Who Are The Most & Least Explosive Playoff Teams?

NFL success is largely dependent on explosive plays – gains of at least 20 yards.

You need to get them on offense and prevent them on defense.

Consider that while teams have about a 70% chance of getting at least one first down on a drive, getting five happens on only one out of five drives, according to PFF.

And without an explosive play, you’re probably going to need at least five conversions to score a touchdown.

Put another way, teams that have no explosive plays on a drive generate negative expected points added (in other words, they nets points for the defensive team); but getting just one is expected to add about a field goal. That’s an expected four-point swing because of one play.

For the season, the Niners average nearly two more explosive plays per game than their opponents. That’s about five points on average irrespective of anything else – just those two plays.

At the other end of the postseason spectrum, we have the Steelers, who on average allow the opposition one more explosive play per game, putting themselves in a pretty deep hole.

Let’s look at all the playoff teams and see how they ranked among the 32 teams in the regular season in explosive plays gained minus allowed (net explosives):

Rank	Tm	O Plays	D Play	Net Plays
1	SFO	86	55	31
3	DAL	76	56	20
4	BAL	73	56	17
5	KAN	62	46	16
6	MIA	76	63	13
7	DET	85	74	11
8	HOU	73	65	8
9	LAR	75	67	8
11	CLE	62	57	5
13	BUF	58	57	1
17	GNB	69	72	-3
20	PHI	61	64	-3
21	TAM	65	70	-5
29	PIT	55	72	-17

Let’s use this stat to forecast the first rounds.

Of course, explosive plays are hard to project. Coverage can be blown.

Someone can miss a tackle and take a bad angle.

But teams do have some control in gaining them and preventing them, we’d also agree.

You need an advantage to be pretty large for this to factor significantly into a forecast.

Can Flacco Continue Bombing Campaign?

The Browns and Texans have no edge over the full season.

You’d expect the Browns to be the best defense at preventing them but that honor goes to the Chiefs. But what if we break out Joe Flacco-only games for the Browns?

For December only (the Browns didn’t play Week 18 seriously and Flacco sat), Cleveland was plus-12 in explosives.

That projects to 41 net explosives for a full season, which would lead the NFL.

So I do think we have to give the Browns an expected edge of at least two explosive plays in this game, or about five points.

That’s going to be very tough for the Texans to overcome.

The Browns should probably be a 2.5-point favorite in Houston on this stat alone.

Miami at the Chiefs? No edge. It’s unlikely that explosive plays will decide this game even if the Dolphins are healthy.

The Steelers should be expected to allow one more explosive play to the Bills than they generate.

Buffalo is surprisingly weak at generating offensive explosives, leading only Pittsburgh (and just barely) among all 14 playoff teams.

The Packers are tied for allowing the second-most explosive plays and the Cowboys trail only the Niners and Lions in generating them.

So this is a tough matchup for Green Bay and probably where this game will be decided.

Let’s expect two more explosive plays in the game for Dallas, who are big favorites.

Rams Vs. Lions: Battle of the Explosives

The Rams vs. the Lions is the most interesting matchup on the board for this stat.

If we only look at the Rams games where they’ve had their full complement of skill players, basically weeks 12 through 17, they are the most explosive offense in football (an 88-explosive play pace).

But the Lions are right there with the Niners in getting 85 themselves. Detroit has the worst defense among all playoff teams in preventing big plays.

I have more confidence in Matthew Stafford than Jared Goff so I would be surprised if the Rams don’t finish this game with more explosives than Detroit.

But one can argue it’s a wash.

Finally, the Eagles and Buccaneers are a wash.

This is shocking given that the Eagles were plus-32 in the stat in 2022 and generated 80 explosive plays on offense, or 19 more than this year.

Even worse for Philly is that since they were 10-1, the offense has just 16 explosive plays and the offense has allowed 25, or minus-9 net in the six games – a minus-25.5 pace in net explosives that would be the second worst in the entire NFL (the Bengals finished minus-29).

This is the primary reason the Eagles have hit the skids and one that has been given relatively little notice.

But I can’t think of any reason to break out just the last six games given the lack of any significant personal changes.