Dan GrazianoJan 6, 2026, 06:30 AM ETCloseDan Graziano is a senior NFL national reporter for ESPN, covering the entire league and breaking news. Dan also contributes to Get Up, NFL Live, SportsCenter, ESPN Radio, Sunday NFL Countdown and Fantasy Football Now. He is a New Jersey native who joined ESPN in 2011, and he is also the author of two published novels.Follow on X
play0:31Sean McVay says Matthew Stafford is the league MVPSarah Barshop discusses Sean McVay praising Matthew Stafford following the Rams’ Week 18 win.
play2:04Stephen A.: The Steelers got lucky in win over RavensStephen A. Smith explains why his enthusiasm for the Steelers is tempered after they defeated the Ravens to win the AFC North.
How Liam Coen has elevated Trevor Lawrence this season (2:43)Trevor Lawrence details how first-year head coach Liam Coen has catapulted the Jaguars to be a legitimate Super Bowl contender. (2:43)
Damien Woody, Dan Orlovsky and Rex Ryan discuss why the Bears could run into trouble in their wild-card matchup with the Packers.
Sean McVay says Matthew Stafford is the league MVPSarah Barshop discusses Sean McVay praising Matthew Stafford following the Rams’ Week 18 win.
Dan Orlovsky and Rex Ryan break down the concerns they have for Bo Nix and the Broncos heading into the playoffs.
Stephen A.: The Steelers got lucky in win over RavensStephen A. Smith explains why his enthusiasm for the Steelers is tempered after they defeated the Ravens to win the AFC North.
Stephen A. Smith explains why his enthusiasm for the Steelers is tempered after they defeated the Ravens to win the AFC North.
So here are our annual playoff myth-busters, with a big assist from ESPN researcher Paul “Hembo” Hembekides and the ESPN Research team. Let’s start with the NFC, and teams are ordered by seeding.
The Bears had a dominant run game this season. Their defense excelled at taking the ball away. And Williams — their brilliantly talented second-year quarterback — made some fourth-quarter magic in big wins. But his completion percentage of 58.1 is abysmal and ranked 32nd in the league among qualified starters. In this day and age, it’s tough to imagine a team winning a Super Bowl with a quarterback who isn’t completing 60% of his passes.
New coach Ben Johnson stressed to Williams when he got the job last year that, while avoiding interceptions was something he did well as a rookie, there were other negative plays he had to get better at avoiding if he and the offense wanted to have success. And Williams is doing an excellent job of staying away from interceptions and sacks, especially when he has faced pressure this season. That’s a benefit to the offense no matter what the overall completion percentage says.
Hurts, on the other hand, sees a great deal more variance. In Eagles wins, Hurts has a 64.2 QBR, a 5.1 completion percentage over expected (NFL Next Gen Stats), 19 touchdown passes and zero interceptions. In losses, he has a 38.2 QBR, a 0.1 CPOE, 6 touchdown passes and 6 interceptions. Just a lot of evidence to suggest that Philadelphia’s success in 2025 is tied much more closely to Hurts’ performance than it is to what Barkley does.
It felt a little fluky at the time, and with the Panthers limping to their division title with an 8-9 record, it feels unlikely to happen again in the wild-card round.
Sure, they can also lose to anyone. They were 8-9, after all. But Carolina had eight wins as an underdog this season, by far the most in the NFL. (The Steelers, Bears, Jaguars and Falcons each had five.) The Panthers will be the seventh team with a record of .500 or worse to host a wild-card game. Of the previous six, four won the contest.
The 2008 Chargers beat the Colts. The 2010 Seahawks beat the defending Super Bowl champion Saints in the Marshawn Lynch “Beast Quake” game. The Tim Tebow Broncos of 2011 knocked off the Steelers. And the 2014 Panthers beat the Cardinals. The last two teams to host a wild-card game with a regular-season record of .500 or worse did lose — the 2020 Washington Football Team to the Buccaneers and the 2022 Buccaneers to the Cowboys. But the overall record of 4-2 certainly shows it can be done.
Carolina’s big wide receivers were a problem for the Rams’ cornerbacks in the first matchup and could be again if the Panthers can do a good enough job of keeping the Rams’ rush off Young. All I’m saying is it wouldn’t be the most stunning potential upset of the first round.
It appears the MVP race is down to Rams veteran Stafford and Patriots second-year star Maye. The knock on Maye has been that he didn’t beat anyone especially good. The only teams in the playoff field the Patriots beat this season were the Bills (to whom they also lost) and the Panthers (who finished the season with a losing record).
Stafford led the league with 4,707 passing yards and 46 touchdown passes, threw eight interceptions and had a Total QBR of 71.0 — fourth best in the league. Maye had 4,394 passing yards, 31 touchdown passes, 8 interceptions and a league-leading Total QBR of 77.2.
