Why the NFL play-offs are the ‘most unusual’ in years

A dynasty has crumbled, major names have lost, and even the Super Bowl has been contested by a ‘ran’.

Even seasoned NBC analyst Cris Collinsworth has remarked, “This is the most unusual year I can recall in the NFL.”

The Kansas City Chiefs are not one of the 14 teams that are currently scheduled to compete in the play-offs for the first time in 11 years.

Pre-season favorites Buffalo and Philadelphia, who are currently defending champions, have not performed as well as they did last year.

11 of the 14 play-off teams, however, won at least 11 games in the regular season for the second time in 35 years.

Good luck choosing the winner for Super Bowl 60 as at least 11 teams have qualified after losing at least 11 games the previous year, with two of them coming from worst in their division, New England and Chicago.

You can put something on all of them, Collinsworth said, “I don’t know, because I don’t know if you ask me to pick a favorite.”

14 teams, including seven from the AFC and the NFC, make up the NFL play-offs.

Each conference is separated during its 12-game, three-week, knockout games, which determine the team’s position at Super Bowl 60 on February 8th.

The top seeds Denver and Seattle receive a bye for Week One, known as Wildcard Weekend, while the top seeds in each round have home-field advantage.

The San Francisco 49ers’ home team’s home team’s Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara will host the title-clinching game during the Divisional Round, and the winners of the Conference Championships, which are effectively the Super Bowl semi-finals, will face off in the title matchup there.

Patrick Mahomes, a Kansas City native, is not playing in the play-offs for the first time in his career after winning five of his previous six championships.

The three-time champion isn’t the only quarterback who is out, though. The first Super Bowl of its kind to be held in Cincinnati since 2019 without Mahomes or Joe Burrow.

The Chiefs, Bengals, and Ravens have all failed to reach the post-season, despite Mahomes or Lamar Jackson (Baltimore) having won four of the previous seven seasons.

That has opened up the door to new stars like Denver’s Bo Nix and New England’s Drake Maye, who will be immortalized in play-off glory.

Only Kansas City, Cincinnati, and New England have won the AFC Championship since 2016, and no Patriots player has recovered from their most recent Super Bowl victory.

Denver, the only AFC play-off team to have reached the Super Bowl since 1995, has only played one play-off game since 2016. Besides the Broncos and Patriots, Pittsburgh is the only other AFC play-off team to have ever won.

The NFC has reached seven of its previous eight Super Bowls, with the Philadelphia Eagles, Los Angeles Rams, or San Francisco 49ers having won the most games.

The Rams and 49ers have already engaged in play-off football for weeks after winning the NFC West division with Seattle.

The Seahawks, who have a 14-3 record and are on a seven-game winning streak, came out on top in their last three games after defeating both of them.

Seattle are now marginal Super Bowl favorites, ahead of the 12-5 Rams, whose quarterback Matthew Stafford is the MVP favorite.

The 37-year-old has yet to win the award, but he is ahead of second-year quarterback Drake Maye of New England, who won the 2022 Super Bowl to cap his first season with the Rams.

Under new head coach Mike Vrabel, Maye, 23, has blossomed, helping them drop from 4-13 last year to 14-3 under his new leadership.

All times are GMT.

Saturday, January 10th,

Los Angeles Rams vs. Carolina Panthers (21: 30)

Packers @ Chicago Bears at 1:00 Sun.

Sunday, January 11th.

Buffalo Bills @ Jacksonville Jaguars (18:00)

San Francisco 49ers@Philadelphia Eagles (21: 30)

Los Angeles Chargers @ New England Patriots (Monday, 01:00)

12 January, Monday,

Wildcard Weekend is set for the Rams at Carolina, who became the seventh team to reach the play-offs with a losing record of 8-9 after slipping to the NFC South title.

Stafford led the league in passing yards and touchdown passes, while Puka Nacua recorded a career-high 1,715 receiving yards. Additionally, the Rams hope to get injured receiver Davante Adams back.

Green Bay’s momentum was halted by a number of injuries, most notably those involving Micah Parsons, but they will return quarterback Jordan Love with a concussion for their third play-off game in the NFL’s oldest and most popular rivalry.

The pressure is on to avoid exiting the play-offs with a third straight defeat, despite Chicago’s victory in the NFC North exceeding pre-season expectations.

San Francisco travels to Philadelphia, the NFC’s other wildcard matchup, after San Francisco, who was sidelined for the majority of its starters last Sunday after recovering from a fall, to take on the team that lost to them.

Josh Allen, the Bills’ reigning champion, was dumped out by Kansas City in four of the previous five years, but the Bills must travel after New England’s recent AFC East dominance is over.

And they must travel to a Jacksonville team that has won eight straight games, with Trevor Lawrence posing as the “generational talent” he was touted as when the Jaguars selected him with the 2021 draft pick.

The Patriots want to avoid an upset against the Los Angeles Chargers, where Justin Herbert, the quarterback, wants to win his first play-off championship.