Box Score Breakdown: Conference Championship Games

Apologies in advance if this devolves into too much ranting or complaining about the Ravens. 

Vocab/Index

• DB = QB dropbacks = pass attempts + sacks
• RTs = Routes
• RT% = Percentage of team dropbacks on which the player ran a route
• aDOT = Average Depth of Target
• AY = Air Yards
• TS SZN = Percentage of team targets this season
• AY SZN = Percentage of team air yards this season

Personnel Groupings

• 11 = 1 RB / 1 TE / 3 WR
• 12 = 1 RB / 2 TE / 2 WR
• 21 = 2 RB / 1 TE / 2 WR

Any RB/WR/TE with a target, carry or snap share of at least 10 percent is listed below. Any personnel grouping used on at least 10 percent of snaps is listed, in addition to rates for 11 and 12 personnel (by far the two most popular sets league-wide).

Chiefs (17) at Ravens (10) 

Chiefs Personnel: 11 - 55% / 12 - 23% / 13 - 11%

73 Plays — 41 DBs — 5.3 aDOT — 30-of-39 for 241 yards — 1 TD, 0 INT, 2 sacks

• WR Marquez Valdes-Scantling played a season-high 83% of snaps, up from 41% in the wild-card round and 50% in the divisional round.
  • He was easily second among Chiefs WRs in routes for a second straight week, and widened the gap between himself and Justin Watson (MVS had 61% route share the previous week, compared to 44% for Watson and 39% for Mecole Hardman).
    • Hardman barely played in this one; Richie James was the No. 4 WR.
• TE Travis Kelce won't be a first-round fantasy pick next year, but he's at least worked his way back into the Round 2 discussion with a 23-262-3 line in three playoff games.
  • Kelce caught five passes on the first two drives. Those two series accounted for more than half of Kansas City's total yardage and 14 of the 17 points.
• RB Isiah Pacheco took 80% of snaps and 28 of the 31 RB opportunities. 
  • RB Clyde Edwards-Helaire took seven of 15 snaps on 3rd-and-medium/long, and just eight of 58 snaps (14%) in all other situations.
• This game, for me, was less about the referees doing a bad job and more about a bunch of rule exploits.
  • Example A) The Ravens had Roquan Smith commit unnecessary roughness near the very end to turn a 2nd-and-short into a 1st-and-10. The Chiefs would've been allowed to decline an offsides, but didn't have the choice to decline the 15-yarder. That's stupid, and it would've been a bad look for the league if the Ravens had a chance to tie the game because of it.
  • Example B) It's an open secret that the Chiefs coach their linemen to hold whenever they get beat badly on pass plays. This briefly became "controversial" a few years ago, but then everybody forgot about it. It's not cheating, or cheap, or dishonest in any way. Every team should be doing the same thing, except for maybe teams with Lamar Jackson or Josh Allen or Anthony Richardson at quarterback.
    • Think about it: a holding penalty is 10 yards and no loss of down. But it also reduces the risk of a lost down (via sack/incompletion), and more importantly reduces the risk of a fumble or QB injury. And refs are never going to call it more than three or four times per game. Sometimes they won't even see it; other times they'll let it slide. Every team should be holding as much as Kansas City does until the NFL chances holding on dropbacks to either a loss-of-down penalty or a 15-yarder.
  • Example C) A bunch of my fellow Ravens fans were upset that the Chiefs didn't get called for DPI on Lamar Jackson's horrible throw into the end zone that was intercepted. By the letter of the law, it was probably interference. But it's absolutely ridiculous to award game-breaking penalties because a QB underthrew a ball and a defender crashed into a receiver while going after it. The no-call there should be the standard, not something we argue about afterward.
    • Jackson's underthrow wasn't intentional. But more teams should be intentionally underthrowing deep balls to take advantage of these cheap, all-too-frequent penalties. Especially in comeback situations when you're more willing to risk a turnover for a shot at a long gain.
  • Last thing about the refs: There's no "fix" in for the Chiefs, nor for Taylor Swift. Yes, they tend to get slightly more calls in their favor. That's what happens, in any sport, when you have a super-duperstar. Some refs, but not all, will tend to favor them, whether it's Patrick Mahomes, LeBron James, Derek Jeter or Alex Ovechkin.
    • We saw the same thing with Tom Brady and Peyton Manning. In Brady's case, he became an incessant whiner during the middle part of his career, constantly looking for flags and complaining and showing up the refs. He eased up on this in his later years, to his credit, and along with generally showing a more relaxed face to the public this helped him become well-liked again. 
      • Mahomes seems to be doing the same thing now. He looks for flags every time he's touched, complains to the refs, even runs downfield pointing at defenders when he thinks he's owed a PI. If he keeps doing that, he'll be disliked outside of Kansas City, as increasingly seems to be the case. If he cuts it out, like Brady eventually did, he might become the most popular player in the league (again). Either way, he's the best player, and he'll continue winning.

