More Detroit Lions football is right around the corner, and we would never pass up the opportunity to get some intel from the opponent’s perspective. We called on Matt Byham from BuffaloRumblings.com to give us some insight into the Buffalo Bills, just what kind of a bad man Josh Allen has been this season, how their running game isn’t what you think it is, and how the defense prioritizes stopping the pass instead of the run ahead of this Week 15 matchup.
The Buffalo Bills have won the AFC East for the fifth consecutive season, becoming the 14th team in NFL history to win their division in five consecutive years. Of those previous 13 other teams to do so, all 13 of them made at least one Super Bowl over that span, and 11 of them won at least one Super Bowl.
This franchise isn’t new to being an outlier when it comes to nearing the top of the mountain, but the Bills are once again firmly situated among the Super Bowl contenders with the odds-on favorite to win the MVP. How much pressure do you think is on this Bills team to not only make the Super Bowl, but finally win it all?
This team? I’d say there’s no more pressure than any of the other clubs still meaningfully vying for the Lombardi. I personally hold that making another one only to lose it would be far worse than not playing in it. As for certain individuals? It’s likely massive, but I don’t believe the weight is any different for them than in past seasons. The legacy players certainly feel a profound obligation to do all they can for the fan base.
Since Jim Kelly’s retirement, the moment any quarterback’s stepped foot in the building became their ultimate pressure-cooker scenario. I won’t bore you with the long list of quarterbacks, but there were several handfuls between 1996 and 2018. By the time Josh Allen’s name was called, a lot of Bills Mafia had become jaded by unmet potential. Many were skeptical. I was all-in on them drafting Lamar Jackson, admittedly spending less time than I saw necessary on Allen as a potential fit.
So with Allen now the clear heir to Kelly’s throne more than a generation removed, the weight has to be monumental. That weight may just be the perfect pairing for what Allen faced trying to prove himself out of Firebaugh, CA. He’s the perfect QB for Western New York. And he wants nothing more than to bring the fans a trophy and parade.
For head coach Sean McDermott, I’d imagine he feels tons of pressure. He’s now second only to the esteemed Marv Levy, immensely successful in the regular season, and a perennial playoff coach. He just can’t get over the KC hump, and much of that’s due to decision making in crunch time. The concern is that for as great as he is in so many ways, he’s still prone to such mistakes—such as what unfolded in Week 14 against the Rams. For a head coach who’s done all McDermott has, at this point the only thing left to prove is that he’s able to bring a team all the way to the Super Bowl, and then capable of winning it. It has to weigh on him daily.
I don’t know that ownership has a “Super Bowl win or else” attitude simply because the team has never been more successful if not counting those four consecutive Super Bowl trips to begin the 1990s. With so much mediocrity and terrible coaching, I have to believe most inside One Bills Drive are fully content with the work that Sean McDermott and Brandon Beane have done, Lombardi Trophy or not.
Josh Allen, as I alluded to earlier, is the favorite to win the league’s MVP with just four weeks of football left. In a season where there were a lot of questions swirling about the Bills before the games had started—whether it was how offensive coordinator Joe Brady would put his stamp on this team in his first full season or how the team would be able to navigate life after Stefon Diggs’ departure—what about Allen as a quarterback rendered all of that to be just noise, and how have you seen him elevate his game to MVP status this season?
I firmly believe Josh Allen’s been MVP-worthy prior to 2024. It took an otherworldly season from the mercurial-at-best Aaron Rodgers to hold off Allen in 2020. We all know the narrative about Allen: that he’s incredibly gifted, but prone to mistakes. Yet this season, those mistakes are few and far between, while the touchdowns continue to roll on in.
If we’re being honest, the MVP system is confounding where outsiders are led to believe that stats do matter, but in reality, The Associated Press tends to assign wins as a quarterback stat.
What Allen’s done this season is shown anyone paying attention that regardless of who’s subtracted or added, he’s still going to be Josh Allen and do incredible Allen things. Stefon Diggs had to go. He was hardly ever a factor in the playoffs in crunch time (just two TDs in four runs—and none the final three postseasons). Diggs was unhappy if he wasn’t the featured star, even if the team was winning. He wants the accolades and adulation that come with an NFL Hall of Fame player’s title. That’s not terrible, mind you, but it had become an issue with his tenure at One Bills Drive.
The fact is that Allen raises everyone’s level of play around him is a testament to his leadership ability. Despite the crazy, otherworldly stats—Allen only endeavors to win and help his teammates be successful.
After having a breakout, Pro Bowl season last year, James Cook is stacking another productive year in 2024. How essential has Cook and the 5th-ranked rush offense (DVOA) been to the Bills success on offense as the team has turned to young, homegrown talent at the skill positions?
