With shades of Magic, Jayden Daniels steals spotlight on wild NFL weekend: Sando’s Pick Six

Let us count the days since the NFL’s final four teams last tasted the championship round.

Kansas City Chiefs: 358

Philadelphia Eagles: 722

Buffalo Bills: 1,457

Washington Commanders: 12,062

It’s been a rough few decades for Washington, but with rookie sensation Jayden Daniels upstaging a star-studded field in the divisional round, the Commanders are back in the NFC Championship Game for the first time since January 1992. That’s a span of seven presidential administrations and so long ago that this twice-renamed franchise’s 65-year-old minority owner, Magic Johnson, was still a month away from his final All-Star Game performance when the 1991 Redskins got this far.

The Pick Six column proves why Daniels’ achievement stands apart from anything any rookie quarterback has accomplished in the Super Bowl era. There’s much more to sort through following a weekend that crushed the Detroit Lions and Baltimore Ravens while setting up an intriguing championship round. The full menu:

• Jayden Daniels steals divisional show
• What Kingsbury can prove vs. Eagles
• Mahomes, the refs and Rodney Dangerfield
• Jackson, Allen and playoff legacies
• Lions’ Campbell might need new gear
• Two-minute drill: From North to Rams

1. Like Magic, Jayden Daniels has separated from other rookie stars.

Basketball Hall of Famer and Commanders minority owner Magic Johnson was there to greet Daniels and his Washington teammates in the locker room Saturday night. That was fitting.

As a rookie point guard in 1980, Johnson had 42 points, 15 rebounds and seven assists in Game 6 of the NBA Finals after replacing the injured Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in the lineup at center. It remains one of the legendary performances for a rookie in any sport, a reflection of the rare maturity and poise Johnson possessed entering the pro ranks. The Lakers rode that performance to beat the Philadelphia 76ers and clinch the title.

(1980) 38 years ago today, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was injured, so the Lakers put rookie point guard Magic Johnson at center in game 6 of the NBA Finals.

How did he respond? 42 points, 15 rebounds, 7 assists, 3 steals. Lakers won the chip and Magic won MVP! Greatness. pic.twitter.com/Dzw6reXR98

— Timeless Sports (@timelesssports_) May 16, 2018

Daniels has likewise shown uncommon poise while delivering signature moments in his rookie season: outdueling Joe Burrow in Week 3, completing a walk-off Hail Mary against Chicago in Week 8, tossing five touchdown passes to beat Philadelphia in Week 16 and leading the winning drive to eliminate Tampa Bay in the wild-card round. He was one of the best players on the field against Detroit on Saturday.

Daniels has done it against nearly all outside expectations. Only Carolina, Denver and New England entered the 2024 season with lower Vegas win totals than the 6.5 for the Commanders.

Five executives polled before the season combined to project Washington 14th in the NFC on average. One exec did correctly predict the Commanders would finish sixth in the NFC, in part because he thought Dallas and Philadelphia would struggle. Another exec picked the Commanders as a potential surprise team.

“I would probably go with the Commanders (as a potential surprise team) because of the quarterback, the defensive head coach and the ability to generate pressure,” this exec said, while ranking Washington 13th in his projections. “They have a solid group up front on defense. They got Jeremy Chinn. They have some players defensively who can create negatives and get after the passer. The quarterback has a chance to make people better.”

There were still grave concerns.

“I just think they reek of average across the board, of a team looking to rebuild,” one of the other execs said entering the season. “Lots of respect for DQ (Dan Quinn), but that could be the least talented roster in the NFC, outside the South.”

The Commanders proved otherwise.

DYAMIIIIIIIII (again)

📺 #WASvsDET FOXpic.twitter.com/wDY3yn6HPz

— Washington Commanders (@Commanders) January 19, 2025

Daniels has zero turnovers in two playoff games — games that pivoted on turnovers by his veteran counterparts. Tampa Bay lost 5.6 EPA on Baker Mayfield’s critical fumble during its 23-20 defeat to Washington in the wild-card round. Detroit lost 17.4 EPA on three interceptions and a fumble by Jared Goff, losing to the Commanders 45-31. The EPA lost on those turnovers was enough to bridge the point differentials in those games.

