There’s something about playoff football on a Saturday that just feels right. No rushing through it, no waking up early the next morning for work.

This year’s Divisional Saturday brings both No. 1 seeds back onto the field after a week off, which always adds a little intrigue. Rest can be an advantage, but it can also be a question mark, especially when the teams coming in aren’t short on confidence or momentum.

Bills at Broncos: Pressure Builds Fast at Mile High

This is a rematch of last year’s Wild Card game — the one where Buffalo rolled Denver 31–7 and made it feel like the Broncos were still a year away from being ready for that stage.

Now? Denver’s the No. 1 seed. They’re at home. They’ve had an extra week to heal. And they’ve spent the last month playing like a team that expects to be here, not one that’s just happy to be invited.

The context matters:

• Denver comes in having won 13 of its last 14 games.

• Buffalo has won six of its last seven, and just survived a physical road game in Jacksonville on a short week.

And then there’s the obvious part: Mile High. It’s not an automatic advantage, but it’s real enough to shape how you rotate your defensive front, how you manage tempo, and how quickly things can snowball if you’re stuck chasing.

So yes — there’s a rematch angle.

But the bigger angle is this: Buffalo is still built around a superhero quarterback. Denver is built around depth, pressure, and playing clean for four quarters. That’s why the opening stretch of this game could very well decide it all.

Buffalo Wants a Head Start

This game is going to come down to how fast Josh Allen gets going.

Not because Buffalo can’t win an ugly, grind-it-out kind of game. They’ve shown plenty of times that they can. But the longer this one stays tight, the more it starts to lean into exactly what Denver wants to be — patient, physical, and comfortable playing the long game. That’s not just a theory, either. It’s how this Broncos team has lived all season.

Denver’s resume is loaded with one-score wins; they went 11-2 in those games this season. They’ve had stretches where the offense feels a little stuck, the crowd’s quiet, and it almost looks flat — and then suddenly Sean Payton starts pulling strings, the defense gets a stop or two, and the whole thing flips.

That’s the movie Buffalo is trying to avoid.

The Bills don’t want to spend the first quarter feeling things out. They want to come out like a team that knows exactly what kind of game this needs to be and takes control of it early. That usually means leaning into what Allen does best right away:

• Quick rhythm throws to get him comfortable.

• A couple of early shots while Denver’s corners are still settling in.

• And a few designed runs that force the Broncos to deal with the full Josh Allen experience — tackling a 240-pound quarterback who runs like he enjoys the contact.

This is where the whole “Josh Allen problem” turns into a “Josh Allen advantage.” You can have the right call, the right leverage, and the right plan — and it still falls apart because one defender takes a false step and Allen is suddenly through the B-gap like it was a practice rep. When that starts happening early, everything opens up for Buffalo, and Denver’s pass rush will have to pay attention to him.

Allen’s Health: Not Perfect, Still Dangerous

Allen is dealing with what’s been described as a cocktail of injuries — foot, knee, and a right finger issue — and that matters, not so much in terms of whether he’ll play, but in how Buffalo chooses to play. It can shape how aggressive they are early, how often they let things break down, and how much they ask him to create outside of structure.

But the important part is this: he practiced fully. And when the lights came on last week, the numbers didn’t look anything like a quarterback just trying to get through it.

Against Jacksonville, Allen completed 28-of-30 (80%) for 273 yards, and you could feel Buffalo making a conscious effort to get him comfortable right away. Short throws, easy completions, let him see the field — and once that rhythm showed up, the offense started to open up.

That’s when Buffalo becomes such a pain to defend. When Allen’s in rhythm, they’re not just efficient — they’re flexible. They can live in quick game, lean into play-action, turn broken plays into first downs, and suddenly you’re dealing with Allen lowering his shoulder near the goal line like he’s a fullback instead of a quarterback.

Which brings us to the part that still messes with defensive game plans:

Allen finished the regular season with 14 rushing touchdowns — more than 11 entire NFL teams managed on the ground.

That’s a real problem for defenses. It means every short-yardage snap is a quarterback run threat, every red-zone series has an extra gap to account for, and every missed tackle feels bigger than it should.

And he just added two more rushing touchdowns against Jacksonville.

So when people talk about “stopping the run” against Buffalo, they’re not just talking about James Cook — who led the NFL in rushing yards through the regular season. They’re talking about finding a way to keep Allen from deciding the game with his legs.

The Most Important Stat in This Game Isn’t a Yardage Stat

The Bills are 8–0 when they commit zero turnovers.

They’re also 11–1 when they have one or fewer. That’s Buffalo’s identity: when they don’t hand you extra possessions, they’re a nightmare.

