Breaking down the Buffalo Bills' impressive Week 6 win against the Kansas City Chiefs
The Kansas City Chiefs played host to the Buffalo Bills in the biggest game of Week 6 on Sunday.
The two teams traded punches throughout, but it was the Bills that emerged victorious in a low-scoring contest.
Here, we'll take a look at just how Buffalo eked out a 24-20 win to improve to 5-1 this season and move to the top of the AFC.
Bills Offense vs. Chiefs Defense
One overarching point for Buffalo’s offense on Sunday was how they didn’t allow Chiefs defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo to dictate the game with a bunch of exotic pressures, which would have forced Josh Allen to throw it hot.
They largely did so with multiple tight-ends and/or backs, forcing Kansas City to match with base personnel. Fullback Reggie Gilliam was on the field for 29% of snaps on Sunday, the highest mark since their blowout win against the LA Rams in the season-opener.
Moreover, they were in 12 personnel for seven snaps in this contest, when they had used it just five times all season heading into the day. That allowed them to create favorable angles with cross-blocks by the O-line, and using the fullback or inserts by the tight ends as lead-blocks.
Devin Singletary has proven to be really good at partially hiding behind that guy in the hole and forcing the defender to commit to one side, before slicing up the other way. They used some counter action in the backfield, with the guard wrapping around from the backside and the RB getting behind him.
Once they even showed pin-and-pull run action one way out of an Ace set and used center Mitch Morse pivoting back the other way to lead-block for Singletary on a pitch out to the weak-side edge. Unfortunately for the Bills, the play was taken off due to a holding call on the wide receiver to that side, but it was a really cool design and they had the defense totally fooled.
Even discounting Allen as a runner, they ran the ball 19 times for 93 yards, with Singletary handling all but two of those.
What was impressive when they were in 21 personnel was being able to line up in singleback with an Ace Duo set (the FB and TE to the right), with the Chiefs being in a true 4-3 front to match that package, expecting a run.
Instead, Buffalo ran play-action and had both the slot receiver away from the strength of the formation off a scissors concept and the back-side dig wide open. Allen showed the maturity to routinely throw it to Devin Singletary in front of the linebackers (largely off play-fakes) with the Chiefs playing two-high shells.
Understanding what they were facing from a coverage perspective allowed them to create challenges for the defense, along with sprinkling in some seven-man pass-protection when they expected Spagnuolo to bring pressure.
They also had the receivers to take advantage of Kansas City's young corners. Gabe Davis, on that 34-yard touchdown just before the half, ran right by his guy on a fade route.
They were helped by Allen making some spectacular throws, including one when they were pinned inside their own one-yard line on third-and-13. The QB dipped underneath the edge rusher and almost side-armed the ball on a rope to Davis. He also produced multiple sick side-line shots against a two-deep coverage.
Once again, Kansas City not being able to dictate terms defensively on many snaps was a big factor. They did end up blitzing on 34.9% of Josh Allen’s dropbacks, but only pressured him on 11.4% total.
It really was only a factor in third and fourth downs, where the Bills went five-of-14 on the day. Using the pro personnel on the offensive side largely put the Chiefs in zone coverage and they used more sets with three than one (off-ball) linebacker. That’s not what we’re used to seeing from Spagnuolo in terms of aggressiveness as a play-caller.
When Spagnuolo did have the chance to bring heat in obvious passing situations against 11 personnel, he was able to scheme open a free rusher and multiple times peeled off the D-end to take the back, whilst playing tight man-coverage on the four other eligible receivers.
They had two great back-to-back plays like that at the tail-end of Buffalo’s third possession. They brought Juan Thornhill untouched on a weak-side B-gap blitz by occupying the five blockers, plus a linebacker through the opposite B-gap, as the right tackle had to set to the wide end, not expecting him to bail out again.
Josh Allen had to release the ball whilst fading away from the rush, once throwing the ball into the stomach of Chris Jones when he had Singletary open on an angle route, and then putting it slightly behind Isaiah McKenzie on a quick in-breaker. The receiver could have potentially pulled that one in, if he didn’t jump, but he had an extremely rough day altogether.
Chiefs Offense vs. Bills Defense
Buffalo certainly showed more of a commitment to running the ball than Kansas City, as Patrick Mahomes accounted for 21 of their 68 rushing yards on the day – all on scrambles – and their backs averaged just 3.6 yards a pop.
Outside of using a split backfield with their fullback to one side of the quarterback and rolling Mahomes the other way of a lead play to slow down the pursuit, they didn’t have many wrinkles in the ground game to give them schematic advantages.
