Sorting the Sunday Pile, Week 17: Wild-Card Weekend full of fresh faces, enticing playoff matchups
Taking a look at the biggest storylines for the upcoming playoff weekend
By
Will Brinson
•
10 min read
Thinking back to this time last year, it was wild to come off the Bengals' win over the Ravens and see the Bills propelled into the playoffs. It was doubly wild to see it almost unfold again, albeit with a different AFC North quarterback. Baker Mayfield came up just short of helping steal the Ravens' soul for a second year in a row. The Browns are going to be a popular playoff pick next year -- and the future is indeed bright in Cleveland -- and were a fun story Sunday, but it was the Ravens who stormed back into the postseason, joining a whopping six other teams as new playoff teams.
That's right: SEVEN of the 12 teams who made the playoffs this season were new to the field, continuing a streak of at least four new teams in the playoffs that has now lasted a ridiculous 29 years. Yes, every year since 1990, the NFL playoff field has featured a minimum of four new teams. Parity reigns supreme in professional football.
Baltimore, Los Angeles, Indianapolis, Houston, Seattle, Dallas and Chicago are all fresh faces in the postseason. The only grizzled playoff vet in the wild-card field this year is the Nick Foles-led Eagles.
Let's look at the juicy matchups on deck this coming weekend.
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Colts at Texans (-2.5)
4:30 p.m. ET, Saturday, ESPN/ABC
This might low-key be my favorite matchup of the weekend. Andrew Luck vs. Deshaun Watson? Are you kidding me? These guys could battle for the AFC South over the next decade and right now they get to battle over who can make a deep run into the playoffs. Both guys were critical to their team's respective success Sunday. Watson didn't throw a touchdown pass, but he did run for one (Bill O'Brien REALLY likes to use him in the red zone despite his recent history with partially collapsed organs), but he was efficient in the passing game, going 25-of-35 for 234 yards. Once the Texans crossed the 17-point barrier, there wasn't any need to turn the volume up and chase points. The Jaguars weren't playing catch-up against Houston's defense (or anyone).
Luck was more explosive, finishing with 285 passing yards and three touchdowns, including a roll-out rope that reminded everyone just how scary he is at full health.
We have pretty good evidence of how these teams play each other, having seen them twice already. The Texans kickstarted their nine-game winning streak with a 37-34 overtime victory back in Week 4. The Colts would salvage their playoff hopes and get revenge 24-21 in Week 14.
Both teams have pretty good rush attacks and both teams have good defenses. I would suggest the Colts' strength -- the offensive line -- can counter the Texans' strength -- the defensive line -- but it's just a great matchup. Ultimately it comes down to the quarterback.
| Att/Comp (%) | Yards, YPA | TD-INT | |
|---|---|---|---|
Andrew Luck vs. HOU | 67/103 (65%) | 863 yards, 8.4 YPA | 6-1 |
Deshaun Watson vs. IND | 56/80 (70%) | 642 yards, 8.0 YPA | 3-1 |
Inherently, the Texans will probably lean less on Watson if they can help it, although Luck's numbers are heavily inflated by the Colts playing as a different team earlier in the year. Indy asked him to throw an obscene 49 times per game through the first five weeks of the year.
One more thing here: Luck has played in a lot of playoff games, appearing in six games during his career, but all of them came in his first three seasons. The Colts haven't been back to the playoffs since 2014. He's 3-3 in those games, losing to the Ravens his rookie season and to the Patriots, in New England, two other times. Luck has a win against Andy Reid (one of the craziest comeback victories ever after the 2013 season) and he has a win in Denver against Peyton Manning and an elite defense. In other words, the stage won't be too big.
Watson has no such experience ... at the NFL level. Anyone who watched college football should know good and well counting out Watson is a fool's errand. Dabo Swinney compared his former Clemson quarterback to Michael Jordan coming out. It was silly, right? Maybe not. Watson's performance on big stages can't be questioned. In the ACC championship game and two College Football Playoff games in 2015, he went 2-1, completing 60 percent of his passes and throwing eight touchdowns and three interceptions, losing the championship to Nick Saban. In the same situation a year later, he went 3-0, completed 65 percent of his passes, averaged more than 300 yards per game and threw seven touchdowns and three interceptions. Two of those interceptions were during a 31-0 skunking of an Urban Meyer's Ohio State team.
