5 key battlegrounds to watch in AFC, NFC title games

Sunday's conference championships pit the Ravens against the Chiefs at 3 p.m. ET and the 49ers against the Lions at 6:30 p.m. ET. These battles within each title game will help determine the Super Bowl LVIII matchup.

The QB duels

Superstar quarterbacks still stand on the AFC side of the bracket. Adept facilitators have a shot to rule the NFC.

Lamar Jackson's latest dominant performance helped Baltimore steamroll the Texans last weekend. He accounted for 252 total yards and four touchdowns in the contest. Playing keep-away, the Ravens controlled possession for almost 38 minutes and ran 20 more offensive plays than Houston. They're hard to beat when Jackson, the supreme dual threat, exerts his will.

The pedestrian Chiefs offense ranked 15th in scoring, a career low for Patrick Mahomes, yet he reached a sixth straight conference title game anyway. Mahomes' all-time playoff stat line (13-3 record, 4,561 passing yards, 38-7 TD-INT split) would be an MVP resume in many regular seasons. None of his last 164 playoff pass attempts have been intercepted.

Brock Purdy is the third quarterback to start in the conference championships in each of his first two seasons, joining Ben Roethlisberger and Mark Sanchez. He struggled in the rain in the divisional round but didn't commit a turnover and led one more touchdown drive than Green Bay's Jordan Love. Purdy tends to put the 49ers' wealth of great playmakers, including NFL scrimmage leader Christian McCaffrey, in positions to score.

Jared Goff can become the fifth QB to guide more than one franchise to a Super Bowl appearance. Most of the others (Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Kurt Warner) are legends who retired with a ring or seven. Goff's crowning achievement is that he helped legitimize the Lions, of all NFL clubs, as a Lombardi Trophy contender. His offense gained 394.8 yards per game this season - only 3.6 fewer than San Francisco's star-studded group.

Underdogs' weaknesses Kevin Sabitus / Getty Images

Both No. 1 seeds reached the conference finals in seven of the previous 10 postseasons. The Ravens and 49ers - juggernauts who smoked teams in 2023 - prolonged the trend. Each ranked in the top three in point differential, and the margin of victory exceeded 15 points in nine San Francisco wins and six Baltimore triumphs.

The Lions won twice by that substantial margin, while the Chiefs won once. These No. 3 seeds do a lot well, but shortcomings that undermined them throughout the year could be exploited on the road Sunday.

Kansas City lacks receiving depth. Travis Kelce didn't reach 1,000 yards for the first time since 2015. Rookie Rashee Rice (938 yards) doubled the output of the next-closest wideout, Justin Watson. Someone needs to help Mahomes solve a special Baltimore defense that allowed fewer scrimmage touchdowns (24) than any team since 2019, per Pro Football Reference.

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Pass defense was the Lions' weakness. They allowed the sixth-most yards (247.4 per game) and sixth-most TDs (28 in total), and the problem worsened as 2023 progressed. Detroit's defense ranked 29th in expected points added per dropback over the second half of the season, per Ben Baldwin's database. The 49ers offense, torching rival secondaries, ranked first in EPA/dropback in the span.

The first couple of playoff rounds produced promising signs. Kansas City's postseason-leading 15 explosive plays included seven long completions to Rice or Kelce, per Stathead. Buccaneers quarterback Baker Mayfield threw for 349 yards against Detroit, but multiple Lions defensive backs sacked him on blitzes, and he was intercepted on one subsequent third-and-long play.

Pressuring Ravens, Chiefs QBs

The Ravens (60) and Chiefs (57) topped the league in defensive sacks. No defense matched Kansas City's efficiency: Opposing quarterbacks got sacked on 9.3% of dropbacks. Meanwhile, Baltimore's destructive takedowns resulted in 454 lost yards, the second-biggest mark generated since 1989, per Stathead.

