What did the chiefs do on defense?

[Big Turk]

2 hours ago, Miyagi-Do Karate said:

I don’t mean to be critical after a win, but the chiefs seem to really confuse the Bills’ offense over these last 3 meetings. We got them on some big plays last night, but the offense seemed out of rhythm all night. 
 

Coming into the game, we heard that their Run D was terrible And that they give up a lot of passing in the intermediate area. But the Bills didn’t run the ball great, and didn’t find success in the intermediate area. Diggs and Beasley were non-factors outside of the Diggs bomb. 
 

This isn’t meant to be critical of the O— but my question is what exactly were the chiefs doing on D? (Eg, what coverages, how are they confusing us and stopping our receivers)? 

 

We averaged 8.1 yards a play and had 425 yards.  The offense doesn't always look great this year but they are still steamrolling teams. Also, the Chiefs had the ball for 79 plays to our 54, averaging only 5 yards per play.  

 

I mean that's the scary part.  They have the largest point differential over a 4 game stretch since 1954, and the offense hasn't even played that well.

Edited October 11, 2021 by Big Turk

[BADOLBILZ]

1 hour ago, billsfan1959 said:

 

IMO, the KC defense played about as well as they could have played in taking away what they wanted to (that intermediate area. They also did a pretty good job of making Allen move in the pocket and out of the pocket at times. But in the end, KC was fortunate that the Bills didn't put up 40 - 50 points. 

 

Outside of the last possession where they ran out the clock, The Bills had 8 possessions:

 

1st half

1. TD

2. Punt (Bills went from a 1st and goal at KC's 8 into a punt because of a penalty on Dawkins that had no impact on the play)

3. TD

4. FG (KC defense actually played well inside the 10)

 

2nd half

5. Punt (Driving rain and on a 3rd and 2, Diggs unable to hold on to a 1st down catch with, IMO, clear pass interference not called)

 

 

6. Punt (Driving rain and good defense)

7. Punt (Diggs unable to make 1st down catch with, IMO, another clear pass interference not called)

 

 

8. TD

 

So, on 8 possessions they scored 3 TDs, a field goal where KC played good defense, and had 4 punts. Of the 4 punts, KC played good D on one of the punts, one punt was the result of a penalty on Dawkins, and 2 punts were because of incomplete 3rd down passes where the penalties were not called.

 

As I said, I think the KC defense played as well as they could and they are fortunate they didn't give up even more points.

 

 

5.  Poorly located pass.......needs to be to the sideline.......against Diggs brother that ball is probably heading the other way. 

 

7.  Not a well thrown ball,  so Diggs was going to have to leave his feet to make the grab...................we'd be pissed to have that call go against us with it being such a high degree of difficulty.    Also gotta' see the all-22 but I think Knox was wide open on the post.    If that was the best option on the field then the play was well defensed.  This was a case of Allen forcing the ball to his stud WR despite good coverage, IMO. 

 

My bigger concern on some of these drives was running into LOADED boxes on some first downs.    You gotta' audible out of those.    There was one where  KC had a blitz coming from the outside on both sides and they ran a slow developing handoff that got dropped for a loss.   The Bills had success running early,  and late, but in the middle portion of the game KC was stopping it and I thought the Bills weren't adapting.

 

 

Edited October 11, 2021 by BADOLBILZ

[Utah John]

I think the OP was referring to the lack of drives with a steady progression of chunk plays, which is what we're used to.  A team with a better pass rush and better CBs could have made life difficult, and I expect other teams to be playing us the same way as the Chiefs did, but with better attention to the really deep routes.  Of course that means their safeties will need to be in at least two places at once, so the Bills will have the opportunity to beat them one way or another.

 

The Bills didn't have those long drives because of uncalled DPIs, out and out drops (what was up with Diggs?), phantom penalties, actual penalties, and very rarely a good defensive play from the Chiefs.  

 

I had to shake my head when Al Michaels said the refs were calling everything.  They certainly weren't called DPI or holding against the Chiefs.  I did like it that both announcers said a couple of times that the Bills were playing as if the refs were not going to interfere with them holding or interfering -- if you'll note the response from the refs was that the BILLS got called for those offenses but the Chiefs weren't.  

 

The RTP call against Clark in the 4th quarter was a valid call -- he let his whole body weight come down on Allen, and that's not allowed.  A normal sized QB with a crushing hit like that could be injured.  The consensus I saw from the sportswriters was that the call was BS and the Bills won because of it.  Well, THAT'S BS.  That call was correct, but it occurred right after the totally bogus holding call on Morse.  Take away that holding call, and the Bills have a first down around the 20 or 25, and the rest of that killing drive plays out the same way as it did.