Ravens Personnel: 11 - 63% / 12 - 11% / 21 - 12% / 20 - 11%

57 Plays — 41 DBs — 9.4 aDOT — 20-of-37 for 272 yards — 1 TD, 1 INT, 4 sacks

• A pass-first gameplan plus negative game script unsurprisingly worked in favor of more playing time for Justice Hill, who handled 68% snap share, 59% route share and finished second on the team with seven targets.
  • RB Gus Edwards got just 18 snaps and four touches, shockingly.
  • The Ravens handed the ball to RBs on two of their first three first downs. After that, they had just one more RB carry on a first down the rest of the game.
• WR Odell Beckham played more than in the previous game, getting 60% of snaps, 66% of routes and six targets (third most on the team).
  • Beckham, Rashod Bateman and Nelson Agholor all had similar playing time in a rotation behind Zay Flowers.
  • OBJ seemingly plans to play in 2024. He won't get another $15 million contract, of course. His numbers were decent enough on per-snap/per-target basis, but he was never a full-time player after the first couple weeks, and the stats got a boost from the Ravens feeding him deep balls and end-zone targets in the fourth quarter of easy wins. Signing him instead of DeAndre Hopkins was a gargantuan mistake by GM Eric DeCosta, and an obvious one at that. There were other moves this past offseason that worked out worse for other teams, but nothing was as egregious as Beckham's contract at the time. Devoting 7 percent of the salary cap to a glorified cheerleader is all fun and games until you come up just a little bit short in the playoffs (again).
• TE Mark Andrews got just 32% snap share and 27% route share in his first appearance since Week 11. He should be ready for his usual role come Week 1 next year, and the question now becomes what the Ravens do with Isaiah Likely, who appears overqualified for the No. 2 TE role.
  • In other offenses, you might keep both guys and use a ton of 12 personnel, but an offense led by Lamar Jackson probably doesn't need two TEs that are all-catch, no-block. Despite what we saw this past Sunday, the Ravens should always be one of the league's top rushing offenses with Jackson under center.
  • Trading Andrews seems less likely than trading Likely, but I wouldn't rule it out as a possibility. The 28-year-old is due a $4 million roster bonus March 17, and he might be worth more to other teams than he is to the Ravens. Remember that Andrews had one season (2021) with 153 targets and 1,361 yards but otherwise has lingered around six to seven targets per game. He might be worth more to a team like the Chargers or Texans. And he'd definitely be worth more to fantasy managers if he plays for one of those teams...
• This was a great game for Flowers if you have him in a dynasty league, but a terrible game for him if you're a Ravens fan like me. For all the talk about Lamar Jackson, Todd Monken, referees, etc. etc... I really think Baltimore would've won had Flowers simply lowered his shoulder and either gone down at the 1-yard line or plunged into the end zone. Reaching the ball out (even with two hands) when he already had a first down was incredibly stupid.
  • That's not to say the loss was only Flowers' fault. Jackson played one of his worst games of the year at the worst time (again), and Monken didn't even bother to test Kansas City's shaky run defense.

Stock ⬆️:   WR Zay Flowers

Stock ⬇️:   WRs Justin Watson & Mecole Hardman

  Chiefs Injuries 🚑: DE Charles Omenihu (ACL tear)

Lions (31) at 49ers (34) 

