By Derrik Klassen The Athletic
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Structuring this week’s Quick Outs column was a breeze. Four games, four topics — simple as that. It was just a matter of sorting out which game deserved which framing.

Josh Allen gets the quarterback charting spotlight, but that’s more to showcase how the Bills can win now without putting the entire burden on their quarterback. We also take a look at some more Saquon Barkley stats, break down Travis Kelce’s massive catch and run and give Kliff Kingsbury his flowers for calling a perfect game.

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Let’s get to it.

QB charting: Allen

The charting spotlight typically has been used to highlight an outstanding performance or dig into the nitty gritty of a poor outing. It’s a way to isolate a quarterback’s influence over a game and use that to explain the final result.

That’s not what we’re doing this week. Instead, Allen’s chart is a visualization of how influence he had over the game — and what that says about this version of the Buffalo Bills.

To be very clear, Allen wasn’t bad against the Ravens, by any means. He just wasn’t asked to be a passer very often, and his explosive downfield potential was taken off the board completely. The Bills instead found great success leaning on their run game to bully the Ravens. For once in his NFL career, Allen got to be the passenger in a playoff win rather than the amped-up driver.

Funny as it sounds, Allen had to learn over the years to be that kind of player. Previous versions of Allen were all systems go, all the time. Now, Allen is more comfortable taking a backseat when need be.

Allen’s charting paints that picture quite well. On 22 attempts Sunday, Allen did not have a single pass broken up or intercepted. He attempted just two tight-window throws, and his only two throws outside the pocket were a designed rollout on which he targeted the flat route and a throwaway.

Allen barely had to throw down the field, either — he attempted just four passes beyond 10 yards. The only one of those he completed was a seam ball versus Tampa 2 coverage on the game’s first drive, a play that reminded the Ravens he can hit the big-boy throws (even if he didn’t for the remainder of the game).

With every other iteration of the Allen-era Bills, this would have been a game-losing passing chart. The Bills of prior years could not win without Allen being aggressive and making plays. Buffalo winning via ball control and by limiting volatility is not something that seemed conceivable until we saw it in action.

Heading into an AFC Championship Game against Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs, that low-stakes play style probably will be thrown out the window. Allen will need to put the cape on again to get the Bills to the Super Bowl.

Still, it’s nice knowing they’ve found ways to be productive without leaning on Allen at all times. Perhaps a marriage between the two modes of offense is exactly what the Bills need to finally get over the Chiefs hump.

Barkley’s big day

Barkley’s performance against the Los Angeles Rams was nearly historic, but not in the way you might think.

Just as he did in Week 12 against the Rams, Barkley cleared the 200-yard mark on the ground. Though it was Barkley’s second time doing so this season, it was only the 96th such game by any player since 2000, including the playoffs.

Of course, a majority of 200-yard rushing games are incredibly efficient. It’s difficult to churn out that much yardage without getting consistent, reliable gains to support explosive plays.

That’s not how Barkley got it done Sunday. Instead, he was so explosive in a couple key moments — first, a 62-yard score; then, a 78-yard touchdown run — that his down-to-down efficiency didn’t matter whatsoever. In fact, Barkley mustered a mere 34.6 percent success rate on the ground, according to TruMedia. It’s the third-lowest success rate for any 200-plus-yard rushing game since at least 2000, only ahead of a pair of Jamal Lewis performances.

This may feel like quiet panic about the Eagles’ run game consistency, but it’s not. No run game is going to be firing on all cylinders every single down of every game, especially in the playoffs.

But it’s just fun to marvel at how Barkley is so explosive and so dynamic that containing him for a majority of plays can become meaningless in an instant, if he gets a runway. That is the kind of high-powered ability that propels a team through the playoffs.

Kelce’s catch and run

Everything about the Houston Texans’ defense says it wants to be an aggressive man-coverage unit. It’s part of head coach DeMeco Ryans’ defensive DNA, and it’s how they’ve called the defense all season — especially on third downs. From a personnel perspective, cornerbacks Derek Stingley Jr. and Kamari Lassiter are ideal outside man-to-man corners, while the supercharged duo of Will Anderson Jr. and Danielle Hunter off the edge forces quarterbacks to get the ball out fast.

Ryans took that chance against the Chiefs by utilizing a ton of zone coverage. The Texans played 41.4 percent man coverage when these teams met in Week 16, but that number dropped to 22 percent in the divisional round, according to TruMedia. Kansas City cooked the Texans in the regular season with crossers and shallow routes galore, and Ryans vowed not to get beat that way again.

While the approach did work in totality (at least insofar as the Chiefs didn’t run up the score this time), you did see the floodgates start to open when Kelce popped wide open against zone coverage late in the second quarter.

On this play, the Texans are running a three-deep, three-under pressure. It’s essentially a Cover 3 call where one of the middle hook players instead becomes a blitzer, leaving a lot more ground for the lone hook defender to read and cover. Linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair (No. 0) is that middle hook defender here, and he needs to maintain presence until he is certain there can be no threats to that area.

Kingsbury’s best game

Two months ago, there were questions swirling around the NFL media sphere about whether the “Kliff cliff” had arrived. Kingsbury’s offenses in Arizona were notorious for falling off after the midpoint of the season, and there were signs of that happening again with the Commanders. (In hindsight, a lot of that had to do with Jayden Daniels clearly being bothered by a rib injury, but the Kliff conversations were rolling nonetheless.)

Fast forward to the divisional round. Not only have the Commanders rebounded from their midseason inconsistency, but also Kingsbury may have called his best game of the season Saturday night against the Detroit Lions.

Kingsbury’s answers for the blitz shined brightest. The Lions showed they wanted to bring a ton of heat from the jump, but the Commanders were ready with immediate answers — and continued to find new ones over the course of the game.

For example, spread-RPO looks from the Commanders put the Lions’ defense in a bind. The Commanders regularly came out in wide trips or trips bunch formations, getting them in position to tag wide receiver screens onto option-run concepts from shotgun. Detroit constantly wound up outmanned on the perimeter.

The Commanders caught the Lions with this kind of concept on their second play from scrimmage, then again on Terry McLaurin’s 59-yard catch-and-run touchdown. The Lions blitz both the nickel and the linebacker to the trips side of the field, leaving themselves exposed on the perimeter. McLaurin takes the space afforded to him and never looks back.

Kingsbury’s offense found so many solutions in this game. The constant chip help in pass protection both stifled Detroit’s blitzers and gave Daniels reliable checkdown options. Kingsbury also was on fire on critical downs. And the value of Kingsbury’s college-inspired run game popped up. A number of Washington’s key plays on the ground came off same-side runs from shotgun, whereas most shotgun runs in the NFL go to the side from the running back’s alignment. Defenses often align their front strength with this in mind, but Kingsbury found ways to pull offensive linemen and hit some of those same-side runs that many other offenses don’t have in their playbooks.

Kingsbury outclassed Lions defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn from start to finish. That is not a sentence I thought I would ever write. It was the reality, though, and the Commanders are marching into championship weekend because of it.