For a while there, it seemed like the Buccaneers were the class of the NFC. Then they fell off, and the Rams looked like they were the class of the NFC. A few tough losses later, and they weren’t the boogeyman anymore … The difference is that this time, no one took the mantle.
There’s no head honcho in this conference, and that’s because there aren’t any complete teams. The 49ers? Great offense, but corpses on defense. The Eagles? Great defense, entirely disappointing offense.
Because of that, the best way to look at this playoff picture is by looking at each specific unit. Would it be easy to put all of them in tiers? Yes, but that’s cowardly. This is a power ranking of all 14 units in the NFC.
14. San Francisco 49ers Defense
Not only is the 49ers’ defense the worst unit in the NFC side of the postseason, but it’s one of the worst units in the entire NFL.
On one hand, it’s not necessarily their fault because they’ve been absolutely gutted by key player injuries (Nick Bosa, Fred Warner, Mykel Williams). When you’re missing your future Hall-of-Fame linebacker (and every linebacker they have), your former Defensive Player of the Year edge rusher, and your first-round draft pick, you’re going to have a bad time.
However, there should be a structure of a defense without those guys, and there just isn’t. They can’t cover, tackle, rush the passer… pretty much every single basic/fundamental/core value type thing that defenses have to do.
13. Carolina Panthers Offense
Some offenses are ‘boom or bust,’ and it works for them. Bryce Young and the Panthers are ‘bust most of the time, but then sometimes boom and hope you do it at the right time so you win a game.’ That’s a bad way to go through life and a good way to lose football games.
Young’s ability to connect on four or five big throws at the end of a game is part of the reason the Panthers made it to the postseason. The other part is the sheer force and will of the universe... They just fell ass-backwards into a home playoff game.
12. Carolina Panthers Defense
The Panthers' defense isn’t great, and it isn’t terrible… which kind of makes sense given that they were an 8-9 team. They have a couple of special players with Jaycee Horn and Derrick Brown, and even Nic Scourton looks like he might end up being pretty good… but they don’t have any special groups on that unit.
They’re somewhere between ‘middle of the road’ and ‘bad’. In the playoffs, that’s not a good thing to be.
11. Philadelphia Eagles Offense
We’ve spent the past 18 weeks thinking that the Eagles' offense was going to get out of the mud that they’ve been stuck in. Aside from a couple of weeks in the middle of the season and a couple of games near the end of the season, those hopes have been thrown on the ground and spit on.
The running game doesn’t exist, the play calling is cowardly, and the routes on passing downs are more isolated than an alcoholic at a dry wedding. It’s rough out there.
Despite all of that, there’s a chance that this unit can jump up into the top six. Lane Johnson might be coming back, and Jalen Hurts plays his best in the biggest games. Will that muscle be enough to outdo the scrawny skeleton? We’ll find out.
10. Chicago Bears Defense
Everything about the Bears' defense stinks. Their pass rush is spotty, the linebackers are fine when healthy, and the defensive backfield is rough… However, they are unbelievable at taking the ball away.
They lead the league in turnovers (first in interceptions and fourth in fumbles). If they can keep that going, this defense is going to wreck offensive game plans and win this team some games. If they can’t keep doing this (against some of the best quarterbacks and offenses in the NFL), they’re going to get gutted and make everything incredibly hard for their offense.
It’s a very fine line that they’re playing on; there’s no middle ground for these guys.
9. Seattle Seahawks Offense
The Seahawks' offense has sneakily been significantly worse in the later parts of this season. Up until around Thanksgiving, they were able to throw the ball whenever and wherever they wanted… and then that kind of fell off.
If you pair that with their addiction to running the ball, even though they’re not good at it, you get a pretty mediocre offense. Sure, they’re still able to put up big numbers on defenses, but it’s hardly what it looked like early in the season when they were a juggernaut.
On top of that, Sam Darnold hasn’t exactly been careful with the ball this season (which might explain the run tendencies). He’s thrown 14 interceptions this season, which ranks third-most in the NFL and the most by any quarterback who played the whole season.
8. Green Bay Packers Defense
The Packers' defense is pretty toothless nowadays. If you’re not a Packers fan, that’s kind of fulfilling because you would hope that when a team loses a game-wrecking player like Micah Parsons, it should lose its teeth.
They still have some good players at each level and a pretty solid defensive coordinator, but none of them are absolute super nova stars, and it shows.
They’re on a four-game skid right now. Not all of that is purely because of the defense, but they’ve been ripped on the ground and through the air by some pretty lackluster offenses.
A good way to sum up where this defense is at: They just signed Trevon Diggs off of waivers instead of trying to get him as a free agent. That means they have to pay him the rest of the contract he signed with the Cowboys in 2023… also, he’s a little bit of an upgrade for them at cornerback. That’s not a great spot to be.
