Losing in any elimination game gives you the entire offseason to think about the things you should have done. For the Tennessee Titans, Kansas City Chiefs, San Francisco 49ers, and Green Bay Packers, there’s still that one last hope for the Super Bowl that no other team still has this season. The AFC and NFC Championship game entrants have faced off in the regular season already.
In Week 10, the Titans came back from a 10-0 Chiefs lead, and Patrick Mahomes’ three-touchdown performance, to beat Kansas City 35-32. Ryan Tannehill, still in his first few games as Marcus Mariota’s replacement, threw a 23-yard touchdown pass to receiver Adam Humphries with 29 seconds left in regulation, and Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker missed a potential game-tying 52-yard field goal at the end of regulation. At least the Chiefs can say they were in that game.
The Packers, not so much. In Week 12, the 49ers beat the daylights out of Green Bay, 37-8. Aaron Rodgers averaged 3.15 yards per completion when he was able to throw the ball, the Packers went 1-for-15 on third down, and a defense that had been relatively on point allowed Jimmy Garoppolo to look like Joe Montana.
Still, the good news for both losing teams in this instance is that neither the Chiefs nor the Packers have lost a single game since those particular defeats. Mahomes seems to have recovered from his in-season injuries, Green Bay’s passing offense is more explosive, Kansas City’s defense is far better than it used to be, and the Packers’ coverage units seem to have recovered from what 49ers head coach and play-designer Kyle Shanahan did to them.
That said, the Titans are as in-tune as any remaining team on both sides of the ball, and with the postseason return of edge-rusher Dee Ford, linebacker Kwon Alexander, and safety Jaquiski Tartt, San Francisco’s defense has recovered nicely from a late-season swoon.
So, if we take the conference title games as new entities (as we should) while attempting to learn from the past, here’s one thing each of the remaining teams should do if they want to make it to Super Bowl LIV.
Packers: Put Davante Adams in the slot
Green Bay receiver Davante Adams played just 12 games in the 2019 regular season, missing four with a toe injury. And still, he led his team in targets by a crushing margin with 127 — running back Aaron Jones finished second with 68. Adams continued that in the postseason, catching eight passes on 11 targets for 160 yards and two touchdowns against Seattle’s misshapen pass defense in the divisional round. But in Green Bay’s 37-8 “burn the tape” loss to the 49ers in Week 12, Adams was limited to seven catches on 12 targets for 43 yards and the Packers’ only touchdown of the day.
The plan then, as it surely will be on Sunday, is to line Adams up away from Richard Sherman, who plays nearly always on the left defensive side of the field and doesn’t generally travel with top receivers. Still, Adams was shut out on two Aaron Rodgers attempts of 20 yards or more, and his longest reception was for 14 yards. As long as San Francisco’s other cornerbacks could establish inside position on deep boundary routes… well, even cornerback Ahkello Witherspoon, who has been benched for poor performance more often than not of late, could make hay while the sun shone.
Add in the 49ers’ ability to create consistent and furious pressure on Rodgers, and Green Bay’s offense has a major problem. One way to alleviate this issue might be to put Adams in the slot, where he’s led the team in the regular and postseason with 34 catches on 43 targets for 317 yards and four touchdowns. Adams was limited to 22 yards on four slot receptions and five targets against the 49ers last time around, but I would argue that this was as much an example of indifferent utilization as anything else. Using Adams in the slot to gain a couple yards on quick slants and comebacks against a hyper-aggressive coverage unit isn’t the best way to benefit from Adams’ route-running abilities, especially downfield.
One of Adams’ most devastating routes is the fake post or slant to the corner or fade, and he absolutely blew up the Lions with this look from the right slot in Week 17 on this 20-yard touchdown.
And then, Adams vaporized Seahawks cornerback Tre Flowers on a similar design in the divisional round on this 40-yard score. Motion to the slot, reveal coverage, and burn any non-Richard Sherman cornerback in your approximate vicinity.
The 49ers are a heavy Cover-3 and Cover-4 team; they will present openings in coverage. If the Packers hope to win, head coach Matt LaFleur must design instances in which Adams can exploit those openings as much as possible.
Of course, if Rodgers isn’t upright, he can’t throw the ball to Adams or anybody else. The 49ers definitely have a plan for that.
49ers: Blitz the Packers right out of their playbook
It’s hard to count the number of things that went wrong for the Packers in their 37-8 Week 12 loss to the 49ers, but one thing that was very apparent was Green Bay’s inability to pick up any manner of placement games from San Francisco’s defenders. The 49ers aren’t a blitz-heavy team — they did so on just 20.9% of their defensive snaps in the regular season, the fourth-lowest rate in the NFL. One reason they don’t need to blitz is that in like Nick Bosa, Dee Ford, DeForest Buckner, and Arik Armstead, they have pass-rushers who don’t need help. Another obvious reason is that, with all that talent on the line, defensive coordinator Robert Saleh would wisely prefer to keep his linebackers, cornerbacks, and safeties in coverage for the most part. Why give up extra defenders to the quarterback when you don’t need to?
Still, when Saleh, defensive line coach Kris Kocurek, and pass-rush specialist Chris Kiffin do send blitzes, they tend to be highly effective. Such was the case in Week 12, when on Green Bay’s first drive, the 49ers sent linebacker Fred Warner on a five-man blitz in which other coverage broke late from the line of scrimmage as safety Jaquiski Tartt and linebacker Dre Greenlaw dropped from a jailbreak blitz look.
