The biggest NFL wild-card weekend ever didn't disappoint. We had massive upsets, historic performances and what has to be the first slime cannons in league history. Two 12-win teams are one-and-done, and we've been left with four interesting matchups for next weekend's divisional round.
Let's run through the biggest question coming out of all six wild-card games. In some cases, we're trying to interpret what happened in a surprising performance; in others, it seems more important to figure out what happens next. We'll go in reverse order of when the games were played, starting with the stunner in Pittsburgh.
Jump to a matchup:
IND-BUF | LAR-SEA | TB-WSH
BAL-TEN | CHI-NO | CLE-PIT
Cleveland Browns 48, Pittsburgh Steelers 37
How did the Browns blow away the Steelers?
As someone who thought the Steelers were going to easily defeat the Browns on Sunday night, I was as shocked about Cleveland's victory as anyone. The Browns, who didn't even get to practice until Friday, were down coach Kevin Stefanski, Pro Bowl left guard Joel Bitonio, edge rusher Olivier Vernon and top cornerback Denzel Ward. They also lost All-Pro right tackle Jack Conklin to a hamstring injury in the second quarter. One injury to a key player can sink a team in the postseason, and this team was dealing with a handful.
In some ways, the Browns benefited from fortuitous bounces early. Pro Bowl center Maurkice Pouncey snapped the ball over Ben Roethlisberger's head on the opening snap from scrimmage, and while both Roethlisberger and James Conner had a chance to recover the ball in the field of play, the ball squirted away from them into the end zone, where Karl Joseph recovered it for a touchdown. Roethlisberger threw three interceptions in the first half. One bounced off his receiver's hands and right into the arms of Sheldrick Redwine. Another was tipped at the line and then caught by a diving Porter Gustin, a 260-pound edge defender who likely hasn't caught a pass in a competitive game since high school, if ever. There are games in which those three plays don't turn into takeaways, let alone points.
At the same time, though, the Browns did more than their fair share to dominate this game. Nick Chubb and Kareem Hunt were electric, forcing Steelers defenders to miss tackle after tackle in the open field. Jarvis Landry ran past a flat-footed Terrell Edmunds for a 40-yard touchdown. The Browns tormented the Steelers on throws to the flat and then used that to set up a hi-lo read against Cameron Sutton in the end zone for the easiest touchdown pass Baker Mayfield will throw all season. The Cleveland defense forced a takeaway or a punt on Pittsburgh's first six drives of the game, at which point the Browns led 28-0.
Given where they've invested their money and their draft picks, it perhaps shouldn't be a surprise that the Browns won the line of scrimmage. Facing the league's best defense by DVOA and without their two most expensive linemen for most of the contest, the Browns carved out running lanes for their two backs and kept Pittsburgh's pass-rushers off of Mayfield. The first overall pick of 2018 was pressured on just 19.4% of his dropbacks, the lowest rate for any quarterback this weekend, and Pittsburgh's streak of 73 consecutive games with a sack came to an end. The game plan was also key here, as Mayfield got rid of the ball after an average of just 2.34 seconds, the fastest of any quarterback in these six games.
The defensive line wasn't quite as impressive for Cleveland, and it tired out as the game went along, but still pressured Roethlisberger just under 27% of the time during that spectacular first half. Pressure created the first interception of the game, when a scrambling Roethlisberger threw an awful lob under duress to M.J. Stewart. The Browns also held a moribund Pittsburgh running game to 52 yards on 16 carries, including a stop of Derek Watt on third-and-1.
No, the Browns can't count on four interceptions and a blown snap from Patrick Mahomes next week in Kansas City. As a team that can run the ball and get pressure around the edge with Myles Garrett, though, Cleveland can attack Kansas City's biggest weaknesses on both sides of the ball. Browns fans might have been delighted to make the playoffs after they were on the outside looking in heading into Week 17, but the organization wasn't willing to settle for a mere pass into the postseason. The Steelers will be spending the next week reevaluating their operations and wondering how many of their veterans will actually be back on the roster in 2021. The Browns will be preparing to try to dethrone the defending champs.
New Orleans Saints 21, Chicago Bears 9
Is the Mitchell Trubisky era over in Chicago?
About the only positives on offense the Bears can take away from Sunday's season-ending loss to the Saints are Jimmy Graham's incredible one-handed catch on the final play and the fact that their quarterback was voted the game's NVP by Nickelodeon viewers. Chicago had six first downs and zero third-down conversions before its final drive of the game, and while Trubisky was denied a beautiful touchdown pass in the first half by a brutal Javon Wims drop, the Bears couldn't move the ball against an excellent Saints defense.
