Davis, Mahomes Make Playoff History

NFL Divisional – The 2021 divisional round of the NFL playoffs produced more than four all-time classic games. It also produced the best postseason game by a wide receiver in the past 17 years, and the best postseason game by a quarterback in a decade … and another quarterback game that doesn’t look nearly as good in our numbers as it did on the field.

We’ll begin with the receiver. Buffalo’s Gabriel Davis had seven touchdown catches in a rookie in 2020, then failed to score in three games that postseason. He had six touchdowns in the regular season in 2021 and added another against New England in the wild-card round. He had two touchdowns against Carolina in Week 15 of this year, but otherwise had never scored more than once in a game. Then came Sunday night’s game against Kansas City, when he found the end zone once in the second quarter, once in the third, and twice more in the fourth. He had four other catches too, all of them resulting in first downs, for a total of 201 receiving yards.

Let’s put those numbers into perspective.

• Davis is the first player in NFL history to catch four touchdown passes in a postseason game, and the first to do it in any game since Detroit’s Marvin Jones in 2019.
   
• Davis is the ninth player ever to go over 200 yards in a postseason game, and the first since Indianapolis’ T.Y. Hilton in the 2013 season (in a game played in January of 2014). The last to do it in the regular season was Ja’Marr Chase in Week 17; the last before that was also Ja’Marr Chase, in Week 7.
   
• Davis is the seventh player ever to hit 200 yards and four touchdowns through the air in the same game and the first since San Francisco’s Jerry Rice in 1990, nearly a decade before Davis was born. Before that, you have to go back to Buffalo’s Jerry Butler in 1979, two years after Tom Brady was born.

On top of all that, Davis only had two incomplete targets. That all works out to 121 DYAR. That’s the second-best receiving DYAR we have ever measured for a wide receiver in a playoff game, the third-best if you include rushing DYAR, and the best in either category since 2004.

Davis would actually pass Anthony Carter here for second place if you remove opponent adjustments, where he gets a tiny bonus but Carter gets a big one. Reggie Wayne’s 2004 game against Denver would still be on top, mostly because he had just the one incompletion.

(Jerry Rice finishes in 10th place for his performance in a Super Bowl win over Denver. He also finished in 11th place for his performance in a Super Bowl win over San Diego, and in 15th place for his performance in a Super Bowl win over Cincinnati. Rice has five playoff games with at least 80 DYAR. Larry Fitzgerald has two, in back-to-back weeks in 2008 against Philadelphia in the conference championship game and then against Pittsburgh in the Super Bowl. Nobody else has more than one.)

And yet Davis and the Bills lost, in part because Patrick Mahomes was so great for Kansas City. Mahomes completed 33 of 44 passes against Buffalo for 378 yards and three touchdowns, with two sacks and no interceptions or fumbles. He also ran seven times for 69 yards and a touchdown. That’s a 75% completion rate and 8.6 yards per pass, which seem like very good numbers but nothing historic … until you remember that this was against the Buffalo Bills, who only allowed opponents to complete 56% of their passes for 5.7 yards per throw, both the lowest rates in the league. Also, the Bills only gave up 12 touchdown passes in the regular season, five fewer than any other defense.

That takes Mahomes from 223 DYAR without opponent adjustments to 307 with them. That’s not just the best quarterback game of the playoffs, not just the best of the year, but the best in any year since 2014, when Ben Roethlisberger threw a half-dozen touchdowns against the Colts.

We’re not going to run the table of all-time great quarterback playoff games here because we just did it last week, but we will tell you that Mahomes finishes in fourth place behind Kurt Warner vs. Green Bay in 2009, Drew Brees vs. Detroit in 2011, and Peyton Manning vs. Denver in 2004. Each of those games, however, was in the wild-card round, which means Mahomes just had the best quarterback game in the divisional, conference championship, or Super Bowl rounds in history. Nearly four decades of football, and no signal-caller has ever had this much value in such an important game.

And then there’s Josh Allen, who finishes third this week among quarterbacks behind not only Mahomes but also Matthew Stafford, and this surprised us as much as it’s probably surprising you right now. Allen’s raw numbers were similar to Mahomes: 27-of-37 for 329 yards and four touchdowns, with no interceptions and two sacks, plus 11 carries for 68 yards. That’s a 73% completion rate and 8.9 yards per throw. But Allen wasn’t nearly as consistent as Mahomes, with seven failed completions and a 49% success rate on passing plays. Mahomes only had six failed completions (and remember, he completed a half-dozen more passes) and a 59% success rate. Further, Allen fumbled on one of his sacks, though the Bills recovered.

Allen’s rushing success was also fairly hit-and-miss, with five first downs on the ground, but also four plays that counted as failures. Allen actually had negative DYAR on third-down passing plays, going 5-of-5 for only 15 yards with three conversions, two sacks, and a fumble. He was better on third-down runs (five carries for 29 yards and three conversions) and perfect on fourth downs (one pass for a 27-yard touchdown, two runs for 16 yards and two first downs), but in the end it was a really good day, not a dominant one.

If it’s any condolence to Allen and the Bills, he’ll probably get a lot more chances to get a dominant game. We’ll probably be seeing a lot more Bills-Chiefs playoff games in the next few years, and that’s good news for football fans everywhere.