NFL Championship Sunday preview: QBs get the ink, but the running game may steal the show

The divisional round showed football fans a few things. First, rumors of the running game’s demise were greatly exaggerated. The weekend’s four winners combined for 745 yards and 11 touchdowns on 146 carries. The Rams alone tallied 273 yards on 48 attempts. If you’re scoring at home, that adds up to 5.1 yards per carry, cumulatively.

The second thing fans learned is that the Patriots are still the Patriots. The outcome itself — a New England win — wasn’t necessarily surprising. After all, the Pats were favored in the game. Still, the way they totally dismantled the Chargers, thought by many to be the most complete team remaining, was shocking. It was the kind of game that may have swayed even the biggest New England skeptics. It also set up a juicy rematch with the Chiefs.

The end result of last week’s action? The top four seeds, not to mention the top four scoring offenses, are vying for a trip to the Super Bowl. It has to be a dream come true for the NFL, as every possible matchup that can come from these four teams is a great one, with plenty of storylines. There’s the possibility of two aging, future first-ballot Hall of Famers dueling, or two young guns trying to stake their claim as the league’s next big thing by reprising arguably the best game of the regular season, or even an exciting “young vs. old” shootout.

Both games are rematches of regular-season clashes, and both of those games were among the best of the year, so long as you like offense played at the highest level. Rams-Saints will once again be played in the Superdome, a clear advantage for New Orleans, but Chiefs-Patriots will be at Arrowhead Stadium — the first AFC title game in the venue’s history. Oh, and the advance forecast suggests that it might be very, very cold — the coldest game in the stadium’s history, in fact. The storylines are set. There are no Cinderellas here — just powerhouses. Let’s take a look at the games.

Los Angeles Rams at New Orleans, Sunday, 3:05 p.m. ET (FOX) Todd Gurley going off against the Cowboys was expected. Gurley had a month of rest and is the league’s best back. C.J. Anderson turning into a rolling ball of butcher knives and slicing up Dallas for 123 yards and two touchdowns was tougher to foresee, but maybe it shouldn’t have been. Anderson put up 299 yards on 43 carries in his first two games with the Rams and looked nimble and powerful against Dallas. He and Gurley may need to be just as spectacular as they were against the Cowboys, because the Saints will be tough to catch if they get a lead. It’s hard to imagine a scenario where Jared Goff puts the Rams on his back and passes them to a victory. New Orleans’ rush defense has been superb all year, but Los Angeles has the personnel to have success. Dallas was fourth in the league in yards per carry allowed, and New Orleans was second. If center John Sullivan plays as well as he did against Dallas, it could be a long day for the New Orleans defense.

That said, L.A.’s defense of the run, or lack thereof, might usurp its effectiveness. The Rams were dead last in yards per carry allowed this year, and everyone knows New Orleans is committed to the ground game. The Saints ran for 141 yards on 34 carries in the teams’ first meeting, and while the Rams were effective, getting 92 yards on 19 carries, the 35-17 halftime deficit they faced forced them to abandon the run in the second half. Aqib Talib didn’t play for Los Angeles in the first meeting, and Michael Thomas took full advantage, shredding the Rams for 211 yards and a touchdown on 12 catches.

The Superdome crowd will be a factor in this one. Goff and Sean McVay like to get up to the line of scrimmage early in the play clock so that McVay can read the defense and communicate with Goff via his helmet speaker. That privilege ends when the play clock gets under 15 seconds, so if the crowd can make even that method of communication more frazzled, it will be a big help. 

New Orleans’ high-powered offense has sputtered in recent weeks, topping 30 points only once in its last six games, in a narrow win over Pittsburgh. That said, the Saints defense has risen to the occasion time and again in that same span, and it did so against Philadelphia (with an assist from Alshon Jeffery) to stifle Nick Foles’ comeback attempt. The Saints and the Rams both have gaudy reputations for offense — deservedly so — and the quarterbacks for each team both get a lot of ink, but if this game does turn in to a shootout, it might be due to each team’s running prowess as much as anything else. Running the ball well is a good way to neutralize Aaron Donald, too.