There were arguments that Trubisky had turned things around after a hot three-game stretch in December, but that came against some of the worst pass defenses in football. Facing a Saints defense that finished the year third in pass defense DVOA, he showed the same things we've seen in years past. The 2017 No. 2 overall pick has the arm strength and athleticism to impersonate a valuable quarterback, but when he doesn't get the look he expects or has to deal with pressure, he can't deal. He posted a QBR of 9.4 on Sunday, with that mark falling to a microscopic 0.4 under pressure.
Trubisky is an unrestricted free agent, which means the Bears will have a difficult choice to make in the weeks to come. They are already several hundred thousand dollars above the 2021 cap, and that's without signing fellow free agent Allen Robinson to a new deal. Most Bears fans would presumably rather have Robinson back than Trubisky, but Chicago doesn't have much cap flexibility and will be picking 20th in the 2021 NFL draft. After years of trade-ups and missing multiple high picks as part of the Khalil Mack deal, this team really doesn't have the draft capital to deal up into the top 10 picks for a passer.
What happens with Trubisky might end up coming down to what the Bears do with the people who have spent the past three years trying to mold him into a viable starter. General manager Ryan Pace traded up to draft Trubisky ahead of Deshaun Watson and Patrick Mahomes in 2017, and his teams have gone 42-50 without a single playoff win over six seasons. Matt Nagy's offenses have ranked 20th, 25th and 25th again in offensive DVOA, and it's hard to find many players who have gotten better under his stewardship. The team overhauled its offensive coaching staff last offseason, but things didn't get any better.
If Pace and Nagy stick around, the Bears might look at their circumstances and stay the course. No team has spent more time convincing itself over the past three (or four) years that Trubisky was a franchise quarterback, and Chicago's other options would be guys such as Sam Darnold and Ryan Fitzpatrick. If Bears ownership decides to clean house and make changes, a new coaching staff and/or front office would have no ties to Trubisky and likely come in with plans of pursuing another option.
Baltimore Ravens 20, Tennessee Titans 13
How did the Ravens shut down Derrick Henry?
While Lamar Jackson played a starring role in Sunday's comeback win over the Titans, the Baltimore defense might have done even more. Henry was a nonfactor in the loss, running the ball 18 times for 40 yards without producing a single first down. Only one player in the past 20 years has had more carries in a playoff game without producing a first down (Baltimore's Ray Rice in 2012), and Henry's longest run of the day went for just 8 yards.
How did the Ravens keep a 2,000-yard rusher from moving the chains all game? To start, they loaded up the box with bodies. The best way to tackle Henry is to get some help, and Baltimore rarely had to tackle him one-on-one. As NFL Next Gen Stats noted, it loaded up the box at one of the highest rates we've seen for any running back this season:
Derrick Henry had no room to run against at a Ravens defense that stacked 8+ defenders in the box on 72% of Henry's runs, the 4th-highest rate any RB has faced in a game this season (min. 10 carries).
— Next Gen Stats (@NextGenStats) January 10, 2021
Henry vs Stacked Box: 13 carries, 24 yards (1.8 YPC) #BALvsTEN | #Titans pic.twitter.com/mDcvWFA4PA
Now, it's not as if the Ravens were the first team to realize that it would be easier to stop Henry if they put more bodies in the box. Loading the box against him makes sense, but Tennessee's favorite run concept with Henry is outside zone. If he can find his cutback lane, get around the edge or make somebody miss in a loaded box, he can take the resulting opening to the house. Defenses can keep him quiet for three quarters and then get tired in the fourth and give up an 80-yard touchdown.
The Ravens were able to slow down Henry by winning on the edge and knocking Tennessee's tackles and tight ends into the backfield. While Matthew Judon played a huge role in helping to make this happen, consider where the Ravens invested most over the past year. They acquired a pair of big, bruising defensive ends in Calais Campbell and Derek Wolfe, both of whom pushed back Tennessee's tackles to stop Henry in his tracks. Lesser-known veterans such as Pernell McPhee and Jihad Ward had excellent games against the run. The Ravens also added Yannick Ngakoue, but he was mostly on the field in passing situations Sunday.
