Evan Silva’s Matchups: Divisional Round

Saturday Football

4:30 PM ET Game

Houston @ Baltimore

Team Totals: Ravens 26.5, Texans 17.5

C.J. Stroud enters Week 20 having completed 192 of 283 passes (67.8%) for 2,582 yards (9.1 YPA) and a 17:4 TD-to-INT ratio plus 20/100/2 rushing over his last 10 games. Perhaps more notably since the Texans are two-score dogs here, Stroud leads all quarterbacks in combined passing and rushing EPA when playing from behind (Next Gen Stats). Yet Stroud catches his hardest matchup of the season at Baltimore, which won 2023’s Defensive Triple Crown by allowing the NFL’s fewest points per game (16.5) while leading the league in both takeaways (31) and sacks (60). The Ravens have given up 20 points or fewer in six of their last seven games, while Stroud’s 2023 yards per pass attempt dipped from 8.9 at home to 7.3 in away games, and he is now facing the league’s stingiest defense on the road. … Devin Singletary enters Week 20 with touch counts of 19, 25, and 16 over Houston’s last three games on corresponding playing-time clips of 62%, 88%, and 72%. Singletary is operating as a near-every-down back, while Baltimore coughed up a crisp 4.47 yards per carry to enemy backs this season. Scheme misfit Dameon Pierce has played a total of six offensive snaps over Houston’s last two games. Due to projected negative game script, I remain skeptical of Singletary as a playoff DFS start. The Texans look likely to trail.

Nico Collins’ six receiving lines in games where Stroud has played but Tank Dell (broken leg, I.R.) has not are 6/96/1, 9/195/1, 7/80/0, 9/191/1, 7/104/1, and 4/80/0. Collins’ Week 20 matchup is enhanced by the absence of Ravens top CB Marlon Humphrey (calf), who will be replaced by fifth-team journeyman Ronald Darby. … With Noah Brown (shoulder) hitting I.R., John Metchie, Xavier Hutchinson, and Robert Woods figure to slot in as Houston’s Nos. 2-4 wideouts at Baltimore. Metchie is a legit DFS sleeper after securing all three of his targets for 44 yards on a 76% snap rate in last week’s win. … Woods draws the toughest Divisional Round matchup of the complementary trio with the highest slot-route rate (49%) facing star Ravens slot CB Kyle Hamilton. Hutchinson is a mildly intriguing dart-throw punt. … Brevin Jordan turned his lone Week 19 target into a 76-yard TD on a wheel route against Cleveland but was targeted once and played 50% of Houston’s offensive snaps. Dalton Schultz (1/37/1) was a 78% player versus the Browns. On a one-for-one basis, I’ll stay riding Schultz over Jordan based on Schultz’s significantly bigger role.

By clinching the AFC’s No. 1 seed in Week 17, Lamar Jackson earned himself and many of his teammates 19 days of rest entering Saturday’s bout with Houston’s pass-funnel defense. The Texans coughed up the NFL’s third-most yards per pass attempt (7.7) and fourth-highest completion rate (67.6%) this regular season, also surrendering a league-high seven rushing touchdowns to quarterbacks. I’m going to give Jackson a meaningful box-score projection bump if he gets back Mark Andrews (ankle/leg, I.R.), even on a limited basis. If so, Jackson will become my top Divisional Round quarterback play. … Should game flow go as expected — again, the Ravens are big favorites to play from ahead — Gus Edwards should largely control Baltimore’s backfield. Scorer of 13 touchdowns this season, Edwards hit paydirt seven times with the Ravens in the lead, four times with the score tied, and just twice in trail mode. Justice Hill plays more in comeback scenarios. The matchup is daunting, of course; HC DeMeco Ryans’ defense stymied enemy RBs for 3.3 yards per carry this regular season and Browns RBs to a combined 17/43/1 (2.5 YPC) rushing line last week. … Although HC John Harbaugh stated this week that Dalvin Cook will see action against the Texans, Cook looked out of gas for the entirety of his 2023 Jets stint, and Cook’s greatest strength at this stage of his career appears to be pass protection. I will be surprised if he plays double-digit snaps.

Even after Texans CB Derek Stingley shut down Amari Cooper in Week 19 shadow coverage — allowing -6 yards on one reception on three targets as Amari finished with 59 scoreless yards — shadow situations aren’t nearly as clean against the Ravens, who play four wideouts and will have two big-time pass-catching tight ends should Andrews play. … I’m standing by Zay Flowers as Baltimore’s top playoff DFS start among Ravens WRs. Flowers logs nearly 30% of his snaps inside — Stingley is a perimeter corner only — and Flowers, like Lamar, is rested after sitting for the past 19 days. Flowers dealt with calf and foot injuries late in the year. … Odell Beckham is my second-favorite Baltimore WR play based on murmurs his postseason role could grow. Harbaugh deemed OBJ at peak health early this week, and it would make sense for the Ravens to increase Beckham’s usage in a plum spot with everything on the line. … Rashod Bateman risks facing a ton of Stingley with the highest outside-receiver snap rate (90%) on the team. (In fairness, OBJ was at 87%.) Essentially a decoy throughout 2023 anyway, Bateman hit paydirt once all season and cleared 40 yards once. … I will love Isaiah Likely and like slot man Nelson Agholor as a Week 20 sleeper if Andrews sits. The fact that Andrews practiced fully on Wednesday and Thursday indicates to me that he’s likelier than not to play in a limited role. This is a great spot for slot men and tight ends since Jackson logged a perfect 11:0 TD-to-INT ratio on intermediate passes (10-19 Air Yards) this season and has 48 touchdowns on intermediate throws since 2018, fifth most in the NFL. The Texans allowed a league-high 107 receptions to tight ends this regular season and 11/158/0 to Browns TEs in Week 19.

Score Prediction: Ravens 27, Texans 21

8:15 PM ET Game

Green Bay @ San Francisco

Team Totals: 49ers 30, Packers 20.5

Fresh off generating the NFL’s most EPA per dropback and highest Success Rate of any quarterback in a playoff game since 2010 (@ClevTA on Twitter) as part of Week 19’s upset of Dallas, Jordan Love enters the Divisional Round as one of the — if not THE —