Passing Matchups: Conference Championships

Go here for this week's Rushing Matchups. 

Top 2 Passing Matchups

Kansas City vs Buffalo

The Chief's passing game has issues, but thankfully, last week, we saw the first glimpse that Travis Kelce can carry this offense throughout the playoffs. Kelce, who has had one of the worst seasons in his career was outstanding against Houston last week as he had 117 yards on seven receptions with a touchdown. Kelce showed a burst he had not shown all year, as he had a 49-yard reception and averaged 16.7 yards per catch, which was almost double his 8.5 for the season. The Chiefs will need this type of production to win the Super Bowl as the rest of their receiving room struggled last week. Outside of Xavier Worthy, who had 45 yards, no other Chiefs player had more than 15. DeAndre Hopkins, Marquise Brown, and JuJu Smith-Schuster were all held without a catch. The upside this week is that there could just be some rust that the offense has to shake off as their starters did not play in either Week 18 or Week 19 as they had the bye and chose to sit their starters in Week 18. Either way, they will need more production outside of just Kelce this week. They'll be facing a more prolific offense in Buffalo, where 177 passing yards likely won't suffice.

This is a situation where there are only four teams, and we have to pick two good passing matchups and two bad. The reality here is that none of these teams are good matchups. Buffalo's secondary has been extremely inconsistent. While they've performed well for most of the season, they have some extreme outlier performances as they've allowed three 300-yard performances, including a 494-yard outing against Jared Goff in Week 15. Since that Goff performance, the secondary has not been tested by an elite passing offense, as they've faced Drake Maye, Aaron Rodgers/Tyrod Taylor, Joe Milton III, Bo Nix, and Lamar Jackson. Last week against the Ravens, Lamar Jackson threw for 254 yards and two touchdowns which was slightly above his regular season average of 245 yards. The issue for Buffalo is that while Christian Benford is a top-tier corner, the rest of the secondary has flaws. Cornerback Rasul Douglas has seen a significant decline this season in coverage, while the safeties have been the real weakness, as the team has seen a significant dropoff from last season with Damar Hamlin and Taylor Rapp compared to 2023, where the team had Jordan Poyer and Micah Hyde. While Hamlin is a great story, he is showing why he's a sixth-round pick who is just now getting a chance in his fourth season, as he has been unable to consistently cover opposing receivers. Overall, this is an average pass defense, but the good news is that they completely shut down the Chiefs back in Week 11, holding Patrick Mahomes II to just 196 yards, although he did throw three touchdowns. Buffalo is dealing with some significant injury questions heading into this week. Star corner Christian Benford is dealing with a concussion that if he is not cleared from the protocol is a massive downgrade, safety Taylor Rapp looks like he's not going to play as he has not practiced on Wednesday or Thursday and if he's unable to go rookie Cole Bishop would get the start. Bishop has struggled in his limited playing time this season.

Buffalo at Kansas City

Buffalo has turned to a run-heavy offense over the last four games, as Josh Allen has thrown the ball fewer than 30 times in each of his last four starts. This has capped the upside of this offense, as Allen has topped 200 yards just once in those four games. This offense needs a receiver to emerge as a consistent option. While Khalil Shakir is the top-volume receiver on this team, he's averaging just 10.8 yards per catch. Even with a 34-yard reception last week, he only averaged 11.2 yards per catch, as his other five receptions went for just 33 yards. Besides Shakir, the Bills did not have another receiver surpass 15 yards last week against Baltimore. From a snap count perspective, Mack Hollins and Keon Coleman lead the team this season, but Coleman averages just 2.1 catches per game, while Hollins averages 1.7. This offense will likely continue to rely on Khalil Shakir to move the chains while running the ball heavily and taking a few deep shots to Coleman and/or Curtis Samuel, who sees about 30% of the snaps for this offense.

Kansas City's pass defense has been inconsistent this season, but at its best, it can be a shutdown unit. Led by All-Pro Trent McDuffie, this is a unit that the Chiefs have built through the draft as Jaylen Watson was drafted in the same 2022 draft as McDuffie, as was safety Brian Cook, with Justin Reid being the veteran of the group. Cook has been the one weak spot on this defense. On the season, excluding Week 18, where the Chiefs did not play their starters, Kansas City allowed 228 passing yards per game to opposing quarterbacks, which was 12th best this season. The inconsistency of the Chiefs has largely been with the pass rush, as, despite Steve Spagnuolo's pressure-heavy scheme, the Chiefs only have 39 sacks on the year compared to 57 last season. Getting pressure will be critical, as we saw the Chiefs have eight sacks last week against Houston, however in their first meeting with Josh Allen and Buffalo, they were unable to sack the quarterback as he threw for 262 yards and a touchdown.