score Breakdown, I asked why Craig Reynolds was on the field for a 4th-and-goal play that arguably was Detroit's most important snap of the season so far. Well, now we know...

San Francisco 49ers (vs. GB)

DraftKings Plays

QB Brock Purdy ($6,400)

RB Christian McCaffrey ($9,000)

WR Amon-Ra St. Brown ($7,900)

WR Brandon Aiyuk ($6,900)

WR Jameson Williams ($3,700)

TE George Kittle ($5,300)

D/ST 49ers ($3,300)

D/ST Lions ($2,600)