I refer the reader to previous articles on my NFL playoff predictions for the philosophy that guides me. In a nutshell, the teams that win the NFL playoffs are teams that can complete long passes. The best defensive teams rarely win. Teams with run-based offenses never win. What you have to do to win a Superbowl is throw the ball down the field.
For this reason, my primary tool is a number I call AYP, or “adjusted yards per pass.” This is the number of yards gained passing during the season divided by the number of passes thrown, and adjusted downward for the number of interceptions thrown. A very good team will have an AYP over 7 for the season. An AYP of 6 is pretty good. Teams with an AYP under 5 do not play games in the month of February.
Since AYP can also be calculated for a team’s pass defense, I do so, mostly so I can look at the extremes: who has a really good pass defense, and who has a bad one. I also glance at point differentials over the course of the season.
Finally, I note how each playoff team did in blowouts (defined as a game decided by 11 or more points), during the season. When one good team beats another good team with a last-second field-goal, I’m not always sure what it means. But when a good team beats another NFL team by 28, it tells me something.
We start with the three categories of teams.
I used to define PRETENDERS as those teams unlikely to win a game in the tournament, but now that there are 14 teams in the playoffs, a few bad teams may get past the first week. They have no shot at the Superbowl, however. This year, the pretenders are Cleveland, Kansas City, Pittsburgh, Tampa Bay, Philadelphia, the Rams, and the Packers.
In the COULD GET LUCKY category, we put the teams that “nobody wants to play.” They do not look good enough to challenge the elite squads at the top of the standings, but they have done “something,” they have surprised people, and they have some of the offensive firepower that can make up for a lot of flaws. This year, I put Houston and Detroit in this box.
The remaining five CONTENDERS are the teams with a realistic shot at the enchilada: Baltimore, Buffalo, Miami, San Fran and Dallas.
Cleveland @ Houston (+2.5)
I listed Houston as a COULD GET LUCKY team, and maybe that’s a bit of a stretch. They did get blown out four times this year, by Baltimore, Indy, the stinkin’ Jets, and Cleveland. However, the biggest number I’m looking at is Houston’s AYP of 7.0 vs. Cleveland’s 4.6.
Cleveland fans---who are they, anyway? have you ever actually met one?--- will point out that the Browns’s last five games under the apparently-still-alive Joe Flacco have changed everything, and it is true that Flacco’s AYP for those games is 6.0. On the other side, however, Houston’s passing stats were pulled downward by the performances of Case Keenum and several other non-entities. C.J. Stroud, who will be facing Cleveland, is actually quite wonderful. His AYP for Houston this year was 7.7 and his QB rating was 100.8, which is in the same neighborhood as Prescott, Jackson, and Tagovailoa.
Houston is getting points at home, and they should be favored. The Texans will win outright.
Miami @ KC (-3.5)
The football Gods have not been kind to the Miami Dolphins in the playoffs. Last year, Tua’s brain was broken so the league wouldn’t let him play against the Bills. This year, various Miami players, including a bunch of linebackers, spent the holiday season getting mutilated so the Dolphins head into the playoffs at their lowest ebb of the season.
Based on the numbers from the season, Miami dominates this matchup, with an AYP of 7.0 vs. K.C.’s 5.6. Tua’s NFL passer rating is 101.1 this year, compared to Mahomes’s 92.6. The Chief’s defense, including their pass defense, is stronger than Miami’s, especially after the Miami injuries, but K.C. and Mahomes are not scaring anybody. They were 5 – 5 over their last ten games.
In other words, the numbers say Miami but the injuries say K.C. I’m taking the Dolphins here because they are getting points and because the Chiefs this year are nothing special. However, I have little confidence Miami will win the game.
Take the points.
Pittsburgh @ Buffalo (-10)
Mason “The Reindeer” Rudolph has been a Steeler since 2019 but never made much of an impression on anybody. He then started the last three games of this season, and beat the Bengals 34-11, the Seahawks 30-23, and the Ravens 10-7. During this brief stretch, he threw 74 passes, completed 55 of them (74.3%), and gained 719 yards with no interceptions for a QB rating of 118.0 and an AYP of 9.7.
I’m not saying he’s Joe Montana and I’m not saying he won’t crash and bleed out on the frozen expanse in Buffalo on Sunday. But what is he facing?
I list Buffalo as a CONTENDER because they were 5-0 in blowouts and outscored their opponents by an average of 8 points per game. There were six teams that scored more than 450 points this year, and the Bills (451) were one of them. Also, after splitting their first twelve games, they won their last five, so they’re going in the right direction.