And that’s why the early game plan matters so much. If Allen is sharp right out of the gate, Buffalo can build a little breathing room, stay out of obvious passing situations, and avoid asking him to play backyard football for four straight quarters. When the Bills are playing from ahead, Allen doesn’t have to force anything — he can take what’s there, trust the structure, and let the game come to him.

But if Buffalo starts slow, gets behind the sticks, and Allen starts pressing? That’s when the risky stuff tends to creep in. The late throws across his body. The deep shots taken a beat too late. That’s when you start playing directly into Denver’s hands, because the Broncos are built to punish mistakes and turn small mistakes into drive-killers.

The Broncos’ Strength: Pressure That Turns Into Real Damage

Denver isn’t just good at rushing the passer — they’re historically productive.

They led the NFL with 68 sacks, which ranks as the fifth most in league history.

That’s the part that makes this matchup uncomfortable for Buffalo. Denver doesn’t need to blitz to create chaos. They can rush four, keep bodies in coverage, and still collapse the pocket.

And here’s the detail that really matters in January: the Broncos don’t just generate pressure — they finish.

• They rank second in sack conversion rate.

• 26% of their pressures turn into sacks.

That matters because “pressure” and “sack” aren’t the same thing in the playoffs. A lot of these quarterbacks can survive the pressure. A sack changes a drive.

Buffalo’s season has had a clear tipping point in this area:

• The Bills are 0–3 when Allen is sacked four or more times, and they’ve lost six straight games overall when he hits that number.

That doesn’t mean Allen can’t overcome pressure — it means he can't overcome constantly being on his back. That puts real pressure on the offensive line to hold up better than it has for most of this year.

The Complication: Buffalo’s Receiving Attrition

One of the reasons you’d normally feel great about Buffalo in a matchup like this is Allen’s ability to punish aggressive fronts with explosive throws.

But the Bills are dealing with real receiving attrition.

They just lost Gabe Davis and Tyrell Shavers to torn ACLs.

That’s two bodies out of the rotation, and Davis in particular has always been a big “spacing” piece for Buffalo — a guy who can run the deeper stuff, win downfield, and keep a defense from crowding the middle.

So the question becomes: can Buffalo still manufacture explosives without that outside punch?

They can — but it may look different.

Instead of living on 35-yard sideline shots, you might see more:

• quick hitters that turn into YAC,

• seam routes to stress the safeties,

• a heavier focus on backs and tight ends in space,

• and a willingness to let Allen be the “explosive play” through scrambles.

The danger is obvious: if your downfield threats are thinner, Denver’s pass rush can play more aggressively. They can squeeze the pocket and trust the coverage behind it.

Buffalo has to prove they can still threaten every blade of grass.

The Sean Payton Factor

Payton is 4–0 in divisional games after a bye, and while that stat doesn’t guarantee anything on its own, it does tell you something important about how he approaches these spots.

He’s not the type to use the extra week just to rest bodies and hope things carry over. He uses it to tighten things up — self-scouting, situational tweaks, and very specific plans for how he wants the game to unfold if it stays close.

And this Broncos roster is built to benefit from that kind of preparation, especially up front. A fresh, rotated defensive line that already lives on pressure becomes even more dangerous when everyone’s legs are there and the plan is clear.

Prediction: Bills Jump Early, Broncos Make It Nervy Late

Buffalo’s best path here is an early offensive burst that keeps this from turning into a grind-it-out game where the crowd, the altitude, and Payton’s play-calling all start stacking against them.

Allen has to come out of the gate aggressive. He knows what Denver’s front can do if they're allowed to settle in, and Buffalo has every incentive to dictate the tempo early rather than feel it out. On the other side, it wouldn’t be surprising at all to see Bo Nix look uncomfortable early against Buffalo’s disguised coverages — that’s the toughest part of the job for a young quarterback, especially in a playoff atmosphere.

Denver will make a push, because that’s what they’ve done all season. Nix has shown too much late-game confidence for this to ever feel completely safe. But if Buffalo builds a two-score lead before half, or a two-touchdown lead shortly into the third quarter, Allen should be able to manage the game late without forcing it. It might get uncomfortable, but it doesn’t have to get reckless.

Pick: Bills 24, Broncos 20

49ers at Seahawks: A Rubber Match for All the Marbles

Seattle held San Francisco to 173 total yards — the fewest in any regular-season game of Kyle Shanahan’s career — in their Week 18 matchup. And that number still jumps off the page, because it wasn’t built on fluky turnovers or one stretch where everything snowballed.

Seattle dictated terms from the jump, took away the easy stuff, and forced San Francisco to live snap after snap in uncomfortable situations. Nothing came easy, and nothing felt clean.

