Arrowhead Pride
Following their third consecutive win — a 28-7 defeat of the Washington Commanders — the Kansas City Chiefs are taking their 5-3 record back on the road to face the Buffalo Bills in a critical AFC West showdown.
Here’s what I’ll be wondering as the Week 9 matchup gets underway.
The Bills’ biggest weakness is stopping the run. They rank 28th in defensive expected points added against the run and 24th in success rate. They’re also 31st in yards per carry at 5.5 yards allowed — and week after week, they’ve been giving up explosive runs.
Many of their issues stem from undersized personnel at all three levels of their defense.
Buffalo’s defensive tackles are penetrators, rather than big men who can hold gaps. When healthy, DaQuan Jones (who is out for Sunday’s game) and Ed Oliver prefer getting into the backfield to make tackles for loss — but when they fail, they leave a vacant space. Even the Bills’ massive rookie Deone Walker prefers getting upfield to holding the point. When offensive blockers get their hands on these defenders, they can be moved.
At the second level, linebackers Terrell Bernard, Dorian Williams, Matt Milano and Shaq Thompson (also out in Week 9) are coverage players who struggle to navigate through traffic.
Behind them, Buffalo’s safeties are also small players with poor tackling ability. Running backs can run through them — and their pursuit angles are often terrible.
So it’s easy to see why it’s easy to break big runs against the Bills.
Unfortunately for Kansas City, that isn’t how its running game is constructed. While it is efficient, it is not explosive. Even worse, Isiah Pacheco —who is theoretically the team’s most explosive running back — is also out. So backup Kareem Hunt will be the main rusher. He’s good for three or four yards on any short-yardage play, but rarely gets beyond that.
So who will get the upper hand? The Chiefs’ running game should be efficient, but will it produce explosive plays? Even if Hunt finds space, he probably won’t get beyond 15 or 20 yards — but that’s still a strong run. If Kansas City can get two or three of those against Buffalo, it could go a long way.
On the other side of the ball, Kansas City’s linebackers are much better against the run than the Bills’ linebackers — but the Chiefs also have small defensive tackles who can be moved. Derrick Nnadi isn’t a very stout nose tackle, while Jerry Tillery has never been known for his run defense.
In recent years, this has been an issue for Kansas City against Buffalo, which has an offensive line full of big maulers. The Bills are comfortable running double teams at any defensive tackle and getting real movement — and in previous matchups, that’s one way they’ve hurt the Chiefs.
A great rushing...
