Four questions for the NFL’s final four as a Super Bowl berth is on the line

(CNN) — Then there were four.

A couple more classics decided in overtime (and a couple more, shall we say, uneven games) in the divisional round have brought us to the conference championships. This weekend will determine who plays in the Super Bowl. Sure, that’s the Big Game, but these tilts decide the storylines and characters that will dominate the Big Game.

More people — over 120 million last year — watch the Super Bowl than any other television program in the US. When they tune in, they’ll see two of the teams below. The other two will be watching from home alongside the rest of us.

Here are the games we’ll be watching:

Sunday

• 3 p.m. ET: New England Patriots vs. Denver Broncos, CBS
• 6:30 p.m. ET: Los Angeles Rams vs. Seattle Seahawks, Fox

Jarrett Stidham?

That’s it, that’s the whole question.

Has there ever been a bigger sports whiplash than the Broncos beating the Buffalo Bills in overtime, only for coach Sean Payton to return to the podium after his post-game comments to announce some “not good news” to the assembled media and cameras? Bo Nix, Denver’s sophomore quarterback, had suffered a season-ending ankle injury on one of the final plays of the game. He would not be starting the AFC championship game; instead, Jarrett Stidham will.

Stidham, the backup QB, hasn’t thrown a pass in an NFL game since Week 18 in 2023. The Broncos were the only NFL team both this season and last whose backup quarterback did not even attempt a pass. So naturally, that guy is starting Denver’s biggest game in a decade. Ironically, it’ll be against the team that drafted him, 133rd overall, in 2019.

The Broncos will be home where they have the mile-high advantage, at least. But the reality is that the fate of their season hangs on how Stidham — who has eight career touchdowns and eight career interceptions — performs in a highly unusual circumstance. Backup QBs have made deep playoff runs before, but that’s usually after taking over in the regular season, not a week before the conference championship.

When he lost the starting job to Nix ahead of the 2024 season, Stidham said he was disappointed, he would be ready to go when needed and that “I have no doubts that I’m a starting-caliber quarterback in this league.”

Broncos fans are hoping that confidence holds in the face of a daunting opportunity to prove it. And that it’s merited.

Is the Patriots offense getting better or worse?

If I wanted to rage-bait some Bostonians we could have made this question: Are the Patriots good or just lucky?

Their storyline coming out of the regular season was the soft schedule and how much of a role that may have played in the team’s incredible year-over-year turnaround.

Then they got here in part because of a bizarre meltdown by Houston Texans quarterback CJ Stroud last weekend.

And now they’re facing a backup QB, a fact that has skewed expectations of the matchup dramatically.

The Patriots – winners of just four games in each of the last two seasons – are now viewed as having a clear and charmed path to the Super Bowl.

But with the Broncos Nix-less, we won’t get that question answered this week anyway. The Pats will win or lose without a chance to prove they can beat a great team at full strength. Instead, we’ll have to look for a signal in what New England itself is doing.

So let’s go back to that beatdown of Stroud and the Texans offense. It was certainly a failure by Houston, but credit to the Pats’ defense as well. In the regular season, New England was led by its offense and the MVP-caliber performance from Drake Maye. This month, the defense has stepped up. In two playoff games, the Pats have allowed just one touchdown with nine sacks, six turnovers, and one defensive touchdown.

In other words: the defense has scored as many touchdowns as they’ve allowed.

They’ve needed that strong performance by the defense to compensate for Maye’s stumbles in his first postseason. After only eight interceptions in 17 regular-season games, Maye has surrendered six in just two playoff games. He might still win MVP – voting is done based only on regular season – but he hasn’t looked capable of carrying a team these last couple of weeks.

Stafford needs a bounce-back to beat an elite defense

I know we just said Maye might win MVP, but more likely it’ll be veteran Matthew Stafford, who is having his best season at 37. He did not, however, have his best game last week.

Against a Chicago Bears team with a flair for the dramatic and in frigid, flurry-filled conditions, Stafford went 20-of-42 for 258 yards and failed to throw a single touchdown. For a team that practiced all week in sunny Los Angeles, the weather was probably a contributing factor in that performance.

Ultimately, Stafford — with a clutch assist from kicker Harrison Mevis — did just enough to advance, sending the Rams back to the West Coast to take on their division rival in the conference championship.

The matchup here is between the two best teams out of the best division this year with opposing strengths. It pits the best offense by points scored (Rams) against the best defense by points allowed (Seahawks). Historically, in those situations, the defense has prevailed. Top-scoring teams are 0-4 against uber-elite defenses in the conference championship and Super Bowl.

But the Rams have done damage against the Seahawks’ defenders before. LA is the last team to have beaten Seattle, back in Week 11. Even in their Week 16 loss to the Seahawks – an overtime stunner decided by a single point – the Rams scored 37 points. In fact, the Rams’ two games were two of the five most points allowed by the Seahawks’ otherwise shutdown D.

Stafford and the rest of the offense will need to look better than they did against the Bears and the elements and more like they did against the Seahawks themselves, to stand a chance. At least, it probably won’t snow in Seattle.

Does Sam Darnold have a Rams problem?

OK, we just talked about how these two teams make for an especially potent matchup, but dig deeper than division rivalry and the opposing superlative status and you get an even juicier storyline.

That’s because Sam Darnold’s history against the Rams predates his time on the Seahawks.

After bouncing around for his first six years, Darnold signed with the Minnesota Vikings last season and was cruising to his best career year to date when they ran into the Rams in the wild card and Darnold was sacked nine times in the brutal loss. That was his last game with Minnesota. The Seahawks signed him to a contract that would allow them to cut ties after a year to accommodate the uncertainty that inspired.

Instead, it looks like the best free agent signing of the offseason. Darnold had another career year in Seattle. That said, his biggest stumbles have come in games against the Rams, including tying a career-high with four interceptions without a touchdown thrown in the loss to them in Week 11. A month later, another shaky performance against LA set up a heroic comeback.

Darnold is a potentially dominant QB on probably the best all around team in the playoffs. Except for when he’s a liability. There’s no reason to think he can’t beat LA — indeed, the overtime comeback in Week 16 was the last impression these two teams have of each other — but Seahawks fans have to hope he isn’t haunted by the ghost of Rams games past.

The-CNN-Wire
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