NFL Picks & Predictions for the Conference Championships

Kansas City Chiefs vs. Baltimore Ravens
Sunday, Jan. 28, 3 p.m. ET (CBS)

The Chiefs beat the Bills on Sunday because the Kansas City offense was way more explosive. Buffalo's mounting injuries and middling defensive numbers were exposed by the league’s best QB for eight plays of at least 20 yards. Josh Allen failed to complete a single pass more than six yards down the field and the lack of healthy perimeter weapons meant the Buffalo offense relied heavily on the run game, Allen’s legs and underneath routes to Dalton Kincaid, James Cook and Khalil Shakir.

The Bills offense was able to exhibit elite ball control, run the ball effectively and use the quarterback’s legs to exploit the clear weakness in the Chiefs defense. The Bills dialed up 37 combined runs between Allen, Cook and Ty Johnson and totaled 173 yards on the ground. They kept the ball for 37 minutes and on paper, the Ravens have a chance to replicate that performance in this game. Buffalo eventually ran into issues when Kansas City defensive coordinator Steve Spagnoulo figured out how to get Buffalo behind the chains on early downs and forced them to throw more downfield, which caused the Bills to score zero points on their final three drives.

Baltimore unleashed Lamar Jackson in the run game on Saturday more than it had most of the season and I expect that to be a continuing theme for Baltimore offensively on Sunday. The Texans entered last week as a top-five run defense by EPA per rush, but they were unable to contain the extra usage of Jackson on the ground.

Kansas City ranked 27th in rush defense DVOA and 28th in EPA per rush allowed in the regular season.

The primary advantages that the Chiefs had in the game against Buffalo don’t really carry over to this matchup either. Buffalo’s special teams were a disaster on Sunday and now Baltimore has a top-five DVOA unit there. Baltimore is much more efficient and healthier defensively than Buffalo — also, cornerback Marlon Humphrey is expecting to return from injury. On offense, the Ravens are also expected to have star tight end Mark Andrews as an additional weapon to keep extending drives and grinding clock.

The market closed with Buffalo as a 2.5-point favorite on Sunday. I bet Kansas City, but the Chiefs also won’t have a multi-day rest and health advantage as they did heading into last Sunday. There’s no power rating system that could reasonably have just a one-point difference between Baltimore and Buffalo. From a side perspective, it’s Baltimore or nothing for me.

The initial weather reports for this game on Sunday were suggesting rain in the forecast. Now that the current forecast (as of Tuesday) suggests no rain and just cloudy skies in Baltimore, there’s no reason this total should be below 45. Even if the Ravens are quite slow and methodical offensively, they’re going to score points on the Chiefs defense and are more explosive overall than Buffalo’s offense on Sunday.

The Texans sent a ton of blitzes at Jackson and while the Ravens struggled to overcome that early, the offense solved that problem and found the quick hitters to torch Houston in the second half. Jackson’s improved play against the blitz this season should give Spagnoulo pause about bringing a ton of pressure.

Jackson has averaged 8.2 yards per attempt against the blitz this season, compared to 7.8 when not blitzed. His Pro Football Focus grade is 84 against the blitz and his completion rate is 64.9%.

The Ravens have dominated offensively in each of the last three games against playoff-caliber teams. Even though Kansas City is the best defense they’ve played in a month, the wins against San Francisco Miami and Houston by scoring at least 30 points in each game shows that this offense is too multiple to truly be slowed down.

You might think that the over for the game total and the Jackson pass yards under are inversely correlated, but the Ravens will run the ball and do it efficiently while playing from ahead as I expect them to be for most of this game on Sunday. Patrick Mahomes is 9-1-1 against the spread when lined as an underdog in his career and his aura seems to be propping up the Chiefs in this matchup.

You can’t throw out the data from the regular season when Kansas City took a clear step back offensively, but betting on a Mahomes offense getting to at least 20 points is something I’m more than willing to trust. Baltimore goes up early, runs it well and Mahomes has to try to engineer a comeback against the league’s best defense. That’s a recipe for points and why I’m betting the over on Sunday.

Verdict: Over 44.5 (-108; Play to 45)

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Prop Bet: Lamar Jackson Under 210.5 Passing Yards (-110)

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Detroit Lions vs. San Francisco 49ers
Sunday, Jan. 28, 6:30 p.m. ET (FOX)

Detroit’s secondary ranks 32nd in explosive pass defense allowed and now the Lions travel on the road to face the most explosive passing offense in the NFL. That’s the glaring matchup issue for the Lions as they attempt to slow down a San Francisco offense that has been a supernova for the majority of the season. The biggest question is whether Detroit’s top-ranked rush defense, according to DVOA, can slow down the 49ers run game and force Purdy to exclusively beat them through the air. The Lions are also fourth in rush EPA allowed, which is considerably better than Green Bay was entering last week.

Detroit’s pass rush also ranked first in pressure rate this season. The pass rush win rate numbers aren’t nearly as dominant for Detroit, but the 49ers offensive line also took a noticeable step back in their numbers this season. Purdy operated well under pressure most of the year and Kyle Shanahan had so much offensive talent at his disposal to easily overcome this deficiency, but the 49ers were below league average in pressure rate allowed.

A look at the tale of the tape between these two teams, using per-drive stats, paints a picture that San Francisco is overvalued because of holes in its defense. The 49ers aren’t generating as much pressure as you’d expect given the talent and the defense is 28th in rush EPA since Week 9.

Offensive yards per drive: SF 1, DET 5
Defensive yards per drive allowed: SF 18, DET 22
Net yards per drive: SF 2, DET 8

Another note: In-game decision-making by coaches isn’t as valuable of a difference-maker as social media discourse suggests. It does matter at the margins though, and both coaches will coach toward helping the underdog improve their chances to win this game with their in-game decisions. We’ve seen Shanahan’s extreme conservatism hurt his teams in the past, and his end-of-half sequence against Green Bay nearly cost them the game on Saturday. Even when he has the superior team, like he will on Sunday, Shanahan will kick field goals and punt in decisions where it would be best to go for it given his elite offense.

Compare this to Dan Campbell, whose fourth down aggression will be critically important toward keeping San Francisco’s dominant offense on the sideline as much as possible. Campbell’s decisions always have a chance of backfiring, but as a touchdown road underdog in the NFC Championship game, his aggression is a given and baked into Detroit’s identity.

Detroit has a top-five run offense in the NFL and the 49ers inconsistent run defense is the path to the Lions shortening the game. The Packers held the Niners to just three first-half possessions on Saturday night and the Lions just finished a game with a 61% success rate on early downs against a very good Tampa Bay run defense. If Detroit can replicate that rushing success, they’ll be competitive in this game.

Purdy really struggled in the rainy conditions, but we now also have a two full-game playoff sample of Purdy not executing nearly as well as he did in the regular season (Dallas last year and Green Bay this year). Was it the rain? I’ll pay to find out.

Verdict: Lions +7.5 (-114; Play to +7)

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