Conference Championship Preview

No preamble. We all know what happened last weekend. Time for Conference Championship Picks.

*The Brady retirement snafu happened while I was writing this, so I’ll probably wait until an official announcement is made to fully write about it.

Chiefs (-7, winner) vs Bengals

This seems to be a game where the public perception weirdly disconnects from the spread. Yes, both expect the Chiefs to be comfortable favorites, but a 7-point line means Vegas considers a Bengals win at least in the realm of possibility. If you’ve been listening to the discourse about this game, there are many who would consider anything other than a three-touchdown Chiefs blowout to be a shocking result. As for me, I would say I’m closer to Vegas- I think the Chiefs will win and cover, but the Bengals might make it difficult for a little. Part of the reason much of the public is so high on the Chiefs is because of a public misconception of the effect of a win such as the one the Chiefs had over the Bills in a sport such as football that is one and done. The typical thinking about such a game is that the team will take the momentum from that win into the next week, and having climbed their biggest hurdle they will win easily. In fact, the opposite can often be true when it comes to the Divisional Round.

In trying to look at the possible effect of the Chiefs-Bills game, I wanted to look at comparable games in NFL History. Not in terms of quality, because that may have been the best game ever played, but in terms of emotional impact on the winner. We’re gonna call these types of games “Jacoby Jones Games.” If you don’t understand why that’s what I’m calling these games, I will gladly direct you to this link. In order for a game to qualify, it needed to either have a miracle play or comeback at the end of the game where the team that won seemed certain to lose, a long drawn-out overtime, or both. I wanted to only look at divisional games for this list because the emotional effect of a Divisional win is singularly unique. Up until last year, any team that won such a game in the Wild Card Round would then have to travel on the road to a team that is presumably superior, meaning that it is hard to gauge whether any win-loss record is because of emotional impact or sheer quality of team. I also did not want to include Conference Championship Games, because a team that wins a Conference Championship has an extra week to emotionally recover, and it is also easier as a player to emotionally focus on a Super Bowl. I also wanted to cross off any such games in which the team that won was favored by more than seven points, because that type of win then exudes relief rather than joy, and there is a general feeling that there is still a greater mountain to climb.This is because I wanted to look at emotional impact more than simply the quality of a game because I wanted to see whether there was any true emotional hangover to this type of game. The only team on the list that didn’t perfectly fit either one of these categories was the 2011 Niners, who get on because four touchdowns in the last four minutes almost becomes like an overtime in itself. I also excluded the 2003 Eagles and Panthers, because they faced each other the next week in the Conference Championship Game. Ultimately, I wound up with a list of 13 such games. Remember these are not necessarily the 13 best games in Divisional Round History- although it is a pretty damn good list- but rather the 13 most emotionally taxing wins. Here is a list of the team, and how they fared going forward, as well as whether they covered in the Conference Championship Game, which shows how they performed in comparison to expectations.

This list indicates that more often than not, you can expect some emotional hangover when a team wins a Jacoby Jones Game. Of the 13 teams that won these games, they are 4-9 both straight up and against the spread in the Conference Championship Round, and only two went on to win the Super Bowl. The most recent example is perhaps the best. The 2017 Vikings won on the Minneapolis Miracle in one of the best NFL moments in NFL History. They had exercised all Vikings demons, and from then on all they had to do was go and beat a team with a backup Quarterback before playing the Super Bowl in their own stadium. It was all set up perfectly. The problem was they never recovered from that game and got blown out by the Eagles. That’s why we’re going to call this the “Diggs Corollary.” The Diggs Corollary goes as such: “When a team wins a Jacoby Jones game, presume an emotional hangover before you presume an easy momentum-propelled win.”

After everything I’ve said, you may be asking how, after devoting all this time researching and presenting a new theory, I would still pick the Chiefs to win and cover in the Conference Championship. Well, the answer is that I am factoring in the emotional hangover. The Chiefs are a team that has been known to get off to slow starts in playoff games. In fact, they have won three games in the past two playoffs where they have gone down two scores in the first half. Their average margin of victory in those games? 18.3. Once the Chiefs get going, they get going unlike any other team in the NFL. Even earlier in these playoffs against the Steelers, their offense looked lethargic for a quarter and a half before scoring 35 points in ten minutes. While there are some of these games like the Vikings where the team has gotten blown out, there have been others such as the 1977 Raiders who started slowly before waking up and getting back in the game, but it was too little too late. The Chiefs have more time than any of these teams to fuck around, but when they turn it on they turn it on. That being said, they will need to stop doing stupid things. Just four weeks ago they lost to the Bengals in a game in which they committed four drive-extending defensive penalties on failed third and fourth downs, with those drives ultimately netting 20 Bengals points. The only team that can beat the Chiefs tomorrow is the Chiefs. History suggests they might start off sloppy- but we know these Chiefs. When they turn it on, they will turn it on. I don’t think it will be the wire-to-wire obliteration that many are predicting, but the Chiefs should win, and ultimately do so somewhat comfortably.

49ers (+3.5, winner) @ Rams

No matter which side of the coin you fall on, this game truly feels like a 50-50 proposition. While it is true that Kyle Shanahan has won his last six games against Sean McVay, the whole “Shanahan owns McVay” narrative seems slightly overblown to me. Four of those six have been one-possession games with three of them being decided on the last play, showing that it is not as if the 49ers are blowing the Rams out of the building. Rather, these are two evenly matched teams that have had a lot of success under these two coaches, and the 49ers have held a slight edge in the recent matchups. That does not mean they “own” the Rams the way say the Patriots have owned the Jets for the last two decades.

