Establish the Fun: Divisional round matchups to watch

Welcome to the Divisional Round version of Establish The Fun, where football is fun and we’re establishing that with more vigor than Akira living life in Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead (a fantastic anime you should watch by the way). It’s often said that the Divisional Round is the best weekend in football, and in this case I agree. Lots of good football stretched out over the weekend with the right to advance to the conference championship on the line. Talk about great matchups! Before you turn on the tv this weekend, here are some of the great matchups you need to keep an eye on, centering around the youth movement shaping this round of the playoffs.

Rice gets Cooking

The Kansas City Chiefs’ offense has had an...interesting year, especially at the receiving position. However, they once again find themselves on the precipice of another conference title game, and when they’re passing the ball, it has to do with adding a little bit of Rice to the mix.

Rookie WR Rashee Rice out of SMU had a slow start to the season, but since week 12 he’s grown into one of the more reliable targets for the Kansas City offense. Since Week 12, Rice is 11th in targets, with 518 yards and three touchdowns. His development has given QB Patrick Mahomes another reliable receiver target to work the in between areas with TE Travis Kelce.

Where Rice has operated and thrived this season is in the YAC department. Of those 518 receiving yards since week 12, 373 have come after the catch, per Sports Information Solutions. His Average Depth of Target is 1.7, and he leads the NFL in screen receptions since week 12. However, in Kansas City’s Wild Card victory over the Miami Dolphins, Rice showed more in the downfield target area that I think the Chiefs can use in their divisional round matchup against Buffalo. He led the Chiefs in targets against zone coverage and had 84 yards on six carries. Let’s see how he won, and what’ll translate to this weekend’s game.

One clip that really stood out was this first down versus Cover 3 by the Dolphins. Rice is lined up in the slot, closest to the line of scrimmage. WR Marquez Valdes-Scantling runs a deep over to pull the safety and underneath defender with him. Rice runs a deep sit route, but watch Rice work towards an open window for Mahomes. This is the type of movement that the Chiefs’ receivers missed, and a rapport that Rice and Mahomes have developed over the season.

Rice hasn’t really been used on many downfield targets, but when used in concert with the gravity of Travis Kelce, Rice becomes a lot more of a potent target underneath. On his touchdown against Miami, Kelce runs an over the ball route. Watch how many Dolphins get caught up on Kelce making his way across, allowing Rice to run through untouched into the endzone. Rice has emerged as the top complement to Kelce, and it’s helped bring the Chiefs to a higher level than they were executing at previously.

Where the Chiefs have struggled is passing against man coverage. While they’ve faced the second least amount of man coverage this year than any other year in the Mahomes era. However, their total EPA is the worst it’s been in that same time period. Where Rice can begin to be a winner is downfield against man coverage, which is how he shows off his special ability after the catch and his physicality. The Dolphins run cover 0, and Rice runs a simple over route, but look at the ability after the catch. That’s how he can separate himself and give Kansas City a reliable target outside of Travis Kelce.

Against the Bills, Rice will have to be a winner downfield. Buffalo might not have a lot of defensive depth, but they can pressure opposing defenses into constricting themselves. Rice will have to win against pressure and coverage on the outside for the Chiefs to go into Highmark Stadium and win.

The Bucs hoist the colors

In Tampa Bay’s upset victory over the Philadelphia Eagles, a lot of questions got answered. Could Philly squash the noise from the outside and put together a win (No)? Could the Eagles’ offense find a way to avoid being one-dimensional without AJ Brown (No)?

The biggest question that was answered was if the Bucs defense could give Philadelphia enough problems, and they answered that emphatically. Head coach Todd Bowles has a lot of issues when it comes to game management, but when he gets time to plan for an opponent, he usually puts them in a blender. Let’s look into what Tampa Bay did against Philadelphia to hold them to nine points.

One of the things that was noticeable early was how the Bucs defended the Eagles’ RPO game. Philly has turned their offense into a lateral RPO team, one that takes advantage of slower defensive linemen who is left unblocked. What Tampa Bay did before the snap was rotate LB Lavonte David down to the line of scrimmage where an EDGE would be, and put the EDGE at the off-ball spot where David would be. What this does is put a quicker guy on the outside to track down any perimeter plays while the EDGE forces blocking assignments to change as a blitzer from depth.

Watch how at the snap Anthony Nelson and David switch spots right before the snap. Now, with technically six in the box and David as the apex player, the ball gets handed off. Once Gainwell gets the ball, watch the young Bucs defenders go to work. Logan Hall gets knockback on RT Lane Johnson, EDGE Joe Tryon-Shoyinka dents the hell out of Jason Kelce, and from there the play is an absolute wash.