Lions Personnel: 11 - 71% / 12 - 11% / 6OL - 13%

72 Plays — 43 DBs — 9.6 aDOT — 25-of-41 for 273 yards — 1 TD, 0 INT, 2 sacks

• This kind of felt like WR Jameson Williams' breakout game, even though he was targeted only three times and again got slightly fewer routes/snaps than Josh Reynolds.
  • Reynolds had a brutal game, with his four targets including drops on third and fourth down. He's arguably been the weak point of Detroit's offense all year and is scheduled for unrestricted free agency in the offseason.
• OC Ben Johnson is staying in Detroit for at least one more year, and the only offensive starters headed for free agency are Reynolds, LG Jonah Jackson (knee) and RG Graham Glasgow.
  • The Lions really are in a good position. They're projected for $58 million in cap space and don't have an especially strong class of free agents.
    • I definitely found it interesting that Dan Campbell told his team it would be twice as difficult to get back to championship weekend next year and that they might've missed their only shot. The sentiment in Baltimore was more akin to "we'll be back next year, and better", which I've heard a few times before. The contrast is all the more interesting given that Detroit has more cap space, fewer key free agents and a softer conference. The Ravens should be good again next year, but they're definitely about to lose some key players and will still have to go through Mahomes (and Burrow... and Allen... and Stroud... and Tagovailoa/Hill... and whatever is left of Rodgers).
      • Also, the Lions now seem likely to keep both their coordinators, whereas Baltimore's Mike McDaniel looks like the favorite for Seattle's HC job (and is also in the running for the Washington job). 
• RB Jahmyr Gibbs had a nice TD run early in the game but mostly played poorly. It wasn't just the crucial lost fumble. He tried to bounce a couple of runs outside when he didn't have room and should've just taken a short gain. Surprisingly, Gibbs' pass blocking looked better than his running in this one.
  • David Montgomery, on the other hand, brought his A game. He's not going anywhere, which makes me skeptical of Gibbs as a top-20 fantasy pick. Monty had a fantastic 2023, and he's signed for two more years, including more than half of his 2024 base salary being fully guaranteed.
• TE Sam LaPorta not only led the team in targets but also air yards, catches and receiving yards. 
• I don't really have strong opinions on the fourht-down deabte. I would've kicked the FG in that first situation when Campbell went for it, while the second felt like more of a GO to me.
  • Either way, it's incredibly stupid that some people are so quick to use unsuccessful fourth-down attempts as an opportunity to blast "analytics." It seems most of the analytical models had both of those situations as toss-ups anyway, and I don't think Dan Campbell's aggressiveness is a result of being married to the numbers or anything like that. I think he just trusts his offense more than his kicker and defense, which makes sense given the roster he has.
    • I'll admit that part of the vitriol stems from prominent pro-analytics people being such obnoxious twerps who hammer the same three or four ideas into oblivion and have been happy to beat dead horses for a half-decade or more with stuff like 'RBs Don't Matter'. But being even more stubborn and obnoxious than those people is not the sweet win that some "anti-analytics" people think it is. Sigh.

49ers Personnel: 11 - 39% / 12 - 0% / 21 - 46% / 22 - 12%

66 Plays — 33 DBs — 9.0 aDOT — 20-of-31 for 267 yards — 1 TD, 1 INT, 2 sacks

• WR Deebo Samuel handled 77% snap share and a team-high 97% route share after missing most of the previous game with a shoulder injury.
  • He was as physical as ever, fighting through tacklers and taking 11 touches for 96 yards.
• RB Elijah Mitchell subbed in for Christian McCaffrey and scored a short touchdown with three minutes remaining in the fourth quarter, then got the final three carries to run out the clock at the end.
  • I was a bit confused when watching, but it makes sense now that we know McCaffrey was injured (seemingly his neck). However, coach Kyle Shanahan didn't mention the RB on Monday when discussing injuries from the NFCCG. So maybe McCaffrey is fine already.
• Not a good look for DE Chase Young to be jogging on Gibbs' TD when he probably would've tackled him on the cutback if he'd been hustling.
• TE George Kittle took 97% of snaps but apparently hurt his toe at some point.
• WR Brandon Aiyuk had nearly half of the team's air yards.
• Give QB Brock Purdy some credit. This was far from his best performance, but you can't say he was a "game manager". He made some nice throws on second and third reads, and he made some huge plays scrambling.
• FB Kyle Juszczyk didn't have his best blocking game but more than made up for it with a rarely seen downfield catch (for 23 yards) in the first quarter and then a 10-yard, toe-tap catch along the sidelines later on. 
  • He's caught 30 passes in a season five times, including four years in row from 2016 to 2019 (his final two years in Baltimore and first two in San Francisco).
  • Some of you will think this is stupid, but I think Juice should at least get consideration for the Hall of Fame. He's by far the best fullback of his era... probably the only one that will be remembered at all, really. And he's now played 172 regular-season games and 13 playoff games.

Stock ⬆️:   WR Jameson Williams

Stock ⬇️:   WR Josh Reynolds

  Lions Injuries 🚑: S Kerby Joseph (arm) / LB Derrick Barnes (knee)

  49ers Injuries 🚑: RB Christian McCaffrey (neck) / TE George Kittle (toe) / CB Ambry Thomas (ankle)