Rather than some massive psychological factor, the biggest reason for San Francisco’s success against the Rams is simply the way the two teams match up, particularly when the Niners are on offense. The entire strategy of the Rams defense is to “build the roof,” a strategy that goes back to Brandon Staley’s time as Defensive Coordinator. They play two deep safeties while taking away passes on the perimeter, enabled by Jalen Ramsey, while relying on their dominant front to get to the Quarterback with four. Essentially, their plan is to take away deep passes at the expense of short completions, and rally around the receivers to stop them from generating explosive runs after the catch. This takes away any margin error for the opponent, as they need to continue methodically completing short passes. All they need is one play where their dominant front gets home, and those short completions become obsolete. This was the backbone of last year’s top-tier defense, although it has taken a step back this year with the departure of Staley. While this strategy has in many ways revolutionized the NFL over the past two years, it actually plays into the 49ers’ strengths. Jimmy G is not a Quarterback with a big arm, and the Niners don’t have much of a deep game to take away. What they do have is the best crop of receivers in football with the ball in their hands, which is why Garoppolo was only 29th this year in Average Depth of Target. Deebo Samuel is unlike any NFL player we have ever seen and is number one in football in YAC per reception with 10.4(!) yards- which is more than 1.5 yards more than anyone else. But the Niners' prowess with the ball in their hands goes beyond Deebo. Brandon Aiyuk is the seventh-best receiver in football in terms of YAC per reception, while George Kittle is the fifth-best Tight End. In essence, the Rams are a defense that forces the opposing Quarterback to make quick reads over the middle of the field and then prevents the opposing playmakers from making plays. The 49ers are a team that allows their quarterback to make quick reads over the middle of the field in order for their playmaker to make plays. So far, the result of that matchup has been advantage 49ers.

While this matchup favors the 49ers' offense, it should favor the Rams when they have the ball as well. This is my third straight week stressing that the 49ers cornerbacks are truly terrible. The job done by Defensive Coordinator Demeco Ryans to overcome this roster deficiency has truly been incredible. While I suggested two weeks ago that he was making chicken salad out of chicken shit, I think we’ve upgraded to a gourmet Shabbat chicken dinner. That man deserves a Nobel prize and a head coaching job immediately. That being said, that doesn’t mean the 49ers are good against opposing receivers. They were 26th in DVOA in covering wide receivers this year, which is why Cooper Kupp has thrived in both of their matchups this year. If Sean McVay stays away from the run game and decided to air it out, the Rams should have success attacking the secondary of the 49ers. That being said, there are real questions about the Rams’ ability to play with a lead. The Rams failed to close the game out three weeks ago against the 49ers through the run game, and we all saw their fumbling debacle last week against the Bucs. Sean McVay has to understand that in order to win this game, Stafford will probably have to throw the ball 40+ times.

With all the talk of the way these two teams match up, the truth is this game comes down to trench play up front. More specifically, it will come down to the pass rush. Matthew Stafford and Jimmy Garoppolo are the two best Quarterbacks in the NFL in terms of QBR against the blitz, which makes sense. Beating a blitz is largely about knowing how to scheme up ways to quickly get the ball to playmakers in space, and both teams have masterful offensive designers who are able to scheme top-tier playmakers open. The problem with both Quarterbacks is that while they are efficient against the blitz, they are horrible when actually pressured. We saw last week what happens when teams get after Jimmy G, while we have thirteen years of evidence of what happens when you rattle Stafford. While I still trust Stafford more in a vacuum, I think this split actually favors the Niners. San Francisco knows not to blitz Stafford- they only blitzed ten times combined in the two games this year. But they are also more effective in getting to Stafford because he is a generally better Quarterback so the Rams actually trust him to throw the ball down the field. The Niners' offensive design is about neutralizing Jimmy G, which is why he has the seventh-fastest average snap to throw time in the NFL. The Rams offense revolves around taking advantage of Stafford’s arm strength, which is why he is 20th in the same stat. While the Rams pass rush is a little bit better, the Niners do a better job of neutralizing the opponent's front fours. San Fran’s pass rush should have a better chance of affecting the game because they will have more of an opportunity to actually get to Stafford.

Beyond the intrigue of the trilogy, everything I’ve written about how these teams match up is what makes this game so intriguing to me. I have more trust in Matthew Stafford than Jimmy Garoppolo, but I also have more trust in the Niners’ passing game than the Rams’. I have more trust in the Rams front four than the 49ers’, but I think San Fran’s will have more of an ability to affect the game. These dichotomies essentially make this game as even a matchup as you will get. With a matchup that close, taking the Niners +3.5 becomes a no-brainer. In terms of the outright winner, it comes down to which team I trust. At the beginning of the year, I picked the Niners to win the division, and while that didn't happen they did beat the Rams twice. I said at the beginning of the playoffs that I thought the Niners were the third-best team in the NFC, and they’ve beaten the teams I had ranked one and two. While many people boil this matchup down to McVay vs Shanahan, it is really Shanahan vs Stafford. Both have equal ability to win or lose this game- but in the end, I am going to stick with where I’ve been all year. Give me the Niners.