Now add in the rest factor, which tends to matter more this time of year than teams like to admit. Teams with an 8+ day rest advantage in the playoffs are 7–0 since 1984. That doesn’t decide the game by itself, but it usually shows up in little ways.

So the No. 1 seed is at home, rested, and coming off a game that quietly laid out a blueprint for how to frustrate this version of the 49ers.

And that’s before you even get to the biggest swing factor of all.

The George Kittle Problem: There’s No Replacing Him

George Kittle is out with a torn Achilles, and this is one of those injuries that changes more than just a depth chart. It changes how you function as an offense.

Kittle isn’t just a tight end you plug in and replace. He’s a third-down safety net when things get muddy, an extra body in protection, and a tone-setter in the run game.

So yes, San Francisco can line up and play without him. The motions will still look familiar. The structure will still be there. But the ripple effects show up everywhere — especially for Brock Purdy.

Without Kittle on the field, Purdy’s touchdown-to-interception ratio drops to 8:8. That’s not a small dip.

Seattle Can Take Away Purdy’s Easy Answers

Seattle’s defense has leaned on a lot of Cover-3 and Cover-6 looks, and Purdy’s numbers against those primary looks have been rough:

• Five touchdowns.

• Seven interceptions.

The reason those coverages matter is because they do a great job of taking away “easy” throws that live between the numbers — and they force you to either:

• take checkdowns all day,

• or make tight-window throws outside.

If you’re missing Kittle, that first option becomes less explosive, and the second option becomes more dangerous.

That’s why the Week 18 game looked the way it did. Seattle forced Purdy into an average depth of target of 4.0 yards.

That’s Seattle saying, “Fine. Take your singles. We’re betting you won’t string together 12-play drives without making a mistake.”

Third Down Is Where This Game Gets Decided

In Week 18, Purdy was 2-for-11 (18%) on third and fourth downs. That’s an ugly number no matter how you slice it, but it also tells you why that game felt the way it did.

And the Seahawks didn’t have to empty the playbook to make that happen. Seattle brought more than four pass rushers only 28% of the time.

That’s not normal.

If Seattle can get pressure with four again, the whole game tilts in their favor. Now you can keep extra bodies in coverage, let those zone eyes sit on Purdy, and force him to be patient over and over again.

The Run Game Matters: Seattle Can Win This on the Ground Too

Seattle’s backs — Kenneth Walker III and Zach Charbonnet — combined for 171 rushing yards in that last meeting.

Even more telling was the 50 yards before contact. That’s not backs making magic — that’s an offensive line imposing their will.

It also lines up with a troubling trend for San Francisco. Over the second half of the season, the 49ers have been the worst run defense in the NFL. That’s the kind of thing you can hide for a while. It’s also the kind of thing that gets exposed in January.

Because if Seattle can run the ball like that again, they don’t need their quarterback to be Superman.

Which brings us to the most shaky part of this entire matchup.

Sam Darnold: The One Thing That Can Ruin the Party

This Seattle team is built like a No. 1 seed, and it shows up all over the roster.

They’ve got real defensive depth, a pass rush that can take over stretches of a game, a physical run game that travels, and a stadium that turns playoff games into a noise test once things get tight. On paper, it looks exactly like what you want this time of year.

But the quarterback still matters, because Sam Darnold has been… Sam Darnold.

He led the NFL with 20 giveaways in 2025, and that’s the one thing that can flip this game in a hurry. Not a matchup issue. Not a scheme problem. Just extra possessions handed to an offense that doesn’t need much help.

And that’s not because Darnold hasn’t been good at times this year. He has. He was good with the Vikings last season too — right up until the playoffs, when things sped up and it unraveled. Until he proves he can be trusted under the brightest lights, it’s hard to confidently say he can go win a game like this on his own.

Because Shanahan is still Shanahan. Purdy is still Purdy. And even if San Francisco struggles to move the ball for long stretches, a couple of short-field touchdowns can make the entire night feel different.

The good news for Seattle is that Darnold doesn’t have to be the reason they win. He just can’t be the reason they lose. If he takes care of the ball and stays within himself, the rest of this roster is good enough to carry him to the NFC Championship Game.

Prediction: Seattle’s Defense Wins This, Even If It’s Not Pretty

This is the game where I trust the roster.

I trust Purdy more than I trust Darnold, I do. That’s not even a debate.

But I trust Seattle’s overall talent on both sides of the ball, and I trust what they showed in Week 18 that they can limit Shanahan’s offense, force long drives, and win the game on third down.

Without Kittle, it’s just harder for San Francisco to live on third down. And in a playoff environment at Lumen Field, that problem gets louder.

And if Darnold just avoids the back-breaking mistake, Seattle should be able to win this without needing a shootout.

Pick: Seahawks 27, 49ers 16

All stats courtesy of NFL Pro.

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