[Utah John]

Looks like the Chiefs really miss Sammy Watkins to give the opposing Ds another serious threat to worry about.  So they brought in Josh Gordon who caught one pass to great acclaim, but then vanished.  Their other WRs are not much of a threat but maybe the others were playing more because they know the offense and the route trees that Mahomes expects.  Maybe after a few more weeks learning the Chiefs' offense, Gordon will be more of a factor.  

 

Except for beating the Eagles, the Chiefs have really scrambled to eke out close wins, or had close losses.  Their O is down a notch, maybe, but their D is really bad.  They are not the team to beat in the AFCW anymore.  The Raiders are a good team but not consistent, and the Broncos have no offense and a D that Pittsburgh shredded yesterday.  That division is turning into the Chargers' to lose, but they too are just winning close games.  The Bills are dominating everyone.  

[Dablitzkrieg]

Yeah, they did a lot to confuse the Bills to the tune of 430 yards and 31 points on offense.  Great take 

[billsfan1959]

3 minutes ago, BADOLBILZ said:

 

 

5.  Poorly located pass.......needs to be to the sideline.......against Diggs brother that ball is probably heading the other way. 

 

7.  Not a well thrown ball,  so Diggs was going to have to leave his feet to make the grab...................we'd be pissed to have that call go against us with it being such a high degree of difficulty.    Also gotta' see the all-22 but I think Knox was wide open on the post.    If that was the best option on the field then the play was well defensed.  This was a case of Allen forcing the ball to his stud WR despite good coverage, IMO. 

 

My bigger concern on some of these drives was running into LOADED boxes on some first downs.    You gotta' audible out of those.    There was one where  KC had a blitz coming from the outside on both sides and they ran a slow developing handoff that got dropped for a loss.   The Bills had success running early,  and late, but in the middle portion of the game KC was stopping it and I thought the Bills weren't adapting.

 

 

 

It will be interesting to look at the All-22. Watching the game replays, I don't think either throw was a bad placement. And I am not so sure Diggs is leaving his feet to make that second grab. It appears Diggs stops to set himself for the catch and Fenton pulls him off balance, which made it look like the throw was more off mark than it was. Just my opinion based on game footage and maybe it will change when I look at the All-22.

 

Agree on your other point. I feel like sometimes they are intent on proving they can run when they WANT to - and Allen needs to be better at times in audibling out of those runs.

[Generic_Bills_Fan]

2 hours ago, WhoTom said:

 

There was a brief mention of that in the 4th quarter, but at least four or five discussions of the Chiefs being down two starters.

Haha that is criminal...he's probably the most important defensive player on either team last night

[Generic_Bills_Fan]

4 hours ago, Miyagi-Do Karate said:

I don’t mean to be critical after a win, but the chiefs seem to really confuse the Bills’ offense over these last 3 meetings. We got them on some big plays last night, but the offense seemed out of rhythm all night. 
 

Coming into the game, we heard that their Run D was terrible And that they give up a lot of passing in the intermediate area. But the Bills didn’t run the ball great, and didn’t find success in the intermediate area. Diggs and Beasley were non-factors outside of the Diggs bomb. 
 

This isn’t meant to be critical of the O— but my question is what exactly were the chiefs doing on D? (Eg, what coverages, how are they confusing us and stopping our receivers)? 

Chiefs still get away with holding with their dbs every single play I think we wised up and did it too last night though 🤣 we had a few absolutely terrible holds/ dpis that had to get called but other than that they let those guys play.  They'd probably give up 100 ppg otherwise lol

[Magox]

I think since you didn't see the Bills have that many sustained methodical drives (aside from soul crushing 4th quarter one), you are automatically assuming they didn't look that sharp, such as what we have seen many times over the past year and a half.    

 

The Bills didn't have that many of those drives because they absolutely obliterated the Chiefs with huge chunk plays.  The bottom line is that Bills scored often and they gained lots of yards and converted their productivity into points.

[FilthyBeast]

To the Chiefs credit, there were moments in which they looked closer to the Chiefs defense of 2019/2020 last year but overall they still have serious issues in terms of pass rush and secondary which go hand and hand and why they aren't going very far this year even if they make the playoffs without major improvements with the talent they have.