But as the seasons pile up, it is becoming clear that Josh Allen is a decent quarterback who is probably good enough, with a terrific team around him, to win a championship, but who rarely scintillates. Buffalo’s AYP was 5.9, the same as Pittsburgh’s, and miles behind Baltimore, Houston, and Miami. Allen’s QB rating for the season was 92.2, which is 16th on the list of QBs who started double-digit games.
A Pittsburgh win here would be a shock, of course, and I’m not predicting it, but the line should be a field goal or so. Based on the excitement the Reindeer brings to the Steeler side and the fact that Buffalo and Allen are just nothing special, I’m taking the points.
Green Bay @ Dallas (-7.5)
This one is for all you chalk lovers.
The numbers are persuasive. The AYP for the Girlz is 6.8, compared to the Pack’s 6.3. Prescott’s QB rating of 105.9 was second only to San Fran’s Purdy. Dallas’s pass defense is also far superior to the Pack’s, which probably has the worst pass defense among all the NFC playoff teams. Dallas blew out nine teams; Green Bay only 3. In doing so, the Girlz scored 509 points, most in the NFL.
Finally, the game is in Dallas, where the Cowboys went 8-0 this season, outscoring their opponents by 21.5 points per game. To get to the Superbowl, they will probably have to go through San Fran, but until that happens, it will be hard to doubt the Cowboys.
Expect a scoring party in the Big D, and lay the points.
L.A. Rams @ Detroit (-3)
Well, there’s certainly all kinds of symmetries and synchronicities here, and other things that start with the “s” sound. The Rams dumped Goff a few years ago because they just didn’t like him much, and he now gets to start for Detroit in a playoff game against them. Goff has had a good but maybe not spectacular season, and he would probably like to win this game. He has reportedly spent the last week sticking pins in a voodoo doll of Rams Coach Sean McVay.
Then there is Stafford, who played in Detroit for 12 years but never played a playoff game there. Now, after winning the 2-13-22 Superbowl for the Rams, he gets to come back to the Motor City and try to get his team past the Wildcard round.
Looking at the overall numbers for the season, one would give Detroit a small edge. The Lion’s AYP is 6.8; the Rams’ is 6.3. Pass defense also favors Detroit, which also blew out six teams vs. four for the Rams.
The argument for the Rams has two major points: 1) Stafford owns a Superbowl ring (though his numbers this year are middle-of-the-pack), and 2) after starting the season 3-6, L.A. won seven of their last eight.
I look at the stretch of wins for the Rams, however, and I don’t see a lot of dominating performances. From that I conclude they have gotten their act together and are now much more competitive than they were back in September and October, but I don’t view them as the proverbial “team nobody wants to play.”
In the interest of making a pick here, I’ll lay the points with Detroit. I’m in a playoff pool with a dozen other maniacs, and I’ll take Detroit in that pool because I have to take somebody, but this is the game in which I have no confidence in my selection.
Philly @ Tampa (+3)
Please see my blog post of January 4 for the full story of the Philadelphia collapse in 2023-24. At the end of this season, I expect the entire coaching staff, including head coach Nick Sirianni, will be fired.
After starting 10-1, the Birds lost five of their last six games and were outscored by 10 ppg during that stretch. Despite continuing statements that “we’re working on this” and “we’re going to fix this,” the Eagles changed nothing during that period, running the same plays, calling the same defenses week after week, and getting the same results.
Even if you look at the entire Eagles season, however, including the 10-1 part, the Bucs still have posted better numbers. Tampa is no threat to anybody in the playoffs, and they will certainly be eliminated next week, but they are good enough to win this game. Tampa’s AYP is higher than the Eagles’, and Baker Mayfield has had a better season statistically than Jalen Hurts.
Tampa Bay wins outright.
Copyright2024MichaelKubacki
Addendum: There are always a few factoids I discover in the course of writing this that I have no convenient place to insert. Here’s some:
1) Travis Kelce is paid $20 million a year by Pfizer, and only $14 million by the Chiefs.
2) As part of its latest campaign to persuade America that it only makes beer for manly men and doesn’t really support people who want to castrate little boys and cut the breasts off 14-year-old girls, Bud Light’s new, very-well-compensated NFL endorsers are Dak Prescott (Dallas), Travis Kelce (K.C.), and George Kittle (SF).
3) As far as I can tell, Travis Kelce is the only celebrity endorser for both Pfizer and Bud Light. I suspect he is also in negotiations to do commercials for Hamas and the makers of Zyklon B.
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