NFC Playoff Preview Extravaganza: Anyone Can Win This (Except the Panthers)!

Welcome to the NFC playoff previews. The AFC playoff previews will be published sometime on Monday morning. But AFC fans should stick around for the Week 18 awards at the end of this article, as they are pretty AFC-centric.

Let’s break down next week’s games in reverse chronological order, because I just cannot bear to lead with Rams-Panthers. All times Eastern.

San Francisco 49ers at Philadelphia Eagles: Sunday, January 11th, 4:30 PM

How the Eagles got here

The Eagles aren’t suffering from a year-long Super Bowl hangover. It’s more like one of those lingering, low-key mood troughs that middle-aged people fall into after too much holiday overindulgence. Instead of just puking up Southern Comfort until the blood vessels in their eyeballs exploded, pounding some Gatorade and climbing right back on that horse like a fraternity pledge, the Eagles moped around, joylessly fulfilling their baseline responsibilities while wallowing in muted despair and questioning their self-worth.

(Wait … other middle-aged people don’t deal with such things after partying too hard during the holidays? It’s just a me thing? Oh well, more fodder for therapy.)

Long story short: the Eagles were mostly OK but palpably miserable for much of the year, particularly on offense. And they took their fans with them.

The Eagles passed up a chance to draw the banged-up Packers in the playoffs by resting their starters and committing 123 yards in penalties in a 24-17 Week 18 loss to the Commanders.

How the 49ers got here

The Niners battled injuries, then even more injuries, then got a little healthier just in time for a soft patch of schedule in the second half of the season, then suffered a fresh batch of injuries, then survived a Week 17 shootout with the Bears (which featured more injuries) before getting banished to Wild Card purgatory with a 13-3 loss to the Seahawks on Saturday night which was largely the result of injuries.

Brandon Aiyuk went to the corner for a pack of cigarettes somewhere along the way and never came back, but whatever.

49ers quarterback Brock Purdy

Here are the Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt leaders from Purdy’s return from injury in Week 12 through Week 17. The numbers include Purdy’s relative dud against the Cardinals and feature a few games against quality defenses:

• Brock Purdy: 9.2
• Drake Maye: 8.8
• Trevor Lawrence: 8.6
• Matthew Stafford: 8.1
• Jared Goff: 7.5

So Purdy was outstanding until he ran into the Seahawks defense on Saturday. But blah blah blah system blah blah supporting cast blah blah Mac Jones was also kinda OK blah blah contract blah blah blah.

My theory is that Purdy won’t get any respect until he grows a beard. He looks too much like an anime softboi to be taken seriously. (Justin Herbert, by contrast, has much more of a Naruto vibe. Hence the adulation.) I fear, however, that any facial hair Purdy will try to grow will just make him look like an 18-year old trying to get served at a bar.

Purdy suffered a stinger after getting club-sandwiched among multiple defenders late in the fourth quarter of Saturday night’s loss. If pressed into action, Jones is nearly as good. As Jimmy Garoppolo.

When the 49ers have the ball

Christian McCaffrey finished the season with 924 receiving yards, the most for a running back since Austin Ekeler’s 993 receiving yards in 2019 and close to McCaffrey’s personal record of 1,005 receiving yards for the 2019 Panthers. McCaffrey, the lone healthy-ish 49ers playmaker for all 17 games, accounted for 35.6% of the 49ers’ yards from scrimmage for the year.

Kyle Shanahan was forced to adapt his scheme to his available personnel — including his quarterback — all season. Shanny still uses fullbacks more than any coach in the NFL when Kyle Juszczyk is available. George Kittle still lines up as a conventional tight end more than his famous peers, when available. The old days of endless dink-and-YAC tactics are gone, however: Purdy is free to throw downfield more often than he did in 2022-23, assuming he has a healthy Jauan Jennings and/or Ricky Pearsall somewhere downfield to throw to. (For best results, refresh 49ers injury reports hourly.)

The Eagles defense spent much of the season winning games almost single-handedly, often against playoff-caliber opponents. Quinyon Mitchell shuts down #1 receivers. Cooper DeJean shuts down slot receivers. Zack Baun shuts down anything in the short middle of the field. The defensive front, which got Jalen Carter back late in the season, provides some pass rush while holding its own against the run. Vic Fangio’s system makes things much easier for his defenders than for opponents.

Oh wait, I didn’t cover the opponents’ #2 receivers. That’s OK: neither does Adoree Jackson.

Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts

You would swear that he’s far too indecisive, streaky and inconsistent at the basics to lead a team to the Super Bowl if you hadn’t seen him do so twice in the last four years.

When the Eagles have the ball

The Eagles offense doesn’t have “plays” or anything sophisticated like that. They huddle up, Hurts either says “Saquon” or “go get open,” then they line up and wing it like it’s recess.

Hurts, Saquon Barkley, A.J. Brown, DaVonta Smith and the others are talented enough to generate a few points per week this way, but the Eagles offense has gone whole halves without completing a pass (twice) and put up some truly dire statistics, including going three-and-out on an NFL-worst 30% of drives (through Week 17).

My “they don’t actually have a playbook” hypothesis makes more sense than the alternative: that Nick Sirianni and Kevin Patullo have actually spent months installing modern tactical concepts that make the Eagles offense look this way on purpose.

The 49ers defense has almost literally been a scout team since the Nick Bosa and Fred Warner injuries. The Niners defense finished the season with a league-low 20 sacks for 159 yards. They face a simple manpower disadvantage when facing quality opponents.

Reports of Warner’s pending return turned out to be highly exaggerated.

49ers X-Factors

Trent Williams’ hamstring may have been the injury that finally broke the 49ers offense on Saturday night. People say backup Austen Pleasants was good, Austin Pleasants was kind, Austin Pleasants was OK, and Brock Purdy didn’t mind. But Derick Hall and other Seahawks defenders enjoyed prosperity in the 49ers backfield. Williams should be back next week, but there are no guarantees when it comes to a 49ers injury report. (Aiyuk, after all, was supposed to be back in October.)

Eddy Pineiro has been 27-of-28 on field goals, 15-of-16 on 40-plus yarders, since replacing Jake Moody. Rumor has it that Shanny’s blood pressure before field goal attempts has gone down from roughly 260/190 to a range that doesn’t auto-trigger his Fitbit to dial 911.

Eagles X-Factor