Thanks to Justin Madubuike's breakout and Jadeveon Clowney's rejuvenation, three members of Baltimore's wrecking crew ranked in the top 32 in sacks. The Ravens couldn't take down C.J. Stroud last weekend, but they pressured the Texans rookie on 17 of 35 dropbacks and forced incompletions on 10 of those snaps, per PFF. Rattled in a hostile environment, Stroud and his offensive linemen combined to commit eight penalties.

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Persuading Chris Jones to end his holdout after a Week 1 loss helped Kansas City get rolling. The All-Pro nose tackle promptly authored a five-game sack streak and equaled rising star George Karlaftis' season total. Karlaftis pestered Tua Tagovailoa in wild-card action, but the Chiefs failed to sack Josh Allen in the divisional round and couldn't prevent him from rushing for 72 yards (42 via scrambles) and two short touchdowns.

This matchup will challenge both units. Notoriously hard to catch, Mahomes was sacked less frequently this season (4.3% of dropbacks) than every qualified passer but Allen. Jackson and Mahomes ranked 1-2 in yards gained from scrambling (421, 413), per PFF. By pairing elusiveness with composure, Jackson compiled the NFL's fourth-best passer rating and led all QBs in big-time throws on snaps when pressured.

Defending Niners, Lions tight ends

George Kittle and Sam LaPorta help the NFC finalists push the ball downfield. They're about to face defenses that surrendered a touchdown apiece to tight ends (Green Bay's Tucker Kraft, Tampa Bay's Cade Otton) in the divisional round.

The Purdy-Kittle connection is fruitful. The NFL's only 1,000-yard tight end this season, Kittle also led the position in yards per reception (15.7) and yards per target (11.3). Except for Baltimore's Isaiah Likely and Mark Andrews, no tight end's targets produced a superior passer rating (123.8), per PFF.

Michael Owens / Getty Images

Kittle's deployment is unique. Of the 33 tight ends who commanded 40-plus targets this season, none were inline on a greater share of passing snaps (61.4%). He shrugged off contact to get open for two of his career-high three scores in an October demolition of the Cowboys. Doing damage from the slot last week, the versatile Kittle juked Packers safeties to set up a pair of 32-yard grabs, one for a touchdown.

LaPorta stepped up as a rookie to rank in the top five at his position in receiving yards (889), catches (86), catches on contested throws (13), and first downs (48). He was the only NFL tight end - and the youngest since Rob Gronkowski in 2011 - to catch 10 touchdowns.

Shining when the field shortened, LaPorta snared a league-high eight TDs in the red zone, per Pro Football Reference. He scored again from point-blank range against the Rams in wild-card play while dealing with a knee injury. His yards per catch average has dipped (10.3 this season, 6.6 in the playoffs), but LaPorta remains an essential outlet for Goff between the hash marks.

The kicker duels

Missed field goals derailed promising seasons last weekend. Whiffs from inside 45 yards in the fourth quarter cost the Bills and Packers in their three-point defeats.

This quartet faces pressure to perform Sunday.

Detroit promoted Michael Badgley from the practice squad in mid-December after he upstaged Riley Patterson in practice over several weeks. Despite nailing a field goal per game from as far as 54 yards out, Badgley is one of four kickers league-wide to miss multiple extra points on fewer than 25 attempts.

Complementing San Francisco's potent offense, third-round rookie Jake Moody became the first kicker since 2018 to convert 60 extra points, per Stathead. But he ranked 20th in field-goal percentage and missed two of three recent tries - from 38 yards in Week 18 and from 48 last week via a Packers block.

Justin Tucker's distance splits for Baltimore over the past two regular seasons (59-for-61 from inside 50 yards, 10-for-19 beyond it) delineate the aging legend's range. Harrison Butker's only misses in 2023 came when he lapsed from 36 and 39 yards in December. But he connected on 14 straight field goals over Kansas City's ongoing four-game win streak, continually bailing out Mahomes and his playmakers when they stalled shy of the end zone.

Nick Faris is a features writer at theScore.

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