Daniels is the fifth rookie starting quarterback to reach the championship round in the Super Bowl era while starting at least eight combined regular-season and postseason games, per Pro Football Reference. The other four got there with huge assists from their defenses and/or special teams. Not Daniels, whose production has helped overcome statistical deficiencies in those other areas so crucial to winning at the highest levels.

That places Daniels in another class among rookies. Brock Purdy, Mark Sanchez, Joe Flacco and Ben Roethlisberger also reached the championship round as rookies, but as the table below shows, those quarterbacks played for teams that stood among the NFL’s top four in combined EPA on defense and special teams.

The Commanders ranked 24th this season, forcing Daniels and the offense to overcome. They did.

Not pictured: Shaun King, who started seven total games for the 1999 Tampa Bay Buccaneers. That team reached the NFC title game on the strength of a defense featuring four future Hall of Famers (Warren Sapp, Derrick Brooks, Ronde Barber, John Lynch) and a five-time Pro Bowl choice (Hardy Nickerson).

Robert Griffin III, Andrew Luck, Dak Prescott, Matt Ryan, Russell Wilson and C.J. Stroud produced at high levels as rookies for teams that reached the playoffs, but none reached the championship round.

Daniels’ production through two playoff games resembles the two-game production for Wilson in 2012, with one huge difference: Daniels has taken only one sack, while Wilson took seven. Wilson also had to overcome a Seattle defense that struggled in the playoffs when he was a rookie. His Seahawks team, which featured Quinn as its defensive coordinator in 2013 and ’14, fell short in 2012 before reaching the next two Super Bowls as the defense became elite.

Daniels has a shot at getting to the Super Bowl as a rookie. His Commanders opened as 5.5-point underdogs against the Eagles.

One key could be whether offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury can stay a step ahead of the NFC East-rival Eagles, who should know his offense better than the Lions knew it.

2. Kingsbury is eviscerating his reputation as a play caller whose offense struggles late in the season. What if that wasn’t the real problem?

Kingsbury seemed perplexed in November when a reporter asked about his offenses failing to sustain fast starts during a season.

Kliff Kingsbury was asked about his offenses fading in the second half of seasons pic.twitter.com/3uETAt00PO

— obvlon (@obvlon) November 21, 2024

The question arose during a three-game losing streak as Daniels fought through injured ribs.

As the season progressed and the offense rebounded, I wondered whether the perceptions about Kingsbury had more to do with opponent familiarity than the calendar. What if division opponents have a better read on Kingsbury? His offenses have featured dual-threat quarterbacks with elite running skills. Just as we have sometimes seen Lamar Jackson struggle in the AFC North, could Kingsbury’s offense simply bog down against teams that are wiser to his less conventional ways?

If that were true, Kingsbury’s teams would feel the effects later in the season, when there are more division games on the schedule, but it wouldn’t be a factor every week. And it might not factor at all in the playoffs, unless Kingsbury were to face a division opponent, which he will in the NFC Championship Game.

To test the theory, I created the table below. It shows how Kingsbury’s Arizona (2019-22) and Washington (2024) offenses have fared in division and non-division games when his starting quarterbacks, Kyler Murray (Cardinals) and Daniels (Commanders), were in the lineup.

There’s a huge drop in performance in those division games — much bigger than the slight drops for most teams when facing division opponents.

What will it mean against the Eagles? Kingsbury’s offense did improve statistically in its second game against Philadelphia this season, but that was a wild game featuring seven total turnovers, five by Washington. The Commanders trailed on 94 percent of plays but won on Daniels’ fifth touchdown pass of the game, with 10 seconds remaining.

An opposing coach thought the Commanders were getting a better version of Kingsbury than Arizona got, mostly because offensive coordinator is an easier job than head coach/play caller, and also because Daniels is more mature early in his career than Murray was. Another opposing coach thought Kingsbury had grown as a caller, leaning more on the running game. Working under a defensive-minded head coach in Quinn could be a factor there, as Quinn would set the Commanders’ playing style. And then there is Daniels, of course.

“This kid (Daniels) wants to be pushed and challenged,” one of the coaches said. “You can see it. You can hear it from the quotes with the team. You see it with his swagger. Then add that he is a pretty dynamic passer.”

3. You aren’t the only one sick of watching Patrick Mahomes draw critical calls for roughing the passer and unnecessary roughness. It’s all part of the modern-day Tier 1 toolbox, unfortunately.