 

But from the Bills side, as others mentioned there are still concerns with the oline and overall consistency with the offense as a whole that could haunt this team in the playoffs if not improved.

[fergie's ire]

4 hours ago, 1ManRaid said:

KC seemed to forget about Josh's ability to extend plays.  On the TD to Knox, the defender only followed him until he assumed Josh would have gotten rid of the ball and then...just...stopped?

I remember playing touch football in high school.  I was on defense and one of my friends was a receiver.  He was standing in the end zone and looks back towads the QB and says, "What am I doing.  He can't throw the ball this far."  All of us on defense went, "Yeah...he can't" and moved up about 10 yards....and then the QB threw the ball over our heads to my friend standing in the end zone.  That's what it looked like on this play...like "Yeah...he can't throw it this far on the run.....OH NO!!!"

[Big Turk]

Not much of anything. The Bills averaged 8.1 yards per play.

[K-9]

Held our offense to 31 points. That’s what the Chiefs defense did. And they looked mighty fine doing it, too.

[K-9]

7 hours ago, Jauronimo said:

The only thing that stopped Bills offense all night was penalties.  

Both called and uncalled. Conversely, the only thing that helped the Chiefs offense was penalties. 

[K-9]

3 hours ago, ScottLaw said:

Yea…. I thought for sure that 3rd quarter stint by the offense was going to cost them the game 2 consecutive 3 and outs  …. Just head scratching play calls and you could see Allen was feeling the pressure/pressing…. The Hyde pick and Allen leap sealed it though. 

Interesting that you seem to wanna just ignore our dominance in the first half. Take away the Hyde pick 6 and Allen’s dagger TD to Sanders to seal it, and we still end up ahead 24-20 on the scoreboard. 

[BADOLBILZ]

5 hours ago, ScottLaw said:

Yea…. I thought for sure that 3rd quarter stint by the offense was going to cost them the game 2 consecutive 3 and outs  …. Just head scratching play calls and you could see Allen was feeling the pressure/pressing…. The Hyde pick and Allen leap sealed it though. 

 

 

Yeah, the bar is high for the offense after last season.    And when you are playing some bad defenses you basically want to see them cash in a few more of their opportunities. The first Bills field goal came right after a play where Allen and Sanders were just not on the same page resulting in an incomplete pass in the end zone on 3rd and 11 where Sanders was wide open if Allen throws it a couple of feet more to the inside.   They later scored the final TD on a very similar window throw.   Allen still misses some throws every game that I think he can grow into.  He still has room to improve on timing and touch passes.   In some cases,  like those helium balloons he was tossing to the RB's last night,  significant room.    The question is will he get that uncanny command of his pitches like Brady/Brees while he still also has the elite physical traits to keep plays alive longer or gash defenses with his running ability.    If those points intersect THAT will be peak Josh Allen.

[Haze_21]

The only thing Sorensen is good for is borderline late hits. Unfortunately they might start playing Thornhill again. With Gay and Jones coming back Id expect they will be a bit tougher in playoffs especially if they replace Sorensen.

[Miyagi-Do Karate]

9 minutes ago, BADOLBILZ said:

 

 

.l  In some cases,  like those helium balloons he was tossing to the RB's last night,  significant room.   

helium balloons— haha. So true. I know he didn’t want to get those batted down, but he needs to call up Trent edwards for some lessons in check down throws. 

[HappyDays]

The Bills stopped the Bills more than the Chiefs did. Outside of the Pittsburgh game that has been the story any time we don't move the ball this year.

 

I thought Daboll was way too predictable in the 3rd quarter. I said in the game thread that I hope he is actually offered a head coaching job this offseason. Admittedly I was in an emotional state at that point, but I'm not entirely backing off. The offense has too much talent to stall out against a bad defense like that. Luckily Allen decided to take the game over because there was a moment there where I wondered if the offense was going to choke away an outstanding defensive performance. And it's hard to blame the execution on those drives. KC was just sniffing out our plays.

 

Daboll needs to take RB screen passes out of the play book. It is bad execution across the board every time. If he wants to sprinkle in some flare passes or WR screens, fine. Just please stop trying RB screens. It is a waste of a down.

[Generic_Bills_Fan]

12 minutes ago, HappyDays said:

The Bills stopped the Bills more than the Chiefs did. Outside of the Pittsburgh game that has been the story any time we don't move the ball this year.