Prior to last Sunday, I was of the belief that the run game was as essential as it gets to the offense’s overall success. If you look at the box score… sure, they had a run game. It all came from Josh Allen.
I do believe the run game is essential to the type of offense that Joe Brady wants to direct. Keeping a defense on its toes, wearing it down with a power run game to set up passing daggers to YAC-specialist receivers who find soft spots in coverage is a staple of his scheme.
That said, with Josh Allen at the helm, there’s almost no unfavorable situation the offense can’t claw its way out of. That is, so long as Allen’s allowed to do Allen things. Seriously, even the most dialed-in Bills fans continue to be awed by the things Allen makes look routine.
None of that is to slight Cook, who is a supremely talented running back. When he’s humming, the offense is deadly. But his contributions on offense can be replicated by Ty Johnson (who’s actually the fastest RB in-house) and rookie Ray Davis. I’d go so far as to say that for every pass Cook drops, Davis and Johnson will catch two in its place.
The Bills defense has been a dependable and balanced group according to metrics, ranking 10th in team defense DVOA (11th against the pass, 8th against the run). Buffalo deploys a four-man defensive front 80.8% of the time, the highest rate among NFL defenses, but has still seen success in stopping the run.
Who are those players contributing the most to Buffalo’s success in run defense, and in games where they’ve struggled to stop the run (Baltimore, Miami [x2], and Los Angeles), what about those rushing attacks seemed to give the Bills defense problems? Is the Bills’ run defense legit?
I’m going to be honest here and say that the Bills are pretty awful when it comes to playing run defense. Much of that is by design, where their base nickel defense reveals a preference to focus on stopping the pass. They run that 4-2-5 defense (4 DL, 2 LB. 5 DB) on 97.5% of defensive snaps, which is the most in the NFL. They also frequently employ light boxes with six or fewer defenders 51.6% of the time, which ranks seventh most league-wide.
Under McDermott, the move has been to limit damage in the passing game over all else. That’s made the run defense into a liability. But it’s a situation the defense is comfortable with between the 20s. They’ve been able to clamp down often in the red zone, but against the Rams things fell apart there even. Still, during any given week, Buffalo will be content to sacrifice something in run defense just to be sure to contain the pass. Well, unless you consider what happened in Los Angeles with Puka Nacua and Cooper Kupp. (The Rams played perhaps their most complete and dominating game of football since The Greatest Show On Turf.)
The 2024 season has ushered in a bit of the running back Renaissance, which is to be expected as more teams use lighter defensive personnel to counter passing games. In the past, giving up tons of rushing yards didn’t hurt teams most weeks. This season the opposite is true quite often—including for Buffalo. Stout run attacks keep the chains moving, the clock running, and the ball away from the other team.
As for who’s behind the Bills’ successes when clamping down on a run game? It’s not any one player, in particular. It’s the scoreboard, and in a complementary role the clock. In looking over Buffalo’s prior 13 games, they’ve scored 30-plus points in 10 games, including the last seven in a row.
Additionally, the Bills don’t lack a ton of star power on defense, but they pride themselves on playing sound, fundamental football, that allows players to excel when every maintains solid gap integrity. Sounds simple, perhaps a bit like the Evil Empire of past New England Patriots teams.
Against the Rams, it appeared as though Buffalo was chasing plays a lot of the time, neglecting to stay with their assignments. Los Angeles was fully committed to running in the first half—to the tune of 24 carries. Interestingly, the longest carry by any Rams rusher was 12 yards for Kyren Williams.
Concerning the teams that have really decimated Buffalo’s defense via the run: It’s simply down to a matter of physicality. You’ll find more than a few places noting how the Bills just don’t match up well against physical offenses. Teams like the Ravens and Pittsburgh Steelers can be a troublesome handful for a defense built to stop the pass while neglecting the run.
Another aspect where the Bills could create some trouble for Detroit is in pass defense. Buffalo ranks 30th in blitz rate (18.2%), but their pressure rate (32.5%) ranks 19th in the NFL, showcasing their ability to generate pressure without sending extra defenders.
In terms of scheme and personnel, how are the Bills so effective in this respect?
It goes back to their base nickel defense. Nickel cornerback Taron Johnson is an absolute stud whose role is pivotal to the Bills’ defensive success. That, plus the gap integrity that I mentioned above, which plays a huge role into limiting how and where a quarterback is able to inflict damage.
The defense operates mostly out of zone, and defenders swarm to the football like a pack of wolves. Buffalo utilizes a heavy rotation on the defensive line, which affords them the ability to remain fresh through an entire game. As such, you’re less likely to see any one player accumulate a ton of sacks, and so on just due to snap-count limitations.
Above all else, in most situations, it’s the intelligence throughout for the Bills’ defense that’s made them into the successful passing-game defenders they are today.