Forget the conspiracy theories. NFL officials have assessed 47 penalties against the Chiefs in the fourth quarters and overtimes of one-score games over the past two seasons, including playoffs. Those same officials have assessed 48 penalties against the Chiefs’ opponents in those same critical situations. The yardage totals are similarly close: 307 yards against the Chiefs, compared to 340 yards against their opponents.

Yes, Mahomes has a 7-0 record when Clay Martin referees his games, counting the Chiefs’ 23-14 victory over the Houston Texans in the divisional round Saturday. But as the table below shows, Mahomes has undefeated records with lots of referees. He’s a combined 25-0 with Brad Rogers, Tra Blake, Jerome Boger, Adrian Hill, Scott Novak and Alan Eck.

Mahomes might win 80 percent of his starts with you or me wearing stripes and the white hat.

No matter what the evidence says, the optics did not look right Saturday as Mahomes drew two highly questionable 15-yard penalties to help win a game in which Houston outgained Kansas City by more than 100 yards. Especially when Mahomes sometimes tries to trick officials into throwing additional flags.

“The only flops I’ve seen better than him are Rodney Dangerfield in ‘Back to School,'” one opposing coach said.

Will Anderson was called for roughing the passer on Patrick Mahomes on this play.#HOUvsKC | ESPN, ABC, ESPN+ pic.twitter.com/bTn7Z5XoLZ

— ESPN (@espn) January 18, 2025

The first-quarter penalty called against the Texans’ Will Anderson Jr. for roughing the passer (video above) fits into a category that can be tricky for officials. Anderson’s helmet did make contact with Mahomes. The league’s replay-assist mechanism can come into play if there were no contact made at all, but not to assess how forcible the contact might have been. That penalty sustained a field goal drive after Mahomes had thrown incomplete on third-and-8.

The second penalty, for unnecessary roughness, helped the Chiefs cross midfield in the third quarter on their way to a touchdown for a 20-12 lead. On that play (video below), Mahomes invited contact by turning back toward the middle of the field. He slid late. Converging defenders ran into each other.

Henry To’oTo’o was called for a penalty after this hit on Patrick Mahomes. #HOUvsKC | ESPN, ABC, ESPN+ pic.twitter.com/w4E4cSI3FF

— ESPN (@espn) January 18, 2025

Mahomes avoided significant contact. Outrage ensued. ESPN’s Troy Aikman and the network’s officiating expert, Russell Yurk, said it was a bad call. Texans coach DeMeco Ryans said after the game his team knew it would have to overcome everybody, meaning the officials as well.

NFL Officiating Rules Analyst Walt Anderson appeared on @NFLGameDay with a detailed explanation of the controversial flags thrown Saturday for hits on #Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes.

Short version, per Anderson: Under the rules, officials got both calls right. pic.twitter.com/gIL9OidOQL

— Tom Pelissero (@TomPelissero) January 19, 2025

“I think he’s a great manipulator,” the coach said of Mahomes. “He knows what to do: run to the border of the field, slow down, step on the white line, get hit. There are timing elements. And then, once every so often, he will cut back and get the additional 15 yards.”

It’s a master class in leveraging rules designed to protect quarterbacks. It’s what Aaron Rodgers would do if he had entered the league 15 years later.

“The rules in Rodgers’ prime of running were not the same,” the coach said. “Rodgers was still living in the echo of Drew Bledsoe’s collapsed lung (actually a ruptured artery) if I don’t get out of bounds quick enough. Now, it’s just a farce.”

4. Josh Allen and the Bills are one victory away from the Super Bowl. Lamar Jackson is 17 days away from collecting another MVP trophy (most likely). What does it mean?

Mark Andrews lost a fumble and dropped the tying two-point conversion pass in the fourth quarter to short-circuit a potential classic finish between MVP favorites Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen for a berth in the AFC Championship Game against Kansas City.

If not for the drop, the Ravens’ defense would have had to stop Allen from driving for a go-ahead field goal with 1:33 left and two timeouts, just to force overtime. Getting a stop there was hardly certain.

Neither quarterback was spectacular in the frosty conditions, but both led long fourth-quarter scoring drives before Buffalo escaped with a 27-25 victory. The finish puts Allen, Bills coach Sean McDermott and Buffalo one victory from the Super Bowl and a chance to cement legacies.

