Kansas City Chiefs to Win the Super Bowl

While there are plenty of fantastic teams left in the playoffs, I’m once again backing the best quarterback and coach in football. Patrick Mahomes is coming off a Week 18 rest plus a bye week, meaning he should be fully rested and back in top form. This is an extremely experienced veteran Chiefs team, so getting that extra week of rest should be absolutely huge when teams like the Bills/Ravens will have had to go through multiple wars to make it to that point. Taking advantage of the fresher team is nice, it especially helps when they are already the better team.

Seeing Patrick Mahomes go from their boring regular season playcalling to the real version of himself this week should get a lot of people back on board. The Chiefs have constantly played it safe during the season, aggressively running the ball and saving a lot of their best plays for the playoffs. We are here now, and there is nothing left to save, meaning the most creative play-caller in the league should have some fun stuff cooked up for us. The biggest thing to watch will be the emergence of Travis Kelce, after his slowest regular season to date. If he looks back to speed, that will be the #1 key that this Chiefs offence is back and flowing.

The Chief’s offence is obviously great, but the defence has been very good and really doesn’t get talked about enough. Chris Jones is one of the most versatile linemen of his generation, and not only has gotten to the passer, but been dominant in run protection all year long. They are constantly able to get pressure, and Steve Spagnuolo is one of the more aggressive coordinators in the league. They will constantly bring the blitz and are not afraid to bring pressure when it matters the most. The one weakness has been the secondary, but getting Waston back before the postseason run should be huge in stabilizing that. Trent McDuffie is an impact corner to watch, as he continues to fly under the radar as one of the best cover corners around and a key part of that secondary.

Philadelphia Eagles to Reach the Conference Finals

While I do have some problems with Jalen Hurts, the Eagles still easily have a top 3 roster in the NFL. While a lot of teams start building with flashy skill position players, Philadelphia made sure that they would be strong in the trenches, building this team around a high-level offence and defensive line. This set them up perfectly this year for a guy like Saquon Barkley, who has had a historic season coming into this offence and absolutely taking over. This makes a lot of logical sense though, considering this offensive line made Miles Sanders look like an all-pro for their Super Bowl, adding in a real All-Star to that room takes it to a new level. To stop the run you obviously need to bring more guys down into the box, which means now you have to give 1v1 coverage to one of AJ Brown, Devonta Smith, or Dallas Goedert. This is what makes this team so challenging to beat, because that’s one of the strongest skill position groups in football, and Jalen Hurts has more time to throw than any player in football. The only good news is Hurts is a bit of an unknown if he’s set up in a game script where he needs to pass to save them, so the Eagles will do everything they can to control the game mostly on the ground.

They also match up incredibly well against the Rams. I wanted the Rams to be my darkhorse Super Bowl team, but I can’t in good faith pick them when I don’t even expect them to make it into the second round. They got a great stylistic matchup in round 1 against a Blitz-heavy team that Stafford torched both in the regular and postseason. His biggest struggles over the years have been teams that get pressure without Blitzing, which is the exact strong suit of this Eagles team. If they get home without additional pressure, It’s gonna be a long day for Stafford who really can’t rely much on an inefficient Kyren Williams to save him if he’s in trouble. The Rams have some great receivers, but that corner room went from a weakness to an absolute strength after the Eagles drafted Dejean and Mitchell this year. With a run-focused offence and good defensive play, I expect the Eagles to cruise into the Conference Finals fairly smoothly.

Buffalo Bills to be Knocked Out in the Divisional Round

The Bills and Ravens give us one of the best games possible, but it’s also a brutal draw for two of the best teams in football. This will be the battle of MVP-hopefuls, with tons of discourse surrounding which of these two Super Stars will claim this season’s MVP. The only bummer here is that the losing quarterback will surely be unfairly hated on for their playoff success, despite the murders row that is the AFC playoff race. The other reason I feel confident picking against the winner of this game is that you have to absolutely battle here, only to then face the boogeyman Patrick Mahomes after getting the easiest matchup for the first round and two straight weeks of rest before that.

The biggest concern for the Bills is pretty simple, the Ravens rushing attack can absolutely dominate this game. Everyone always talks about stopping Derrick Henry, but that’s easier said than done with Lamar Jackson sitting right there in the backfield. You also have a deadly two-tight end rotation of Mark Andrews and Isaiah Likely, who will be incredibly important pass-catchers in this game. With the loss of Zay Flowers, they will likely run some of the highest 12 personnel rates of the season, meaning the Bill’s secondary better be ready to tackle in this one.