New Orleans is favored in this game, and it's been the league’s most consistent team since Week 3. If the Saints keep running the ball well and can stake themselves to an early lead, there’s every reason to expect that they will close the deal. Taysom Hill could be a wild card as well, as Sean Payton has not been shy about using him in big situations. The game could also come down to red-zone efficiency, as the team that settles for field goals will likely come out on the losing end. The Saints cashed in for touchdowns at a 69.6 percent clip, good for fourth in the league. Los Angeles, despite having nine more trips inside the red zone than the next best team, turned those into touchdowns only 57.5 percent of the time, good for 18^th in the NFL.

New England at Kansas City, Sunday, 6:40 p.m. ET (CBS) If you had a crystal ball and could magically predict whether or not the “home” version of the Patriots would manage to show up on the road, you might have an easier time predicting this game. Actually, if you could predict that the “road” Pats would show up, your task would be even easier. New England has won 16 straight games in Foxborough after last week’s demolition of the Chargers, but Bill Belichick’s team was 3-5 away from Gillette Stadium this year. The eye test was even less kind. New England looked lost away from the friendly confines, and Tom Brady was a shell of himself. Will that trend continue? If it does, what seems on paper like a potentially great matchup could turn into a rout. Even if the temperatures descend into "hellishly cold" territory, there should still be points aplenty in this one, given both teams’ running excellence. Belichick doesn’t have two weeks to try to scheme something up for Patrick Mahomes, and Andy Reid and Mahomes no doubt want revenge for their narrow Week 6 loss to New England.

The coaching matchup becomes harder to predict when one considers that Reid has what could still be described as a checkered playoff history. He shed some of that last week thanks to Mahomes, but if the Chiefs get up early in this game, the pressure will paradoxically be on Reid to keep his foot on the gas pedal and not let the Pats up off the mat. Belichick, by contrast, will have to find a way to slow down an offense that appears able to surmount any kind of defensive strategy. Mahomes’ arm talent is so off the charts that he routinely makes splash plays even when his team is well-defended. That’s the kind of thing that can’t be taught, and it is an element the Chiefs have never had before. Can Belichick scheme a guy whose talents suggest that such a thing may be impossible?

One wonders what Chiefs fans are thinking right now. On one hand, they have to feel pretty good, pretty confident, because they seem to finally have the trump-card player, not the other way around. On the other hand, any great team still has to pass its first big test; has to beat the veteran, battle-tested team. Perhaps the best example of this is in the early 1980s NHL, when the Edmonton Oilers finally vanquished the venerable Islanders and started their own dynasty in the process. If Kansas City wins this game and the Super Bowl, it may well finally shift the AFC’s balance of power out of Foxborough and into western Missouri. A loss would be crushing, mainly because the Pats have looked so vulnerable on the road this year. One key to victory would be to make sure that Mahomes doesn’t have to do things all by himself. Damien Williams was great against the Colts, and if K.C. establishes the run early and keeps the Pats off balance, chances are that Tyreek Hill (seven catches, 154 yards, three touchdowns in the teams’ first meeting this year) and the rest of the Chiefs pass-catchers will have a field day.

Make no mistake, though: Despite New England’s impressive beatdown of the Chargers, the Chiefs are the better team here. One thing that could be hugely beneficial is their pass rush. Brady is more susceptible to pressure on the road, and beating him up has been a reliable blueprint for beating the Pats in the playoffs. Chris Jones, Dee Ford and Justin Houston, while they won’t be the focus of most pregame chatter, might have the biggest say in who wins this game. If Kansas City starts fast offensively and gets out to a lead of 10 or more points, there exists the chance that this game turns into a rout. If New England withstands the early surge, or even flips that dynamic on its head, Chiefs fans might be in for a long, cold, painful night.