 

I thought Daboll was way too predictable in the 3rd quarter. I said in the game thread that I hope he is actually offered a head coaching job this offseason. Admittedly I was in an emotional state at that point, but I'm not entirely backing off. The offense has too much talent to stall out against a bad defense like that. Luckily Allen decided to take the game over because there was a moment there where I wondered if the offense was going to choke away an outstanding defensive performance. And it's hard to blame the execution on those drives. KC was just sniffing out our plays.

 

Daboll needs to take RB screen passes out of the play book. It is bad execution across the board every time. If he wants to sprinkle in some flare passes or WR screens, fine. Just please stop trying RB screens. It is a waste of a down.

Chiefs dbs are just so good at holding and it not being called lol unfortunately I think we have to work on that.  diggs got held on that 3rd and 2 drop to start the second half and quite a few other plays.  We were probably a bit too predictable in the second half trying to run out the clock but the game really was never close despite cris collingsworth trying to claim the chiefs had all the momentum until the roughing the passer call we got or whatever nonsense he said 

Edited October 12, 2021 by Generic_Bills_Fan

[uninja]

Feels like the Bills installed a custom offense/set of plays to exploit what the Chiefs defended poorly. They ran way more two TE sets, multiple guys in the backfield. More power based running, Lamar/Ravens style triple option stuff. Running pass plays out of tighter formations and causing major issues with busted coverage. This is not how the Bills want to beat you, but it did put up points effectively.
 

The fact that the Bills could do this, even remotely competently, should terrify other teams. This team is starting to do that really frustrating chameleon stuff old NE teams used to do where you have no idea what the hell they’re gonna do on offense. The amount of stuff the Bills put on tape today should be keeping DC’s up at night.

[y2zipper]

I think the bills offense as a whole is a situation where the statistics tell you the truth about how good it is in your eyes lie because it doesn't quite look the same as it did last year in terms of the passing game. Essentially, Buffalo is taking a more balanced approach and throwing almost 10% less than they did last year so far. The results is that the running game is way way more effective than it was last season. So far Buffalo has a second best score percentage in the league on all of its drives I'm a very high number of drives they have and different players are emerging because they are showing a willingness to use different personnel groupings in addition to the three receiver formula that dominated last year. Just like the defense, the offense is truly becoming more game to game and situation to situation dependent. It's part of the reason why we are beginning to hear stories about Friday and Saturday installs and new plays all the time.

 

If you look at the entire game. Buffalo had 10 drives, scored on six of them and five of the six scores were touchdowns. That is best offense in the NFL drive efficiency and we can add to it that Buffalo did not have a turnover.

 

What I saw is that both teams really had trouble adjusting to the third quarter rainstorm after halftime. It manifested itself in some punting from Buffalo because they played to protect the ball and the Chiefs blitzed more because they knew Buffalo was going to, but the same rainstorm manifested itself in two ridiculous turnovers for Kansas City. Buffalo got a pick 6 on a ball that slipped out of hills hands and recovered a snap that slipped out of mahomes hands. The teams each got a touchdown once they both adjusted to it, and once Buffalo got the fourth quarter drive the game was over.

[Simon]

On 10/11/2021 at 11:57 AM, BADOLBILZ said:

My bigger concern on some of these drives was running into LOADED boxes on some first downs.    You gotta' audible out of those.    There was one where  KC had a blitz coming from the outside on both sides and they ran a slow developing handoff that got dropped for a loss.   The Bills had success running early,  and late, but in the middle portion of the game KC was stopping it and I thought the Bills weren't adapting.

 

 

I thought those first down carries were about nothing more than getting the clock moving. I disagreed with it at the time and just wanted them to keep running their offense, but can still see the value in it. 

[billsbackto81]

On 10/11/2021 at 8:59 AM, Miyagi-Do Karate said:

I don’t mean to be critical after a win, but the chiefs seem to really confuse the Bills’ offense over these last 3 meetings. We got them on some big plays last night, but the offense seemed out of rhythm all night. 
 

Coming into the game, we heard that their Run D was terrible And that they give up a lot of passing in the intermediate area. But the Bills didn’t run the ball great, and didn’t find success in the intermediate area. Diggs and Beasley were non-factors outside of the Diggs bomb. 

I must of been watching the wrong game. The game I watched the Bills had 436 total yards. 121 of those were from the run game on 28 carries. I'm not putting much stock in "rhythm" when the team is dealing with a hostile road game environment in bad inclement weather. And a game delay of over an hour to boot. 

 

I think they played ok. JMO of course.

Edited October 13, 2021 by billsbackto81