NFL Pro wild card preview: Critical insights on all 6 games

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The 2025 regular season is over, but the Pro insights don’t stop here! Now we turn to the postseason and the six-game Wild Card Round! As always, to better understand and decipher the storylines of the week, NFL Pro has a wealth of data and insights, carefully curated to highlight what matters most in each contest.

For Wild Card Weekend, we’re breaking down the most crucial matchups from each of the six contests across both conferences. These are the biggest insights to know, with all the relevant NFL Pro context and the fallout we can expect on Saturday, Sunday and Monday!

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As a candidate for the NFL’s Most Valuable Player award, it’s no surprise that Matthew Stafford has been statistically superb across the board. But specifically, he has been unstoppable from a clean pocket in 2025, throwing 42 touchdowns and just seven interceptions, with a 118.6 passer rating, 8.3 yards per attempt and 0.38 EPA/dropback when not pressured. In fact, Stafford’s 42 touchdown passes from a clean pocket are the most in a single season in the Next Gen Stats era (since 2016), breaking the previous high of 40 set by Aaron Rodgers. Stafford and the Rams were 5-1 in games he was pressured fewer than 10 times … but that one loss did come against the Carolina Panthers in Week 13.

The Panthers enter the Wild Card Round with the lowest QB pressure rate of any defense at just 26.2% — not any defense in the postseason, any defense in the entire league. When they faced Stafford last, they pressured him just four times — tied for his fewest in a game all year — but made those pressures count with two sacks and one interception. If they can ratchet up the pressure on Saturday, or capitalize that effectively on limited chances once again, the Panthers will have a shot at the upset … otherwise Stafford may pick them apart.

Quite a bit about Caleb Williams‘s performances against the Packers stayed the same between Weeks 14 and 16. He completed 19 of 35 attempts on 39 dropbacks (with two TDs) in the Week 14 loss … and completed 19 of 34 attempts on 37 dropbacks (with two TDs) in the Week 16 win. But besides Jordan Love exiting the second game with a concussion, there was one other major personnel change between the two matches: Micah Parsons missed the second meeting after suffering a season-ending injury in Week 15. Perhaps largely as a result, Williams was pressured on 5.9% fewer dropbacks, averaged 2.1 more yards per attempt, threw one fewer interception and logged a 0.25 EPA/dropback increase in Week 16 versus Week 14. Williams’ 5.3 yards per attempt against the Packers with Parsons was his second-lowest of the season, while his 7.4 yards per attempt in Week 16 without Parsons was above his season average.

Including the game against Denver that Parsons tore his ACL, Green Bay has lost four straight, while allowing 28.3 points per game (after starting 9-3-1 and allowing 19.0 PPG the first 14 weeks). Getting Love back on Saturday will help, but the defense needs to step up in Parson’s absence and find a way to limit Williams and the Bears offense in the rubber match.

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