Saturday’s Wild Card games delivered precisely the drama that makes January football irresistible. The Bears authored a historic comeback against the Packers, and the Rams survived a late Carolina surge to punch their ticket to the Divisional Round. Sunday promises even more intrigue, with three games featuring compelling storylines, star quarterbacks seeking postseason redemption, and matchups that could reshape our understanding of which teams are genuine Super Bowl contenders. Josh Allen travels to Jacksonville seeking to break his playoff curse against a scorching-hot Jaguars team. The defending champion Eagles host a 49ers squad desperate to prove their injury-plagued season hasn’t diminished their championship aspirations. And Drake Maye’s remarkable second-year emergence will be tested against a Chargers defense that excels at making quarterbacks uncomfortable. The road to Super Bowl LX runs through these three games, and each one offers something worth watching.
The day begins in Jacksonville, where the Bills will try to solve a Jaguars defense that has allowed just 85.6 rushing yards per game, the best mark in the NFL. It continues in Philadelphia, where Nick Sirianni’s Eagles are 5-0 at home in the playoffs under his leadership but enter off a frustrating Week 18 loss. It concludes under the lights at Gillette Stadium, where the Patriots return to playoff hosting duties for the first time since 2020, transformed from laughingstock to legitimate contender in Mike Vrabel’s debut season. Each game carries unique stakes, and each could produce the signature moment that defines this postseason.
Bills at Jaguars: Josh Allen’s Road Less Traveled
Josh Allen has never had a cleaner path to the Super Bowl. For the first time in his career, neither Lamar Jackson, Joe Burrow, nor Patrick Mahomes stands directly in his way. The AFC bracket has presented Allen with an opportunity to finally break through, but first he must navigate a Jaguars team that enters this game as the hottest in football. Jacksonville won eight consecutive games to close the regular season, posting an average margin of victory exceeding 19 points while their defense emerged as one of the NFL’s most dominant units.
The Bills’ vulnerability is obvious and alarming. Buffalo ranks third-worst in the NFL in yards per carry allowed, surrendering 5.1 yards every time opponents hand the ball to their running backs. The Bills have allowed 100 or more rushing yards in 11 of their 17 games this season, 150 or more in seven of them, and 200 or more in four. Jacksonville’s rushing attack has been inconsistent, ranking just 20th in the league at 115.1 yards per game, but this matchup presents an opportunity for the Jaguars to impose their will in a way they haven’t needed to during their winning streak.
Trevor Lawrence enters this game having outperformed Allen statistically during the regular season, throwing for 4,007 yards and 29 touchdowns compared to Allen’s 3,668 yards and 25 scores. The Jaguars have been the league’s best team since their Week 8 bye, and Lawrence has been the primary reason why. He has been decisively cleaner with the football in recent months, protecting possessions and delivering in high-leverage situations that defined his earlier struggles. The quarterback drafted one year before Allen was supposed to represent the Bills’ future now looks capable of ending Allen’s current season before it really begins.
Buffalo’s status as a slight road underdog represents a remarkable turn of events. The Bills entered the season as Super Bowl favorites in many projections, their roster stacked with talent and Allen seemingly primed for an MVP campaign. Instead, they finished 12-5 and must travel to a stadium where the Jaguars have been nearly unbeatable. The line has stayed at Bills minus-1 throughout the week, suggesting sharp money sees this as essentially a pick’em despite Jacksonville’s home-field advantage and superior recent form.
49ers at Eagles: Champions vs. Contenders
The Philadelphia Eagles won Super Bowl LIX last February, but the title defense has felt more like a long goodbye to their dynastic window than a celebration of ongoing excellence. Saquon Barkley regressed from his historic 2,005-yard rushing season to a merely good 1,140 yards this year. Jalen Hurts has struggled to generate anything through the air, his passing numbers dipping significantly from the highs of recent seasons. The Eagles went 11-6 and won the NFC East for the second consecutive year, breaking a 20-year streak of the division failing to produce a repeat winner, but the championship swagger that defined their Super Bowl run has been notably absent.
