Buffalo Rumblings
By now, all Buffalo Bills fans know this — whether it be from visceral memories or from completed research they’ve read — the team’s defense flopped in playoff defeats during the Sean McDermott era.
As yet another reminder of those infamously disappointing defensive showings — in Buffalo’s eight playoff losses from 2017 through 2025, the opposition averaged a higher points-per-drive (3.83)… than the 2007 Patriots.
For an entire unit to make its opponents more efficient than the 16-0 (and ultimately 18-1) Tom Brady, Randy Moss, Wes Welker Patriots hints at drastic problems at every level.
Here, I want to focus on Buffalo’s pass rush and its presence as a core issue for the team even in the regular season over the past decade.
Related here — I’ve been on a mission to find advanced stats that track to winning the Super Bowl, because that is, of course, what the Bills have set in their sights on — and justifiably so.
For example, I discovered a few years ago that point differential is probably the best indicator of which team (or the cluster of teams) can win the Super Bowl in a given season. Check this out:
It’s currently my favorite statistical nugget pertaining to the NFL. Now, the below discovery is not nearly as straightforward, and it’s certainly not as predictive as regular-season point differential on the cusp of the playoffs.
In conducting research on the pass-rush units of recent Super Bowl winners, I found that said units either were incredibly deep or had an elite-level (like All-Pro caliber) defender on it.
Below are the amount of defenders the last 10 Super Bowl winners had who registered 20-plus pressures during the regular season. You will notice the trend right away.
2025 – Seahawks (7 players)
2024 – Eagles (7 players)
2023 – Chiefs (4 players but Chris Jones with 75 pressures)
2022 – Chiefs (5 players but Chris Jones with 77)
2021 – Rams (5 players but Aaron Donald with 86)
2020 – Buccaneers (5 players, Vita Vea had 16 in 5 games)
2019 – Chiefs (5 players but Chris Jones with 58)
2018 – Patriots (6 players)
2017 – Eagles (7 players)
2016 – Patriots (6 players)
The verdict over the past 10 years centers around an abundance of productive depth OR a superstar. In the case of the Chiefs and Rams, said superstar was an interior havoc wreaker. The average 20-plus pressure defenders for the last 10 Super Bowl winners is 5.7.
Of course, simply fielding seven defenders who ultimately register 20-plus pressures in the regular season is not magic — it won’t guarantee any team wins the Super Bowl.
But note the (albeit small) difference between those figures and the number of 20-plus pressure defenders the Bills had during the McDermott era from 2017 to 2025.
2025 – 4
2024 – 5
2023 – 5
2022 – 6
2021 – 6
2020 – 5
2019 – 6
2018 – 5
2017 – 4
That equates to an...