On the flip side, consider what has happened to the Titans since these two teams played in the divisional round last season. Then, Tennessee had one of the NFL's best tackle combinations with Taylor Lewan on the left side and Jack Conklin on the right. Conklin is now in Cleveland, and Lewan is out for the year with a torn ACL. The Titans drafted Isaiah Wilson in the first round, but he has struggled through a lost season and played only three offensive snaps in 2020. They started David Quessenberry and Dennis Kelly at tackle Sunday. Fourth-string tight end Geoff Swaim, who was dealing with a wrist injury, struggled with blocking at the point of attack.
The Titans were able to get by with lesser options long enough to get Henry to 2,000 yards this season, but facing a Ravens defense loaded up with great defensive linemen, Baltimore's advantages on the edges paid off. Last season, the Titans scored touchdowns on all three of their red zone trips, held the Ravens to one touchdown on four drives inside the 20 and stuffed them twice on fourth-and-1. This time, both teams went 1-for-2 in the red zone, and it was Mike Vrabel's squad that cost itself on fourth-and-short, this time by punting in the fourth quarter.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers 31, Washington Football Team 23
Where did Taylor Heinicke come from?
Very few people gave Washington a chance at home against the Buccaneers on Saturday night, and even the ones who did pointed to the Chase Young-led defensive line as the most likely cause of a potential upset. The line didn't do enough; Tom Brady was pressured on 27.9% of his dropbacks, but he averaged 9.2 yards per attempt and posted a passer rating of 110.7 on the plays in which Young & Co. didn't get in his face. Tampa ran the ball 29 times for 142 yards despite losing starting back Ronald Jones to a quad injury. The Bucs' offensive line won the battle up front.
Instead, Washington was able to compete deep into the fourth quarter because its fourth quarterback of the season looked like he should have been their first option. Heinicke only joined the organization as the team's quarantine quarterback in December after Washington saw the Broncos go down to Kendall Hinton under center, but he looked like he belonged Saturday night. The former Old Dominion quarterback, who started his pro career on the Vikings' practice squad under current Washington offensive coordinator Scott Turner, put a scare into one of the league's best defenses.
Starter Alex Smith sat out the game out of concerns that he wouldn't be able to move around against a blitz-happy Buccaneers defense. Heinicke, on the other hand, excelled at just that. The 27-year-old used his legs to escape pressure and was sacked only twice on 46 dropbacks. Tampa's defense was able to turn only 10.5% of its pressures into sacks, the third-lowest mark for the Bucs in a single game this season.
Plenty of young quarterbacks can do that, but Heinicke also had the wherewithal and the arm strength to recognize blitzes as they were happening and fire off accurate passes before defensive coordinator Todd Bowles' exotic pressures could get home. Under pressure, Heinicke was able to run six times for 46 yards and four first downs, most notably an impressive 8-yard diving touchdown in the third quarter. At the end of the day, he finished with a QBR of 63.2, putting him ahead of a pair of future Hall of Famers in Drew Brees and Russell Wilson for the weekend.
Why was Heinicke taking math classes and out of the league in October? It's because organizations don't take risks with their third- and fourth-string quarterbacks. As I wrote about in discussing Pittsburgh's Mason Rudolph last September, teams that draft tall quarterbacks with strong arms who played for major college programs outside of the first two rounds probably aren't getting good value on their decisions. If those guys had the sort of skills you need to play at an NFL level, they're typically not falling out of the first round. Brady is one incredible exception to that rule, but the only other starter in the NFL who fits that criteria is Kirk Cousins.
Instead, teams are probably better off going after players who have something that would have led them to fall through the cracks. Heinicke showed a strong arm Saturday, but he was charitably listed at 6-foot-1 and played college football at Old Dominion. He doesn't have the measurables or the pedigree to go early in the draft, but he might have the skills to exceed expectations as an undrafted free agent.
Now, though, he's an unrestricted free agent, and teams will have seen what he did with limited weapons against a great defense. Washington cut 2019 first-round pick Dwayne Haskins, and while Smith's story has been incredible, the team will likely save $19 million in cash and $13.6 million in cap space by cutting its veteran starter this offseason. Heinicke is in line to get some sort of guarantee and a trip to training camp, possibly from his current employer. With Washington likely drafting a passer or signing one in free agency, Heinicke should have a chance to compete for the starting job in camp next summer. It beats taking Applied Numerical Methods.
Los Angeles Rams 30, Seattle Seahawks 20
What happened to Russell Wilson in Saturday's loss?