What about Jackson?

TOUCHDOWN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

TUNE IN ON CBS pic.twitter.com/Y1uxzOELvp

— Baltimore Ravens (@Ravens) January 20, 2025

A two-time MVP already, he’s almost certain to add a third trophy soon, based on recently released All-Pro voting, which favored Jackson over Allen by a wide margin. But his teams are 3-5 in the playoffs, and Jackson, though solid in this postseason, still hasn’t dazzled on the biggest stages.

He threw an interception early against the Bills, lost a fumble and suffered from three dropped passes totaling 23 air yards. He threw what could have been the tying 24-yard touchdown pass to Isaiah Likely with 1:33 remaining, but then watched helplessly as Andrews slid on the slick surface while dropping a soft, catchable conversion toss. This was Jackson’s first game with more than one turnover since he had two in the AFC Championship Game last season. Those four turnovers, though not entirely Jackson’s fault, cost Baltimore 20 EPA in games the Ravens lost by a combined nine points, per TruMedia.

Jackson blamed himself for failing to look off the safety on his interception, and for trying to make something happen when he fumbled, instead of falling on the ball following a bad snap.

“Hold on to the f—ing ball. … This s—‘s annoying. I’m tired of this s—.”

—Lamar Jackson after the Baltimore Ravens loss to the Buffalo Bills. pic.twitter.com/ugwpx4yzHf

— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) January 20, 2025

The chart below compares EPA per play in the regular season and playoffs for quarterbacks with at least six postseason starts since 2000. I’ve excluded Brett Favre, Kurt Warner and Steve McNair because they made significant postseason starts before 2000, the earliest season for which data is available through TruMedia (of the three, only Warner was better during playoffs since 2000). The ascending line represents a baseline of equal performance in both the regular season and playoffs.

Nick Foles, Mark Sanchez and Colin Kaepernick reside in the upper left as outliers whose postseason production on a limited number of starts (six each) far exceeded their modest regular-season performances over many more games.

Some quarterbacks with lots of postseason starts — Tom Brady, Rodgers, Roethlisberger, Drew Brees — reside near the line. That suggests performance tends to even out as the postseason samples grow. Peyton Manning never caught up to his regular-season prowess in the playoffs despite making 26 postseason starts since 2000 (he started one playoff game before that and struggled in defeat).

Jackson is trending in the right direction because his playoff production over the past two postseasons has improved (there are two dots for him on the chart, showing the positive shift). He still lags well below his contemporaries, notably Allen, in the playoffs. And because of the way things ended Sunday, he won’t get a chance to change that until next season.

5. The Lions own the NFL’s best regular-season record over the past two seasons and have two playoff victories to show for it. Here are four takeaways.

Coach Dan Campbell became emotional after his top-seeded Lions’ 45-31 defeat to sixth-seeded Washington in the divisional round Saturday. His team dominated during the regular season despite a long list of injuries on defense, only to lose at home by two touchdowns as an eight-point favorite.

My Lions takeaways:

• Campbell must evolve: When evaluating Campbell’s aggressive fourth-down strategy six weeks ago, an executive from another team wondered if the Lions’ coach could shift gears for the playoffs.

“I have a concern about their head coach not clicking into playoff mode, where teams really count the possessions and he wants to keep pushing his fourth-down strategy,” this exec said at the time. “That was costly in their playoff loss (to San Francisco) last season. Can he adjust to the way those games are played, when each one of those possessions is higher leverage?”

Campbell’s unapologetically aggressive approach has permeated the Lions, to great benefit. But in a tight game against upstart Washington, the Lions lost partly because they could not regulate their aggression. This was not a fourth-down thing as much as it was a mindset thing.

“I know how they got there, but at some point, you have to acknowledge you are depleted on defense and ask how you can keep the ball out of the other team’s hands,” a veteran coach said. “They call a reverse pass when they are in a 10-point game with plenty of time, with a lot of talented players on that offense, in a game where they are getting 8 yards a carry on the ground.”

Trailing 38-28 early in the fourth quarter, offensive coordinator Ben Johnson called for talented (but inconsistent) receiver Jameson Williams to throw on first-and-10. Campbell could have overridden the trick play but did not. The resulting interception proved fatal to the Lions’ chances.

