Arrowhead Pride
The conference title could come down to how well the Bills’ offense handles Spags’ situational strategies.
The modern history between the Kansas City Chiefs and Buffalo Bills sets up the AFC Championship to be an incredible chess match. Both coaching staffs have grown severely familiar with the other, forcing each side to install a layer of unpredictability in the usual scheme.
For Chiefs defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo, that will mean attempting to confuse and disrupt Bills quarterback Josh Allen. This will be the ninth matchup between the veteran playcaller and the gunslinger.
Chiefs offensive coordinator Matt Nagy has a perspective on battling Spagnuolo’s play-calling. During Thursday’s press conference, he affirmed the idea that Spagnuolol has levels to his strategy, keeping even the most common opponents guessing.
“It’s not easy; I can tell you that,” Nagy told reporters. “We get to go against [Spagnuolo] in training camp, and he presents a lot of different challenges... the Bills and Chiefs have been going against each other for a while, so player to player, coach to coach, you want to make sure you’re good with your tendencies; unscouted looks, how do you handle those.”
A general tendency of the current Chiefs’ defensive strategy is blitzing: Kansas City finished the regular season with the NFL’s fourth-highest blitz rate (32%). Spagnuolo wants to heat up the opposing quarterback and force rushed decisions.
In the regular season, Allen ranked second in EPA per dropback against the blitz, throwing 16 touchdowns to just one interception. The lone mistake came against the Chiefs in Week 11, when pressure forced a hurried, uneasy throw on fourth down.
That play highlights the importance of winning the handful of plays that make or break the game. Spagnuolo acknowledged that in his press conference on Thursday.
“It is going to come down to the situational football,” Spagnuolo pointed out to reporters. “We need to be better in third down, we need to win in red zone; we played good in red zone last week and that made a big difference.”
In the Divisional round, the Chiefs held the Houston Texans to field goals on two of the three trips inside the 20-yard line. The defense halted three other possessions that advanced into Kansas City territory.
The Bills’ offense will offer a stronger challenge to the Chiefs’ situational defense: Buffalo ended the regular season ranked seventh in third-down conversion rate and second in red-zone touchdown rate.
“They are going to move the football; we recognize that,” Spagnuolo asserted. “We’re not going to stop everything, we’re not going to shut somebody down, we need to slow them down then try to win those situational downs.”
The Bills surrendered sacks on just 4.1% of third-down dropbacks this season, the lowest rate in the NFL. Through two postseason games, Allen only once succumbed to a sack on third down, but it occurred after a long stretch of maneuvering a clean pocket and not finding an open receiver against the Denver Broncos.
Buffalo has weapons to quickly...