Warner forced a fumble, which end Nick Bosa recovered at the Green Bay two-yard line. Running back Tevin Coleman scored a touchdown on the next play, and the 49ers were on their way.
Here’s a sack credited to Tartt and Armstead in which a couple of cool things happened. Pre-snap, San Francisco presented with a single-high look, only to drop into Quarters coverage. Warner dropped out of the blitz look to cover tight end Jimmy Graham, while Tartt blitzed from the left defensive edge, meeting Armstead (and just about everybody else) at the quarterback. Green Bay’s response, as the great comedian Eddie Izzard once said on another matter, was to collapse like a flan in a cupboard.
This combination of shifting coverages and blitzing defenders proved devastating to the Packers’ offense the first time around, and it could be equally so in the rematch.
Chiefs: Use Tyrann Mathieu to take away Ryan Tannehill’s easy reads
The obvious challenge for the Chiefs in the AFC Championship game is to keep running back Derrick Henry in check. Easier said than done, of course. Henry led the NFL with 1,540 yards and 16 rushing touchdowns on 303 carries in the regular season, and he’s racked up 377 rushing yards in two playoff games. With defensive lineman Chris Jones day-to-day due to a calf injury, the Chiefs could be in real trouble here. Henry gained 188 yards and scored two touchdowns on 23 carries when the Titans and Chiefs matched up in Week 10, and Tennessee’s offense is more defined and explosive than it was then.
If Jones can’t go, that’s also a serious liability for Kansas City’s ability to get pressure on quarterback Ryan Tannehill, especially as it pertains to the structure of the Titans’ offense. Offensive coordinator Arthur Smith has worked Tannehill into a big-play passing game that counts play-action as its fundamental staple.
From Week 7, when he replaced Marcus Mariota as the team’s starter, Tannehill has been the league’s most prolific play-action quarterback with 73 completions on 94 attempts for 1,255 yards, 10 touchdowns, and three interceptions. Opposing defenses, locked on Henry as they must be, tend to leave easy reads open for Tannehill, who knows how to take advantage. This 45-yard touchdown pass to receiver Kalif Raymond against the Ravens last week is a perfect example of how the prospect of Henry running the ball leaves open sections of the field for Tannehill to work through.
The answer for the Chiefs may be to use defensive back Tyrann Mathieu, who has been the team’s best and most impactful defender this season, to muddy Tannehill’s reads even after Kansas City has sold out to stop Henry in a play-action look. Letting Mathieu roam to the intermediate and deep areas of the field, as opposed to giving him a defined position, could present Tannehill with things he generally doesn’t see, because so few players can do what Mathieu can do.
As for stopping Henry? Eh, good luck with that. Kansas City’s optimal strategy there would be to score enough points to force Tannehill to throw in response. Which leads us to…
Titans: Work Travis Kelce with safety coverage
In Kansas City’s Week 10 loss to the Titans, Travis Kelce caught seven passes on seven targets for 75 yards and a touchdown, and another touchdown catch was disallowed due to an offensive pass interference penalty on receiver Tyreek Hill. In particular, Kelce was able to exploit matchups with Tennessee’s linebackers with routes that sliced through the Titans’ zone coverages. Kelce was particularly open on this 16-yard reception, as Kansas City’s motion concepts seemed to send Tennessee’s defenders into a tizzy.
Jayon Brown, Tennessee’s best coverage linebacker, was out with a groin injury in Week 10, and he’s trying to recover from a shoulder injury he suffered in the wild-card win over the Patriots. That injury prevented him from playing in the divisional round against the Ravens, and if Brown’s out again, it’s a real problem. Rashaan Evans and Wesley Woodyard, Tennessee’s most-targeted linebackers this season, have four touchdown passes allowed and no interceptions between them. They are both good attack linebackers, but coverage is not their strong suit.
Also, Kelce presents challenges most tight ends don’t, especially in Andy Reid’s set of schemes. If you try him with straight coverage from a cornerback or linebacker, you’ll get eaten alive, because Kelce is so savvy when it comes to getting open against any coverage, especially with the Chiefs’ array of rub routes, crossers, and drags. The Texans tried playing man coverage against Kelce in the divisional round, specifically with cornerback Gareon Conley, and that was a fairly epic mistake. Kelce caught 10 passes on 12 targets for 134 yards and three touchdowns.
The answer for the Titans may be to put their safeties on Kelce across the field, especially if Brown can’t go. Top safety Kevin Byard can’t beat Kelce in the size category — he’s five-foot-11 and 212 pounds, while Kelce is six-foot-5 and 260 — but from a coverage standpoint, Byard plays bigger than he looks. Safety Kenny Vaccaro, who is a secret weapon for defensive coordinator Dean Pees in that he can play everywhere from box defender to slot corner to free safety, showed on this 11-yard Mark Andrews catch in the divisional round that he has the closing speed to limit after-catch gains from top tight ends.
This will be crucial to keeping Kelce in check. Vaccaro could be the point man for Kelce if Byard is positioned to help take the deep pass away from Patrick Mahomes, but one thing’s for sure — the Titans can’t depend on base zone coverage to limit him, much less stop him.
Touchdown Wire editor Doug Farrar previously covered football for Yahoo! Sports, Sports Illustrated, Bleacher Report, the Washington Post, and Football Outsiders. His first book, “The Genius of Desperation,” a schematic history of professional football, was published by Triumph Books in 2018 and won the Professional Football Researchers Association’s Nelson Ross Award for “Outstanding recent achievement in pro football research and historiography.”
