X-factors for every NFC team in the Wild Card round

One player from each NFC team that can make a huge impact in their wild-card games.

Now that the regular season is over, and the playoffs are afoot, it’s time to give our “Secret Superstars” concept – which reveals the most underrated players in every week of the season – a bit of an overhaul. Instead of the unheralded guys we’ve just seen, let’s spin it forward, and discuss one player from every team in the wild-card round who could make all the difference in the progression to the divisional frame.

Here are the potential X-Factors for every NFC playoff team.

Green Bay Packers at Philadelphia Eagles
Sunday, January 12, 2025

Philadelphia Eagles: Safety Reed Blankenship

We tend to think of Vic Fangio as the master and ultimate dispenser of Quarters coverage, and there’s a lot to that from a historical perspective. The Eagles’ legendary defensive coordinator has half the league copy/pasting his Cover-4 stuff at any given time, but Philly’s outstanding defense has not led with Fangio’s allegedly primary construct. In fact, the Eagles have lined up in Cover-4 just 18% of the time this season, and they’ve been in Cover-1 (man coverage with a single-high safety) more often (22%), and they really lead with Cover-3 (zone coverage with a single-high safety), which they do 35% of the time.

Fangio isn’t going to change his priors without the personnel to have it make sense. And here’s one thing for sure – the Eagles are outstanding when playing single-high coverage. Only the Houston Texans (71.7) have a lower opponent passer rating when playing Cover-1 or Cover-3 than the Eagles’ 73.0.

Obviously, if you’re going to play that much single-high coverage, you need a great deep safety. It could be said that the Eagles have two: C.J. Gardner-Johnson and Reed Blankenship. Gardner-Johnson is the more well-known name, but both he and Blankenship have lined up in the deep third on 602 snaps this season, and when he’s in in any kind of single-high stuff, Blankenship has allowed 13 completions on 19 targets for 127 yards, no touchdowns, and three interceptions. That includes an interception on a pass that Jordan Love tried to get to tight end Luke Musgrave over the middle in Week 1, when the Eagles beat the Packers, 34-29

Safe to say, the Packers will have their eyes on Blankenship this time around.

Green Bay Packers: WR Romeo Doubs

When the Packers go up against that great Eagles pass defense (Fangio’s squad is also the NFL’s best in man coverage this season), they’ll do so without receiver Christian Watson, who suffered a season-ending torn right ACL in the regular-season finale against the Chicago Bears. That has some very smart football people believing that Matt LaFleur’s offense is now doomed to a horizontal state, which… doesn’t make a ton of sense.

This season, Watson had been targeted a team-high 19 times on passes of 20 or more air yards, catching just seven for 288 yards and a touchdown. Good stuff when it hits, but the misses can be disconcerting. Jayden Reed has been Jordan Love’s most reliable deep target, catching 12 of 15 deep passes for 478 yards and a touchdown, and if you want to know who’s been Love’s second-best vertical threat, that would be Romeo Doubs. This season, Doubs has five deep catches for 144 yards and a touchdown, and multiple examples of him cooking cornerbacks through expanded routes.

People don’t tend to think of Doubs as a vertical outside receiver, but he can truck it downfield, and at 6-foot-2 and 204 pounds, he’s got the size and aggressiveness to make contested catches at any part of the field.

So maybe let’s worry about other things when it comes to Green Bay’s offensive geometry.

Washington Commanders at Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Sunday, January 12, 2025

Washington Commanders: CB Mike Sainristil

Baker Reagan Mayfield can be a streaky quarterback even at his best, but the production this season is not at all in question. Mayfield comes into the postseason having completed 407 of 570 attempts for 4,500 yards, 41 touchdowns, 16 interceptions, and a passer rating of 106.8 – fourth-best in the NFL. You don’t always know what you’re getting with Mayfield as a passer, but you know there will be a LOT of it.

That’s not necessarily a great thing for the Washington Commanders, whose cornerback group is more functional than shutdown. This season, Washington’s cornerbacks have allowed 138 completions on 234 attempts for 1,695 yards, 15 touchdowns, three interceptions, and an opponent passer rating of 97.4. In Tampa Bay’s 37-20 Week 1 win over the Commanders, Washington’s cornerbacks allowed 10 Mayfield completions on 14 attempts for 85 yards, three of Mayfield’s four touchdown passes, and a passer rating of 126.5.