THAT’S 2 FOR @MikeSainristil❕

📺 #WASvsDET FOXpic.twitter.com/D8S9ddhdsi

— Washington Commanders (@Commanders) January 19, 2025

“I would have liked for (Williams) to run, but listen, take a risk … it didn’t work out,” Campbell said after the game.

Goff’s sack and lost fumble in the first quarter resulted from the Lions passing on third-and-1 from the Washington 17-yard line. Teams over the past five seasons have run 80 percent of the time with that down-and-distance from that area of the field. Not only did the Lions pass, but also they opted for a five-man protection. Leading 7-3, Detroit trailed 10-7 the next time it possessed the ball.

Goff’s pick six late in the first half resulted from him trying to convert a second-and-14 with a risky throw into a disguised coverage 18 yards downfield instead of picking up roughly half the yardage with a safer pass to a wide-open Sam LaPorta.

These, too, were errors of aggression.

“I’m not sure those quarterback errors are overly aggressive plays,” a coach from an opposing team said. “But the reverse and letting the kid throw it, I mean, come on. A non-quarterback threading that ball in there? These possessions are precious.”

Does Campbell have another gear? He arguably did not in this game, or when he went for it on fourth-and-2 from the San Francisco 28-yard line while leading 24-10 in the third quarter of the NFC title game last season. Instead of taking a three-score lead in that game, the Lions failed to get a first down. The 49ers scored quickly, and the Lions lost control of the game.

The Lions own an NFL-best 27-7 (.794) record over the past two seasons but have just two playoff victories, over the Rams and Bucs last season, to show for it. That’s rough.

• Both coordinators auditioning: There’s no way to know whether having Johnson and defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn dedicating mental bandwidth to head-coaching interviews/prospects affected Detroit, but it’s hard to fathom how it could help. Two years ago, the Eagles felt as though their Super Bowl preparations suffered for those reasons.

The penalty Detroit incurred for having 12 defenders on the field before a fourth-and-2 play from the Lions’ 5-yard line produced a first down and a 3.2-point EPA swing, tied for the largest EPA swing among 55 penalties for “too many men” enforced across the league this season, per TruMedia. These things happen, especially for teams with lots of injuries, but the timing was horrible for the Lions.

• Goff does not elevate: I’ve called Goff a great good-team quarterback, meaning he’s excellent when the situation around him is very good. He doesn’t overcome as well as top quarterbacks do, through their superior mobility or ability to weather chaotic pockets. Two of his interceptions Saturday resulted from a bad decision (the pick six) or a bad throw (the first interception, failing to lead his receiver to the opposite hash in the end zone).

Goff has 45 touchdown passes with nine interceptions against non-playoff teams over the past two seasons. That 5-1 ratio drops to 1.5-1 (27 TDs, 18 INTs) against playoff teams. The decline for the league at large is smaller, from 2.2-1 to 1.7-1. Goff tossed five picks against Houston in Week 10 and three more Sunday.

The three highest paid quarterbacks in the playoffs were:

• Jordan Love ($55M per year)
• Jared Goff ($53M)
• Justin Herbert (52.5M)

They went 0-3 with a combined 10 interceptions. #Lions #Chargers #Packers pic.twitter.com/Qrz4zzBF4S

— John Breech (@johnbreech) January 19, 2025

• Defensive injuries real: Glenn is getting consideration for head-coaching jobs partly because his defense improved over the years and outperformed expectations through catastrophic injuries this season. Those injuries might have reached a breaking point when it mattered most, against a prolific Washington offense featuring a dynamic dual-threat quarterback.

This is where the Lions are at right now on defense pic.twitter.com/eENFHBc3qN

— Bill Barnwell (@billbarnwell) January 19, 2025

6. Two-minute drill: The big, bad NFC North imploded in the playoffs. The league has never seen anything quite like it since the 1970 AFL-NFL merger. Also, how about those Rams?

It was a great season for the NFC North, until it was not.

The four NFC North teams combined to outscore non-division opponents by 8.7 points per game in the regular season. That average margin ranked first among 376 divisions since 1970, per Pro Football Reference. That makes the North’s 0-3 playoff meltdown a demise of historic proportions. The 15-2 Lions, 14-3 Vikings and 11-6 Packers suffered double-digit defeats, getting outscored 94-50. The fourth-place Chicago Bears fared better by not playing.