Wilson was once the favorite to win league MVP, but after fading badly in the second half, he produced one of the worst games of his career this weekend. In losing a playoff game at home for the first time, Wilson went 11-of-27 for 174 yards with two touchdowns and a pick-six. He added four runs for 50 yards, but his 17.6 Total QBR was the fifth-worst mark across his 160 pro games. It was the sort of ignominious end Seahawks fans couldn't have imagined after Wilson tore up the league in September and October.
What happened, to start, is that the Rams tormented Wilson with pressure. Despite losing Aaron Donald to a rib injury in the third quarter, Brandon Staley's defense pressured Wilson on an even 50% of his dropbacks. This was the 10th-highest pressure rate of Wilson's career and the fourth-highest pressure rate we've seen from any defense in any playoff game over the past decade. Wilson's style can help create pressures, but the Seahawks posted only a 53.6% pass block win rate, which measures how frequently pass-rushers succeeded within the first 2.5 seconds of a pass play. That figure ranked 10th out of the 12 playoff teams this weekend.
Pressure is bad, but what's even more damning is what happened when the Rams didn't get home to bother the quarterback. Wilson seemed to fall apart as the game went along, missing checkdowns even when he wasn't under duress. His receivers didn't always help, but when he wasn't pressured Sunday, Wilson went just 7-of-18 for 102 yards and posted a microscopic QBR of 4.0. This was his worst performance without pressure in any game as a pro and the second-worst single-game performance with a clean pocket we've seen for any quarterback during the 2020 season, with Wilson's nestled between performances from Sam Darnold and Brandon Allen. Wilson has three games with a QBR under 10 out of a clean pocket as a pro, and two of them were Seattle's losses to the Rams this season.
The Rams are not a great matchup for the Seahawks, who have a relatively weak interior offensive line and a receiving corps that has had only one superstar wideout since the middle of October. Throughout this game, Wilson seemed to have at least one play every series in which he would take a seven-step drop off of play-action and look downfield for a monster play. This was coming against a defense that ranks as the best in football against passes traveling 25 yards or more in the air, allowing just six such completions all season. Wilson actually hit two on Saturday, but one was the product of improvisation between Wilson and DK Metcalf, while the other came in garbage time with a win expectancy of less than 1%. Wilson had four incompletions on those throws and must have stared down a half-dozen more.
Metcalf scored two touchdowns in the loss, but he didn't get the best of his matchup with Jalen Ramsey. The star cornerback was the primary defender in coverage on 24 snaps against Metcalf, with the Seahawks moving Metcalf into the slot or even using late motion to try to get him away from Ramsey. Metcalf was targeted on eight of those 24 snaps, producing four completions for 47 yards and a touchdown in the fourth quarter. Both of Metcalf's scores came after Wilson couldn't find any other open receivers. Ramsey was on the other side of the field for the first score, and while he was tracking Metcalf's curl route as part of what looked to be a zone coverage, Ramsey passed the receiver off to a teammate before Metcalf caught the ball and scored. Ramsey deserves at least some of the blame for the second score, but he otherwise prevented Metcalf from picking up another first down in coverage.
Metcalf was targeted on Wilson's pick-six, and it tells the story of what went sour for the Seahawks with their season on the line. This passing game simply got stale and never found new solutions to its problems. Rams cornerback Darious Williams makes an incredible play on the football, beating Freddie Swain's block and catching a pass most cornerbacks would be too excited to bring in. The fact that Williams was confident enough about the likelihood of a screen pass to sprint toward the line at the snap and try to break up the play tells you that he knew what the Seahawks were running, likely from the splits of their receivers before the snap. A team's passing game can't be that transparent this late in the season, and it cost the Seahawks a touchdown.
Seattle changed the way it played over the summer to accommodate Wilson, whose voice obviously is important. In doing so, though, it didn't change any of its primary coaching personnel or drastically upgrade the offensive line. Left tackle Duane Brown had a great season, and rookie Damien Lewis looks to be a keeper at guard, but the Seahawks are about to lose center Ethan Pocic in free agency and Brandon Shell has never been a great pass-blocking tackle. This wasn't the offense Brian Schottenheimer was hired to run, and after shocking teams in the first half, defenses were able to adjust. The Seahawks were willing to let Russ cook, but now that the novelty has worn off, it's difficult to imagine them moving forward with the same players and coaches running the same plan in 2021.
Buffalo Bills 27, Indianapolis Colts 24
Did Frank Reich cost the Colts the game?