Everyone always talks about what happens when Lamar Jackson has to come from behind in a game, but we’ve seen plenty of Josh Allen turnover-filled meltdowns. Last week the Bills ran all over the Broncos, but nobody has done that against the Ravens this season and I wouldn’t expect that to change. The Bills generate more EPA per play than any team in the NFL between the sticks, but the Ravens have Marlon Humprey, Roquan Smith, and Kyle Hamilton to counter that, covering every single level. This is a battle of two absolute beasts, but I think the Raven’s past struggles in the postseason are opening up some value for them.

The Chief’s first-round opponent is probably the easiest of any team remaining, the Houston Texans. They are currently 8-point favourites in the matchup, and they are well-rested after sitting their starters in Week 18 and getting a bye last weekend. While the Texans do have an intimidating defence, they have had a bottom-10 offence and looked awful in the second half of the season. Having a corner duo consisting of Stingley and Lassiter is strong, but the Chiefs have so many different weapons at their disposal. Hollywood Brown returned from injury towards the end of the season and looked surprisingly good. This coincided with the emergence of rookie receiver Xavier Worthy, who had a fantastic end to the season with plenty of red zone usage.

The biggest thing to watch will be the emergence of Travis Kelce for the offence. He has dominated over the middle for years, but after a slower regular season I anticipate they ramp up his workload and he looks more like the Kelce of previous dominant postseasons. Andy Reid has long been known as a guy who will save all of his best plays for when it matters the most, and I would expect much more exciting playcalling than the regular season. We saw them constantly rely on guys like Kareem Hunt for 20+ carries, which I doubt we see anymore. Patrick Mahomes is the best quarterback in football and there is nobody I’d rather be backing in the playoffs.

While we always focus on the Chief’s offence, the defence has been very good. They are constantly able to get pressure, and Steve Spagnuolo is one of the more aggressive coordinators in the league. They will constantly bring the blitz, and it’s almost impossible to run on Chris Jones and that defensive line. The one weakness has been the secondary, but getting Waston back before the postseason run should be huge in stabilizing that. Trent McDuffie is definitely an impact corner to watch, as he continues to fly under the radar as one of the best cover corners around.

While a lot of people hoped this would be the year the Chiefs faded, I honestly think they are a little undervalued coming into the postseason. Despite the great record, they looked bland and lifeless in a lot of their regular season games, which lowers a lot of the public’s opinion, but they’ve proven to ramp things up when it matters the most in past years. I think we see an electric version of this offence come out, and there is no team I’d rather back deep in the playoffs than Kansas City.

While the AFC is going to have a couple of intense battles, we see some bigger underdogs in the NFC with the Rams and Commanders competing to extend their playoff journeys. I think both of those teams have the rosters to challenge anyone for the rest of the playoffs, but each has an incredibly tough task in front of them. I think this division is wide open, so we are going to back to the second-biggest underdog on the board to continue their historic journey to the Super Bowl. When looking at this next round, I think the Commanders have a better chance of pulling off the upset, setting up a likely rematch against the Eagles for the divisional championship.

The Commanders are facing the Lions at one of their most injured points in the season. They did just get linebacker Alex Anzalone back but are still dealing with problems on the defensive line and the secondary. On offence, David Montgomery is back, but I think the Commander’s defence wouldn’t mind a run-heavy gameplan considering how bad their secondary looked last week. Both teams have problems on the defensive side of the ball, hence the 55.5 total, so whatever team can be more efficient on offence will take this one home.

Despite having a rookie quarterback, the Commanders have the most efficient fourth-down conversion rate of all time. That kind of aggression has been an advantage all year long and will need to come in clutch against the Lions once again. We know Dan Campbell will match that energy, and having that aggression creates variance, which is how underdogs cause enough madness to pull off a surprise victory. Detroit has shown aggression can be their Achilles’ heel, and I think Washington will embrace the underdog role with tactical aggression.

Washington will need improved performances from Marshon Lattimore if they want to win it all. He has only played 4 full regular season quarters and was absolutely targeted last week in his matchup with Mike Evans. Washington has done a great job of slowing teams down and improving on defence, but they absolutely need a shutdown corner this time of year. If they can’t find out this problem by the time they face AJ Brown again, they could be in serious trouble. At the end of the day, the goal of the defence on this squad is to bend but don’t break, and hopefully create some key turnovers to give the offence a chance.

Washington’s playoff run is really dependent on their rookie sensation Jayden Daniels, but he’s stepped up in every big moment this year. Washington has a veteran coaching staff with plenty of experience, and I think Dan Quinn will have his squad ready to go in the biggest moments. The rushing upside and key fourth-quarter drives have been there all season, this is the perfect time of year for Washington to break out.