The signature sign of a Todd Bowles defense is pressure, and boy did the Bucs bring a lot of it on Monday night. Every time the Eagles went to an empty formation, the Bucs found a way to get an unblocked man on a blitz. This one was one of my favorites, a doozy that completely fooled the Eagles. Tampa lines up in an overload formation to Hurts’ left side. However, on the snap, Tampa brings both nickels and then drop both defensive tackles (lol). Hurts tries to get it to TE Dallas Goedert and it falls incomplete. An insane pressure to send that completely flummoxed the Eagles.

A player who stood out a lot for Tampa Bay was rookie DT Calijah Kancey. Kancey was extremely disruptive, using his lateral quickness and burst to overwhelm everyone on the Eagles’ offensive line. On this sack of Hurts, watch Kancey completely dust RG Cam Jurgens with a nasty chop and swipe to finish it off. An extremely impressive rep for the rookie, but not his only one.

He also displayed this in the run game, using quick hands and feet to sidestep offensive linemen in the run game. Here he gets Jason Kelce, which is something you don’t really see every day. You also see what Tampa Bay wanted to do with David, moving him to the LOS at the snap.

Their next opponent won’t be as easy to overwhelm up front schematically. Detroit has been extremely sound up front, especially in their five-man protections. Tampa Bay gets another shot at them this season, and I’m excited to see what Bowles cooks up.

Matchup preview: Houston Texans’ explosive passing game vs. Ravens’ pass defense

Houston and Baltimore meet again after a 25-9 Ravens’ victory, but make no mistake, this isn’t the same Houston Texans team. Their entire roster, especially their rookie QB, have more confidence than their Week 1 tilt. What’ll decide this game is how Baltimore prevents the Texans from generating explosives, especially while the Texans are in bigger personnel.

Texans offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik comes from the San Francisco Kyle Shanahan offensive tree, and that shows in his personnel usage. They spent 23.4% of their plays this year in 21 personnel, 4th-most in the NFL, only behind the Dolphins (Shanahan tree), 49ers (Shanahan) and the Ravens. Why this matters is simple: they get teams into bigger personnel so they can attack downfield off play action out of that personnel. Their 47.2% pass rate out of 21 personnel is 10th in the NFL, and among all QBs with 20 passing attempts out of 21 personnel, Texans’ rookie QB CJ Stroud leads the NFL in Average Depth of Target at 11.4. They want to hit you hard when you go heavy, straight up tank vs tank from an RPG game.

Take this TD from their demolition of the Cleveland Browns for example. Houston is in 21 personnel, motioning in FB Andrew Beck. After the run fake pulls up the intermediate defenders, this turns into a three-man, throwback concept. WR John Metchie runs back across the LOS operating as a checkdown vs a blitz. Nico Collins runs an over route to keep the eyes of the backside corner and safety on him. Now, this looks like a three-man flood concept to the right, with TE Dalton Schultz breaking towards the right pylon.

NOT SO FAST, MY FRIEND!

Schultz runs a corner post, breaking back towards the other side of the field, and with Stroud now in a clean area outside the pocket away from the pass rush, he delivers a strike for the Texans to score right before half. An impressive design and call by Slowik.

They’ll be up against a tough foe in the Ravens’ defense, a group that hasn’t really seen a lot of 21 personnel, but is the best team in the NFL at defending out of 21 personnel. What’s impressive to see is how Baltimore distributes their coverage and routes against traditional under center play action route concepts. Against Miami, they handled that three-level flood concept really well out of Quarter-Quarter-Half. Sure, it helps to have a LB like Roquan Smith to close any holes in the middle of the field, but they defended this well. The play side safety hammers down the over route, while the backside safety retreats to the middle of the field, to protect against corner posts like the one Houston scored on. Up front, you can’t leave Baltimore’s edge defenders unblocked. They’ll ruin your play before you can even get into it.

We can get somewhat of a picture of how the Texans plan on attacking the Ravens’ defense vertically from Week 1, and how the Ravens countered. Here, they send a blitz to throw off the timing of this potential throwback play off play action, forcing Stroud into an incompletion that was very close to a pick. You can also see how having linebackers with range can take away things like this dig over the middle of the field.

For the Texans to pull off the upset, Slowik and Stroud have to bring more tools out of their toolbox in one of their favorite personnel groupings. It’ll be hard to fool a defense as sound as Baltimore’s, but the chess match between Slowik and Ravens’ defensive coordinator Mike MacDonald should be must see.