Playoffs begin with the four wildcard duels in Los Angeles, Kansas City, New Orleans and Jacksonville, followed a week later by the four top seeds Minnesota, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and New England with home games. Which team has which strengths? Where are there possibly crucial shortcomings, which matchups are particularly (un-)advantageous? The SPOX-Stat overview brings light into the dark, the complete playoffs can be seen live on DAZN!
SPOX analysis: Of all playoff quarterbacks Roethlisberger (on average 9.5 air yards per pass attempt) led the most aggressive downfield opener in the regular season. Brady (9.4) is only just behind – followed by Mariota (9.2), who benefits from downfield shots in play-action moves. Matt Ryan is the only other postseason quarterback to break the 9-yard mark (9).
The tail light among the playoff quarterbacks (and the third last place in the league wide out of all quarterbacks with at least 128) passes marks Drew Brees (7,1). Here one thing becomes clear again: The Saints-Offense lives from the screen game and from yards after the catch.
On the one hand there are the running backs, especially Alvin Kamara, but also Michael Thomas had a great season: The receiver recorded 1,245 yards, and this at “only” 12 yards per catch. For comparison: Antonio Brown (15.2), DeAndre Hopkins (14.4), Adam Thielen (14) or Julio Jones (16.4) move in completely different spheres.
6.2 yards New Orleans records on average per reception after the catch, the Jaguars come to the same brand. However, this category is dominated by the rams (6,6), while Tennessee (4,5) is the most inefficient. The Titans do not put too little emphasis on spread elements to focus on Marcus Mariota’s strengths. Instead, narrow formations dominate, while at the same time the speed is generally lacking in the receiving corps.
SPOX-Analysis: Teams know that Jacksonville and Tennessee have to get past the Run Game – and that’s reflected in the defensive formations: Jacksonville’s Chris Ivory (50.89 percent) and Leonard Fournette (48.51 percent) see the third and fifth most 8-men boxes according to Next Gen Stats. Tennessee’s Derrick Henry (50 percent) finished the regular season exactly between the two in fourth place.
On the other hand, the handling of opposing defenses with the Bills Offense is surprising: LeSean McCoy (35.89 percent) has much less to do with a full box – the bootleg play action game about Tyrod Taylor and McCoy’s run style forces Defenses to defend the Edges as well.
It is also remarkable how important it is when a running back also plays a major role in the passing game: Of all the running backs with at least 85 rushing attempts, Alvin Kamara (16.67 percent) and Todd Gurley (16.85) see the second and third least 8-men boxes, respectively. Le’ Veon Bell (19.94 percent) is only just above this figure.
Both teams combine their run game very well with Play Action and Screen-Passes, so that a Defense before the snap has to expect a pass or various fake elements in spite of the supposedly obvious rushing formation.
The Saints are also very good at involving a fullback to force the defense into predictable line-ups (instead of sub-packages). This ensures less complex coverage and makes blocking even more pleasant for the best offensive line this season.
Two more exciting observations: The Steelers had a comparatively inefficient run game, although the offensive line played on a high level. The chiefs on the other side started hot, had a long slack and finally came back impressively. If you want to stop the Chiefs’ run game, you should be prepared for a lot of run pass options – and be prepared to tackle Kareem Hunt wisely: the regular season rushing leader produced 839 of his 1,327 rushing yards after contact with opponents.
SPOX analysis: Minnesota’s Defense is the most balanced and best overall defense of the season. The Vikings have an elite run stopper (Linval Joseph), a very good pass rush duo (Hunter/Griffen), a top 5 cornerback (Xavier Rhodes), one of the two best NFL safeties (Harrison Smith) and explosiveness on the linebacker level (Kendricks/Barr).
The individual quality allows Coach Mike Zimmer to be more aggressive with his Lightning Packages when needed. The Vikes play primarily Cover-1 and Cover-2, which are balanced between Man and Zone Coverage.
Minnesota is able to play the Line of Scrimmage very aggressively – if necessary. Among other things, this was the means of choice to defend the Rams’ play-action and screen passes in the direct duel a few weeks ago. Harrison Smith is a central player for the Vikes-Defense, who can switch from very similar basic information before the snap to different coverages thanks to Smith after the snap.
Jacksonville primarily plays the Cover-3-Defense, which was first and foremost known from Seattle and more recently from the Falcons. The great strength of the Jaguars is the cornerback duo: A. J. Bouye and Jalen Ramsey each belong individually to the Cornerback Top 6 of this season, and that gives a defensive front seven freedom as well as pass rush valuable time. Combined with Ngakoue and Campbell’s outstanding season, Jacksonville’s pass defense was the number one.
Jacksonville leads all playoff teams with a pressure rate of 33.3 percent (describes as a percentage of the number of opposing dropbacks that Defense Pressure could generate on the quarterback), followed by Rams and Panthers (31.3 each), Steelers (31.1) and Saints (28.8). Things didn’t go quite so well elsewhere. Kansas City, for example, had constant problems in the pass rush for the first time in years, and in combination with Eric Berry’s early season outing, the Secondary was exposed again and again.
The Chiefs’ 25.7 percent pressure rate was the fifth lowest in the league. In the Falcons, the pass rush didn’t take the hoped-for next step either. Positive development in the secondary of the Bills, on the other hand, in whose zone coverage players such as Micah Hyde and Tre’ Davious White shine. The big question will be how constantly the 4-men-rush of Bills can generate pressure. Here, the pressure ratio of 24 percent was even worse than at KC, only Tampa Bay (21.5) was once again harmless.
The New Orleans Saints have also made a significant leap forward, but it stands and falls with Marshon Lattimore: the rookie-cornerback is a puzzle piece that allows the complex coverage and pressure packages to work in New Orleans. In New England, the pass rush is and remains a major concern, partly because the Secondary has not always lived up to expectations. Meanwhile, the Steelers have recently shown that they can also play more man coverage. Joe Haden is a central player here.
SPOX analysis: If the vikings have the most complete defense, the Eagles under Jim Schwartz have the best defensive line. Not for nothing did Philly stop 29 percent of the opponent’s runs on or even before the Line of Scrimmage, only Cleveland (30 percent) was even better. The Eagles-D-Line was by far the strongest against the run this season, while Philadelphia also defended themselves on the linebacker level.
Keyword discipline: This is the great strength of the Titans Run Defense, which is the best part of this Tennessee team in 2017. The Titans had by far the best defense in the league when it came to preventing big play runs: only three runs of over 20 yards (none of them over 40) are outstanding. The Chiefs are the only team with only six opposing big play runs, no other team was under seven. The Chargers led this list (24).
One of the best fronts against the run was that of the Panthers: Carolina, who was unusually aggressive for her own circumstances in terms of Blitzing this season, was also extremely successful in 26 percent of run stops on or before the Line of Scrimmage and even more successful in short yardage situations than Philadelphia. However, if an offense could outmaneuver the front, the Panthers were among the weakest teams when it came to preventing Big Plays.
In New England and the Rams, it is noticeable how little pressure the defensive line creates against Run Plays. No playoff team stopped as few runs as a percentage of the total or in front of the line of scrimmage as New England (30th place in the league) and L. A. (28th place). The Bills were a defensive disaster for most of the season when it came to stopping at linebacker level and in the Secondary Runs. Combined, no team was worse.
Page 1: Passing Offense, Passing Defense, Rushing Open and Rushing Defense
Page 2: The DVOA rankings and a stat of each playoff team