This is why the Commanders traded for former New Orleans Saints cornerback Marshon Latimore in November, but Lattimore’s injury status has been a thing ever since. Even if Lattimore is good to go for the playoffs, the onus could be on rookie Mike Sainristil, the Michigan alum who has been better and better as his inaugural NFL campaign has gone along. A lot of people assumed that the 5-foot-10, 182-pound Sainristil would be primarily a slot defender at the next level, but he’s lined up on the outside 774 times, with just 140 snaps in the slot. And though he was marked by the Buccaneers in that Week 1 game – he allowed six catches on seven targets for 55 yards, a touchdown, no interceptions, no pass breakups, and a passer rating of 139.0 – he’s been on point more often than not for the rest of the season.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers: EDGE Yaya Diaby

Todd Bowles’ Buccaneers defense has been an odd beast this season, and not what you’d expect from a defensive-minded head coach. The Bucs come into the postseason ranked 16th overall in Defensive DVOA, sixth against the run, and 23rd against the pass. That pass defense can be too passive in coverage at times, which tends to drive fans crazy, but there’s quite a bit going on with Tampa Bay’s defensive fronts. Vita Vea is the outstanding stalwart as the run-stopper and pressure-bringer with seven sacks and 50 total pressures this season at 6-foot-4 and 347 pounds. Calijah Kancey has lived up to his outstanding college tape over the last two NFL seasons – the 2023 first-round pick has become a multi-gap monster with eight sacks and 39 total pressures at 6-foot-1 and 281 pounds.

Never let it be said that the Bucs don’t appreciate size diversity in their pass-rushers. The man in the middle from that perspective this season has been Yaya Diaby, who the Bucs also got in the 2023 draft (third round) out of Louisville. At 6-foot-3 and 263 pounds, Diaby has become a force as an edge-rusher. He can run around the arc to the quarterback, crash through just about any gap from the outside, and kick inside the tackles to provide further disruption. This is especially true in Tampa Bay’s overload fronts.

In Week 1 against the Commanders, Diaby had six total pressures, and while they all came from the left or right edge, he was just as prone to attacking guards and the center as he was to bend the edge outside. The Bucs will need to amplify their pressure concepts to overcome the shortcomings in their secondary, and Diaby must be a big part of that idea.

Minnesota Vikings at Los Angeles Rams
Monday, January 13, 2025

Minnesota Vikings: LT Cam Robinson

Ideally, the Vikings would have star left tackle Christian Darrisaw for their playoff run, but Darrisaw was lost for the rest of the season in Week 7 with a torn ACL and MCL in his left knee. The Vikings responded to that by trading with the Jacksonville Jaguars for Robinson, the 2017 second-round pick who had been in Jacksonville his entire career. It’s been an un-and-down career for the veteran, who has alternated between years in which he looks like a potential top tackle, and years in which he has looked overwhelmed.

Since Week 9 with the Vikings, Robinson has allowed three sacks, three quarterback hits, and 30 quarterback hurries. He was especially susceptible to pressure in the Vikings’ Week 18 loss to the Detroit Lions that made the Vikings the only 14-win wild-card team in NFL history. In that game, and with Lions defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn throwing all kinds of evil at the Vikings’ offensive line (especially in the red zone), Robinson allowed a sack, a quarterback hit, and nine quarterback hurries.

Rams edge terror Jared Verse, who just might wind up as the Defensive Rookie of the Year, could give Robinson all kinds of hell based on last week’s tape. As can the grievously underrated Byron Young. If that happens, and Sam Darnold has similar pressure-related brain farts in the red zone, the Vikings could also be a 14-win team in NFL history getting booted out in the wild-card round.

Los Angeles Rams: CB Ahkello Witherspoon

If there’s one thing the Detroit Lions taught us in their Week 18 win over the Vikings, it’s that your only real hope against Justin Jefferson is to press him off the line of scrimmage, and at least disrupt his route timing before he lights you up. Cornerback Amik Robertson did a brilliant job of both pressing Jefferson at the line in that game, and Robertson was also quite happy to mug Jefferson through the play to further impact his release. For the Rams, the primary instigator may be Witherspoon, the only cornerback on the roster with more targets in press coverage (30) than in off coverage (16). Cobie Durant and Darious Williams are smaller, more off coverage cornerbacks, and the 6-foot-2, 195-pound Witherspoon is more the enforcer.

Witherspoon also travels to both sides of the formation, so he could be on Jefferson often when Jefferson lines up outside. If the Rams go with the press strategy in those cases, they’ll have to count on Witherspoon doing it a lot, and that’s been a mixed bag. In Week 18 against the Seattle Seahawks, Witherspoon had just seven coverage snaps, and he allowed three completions from Geno Smith to DK Metcalf – and two were with Witherspoon in press. The Rams will obviously require better results in this game if the plan is to be aggressive with Mr. Jefferson..