These guys are gamers and this is going to be a really fun wild-card game.
Listen to Will Brinson, John Breech, Ryan Wilson and Sean Wagner-McGough break down everything that happened in Week 17 on the Pick Six Podcast:
Seahawks at Cowboys (-2.5)
8:15 p.m. ET, Saturday, FOX
It feels like a generation ago, but these teams met in Week 3, under vastly different circumstances. The Seahawks were 0-2, heading home for their first game in front of the 12's, and stiff-armed the Cowboys 24-13. The Cowboys fell to 1-2 after that loss and continued to stagger towards and through their bye before acquiring Amari Cooper from the Raiders and blasting off into the offensive sky.
Seattle got rid of Darrell Bevell and Tom Cable in the offseason, moving on from a pair of longtime stalwarts on the offensive side. They hired Brian Schottenheimer, went stone age with their offense and somehow became one of the most efficient offenses in the league.
This is a Spiderman meme if there ever was one: the Cowboys and Seahawks both want to establish the run and take shots down the field and both want to slow you down up front. What's odd here, though, is the Seahawks are actually the better running team and the more efficient offensive team, while the Cowboys have morphed into the better defensive team.
| Rush Yards/Game (Rank) | Rush Off. DVOA Rank | Rush Yards Allowed/Game (Rank) | Rush Def. DVOA Rank | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Cowboys | 122.7 (10th) | 17th | 94.6 (5th) | 4th |
Seahawks | 160.0 (1st) | 8th | 113.2 (13th) | 18th |
This is a pretty incredible shift for both teams. The Seahawks lived on being a dominant defense, while the Cowboys ruled the roost in 2016 by crushing people with their rushing offense. Both teams are still pretty good at doing what they used to do, but they are actually better at doing what the other team used to do.
Chargers at Ravens (-2.5)
1 p.m. ET, Sunday, CBS
This rematch game on the Wild-Card Weekend slate features two teams who battled it out just a few weeks ago in Los Angeles, with the Ravens reviving their playoff hopes by pounding on Philip Rivers and running the ball down the Bolts' throat. Can the Ravens win with Lamar Jackson in the postseason, even with the game at home? There have been 10 rookie quarterbacks to start a playoff game since 2008 (and 11 who played a lot if you count Kirk Cousins filling in for Robert Griffin).
| Player | Year | Team | Record | Opp. Def. DVOA Rank | Att/Comp (%), Yards, TD/INT |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2008 | 0-1 | ARZ - 21 | 26/40 (65), 199, 2/2 | ||
2008 | Ravens | 2-1 | MIA - 16, TEN - 5, PIT - 1 | 33/75 (44), 437, 1/3 | |
2009 | 2-1 | CIN - 13, SD - 23, IND - 16 | 41/68 (60.3), 539, 4/2 | ||
2011 | Bengals | 0-1 | HOU - 6 | 27/42 (64.3), 257, 0/3 | |
2011 | T.J. Yates | Texans | 1-1 | CIN - 17, BAL - 1 | 28/55 (50.9), 343, 1/3 |
2012 | Andrew Luck | Colts | 0-1 | BAL - 19 | 28/54 (51.9), 288, 0/1 |
2012 | Seahawks | 1-1 | WAS - 17, ATL - 12 | 39/62 (62.9), 572, 3/1 | |
2012 | Robert Griffin | 0-1 | SEA - 2 | 10/19 (52.6), 84, 2/1 | |
2016 | Cowboys | 0-1 | GB - 20 | 24/38 (63.2), 302, 3/1 | |
2016 | Connor Cook | Raiders | 0-1 | HOU - 9 | 18/45 (40), 161, 1/3 |
The total record here is 6-9, which is surprisingly good. But digging a little deeper, it's worth noting Dalton and Yates played each other in one game (J.J. Watt had a pick-six on Dalton, avenging Wisconsin's loss to TCU in the 2011 Rose Bowl), while Wilson and RG3 played each other in that slop-fest in Washington when Griffin tore his ACL (and probably derailed his career). So two of the wins by these rookie quarterbacks came against other rookie quarterbacks.