It was more about RPOs and screens to their backs to make them a factor. On the former, they used slide routes by Travis Kelce, glances and back-shoulder fade alerts on the outside to give themselves options.
They also had a really fun design on a tight end screen to Noah Gray, where they faked a flat screen to the three-receiver side and released the back wide the other way, with Gray pivoting around underneath that, to get in behind three linemen. If not for Bills linebacker Tremaine Edmunds chasing him down from the backside, he may have ripped off a huge play.
In terms of the passing game, they really tried to create levels and used a lot of scat protection to stretch the field in all directions and let Mahomes operate with clean pockets for the majority of the first three quarters. It was very interesting to see how they got to their flood concepts a couple of times, particularly once in the second quarter.
They started with a tight bunch set to the right and motioned Travis Kelce underneath the line to become an offset full- or H-back and made it look as he was leading up the B-gap on play-action before ultimately running a sail route.
Along with that, they brought the offset wide receiver on the outside on a fake reverse. He became a threat in the flats, whilst the X receiver Marquez Valdes-Scantling stemmed inside originally and then worked back across his man on a deep corner route to occupy the corner and safety to that side. This put linebacker Matt Milano in a bind and Mahomes ended up hitting Kelce for 25 yards.
Of course, the Chiefs QB made some insane plays as well. There were two throws from one hash to the opposite sideline, which he made look almost effortless. Once, he dropped the ball into the bucket on the deep corner route by Mecole Hardman, and then later on, drifted towards the left hash and hit Skyy Moore on a sail route to the field. The ball had to be perfect, as the rookie receiver was just able to get a step on his man, who had outside leverage originally.
On the first TD of the game to JuJu Smith-Schuster, the Bills had a couple of missed tackles, but before that it was a crazy play by Mahomes to basically read the entire field, roll to the right and then come back all the way to JuJu on the shallow crosser going the other way.
On Buffalo’s side, being able to live in those two-high looks largely defensively and having the speed on the second level to beat blockers to the spot, squeezing down gaps with their D-line and allowing the rest of the unit to converge on the ball was huge.
Coming into the night, the Bills had dropped eight defenders in coverage on just two percent of dropbacks. In this game, they did it on 21 percent, where they ran a heavy dose of cover-two, along with some two man and one robber, bringing one safety up to bracket what they perceived to be the primary target depending on down and distance.
When they were in zone, they did a beautiful job of picking up and passing off guys as patterns developed, before ultimately plastering guys past 2.5 seconds.
They also hadn’t really done it at all before this game, but the Bills were in dime personnel, with three D-linemen and two linebackers on seven of their 11 third downs on Sunday, while using Milano as a spy.
That allowed guys like Von Miller to have better ways to rush the passer and shut down a couple of chances. That’s what they brought him in for – to close out games and shine in those big-time matchups, as he played a season-high 78 percent of snaps.
On the back-end of Kansas City’s first drive, we saw him slip a pulling guard and stuff the run for no yardage. Then on the very next play, he forced Mahomes to bail out away from him by riding left tackle Orlando Brown, which led to the Kaiir Elam pick in the end-zone.
Then of course on the final two KC drives, he got a third-down sack on Mahomes on a dip-and-rip move against the right tackle and then beat that guy on a quick up-and-under, forcing the QB to fall away and release the ball off-platform. This allowed the nickel Taron Johnson to drive in front of a shallow crosser coming from the other side and seal the win with a pick.
Bills-Chiefs look set for AFC Championship rematch
On Sunday, there were so many plays by Mahomes and Allen that may never come up on a highlight reel, but were key in keeping drives alive.
While Allen certainly made a couple of great plays off-script, he operated more within the structure of the offense and delivered big-time throws. The play-design for the Chiefs, meanwhile, set up Mahomes to extend plays and allow his targets to work their way open against the shell coverages of Buffalo. Both certainly delivered, other than one costly turnover in the redzone early on for each side.
Buffalo had the slight advantage in the coaching department, looking at the change-ups they had installed coming into the matchup and the willingness to continue to adapt throughout the day.
As things stand, we’re absolutely set for a re-match, probably in the AFC Championship game.
One quick note for either side: Spencer Brown was seen in a walking boot thanks to an ankle injury. The Bills have a crazy splits of wins and losses depending on whether he is in the lineup or not. So that’s definitely something to monitor going forward.
As for the Chiefs, it’ll be interesting to see how they try to take charge again, particularly on defense. Trent McDuffie, who they placed on injured reserve following week one, could be back this Sunday or following their bye.