San Francisco arrives in Philadelphia having overcome injuries that would have destroyed lesser organizations. Nick Bosa tore his ACL early in the season, removing the league’s most disruptive pass rusher from a defense that depended on his ability to wreck game plans. Fred Warner suffered an ankle injury in Week 6 and hasn’t played since, leaving the 49ers without their defensive quarterback and best coverage linebacker. Trent Williams missed significant time with hamstring issues, though he returned to practice this week and appears likely to play. Despite all of this, San Francisco won 12 games and enters the playoffs with legitimate aspirations.
The historical context adds another layer to this matchup. San Francisco leads the all-time series 21-15-1 and is 2-1 in the teams’ last three meetings, all played in Philadelphia. The most recent playoff encounter came in the 2022 NFC Championship Game, a 31-7 Eagles demolition that saw Brock Purdy suffer a torn UCL on the opening drive. The 49ers have lived with that memory for three years, and Purdy in particular seems motivated by the opportunity for redemption. Either Philadelphia or San Francisco has played in each of the last three Super Bowls, establishing this as the defining rivalry in the conference.
A 49ers victory would make them the first franchise in NFL history to reach 40 playoff wins. The Eagles are 5-0 at home in the playoffs under Nick Sirianni but have lost three of their last four Wild Card appearances. Philadelphia is a 6-point favorite, reflecting both home-field advantage and the belief that their talent advantage remains significant despite San Francisco’s resilience. This game will likely be decided in the trenches, where both teams feature dominant offensive lines and physical defensive fronts capable of controlling the game’s tempo.
Chargers at Patriots: The Maye Revelation
The New England Patriots were the NFL’s worst team just one year ago. They finished 4-13 and last in the AFC East for the second consecutive season, their once-proud franchise reduced to rebuilding purgatory following Bill Belichick’s departure. Mike Vrabel arrived from Tennessee with a mandate to restore New England’s identity, and he delivered one of the most stunning turnarounds in league history. The Patriots went 14-3, matching the largest single-season win improvement ever recorded, and secured the second seed in the AFC behind only Denver.
Drake Maye’s second-year leap is the engine driving everything New England has accomplished. The quarterback who showed flashes as a rookie has emerged as a legitimate MVP candidate, becoming just the tenth signal-caller since 1970 to lead the NFL in both completion percentage and yards per attempt in the same season. Maye commands the pocket with patience that belies his age, delivers the ball with anticipation that suggests he sees the game two steps ahead of everyone else, and has led fourth-quarter comebacks that reminded long-suffering Patriots fans of someone they prefer not to mention by name anymore.
The Chargers present a fascinating challenge for Maye’s continued ascent. Jim Harbaugh’s defense ranks fourth in red-zone efficiency, allowing touchdowns on just 46.94% of opponent possessions inside the 20-yard line. They rank eighth in rushing yards allowed and fourth in rush EPA, creating a front seven that makes life difficult for opposing offenses. The problem is the offensive line in front of Justin Herbert, which lost both starting tackles for the season when Pro Bowlers Joe Alt and Rashawn Slater went down with injuries. Los Angeles ranks dead last in pass-blocking win rate and 31st in run-blocking win rate, a recipe for disaster against a Patriots defense that knows how to rush the passer.
Herbert enters this game winless in the playoffs, a statistic that weighs heavier each January. He has the arm talent and processing speed to carry any offense, but the Chargers simply cannot protect him consistently enough to let him work. New England hasn’t hosted a playoff game since January 2020, when the dynasty was still technically alive even as it crumbled from within. The Patriots are 3.5-point favorites, a remarkable line for a team that was selecting in the top five just 12 months ago.
The Bottom Line
Wild Card Sunday offers three distinct flavors of playoff football, each with compelling narratives and genuine uncertainty. The Bills face their cleanest path to a Super Bowl in the Allen era, but must first navigate a Jaguars team that has been the NFL’s best since October. The defending champion Eagles host a 49ers squad that refuses to let injuries define their season, continuing a rivalry that has dominated the NFC for half a decade. And the transformed Patriots get to showcase Drake Maye’s remarkable emergence under the lights at Gillette Stadium, facing a Chargers offense that can’t protect its star quarterback. The Jaguars should be considered the most dangerous of the underdogs, their eight-game winning streak suggesting they have found something sustainable. The Eagles feel like the safest pick despite their inconsistent season, their home playoff dominance under Sirianni too strong to ignore. And the Patriots are playing with house money, a team nobody expected to contend now positioned to make a deep January run. Watch all three games, because any of them could produce the story that defines this postseason.
