There was a big disparity at defensive tackle between the Buffalo Bills and Kansas City Chiefs Monday night.
Chiefs Pro Bowler Chris Jones was a demolition crew from the 3-technique position, opposite a guard. The Bills’ top 3-technique defensive tackle, Ed Oliver, struggled mightily. Oliver had just one good run stuff and one hurry in the game.
It was a hard assignment for the Bills’ defensive tackles, because the Chiefs ran against “light,” six-man boxes much of the night, as the Bills tried (and succeeded) to limit big passing plays. The Chiefs used a lot of “duo” blocks, double-teaming both defensive tackles.
Making it even harder for Oliver was the fact he saw roughly half of his snaps at the 1-technique position over a shoulder of the center (the Star Lotulelei spot). Oliver never is going to be a great fit there. So it's an outing with an asterisk for Oliver. But whether it was Oliver, Quinton Jefferson, Justin Zimmer or Vernon Butler, the Bills' interior linemen got pushed back too often.
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Comparing Olvier to Jones isn’t completely fair at this point. Jones is a fifth-year veteran. Oliver has six sacks in 22 NFL games. Jones had 5.5 sacks his first 22 games. Still, Jones was far superior in the Chiefs’ 26-17 win.
Here’s a position-by-position grading of the Bills, based on video review and on a scale of 0 to 5:
Defensive line (1.5): By sitting down Harrison Phillips and Trent Murphy, the Bills opted to go with more potential pass rush in the front four, which made sense because they knew they weren’t going to blitz Patrick Mahomes.
In fact, defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier blitzed (rushed five or more) on just one of Mahomes’ 33 dropbacks, according to Buffalo News charts. That’s the fewest in a game The News has charted for the Bills, going back to 2006. There was a run blitz by Taron Johnson on the 13-yard TD run by Darrel Williams.
Mario Addison beat Eric Fisher with a spin move for a sack, but Addison didn’t make one splash play vs. the run. Jerry Hughes didn’t set the edge on the 31-yard run early. Hughes had three hurries. The defensive tackles didn’t penetrate enough. Butler arguably was the stoutest of the bunch, with four good run stops. Zimmer had a hurry and forced a 3-yard loss but got pushed way out of the play several times.
Offensive line (1.5): The Chiefs’ Jones ate up guard Brian Winters, getting three hurries against him. Jones also got a QB hit against Cody Ford and a hurry against Ike Boettger. Jones had four run stuffs, including the third-and-1 play in the third quarter, on which he got past Ford. Winters missed a cut block on Derrick Nnadi that hurt a run play. Center Mitch Morse was OK but not as good as the past two weeks. He missed a cut block on Damien Wilson on a Zack Moss stuff. But Morse had good blocks on five run plays that gained 4 or more yards. Dion Dawkins had a good game blocking fine edge rusher Frank Clark.
Linebackers (2.0): The linebackers were playing deeper to help the zone coverage. Tremaine Edmunds flowed with the misdirection motion on the 31-yard run early and again on the 13-yard TD run. You can’t blame Edmunds on the first TD pass to Kelce. It was zone coverage, Mahomes made a superb adjustment in the pocket, and no linebacker in the league stops that pass in that coverage. There was one linebacker dog, when A.J. Klein rushed as part of a four-man pressure. That was it. You have to believe if Matt Milano was healthy, the Bills would have sent him on more dogs than Klein, who also simply is not as quick chasing down ball carriers as Milano.
Defensive backs (3.0): Keeping the safeties deep allowed the Bills to hold Mahomes to 225 yards passing and Tyreek Hill to just 20 yards receiving. The Bills even played dime personnel (six DBs) on eight snaps, the most in any game under Sean McDermott. One of them was the 37-yard pass on third-and-12 in the fourth quarter. Not sure what scheme would have stopped that play, other than better pressure on the QB. It’s hard to blame Jordan Poyer for Kelce’s second TD, the 12-yard corner route late in the first half. It was the perfect route against Cover 2. Score another one for Andy Reid.
Quarterback (1.5): The margin of error is thin against the talented Chiefs. So the Bills could not afford four key inaccurate passes by Josh Allen that foiled three possessions. Chiefs defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo was aggressive. He blitzed on 15 of 31 dropbacks, the highest rate (.484) of any Bills opponent yet. It didn’t kill the offense. There were no sacks. But Allen missed two open receivers on third-down blitz plays in the first half. Overall, Allen was 7 of 14 for 62 yards and a TD vs. the blitz. There also was a 24-yard defensive penalty on a blitz. On the plus side, Allen’s 4-yard TD pass to Stefon Diggs was pinpoint, and he made a savvy step-up in the pocket in the fourth quarter to hit Cole Beasley for 22 yards, leading to the last TD.
Running backs (2.0): Devin Singletary needs better blocking. The Bills did find some running room on the edges early. Maybe if they had converted a few more third downs they could have run more. Meanwhile, Singletary had four quality blitz pickups. Zack Moss had five touches in 13 snaps.
Receivers (3.0): The issues in the trenches, along with the fact the Bills ran only 50 plays, limited the impact the wideouts made.
Special teams (3.5): Punter Corey Bojorquez continues to be a bright spot. He had a fantastic, 52.8-yard net on four punts, including hang times of 4.75 and 4.65 seconds on two full-field punts. The Bills got good coverage on two kickoff returns that pinned the Chiefs deep. Tyler Bass made a 48-yard field goal, but the Bills needed that 52-yarder at the end of the half.
