The final eight teams in the NFL playoffs are left standing this weekend for the Divisional Round. While we’ve seen what these teams have done over the course of the season and for a few of these teams, one game in the playoffs, it’s still pivotal to see how the match-up against each other.
As always there will be 30-plus stats for each game including stats and ranks for each. There will also be quick breakdowns to show the mismatches or intriguing stats about each game and where we can find upside for DFS or fantasy football match-ups. The color-coding in the tables are from an offensive point of view so the more green you see, the better for the offensive players and the more red in the table, the tougher a match-up is for the offensive players.
Los Angeles at Green Bay
This is the fourth time in the last 50 years that the team with the most passing touchdowns in the regular season faces the team that allowed the fewest on defense have met in the playoffs, the offensive team has won each of the first three. The Packers defense has also really warmed up of late with 17 or fewer points allowed in four of the last five games. On the opposite side of warming up, Jared Goff has no touchdowns, five picks, and a 34.5 passer rating in two career games in less than 35 degrees. If there is one way to slow down the Packers’ offense it’s to have Cam Akers take advantage of the bad rush defense for the Rams and have Jalen Ramsey lock down Davante Adams as Ramsey hasn’t allowed a 50-plus yard receiving effort since Week 1.
Baltimore at Buffalo
This is a game of streaks coming in for these teams. Baltimore is the only team in NFL history with a winning record on the road in the playoffs at 11-6, eight of those have happened with John Harbaugh at the helm, while the Bills are 11-3 in the playoffs at home all time. Both teams are coming in with at least a six-game winning streak and in the nine previous times two teams have faced off in the playoffs in this same situation, the home team is 8-1. In the five games the Bills faced a top-10 overall defense this year, Josh Allen is 5-0 in those games and in this one, Baltimore is ninth in DVOA but a sneaky match-up might be Dawson Knox as the Ravens are only 22nd in DVOA against the TE.
Cleveland at Kansas City
Coming off the shocking win last weekend, Cleveland gets perhaps the best match-up for them in the Divisional Round as the Chiefs don’t stop the run very well and the Browns run it very well, not to mention the revenge game narrative for Kareem Hunt . This game is shaping up to be a close affair as the Browns haven’t lost a game by more than 10 points since Week 6 and KC has not won a game by more than 10 points since Week 8. If the Browns’ get parts of their defense back, they could be interesting in the passing game defense as they are pretty good against the top receiving threat for opponents in terms of DVOA ranking fourth. If this game comes down to a red zone battle, the Browns are the fourth-best team at converting touchdowns inside the 20 and 19th-best at stopping opposing offenses while the Chiefs are 14th-best at scoring there offensively and dead last at stopping opponents from scoring. All that being said, Andy Reid is 25-5 in his career following bye weeks including playoffs and the Browns have only won multiple post-season games in the same year once in their history, in 1950.
Tampa Bay at New Orleans
Drew Brees and Tom Brady part III this year in what could be the last match-up for them in their careers. The Saints swept the season series this year and historically teams that pull that off are 17-7 in the playoffs when facing that same team. While the Bucs will have a relatively healthy Mike Evans on Sunday, he’s only averaged 51 yards receiving in 13 career games against the Saints (he averages over 80 yards a game against everyone else). The real trick for the Saints is to get some semblance of a running game going with Alvin Kamara and Latavius Murray as the Tampa Bay rush defense was the best in the league this year in yards and touchdowns allowed. One last thing to watch in this game is what Brady does because two of his three games of seeing a passer rating of 80 or below came against the Saints, however, he’s posted a 14-1 TD:INT ratio since Week 13 and gone 5-0 in that span.