The 2025 NFL regular season saw its share of surprises, and the first round of this year’s playoffs followed that theme.
Now comes the divisional round. Two of the remaining eight teams, the Buffalo Bills and Houston Texans, are the lone franchises remaining that have never hoisted a Lombardi Trophy. On Saturday, the Bills will be in Denver, while the Seattle Seahawks host the San Francisco 49ers.
On Sunday, the Texans take on the New England Patriots at Foxborough, while the Los Angeles Rams will be in the Windy City to take on the Chicago Bears. So will all of the home clubs come away with a win this weekend, something that hasn’t happened in this round since 2018.
Take a look at 5 key numbers when it comes to the Divisional Playoffs
28
Dating back to 2010, home teams own a 43-17 win-loss record in the divisional round of the playoffs. That’s a strong .717 winning percentage. If you go all the way back to the merger in 1970, that’s just about par for the course. Home clubs have prevailed in 157 of 220 divisional round contests, a .714 clip. The last three years, home teams are 3-1 in this round.
This weekend (including playoffs), the four host clubs, the Seahawks (6-2), Broncos (8-1), Patriots (7-3), and Bears (7-2), own a combined 28-8 mark in their own buildings this season. The last time the divisional round saw a losing home mark (1-3) was 2021.
0
Last season, the eight teams in the divisional round of the playoffs were the Chiefs, Texans, Ravens, and Bills in the AFC, and the Commanders, Lions, Rams and Eagles in the NFC. This year, only three of those teams (Texans, Bills and Rams) remain after one week of postseason action, while Kansas City, Baltimore, Washington, and Detroit failed to even make the playoffs.
The most intriguing of the three still alive is DeMeco Ryans’s club. The Texans are in the playoffs for the third consecutive year, a franchise record. However, the team has never appeared in an AFC title game, which could change if they beat the Patriots.
11
In last season’s first round of the playoffs, the Houston Texans (3) were the only one of the six winning teams to turn over the football. In fact, seven of the 12 clubs to take the field in the wild card round did not give up the ball. It was a whole lot different this past week in the first round as the Green Bay Packers and Philadelphia Eagles were the only teams to not turn over the ball—and somehow both lost.
Both in the 2023 and 2024 NFL playoffs, the winning clubs combined for a total of five turnovers in 13 contests each year. Last week, the six teams moving onto the divisional round combined for a total of 11 miscues.
3
A season ago, the Philadelphia Eagles were led by running back Saquon Barkley. He led the NFL in rushing with 2,005 yards, and the Birds captured Super Bowl LIX. In 2023, the 49ers’ Christian McCaffrey ran for an NFL-high 1,459 yards, but San Francisco came up short in Super Bowl LVIII in overtime. Could we see a league rushing champion reach the Super Bowl a third straight year, which has actually never happened?
Buffalo’s James Cook led the league with 1,621 yards on the ground this season. Sean McDermott’s club still needs to more playoff wins to reach Super Bowl LX, but this is just a little future food for thought.
68
For the second consecutive season, the Denver Broncos led the league when it came to getting after opposing quarterbacks. One year after totaling an NFL-best 63 QB traps, Sean Payton’s AFC West champions totaled 68 sacks.
Coincidentally, the last team to lead the league in this category and win the Super Bowl the same season are the 2015 Broncos, who captured Super Bowl 50. The 2022 Eagles (70 sacks) reached Super Bowl LVII, but lost to the Chiefs in Arizona. Of course, it’s also worth a mention that the 2025 49ers finished dead last in sacks, amassing a mere 20 QB traps in 17 regular-season outings.