The Bills

In an attempt to avoid being burned at the stake Salem witch style, I’ll start this post with some disclaimers. The Bills had an awesome season, better than I ever could have hoped for (see here). Josh Allen’s improvement year over year has been tremendous, in particular his accuracy increase since last season. In addition to Josh Allen playing MVP level ball, the offense as a whole came together, especially in the second half of the season, and the defense stepped up big time, especially during the post season. To finally watch things come together at the right time was amazing, and I will not soon forget the 2020 Bills season. With that said, I now need to address what happened Sunday night.

As we’re all aware, the Bills lost 38-24 at Arrowhead in the AFC championship. I prophesized the difficulties the Bills would face on their championship run in my previous post, and I can now sadly say that my predictions were realized. Specifically of concern were the Bills’ inability to make impactful adjustments at halftime, and unproven (and yes, largely untested) ability to come back when behind by two scores or more.

This post is not going to be a thesis where I cite stats and analytics; it’s going to be my qualitative review and perspective on what I saw play out.

Coaching

The biggest mistakes this game came from the coaching staff, particularly Sean McDermott. Going into this game, the coaching staff should have known that the Bills were going to have to play with reckless abandon and capitalize on every opportunity that came their way to have even a chance at winning. The Chiefs are a far more talented team not only on the field but also on the sideline, and the Bills needed to show nothing but their absolute best Sunday night.

Needless to say, the Bills did not play their best football Sunday night, and this was largely enabled by conservative play calling, specifically in Chiefs’ territory. I guess Sean McDermott somehow thought we could win the game by matching Chiefs touchdowns with field goals. Hint: that doesn’t work, it’s three steps forward, seven steps back (that’s a net loss of four for you English majors).

The Bills’ defense kept the Chiefs out of the end zone on two of their possessions (not counting the Chiefs’ end-of-half and end-of-game possessions). The only reason the Chiefs had to punt all game was a butterfingers drop by Tyreek Hill on third down. Yeah, the Bills defense was Swiss cheesing harder than a fromagerie (more on that later).

The Bills elected to go for field goals on three fourth downs: a fourth and three at the Chiefs’ twenty-seven yard line, a fourth and goal at the Chiefs’ two yard line, and a fourth and three at the Chiefs’ eight yard line. That’s potentially leaving twelve points on the board, in a game where you know you have to score as many points as possible. If I were calling the game, I would have gone for it on every fourth and less than five in Chiefs’ territory, but McDermott obviously thought the Bills could get away with doing otherwise.

Now I know some of you will say “hey, don’t you remember the Colts game where Rivers went for it on fourth and goal and came away with nothing? Yeah, that cost them the game!” My response to that is: but look at who the Bills were playing. Field goals get you nowhere against the Chiefs (unless you’re the Falcons). In addition, I actually agree with Reich’s call to go for it on fourth and goal. Why is that? Because he provided his players the opportunity to make a play. He provided them the opportunity and they didn’t capitalize on it. In the post season, the team who makes the most plays wins the game. Why not at least try instead of show your belly in submission like a scolded Chihuahua?

Offense

I actually don’t think Josh Allen had a terrible game, although he did appear a bit shell-shocked at times, especially during the first half, regressing into his primal self and whipping errant balls around the field while running around in the pocket like his ass was on fire.

Where I will place blame is on the offensive coordinator. The offense should have had a plan for handling pressure when the Chiefs decided to send it. It appeared that during the first quarter especially, Josh Allen didn’t handle the pressure very well and seemed a bit rattled at times. With that said, let’s give the offense benefit of the doubt and assume they came prepared with a plan and were merely out-gamed by Spagnuolo. Fine. What do you have to do in that case? Make adjustments.

From what I recall, broken leg Beasley won his matchup the vast majority of the time the Chiefs sent pressure, but Allen didn’t capitalize on this until much later than he could have. The offense should have recognized this ASAP and pointed it out to Allen (maybe they did, who knows).

In the unlikely case that nobody was getting open when the Chiefs sent pressure (which is near impossible with some of the blitz packages they ran), the offense should have arranged for some sort of check down, possibly a leaking back, etc. to prevent situations where Josh ends up taking a 10+ yard sack. In addition, an area for Josh to work on is knowing when to throw the ball away (without sideline acrobatics and almost stepping out of bounds) and knowing when to just take a sack (instead of continuing to run and spin backwards, losing further yardage).

Defense

I know the Chiefs have the best offense in the league (by a large margin), but I don’t think the Bills’ defense performed well, all things considered. The Chiefs put up 38 points on the Bills, which is actually the second highest they had scored in a game all season. I know the Bills defense isn’t a strongpoint, but I think they could have performed a lot better than they did.

For starters, the Bills should have sent much more pressure, especially in the second half. Yes, sending pressure oftentimes leads to unfavorable matchups and the possibility of giving up big plays, but guess what? The Chiefs scored touchdowns on damn near all their drives anyhow, so what was there to lose? Mahomes was banged up from the game against the Browns, and the Bills seemed to do little to test his abilities. I don’t recall Mahomes being sacked a single time the whole game (maybe I missed it?).

The Bills’ defense also needed to play with much more physicality. Travis Kelce was essentially allowed to get off the line Scott-free the entire game. So much so, that on the Chiefs’ last touchdown, he went untouched and unguarded, which is completely unacceptable. Somebody should have been chipping him at the line of scrimmage every play to throw the timing of his routes off, if not to at least wear him down physically.

Last, I will pose a question: if I told you there were a game plan out there for stymying the Chiefs’ offense during an AFC championship game at Arrowhead, and that this game plan were publicly available, would you use it? If you answered no, then you would fit right in Buffalo’s coaching staff. But if you answered yes, you could watch the 2018 season AFC championship game between the Chiefs and the Patriots at Arrowhead. During this game, the Patriots held the Chiefs to zero points in the first half, zero, and ultimately won in overtime. How did they manage this? By playing a lot of physical press coverage with a single high safety and sending pressure up the middle opportunistically. Bill Belichick is 4-1 against number one ranked offenses in the post season; he is the true defensive grandmaster. Why not copy some homework?