WASHINGTON — Many factors go into postseason success in the NFL: Relative experience, preparation, weather, and a simple bounce of an oblong ball, just to name a few.
That first factor is about to be one helluva big deal in this weekend’s divisional round playoffs.
Just look at this gulf between opposing quarterbacks’ postseason experience in each and every game of the divisional round:
Career playoff starts for the 8 QB starting next week:
Marcus Mariota 1
Tom Brady 34Blake Bortles 1
Ben Roethlisberger 20Matt Ryan 9
Nick Foles 1Drew Brees 12
Case Keenum 0— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) January 8, 2018
Talk about luck of the draw.
Tom Brady won’t see Alex Smith and the Kansas City Chiefs that smoked his New England Patriots to open the season. No, the 40-year-old Brady hosts the Tennessee Titans’ 24-year-old Marcus Mariota in what will be the largest age gap between starting QBs in NFL postseason history. In fact, these extraordinarily large age gaps between QBs in the playoffs are rare and have always favored the older player.
We basically saw this factor come into play in the wild card round. By nearly every metric, the Los Angeles Rams are better than the Atlanta Falcons. Yet the Falcons went into the Coliseum and took firm control of the game from start to finish, largely because only six players on the Rams roster had playoff experience of any kind. Meanwhile, Matt Ryan — nine years older than his opponent Jared Goff — is fresh off a Super Bowl run and currently sports the second-highest postseason passer rating in NFL history (among QBs with at least 250 pass attempts).
Tennessee’s win in Kansas City was a notable exception — Alex Smith is nine years older than Mariota — but you saw what had to happen: Mariota threw himself a touchdown and the Chiefs offense inexplicably stopped flowing through Kareem Hunt, leading to a 202-69 rushing advantage for the Titans. A playoff team can’t reasonably expect to win with only 195 passing yards and a minus-2 turnover ratio, so Tennessee was fortunate to win that game.
That’s why I expect the entire divisional round of the playoffs to be closer to the noncompetitive Falcons-Rams game. The Patriots are remarkably healthy and vastly more experienced all around, so they’re probably going to blowout the Titans. Ditto for the red-hot and healthy Falcons, who head to Philadelphia to face a Carson Wentz-less Eagles offense that hasn’t scored since Christmas Day.
The only hope we have for competitive football is in Minnesota and Pittsburgh, where the two best defenses in football could be equalizers.
The top-ranked Vikings D at home could trouble Drew Brees and the New Orleans Saints enough to overcome Case Keenum’s inexperience.
And in Week 5, the Jacksonville Jaguars defense went into the Steel City and basically blew out the Steelers single-handedly by scoring two touchdowns on five Ben Roethlisberger interceptions — meaning that unit scored more TDs than the offense they were defending. The Jags will need another day like that if they’re going to overcome punchline QB Blake Bortles.
That’s unlikely, however, and that’s part of why Big Ben wants this rematch. Even though the Jaguars are one of only two teams to have a winning record in Pittsburgh during the Roethlisberger era (4-1), Bortles is the more likely QB to throw five picks in what amounts to the biggest game of his life. That will only aid the Steelers’ game plan: Run the ball early and often, and shut down Leonard Fournette.
Regardless, NFL playoff games generally come down to the quarterback play, and the discrepancy between the haves and have-nots in each of the four divisional games is stark — and likely the reason the teams considered the “haves” will advance to the championship round.