Overall, Maye was considerably better than Stafford in common opponent games. They played six of them. Maye was 6-0 with an 81.6 QBR and a 4.3 touchdown-to-interception ratio. Stafford was 4-2 with a 57.8 QBR and a 2.3 touchdown-to-interception ratio against those teams.
The only number that shows Stafford obviously better than Maye this season is the touchdown passes. But don’t forget that a somewhat stunning 16 of Stafford’s touchdown passes were 4 yards or less (Maye had nine) and eight came from the 1-yard line (Maye had three). Maye also had four rushing touchdowns, while Stafford hasn’t had one since 2022.
Give the award to Stafford if you want, but don’t do it because of relative strength of schedule. Maye had the better year, even once we adjust for that.
Sarah Barshop discusses Sean McVay praising Matthew Stafford following the Rams’ Week 18 win.
In a season in which it felt like every significant player on the 49ers missed time with injury, McCaffrey did not. He played in all 17 games and was second in the league in yards from scrimmage with 2,126. That included 1,202 rushing yards on 311 carries and 924 receiving yards on 102 catches. Only five players in the league caught more passes than McCaffrey; four were wide receivers and one was a tight end. The next highest reception total among running backs in 2025 was Bijan Robinson’s 79.
McCaffrey also had 17 total touchdowns (10 rushing, seven receiving), which put him third in the league behind Jonathan Taylor and Jahmyr Gibbs. Simply put, CMC was a rock when the Niners needed one. The only year in his career in which he posted more scrimmage yards was his 2019 season in Carolina, and the only two years in which he had more touchdowns were 2019 and his 2023 season in San Francisco.
McCaffrey averaged only 3.9 yards per carry this season. That figure ranked 39th in the NFL, right behind Isiah Pacheco and ahead of Chuba Hubbard. And the 49ers’ run game was very average, ranking 22nd in rush EPA. McCaffrey’s contributions as a receiver are what made his season special and helped win fantasy leagues and drag the banged-up 49ers into the playoffs. But overall, his 2025 season doesn’t hold a candle to 2023.
The starkest difference is in early-down efficiency. On first and second down in 2023, McCaffrey averaged 5.4 yards per carry, had 1,337 rushing yards and scored 14 rushing touchdowns. This season, those same numbers were 3.9 yards per carry, 1,064 rushing yards and 7 rushing touchdowns. Workmanlike, for sure, but not spectacular.
Again, McCaffrey was what the 49ers needed him to be this season — a volume eater and target mismatch in the passing game. But he’s not the explosive early-down difference-maker that he was a couple of years ago when the 49ers made it all the way to overtime in the Super Bowl.
The Packers didn’t have a single receiver with more than 55 catches, 724 yards or 6 touchdowns in 2025. Last season, their team leaders in those categories had 55 catches, 857 yards and 7 touchdowns. The year before it was 64, 793 and 8. You get the idea.
The 34th pick in the 2022 draft, Watson has the profile of a No. 1 WR. Injuries have kept him from consistently performing like one, but when he’s out there, the effect he has on Love and the offense makes a strong case that he is a WR1.
Payton’s point has seemed to be that there’s some sort of art to winning close games, and that really good teams are just better at it. There’s also a mentality a team can develop over the course of a season that convinces it that it’s good at such a thing, and that could help in the critical moments in a league in which the week-to-week margins are so small. Point is, we have a lot of history that tells us teams that are great in one-score games can and do get to the Super Bowl.
Lawrence’s Total QBR for the season was 58.3, 15th best in the league and just a smidge ahead of where he has always been. From 2022 to 2024, his year-by-year Total QBR numbers were 56.1, 56.9 and 56.1. His completion percentage over expectation (Next Gen Stats) last season was minus-4.0, which ranked 33rd in a 32-team league. This year? It was minus-2.7, which ranked 28th.
Lawrence is the same player he has always been, just with a better structure around him. It’s not necessarily that he’s fixed; it’s that maybe the Jaguars are.
T.J. Watt returned from a punctured lung for the regular-season finale against the Ravens. Cameron Heyward played inspired football Sunday night at age 36, looking determined to make sure this wasn’t his or Aaron Rodgers’ final game. Nick Herbig. Alex Highsmith. Patrick Queen. Jalen Ramsey. The names, man. The names give it the feel of a vintage Steelers, big-play defense that can get after quarterbacks and get the big stops in the big moments.
Only five teams in the league had more sacks than the Steelers’ 48. Only three had more takeaways than their 27.
The Steelers ranked 14th in the league in opponent points allowed per drive at 2.1 — which is fine, kind of middle of the pack. On drives on which they didn’t record a sack, however, that average points per drive goes up to 2.5, which ranked 23rd in the league. Their defense basically doesn’t win unless it gets a sack.