The Colts have to be proud of what they showed on the road as underdogs against the Bills. Indy dominated the game for most of the first half, battled back repeatedly in the second half, and came within a few inches of winning. If a pair of shoestring catches by Gabriel Davis go the other way or a Rodrigo Blankenship field goal attempt bounces off the goal post and in, the Colts might be getting ready to play the Chiefs this weekend.
Instead, Indianapolis will be spending the rest of the winter at home, and some are blaming coach Frank Reich's reliance on analytics for the enforced vacation. Reich made two notable and seemingly controversial calls in this game. I don't think either one actually hurt Indianapolis' chances of winning.
Start with the series at the end of the first half. Coming out of the two-minute warning and facing a third-and-goal from the 1-yard line, Reich sent in a crack toss, where a wide receiver comes off the edge to block a lineman and an offensive lineman pulls outside to take out a cornerback. The play wasn't executed well and lost 3 yards. You can take issue with the playcall, although I suspect the Bills thought the Colts were going to run between the tackles before the snap.
Most coaches would kick a field goal on fourth-and-4, but facing one of the best offenses in the league, Reich kept his offense on the field and went for it. This play worked much better, as the Colts got Michael Pittman Jr. open in the corner of the end zone for a touchdown, only for Philip Rivers' throw to narrowly elude the rookie wideout. ESPN's win probability model had this essentially as a wash, with Reich correct to make either call.
The Colts passed up a shot at three points in a game they ended up losing by three, which made for some easy criticism at the end of the day. The Bills also drove 96 yards for a touchdown to take the lead, which led to the arguments that Indy handed the momentum to the Bills with their goal-line stop. I'm skeptical of those arguments. For one, the Bills needed two shoestring catches and a successful hard count on fourth down to move the ball down the field for that touchdown. Two, when I looked at this issue in 2013, teams that took over the ball inside their own 5-yard line after a momentum-shifting defensive stop didn't score any more frequently than teams that took over in the same location after a punt. Given that Indy was playing one of the best offenses in football, it was smart to try to go for touchdowns, not field goals.
Later in the game, we saw the Colts pursue an even more exotic path. They scored a touchdown down 14 in the fourth quarter and sent out their extra point team. After the Bills went offside, though, Reich sent out his offense and tried to convert on a 2-pointer from the 1-yard line. It's not typical for offenses to go for two when they can make it a seven-point game, and the Colts were stuffed on a Jonathan Taylor run.
Thankfully, my colleague Seth Walder has already written a lengthy piece answering all of your questions about why a team would try to go for two as opposed to simply taking the extra point. The short answer is that a team is more likely to hit at least one of its two two-point attempts than it is to miss two consecutive 2-point tries. If a team hits the first 2-pointer, it can take the lead by kicking an extra point on its second try. If it fails on the first one, it can get right back where it was by succeeding on a second 2-point conversion after its next touchdown.
Ryan Clark reacts to the Steelers' playoff loss to the Browns and says it's time for Pittsburgh to rebuild and revamp its offense.
It's telling that Reich only went for the 2-point conversion from the 1-yard line, where his chances of converting are a tad better than the typical 2-point play. Ironically, the Colts didn't convert the play from the 1-yard line, but then hit on the 2-pointer on the next touchdown to end up exactly where they would have been if they had just kicked the two extra points. This decision didn't end up impacting the game.
What both of these plays attack -- and where they can frustrate traditional football fans -- is how games are typically coached. Many coaching decisions are built around not losing and extending the game for as long as possible. Coaches get criticized for going for two too early or "chasing points" to try to attack a certain score before the fourth quarter. At the same time, they're also criticized by the same people for not kicking field goals or extra points to ensure that a one-possession game becomes a two-possession game in the same circumstances. We also often treat that conservative play, like the field goal or the extra point, as a sure thing when it's not.
Reich's decisions Saturday were both made with an emphasis on maximizing his team's chances of winning, not going to overtime. Scoring a touchdown against one of the league's best offenses meant much more than coming away with three points, and the chances that the Bills would then drive downfield for a long touchdown before the end of the half were relatively small. Going for two down 14 gave the Colts the possibility of winning in regulation as opposed to extending the game and going into overtime, which is a good idea for a team coming into a game as a significant underdog. Those plays didn't necessarily work, but Blankenship also missed a 33-yard field goal. If a team doesn't execute well, it's not going to win, regardless of which strategies it pursues. Reich might want to take back that third-and-goal pitch call, but he doesn't have anything else to apologize for after Saturday's loss.