7. Green Bay Packers Offense
The Packers' offense really seems like it should be better than it is. Maybe that’s because film nerds gush about Matt LaFleur’s scheme and Jordan Love’s good throws, maybe it’s because they’ve historically had an above-average offense, maybe it’s because they simply do not pass the eye-test, or maybe it’s a combination of all three… regardless, they’re not nearly as good as they should be.
The offense gets flustered, stuck in ruts, can’t score in the red zone, and can’t get out of its own way… this is all when they play a good defense that can pressure Love. When they play a bad defense, they gut teams. They push the ball downfield, and (a healthy) Josh Jacobs will rip teams to shreds.
Their postseason success is entirely matchup dependent.
6. Los Angeles Rams Defense
The Rams have a good defensive line led by Jared Verse and Byron Young. That group will get in the backfield and make a quarterback’s life absolute hell. It doesn’t always lead to sacks, but getting some offenses out of whack regularly will typically lead to good things for a defense.
But behind that defensive line? There’s not a whole lot of anything. They’re mostly inefficient and allow big yards through the air.
Sure, Emmanuel Forbes is having a little bit of a resurgence with his new team… but he’s still a pipsqueak who quarterbacks look to throw at because he’s such a bad matchup against a big receiver.
5. San Francisco 49ers Offense
There are two types of the 49ers offense: a high-powered scheme that gives Brock Purdy both room for creativity and the duty of throwing to a space… they can also be a pathetic group that can hardly move the ball.
The most recent version that we’ve seen is the pathetic version, but almost every other game since Brock Purdy has come back has been the lethal one.
One key part of them being good is the availability of their all-world left tackle, Trent Williams… who just missed that Week 18 game because of an ankle injury.
As you would assume, if this offense can play with its best players, it can be the Super Bowl-caliber offense that it’ll need to be to make up for its unbelievably terrible defense. It all makes sense.
4. Chicago Bears Offense
The Bears got exactly what they asked for when they hired Ben Johnson as their head coach and drafted Caleb Williams.
Johnson is running a creative offense that emphasizes his players' strengths and lessens some of their flaws. If the passing game isn’t working, they’ll throw D.J. Moore in motion to move a safety and run through the hole that’s open with D’Andre Swift. If they need a guy to bash his way into the endzone or want a lesser form of Swift’s swiftness, Kyle Monongai is their answer.
On top of that, Williams has been coming into his own over the past handful of weeks, and the passing game has gone from ‘frisky but inconsistent’ to ‘real and spectacular’. He’s hitting all of his pass catchers and moving the offense very efficiently. If/when Rome Odunze ever gets healthy, it’s just going to be another problem defensive coordinators have to deal with.
3. Los Angeles Rams Offense
The Rams have had one of, if not the most, consistently good offenses in the NFL. There has been a little bit of a downturn since Devante Adams has been out, but that’s what happens when you lose the best red zone target in the league.
It’s completely complementary: when they want to run, they run, and they’re not getting a whole lot of negative plays. When they want to pass, they pass, and you have no idea who is getting the ball based on the formation or where the quarterback is looking… You also have no idea if they are going to run or pass because everything is so well disguised.
Oh, and they also have a potential NFL MVP as their quarterback.
2. Seattle Seahawks Defense
The Seahawks' defense is awesome, and they’re loaded at every single level. They can line up against any offense, in any scheme, and make them look like they’ve never played football with each other before.
If you’ve got a quarterback who does well with pressure, they’re not going to do well against Seattle. If you’ve got a receiver who runs the smoothest routes, they’re not going to get open. If you’ve got a running back who makes guys miss, they’re going to get touched and go down. It’s very, very impressive.
1. Philadelphia Eagles Defense
In 2024, the Eagles' defense was built by having suffocating coverage and a mediocre pass rush. Going into this season, with Adoree’ Jackson being the cornerback opposite Quinyon Mitchell, it seemed like the defensive line and pass rush were going to need to be the strength of the defense. Halfway through the season, it looked like that wasn’t necessarily the case.
So at the trade deadline, they got Jaelan Phillips from the Dolphins, and Brandon Graham came out of retirement. At the same time, Jackson started to look a whole lot better as CB2. A whole lot of things got fixed in the span of two weeks.
Now, the defense has a good pass rush, two (or three) of the top-15 linebackers in the NFL, and a defensive backfield that flows like a hive mind… and that mind belongs to Vic Fangio.
Fangio has seen every NFL offense that’s ever been dreamed of. He knows exactly what offenses want to do, what they are going to do, how to stop them, and how to give a quarterback a mid-game lobotomy.