The five divisions since 1970 ranked Nos. 2-6 in average point margin against non-division opponents combined to go 13-6 in the playoffs. All five of those divisions placed teams in the conference championship game. Two produced Super Bowl winners, including the 2013 NFC West, which featured Seattle and San Francisco in the NFC Championship Game.

The table below shows how epic the meltdown was for the 2024 NFC North.

The Lions were the 11th No. 1 seed since the 2002 divisional realignment (out of 46 total) to rank among the NFL’s top 10 in EPA per play on both offense and defense, while also ranking that high in combined EPA on defense/special teams, per TruMedia. These 11 elite No. 1 seeds produced six Super Bowl appearances, with the 2016 Patriots and 2017 Eagles winning it all.

Most of these teams fell off the following season, presumably through natural regression. The Lions have ascended every season under Campbell, but that becomes tougher after a 15-2 season.

Detroit became the fourth of these elite No. 1 seeds to go one-and-done in the playoffs. The three others bounced back eventually, but not always right away. All three kept their franchise quarterbacks for multiple additional seasons.

The top-seeded 2008 New York Giants missed the playoffs in each of the next two seasons, then won the Super Bowl as a 9-7 wild-card team. The 2012 Denver Broncos, losers at home to Baltimore in double overtime, reached the Super Bowl in the following season and won it two years after that. The 2019 Ravens remained competitive over the next few seasons without a playoff breakthrough. Of those three, only Denver changed offensive coordinators the next season, as the Lions will following Johnson’s expected departure for a head-coaching job. Mike McCoy’s departure to become the Chargers’ head coach didn’t affect Manning.

• Rams managed to give themselves a chance: The Rams could not stop the Philadelphia Eagles’ Saquon Barkley from rushing for 205 yards against them Sunday, just as they could not stop him from rushing for 255 against them during a regular-season game between the teams. What the Rams could do, and what they did do, was stop the clock in the nerve-racking final minutes of their eventual 28-22 divisional-round defeat. That represented progress.

One year ago, the Rams burned timeouts on offense early in the third and fourth quarters of their wild-card game against Detroit, rendering them helpless to stop the clock when the Lions were protecting a 24-23 lead in the final minutes.

Coach Sean McVay responded by hiring John Streicher to help with in-game decisions, among other things. Streicher, who held a similar job under Mike Vrabel in Tennessee, is one of a growing number of specialists in the game-management field. Head coaches still make the decisions. Some empower their advisers. Others do not. There are sometimes louder, more powerful voices on the headsets, and probably no perfect processes.

Whatever the case was for the Rams this season, McVay stopped the clock on defense against the Eagles at the 2:44, 2:39 and 2:35 marks while trailing 28-22. That allowed him to get the ball back to quarterback Matthew Stafford at the Los Angeles 18-yard line in time to run two offensive plays before the two-minute warning. Stafford then took the Rams to the Philly 13 with more than a minute remaining before the drive bogged down in the snow.

It was a rough way to end the season for a Rams team that struggled to handle the ball in difficult conditions. There soon will be questions to answer about the futures of Stafford and receiver Cooper Kupp, among others. But for a team that watched Aaron Donald retire and then started the season 1-4, there were many worse ways it could have ended. Among them: Philly running out the clock to rob Stafford and the offense of that one final chance to win the game.

• Liking Bills’ chances: Buffalo’s offense owns five of the 19 best EPA games against the Chiefs’ defense since 2021, counting playoffs. The Bills’ offense over that span has actually been better against the Chiefs than it has been against the rest of the league.

The Bills handed the Chiefs their only defeat in which Kansas City played its starters this season, 30-21 in Week 11. Their 10.1 EPA on offense in that game is the 18th-best figure by a Chiefs opponent in 79 total games since 2021. It’s why I like Buffalo’s chances of winning in Kansas City, despite knowing better than to pick against Mahomes in such situations. The Bills’ defense also should match up better against the Chiefs than it matched up against the Ravens with Derrick Henry.

As an executive from another team pointed out, the Chiefs are generally less convicted than the Ravens about running the ball, and less physical in their ground game, which could mean Buffalo’s defense survived its toughest test of the playoffs Sunday night.

Mahomes and the Chiefs will have something to say about that, of course.

(Photo: Michael Owens / Getty Images)