What I was curious about, too -- how many of these young quarterbacks beat a team who played them once already? And how many of these quarterbacks beat a good defense?
First up, let's look at success against a team who'd seen the quarterback. Wilson beat the Falcons in the regular season but lost to them in the postseason (although he did set the rookie record for passing yards in a single playoff game). Yates actually beat the Bengals both in the regular season and the playoffs. Sanchez also beat the Bengals twice, although that 37-0 Week 17 was kind of ridiculous since Marvin Lewis sat everyone. Flacco beat the Steelers and Dolphins in the regular season and would go on to beat the Dolphins in the playoffs.
Secondly, let's look at the defenses, which is easy to figure out by the table above. Rookie quarterbacks do not fair well against good defenses. Surprise! They are 1-5 against defenses ranked in the season-ending top 10 of Football Outsiders DVOA since 2008. That one win? It was the Ravens. With Joe Flacco. The Chargers are seventh this year, so Jackson would be attempting to repeat history.
So the last quarterback to beat BOTH a team he faced previously in the regular season and a team ranked in the top 10 of DVOA was Flacco, with the Ravens, almost a full decade before he took a seat and turned the keys over to Lamar Jackson. No rookie quarterback in the last 10 years has been able to beat a top-10 DVOA team in the regular season and the playoffs. Lamar will try to be the first.
Eagles at Bears (-4.5)
4:40 p.m. ET, Sunday, NBC
The Foles Bowl Part Duex begins and this game is strictly a battle of narratives. Some people -- including yours truly -- have been unable to fully buy into the Bears and their success. They keep snuffing people out and we keep ignoring it. Smash the Vikings once during the regular season in a primetime game? Well, things could have gone differently. Snuff out Aaron Rodgers and the Packers postseason hopes? That was a bad Packers team.
Maybe it's time just to admit it: the Bears are really good. Their offense isn't elite, but it's capable and multiple. Kyle Long returning gives them juice in the run game. Their defense is the best in the NFL, and it's not even close.
Chicago went on the road with almost nothing to play for -- no one thought the 49ers were beating the Rams and opening up a bye for the Bears -- and smothered the Vikings, a team with everything to play for. Minnesota needed to win to make the playoffs and couldn't muster more than 10 points against the Vikings, despite holding an $84 million quarterback in Kirk Cousins, acquired this offseason in free agency, on the roster.
I'm not pinning it all on Cousins, but you pay the man to win those games. The offensive line is a problem and it led to Cousins being pressured all game. But if you can't protect an $84 million quarterback, you probably shouldn't buy an $84 million quarterback.
Anyway, let's not stop talking about the Bears here. They're the biggest favorite of all the wild-card teams, but they should be. Chicago's been outstanding this year, dominating teams all year long. The Bears have the third-best point differential in the NFL (138), behind only the Saints (151) and Rams (143).
Nick Foles scares people, and I think Chicago would have been better off playing the Vikings this weekend. They certainly would have been bigger favorites. But the Bears are a different team than anyone the Eagles faced during their run last season.
Only the Vikings -- last year's No. 2 team in defensive DVOA -- can really compare. The Bears, comparatively, are a much better defense. And the Eagles are different too.
Philly is missing Jay Ajayi, LeGarrette Blount, Corey Clement, Trey Burton, Brent Celek, Torrey Smith, Derek Barnett, Vinny Curry, a bunch of defensive backs and, not to mention, both Frank Reich and John DeFillipo.
It's easy to say "Foles will make playoff voodoo magic again and burn the world!" but it ignores how good the Bears have been all year long. Chicago could take care of business here and no one should flinch.
