The Buffalo Bills’ defense didn’t allow a single touchdown or field goal in the last two minutes of regulation in any game in 2021 ... until the divisional playoff loss at Kansas City.
The Bills’ defense allowed the fewest big pass plays in the NFL in 2021, only 31 of 20 yards or more ... yet gave up a 64-yard TD catch-and-run to Tyreek Hill in Kansas City.
The Bills were No. 2 in the NFL at limiting catches by tight ends ... yet gave up eight catches for 96 yards to Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, including the winning 8-yard TD pass in overtime.
When fans look back on the Bills’ defense in 2021, they will remember the bitter end far more than all the good things it accomplished along the way.
The heartbreaking playoff loss overshadows the fact the Bills’ defense ranked No. 1 in the NFL in points and yards allowed. Were the Bills as good as their ranking? Not when it mattered most.
People are also reading…
The Bills were trying not to see it as a total eclipse at season’s end.
“That's something that we can be proud of for the rest of our lives,” said defensive tackle Harrison Phillips of the No. 1 ranking. “I think I said it when the regular season ended, we are part of history. When you go back and look up the 2021 regular season, we'll be the No. 1 defense in the world. So I'm extremely proud of my teammates and the staff that coached us to have that accolade. But again, obviously winning would be more important than that accolade.”
“You’ve got to have a growth mindset about the whole thing and hope that we can get ourselves in the same position again or even better, playing at home in the seasons to come,” Phillips said. “But I think everyone eventually will kind of look at themselves and see what they could have done better, how we could have played as a group better.”
The ability to prevent big-play scores has been a hallmark of Sean McDermott’s team and Leslie Frazier’s defense and a testament to the brilliance of the safety tandem Micah Hyde and Jordan Poyer. The Bills have allowed the fewest passes of both 20-plus and 40-plus yards over the past five seasons. This year’s total of 31 20-plus passes was the lowest yet for a Frazier defense in Buffalo, bettering the total of 34 in 2019.
Yet the Chiefs again were the Bills’ kryptonite. Hill’s long TD came with Levi Wallace in man coverage underneath, and Poyer couldn’t catch Hill despite dropping 27 yards back in two-deep coverage.
“If you guys see a guy like Tyreek Hill out there, let me know,” General Manager Brandon Beane said after the season. “I'd love to have him. That speed. He took off, after we took the lead and were up three. He took that crosser. We were in 2-man and he got past Levi and there were some angles that guys probably thought they had the right angle on it. And he just beat it. You can't coach that.”
Here’s an analytics-based review of some other key trends for the Bills’ defense in 2021:
Easy schedule
The Bills’ defense faced the easiest schedule in the NFL by just about any measure.
Foes combined to gain the fewest yards in the league on a per game average – 326.8. The league average was 343. Tampa Bay faced the second easiest schedule, Tennessee third, Miami fourth and New England fifth.
By points scored, the Bills also faced the easiest schedule. Bills' foes scored 21.14 a game. Atlanta’s defense faced the second easiest at 21.4. Miami was third easiest and New England eighth easiest.
The Bills’ explosive offense aided the defense, and vice versa. The Bills’ offense was fifth in the league in time of possession. That helped the defense face the second-fewest plays in the league.
To its credit, the Bills’ defense dominated its competition better than any other defense in the league.
The Bills held opponents a whopping 54 yards less than their per-game average, by far the best in the league. Second was Cleveland at 38 a game less. Ditto for points. The Bills held foes 4.14 points per game less their average, second only to New England (4.16).
The Bills played five games against backup quarterbacks. Eleven of their 19 games were against teams that ranked in the bottom 12 in yardage.
Better 4-man rush
The Bills had 47 sacks, counting playoffs, and only 13 came on blitzes – rushes of five or more men, according to Buffalo News charting. The Bills had 34 sacks with the four-man rush, the most in Frazier’s tenure. It was a big improvement over 2020, when the Bills had 18 sacks with a four-man rush and 20 on the blitz.
The Bills blitzed only 22.9% of opposing passer dropbacks, the lowest rate of Frazier’s tenure, News charts showed. The Bills rushed five or more men at 31.4% in 2020, 31.6% in 2019, 28.2% in 2018 and 19.2% in 2017.
The quarterbacks the Bills blitzed the most were Jacoby Brissett and Tua Tagovailoa of Miami, Mike White and Zach Wilson of the New York Jets, and Sam Darnold of the Carolina Panthers.
Was the drop in blitzing a philosophical shift? No. While McDermott and Frazier prefer to get pressure with four men in order to prevent big plays, the coaches look at blitzing from a game-plan standpoint, not from a season-long target they’re trying to hit. The improvement of the four-man rush and the fact the Bills played with a big lead in so many of their wins limited the need to blitz as much as last year.
In fact, the Bills played with the lead more than any team in the NFL for a second year in a row.
The Bills’ defense led the league in “Average Lead” at 6.68 points, according to Football Outsiders. That means at the start of each defensive drive for the entire regular season, the Bills were up an average of 6.88 points. Tampa Bay (5.88) was second, followed by Dallas (5.62) and Kansas City (5.60).
Harry came through
The unsung hero of the Bills’ defense arguably was defensive tackle Harrison Phillips, who came back from a torn posterior cruciate ligament (along the back of the knee) on Aug. 21 and thrived the second half of the season. Phillips didn’t play three of the first five games.
But over the last 11 games, counting the two playoff contests, he averaged 40 snaps and 62% of the plays. It was especially big because Star Lotulelei missed five of the last 11 games. Even in the six later-season games Lotulelei played, he averaged only 22 snaps and 37% of the plays. If Phillips hadn’t risen to provide some of the better play of his career, the Bills’ defense would have been in trouble.
Phillips’ contract is up. Look for the Bills to try to bring him back if he’s in their price range. But even if he’s back, pairing him with a bigger, stouter player in the 1-technique position opposite the shoulder of the center would be a big help in freeing up the Bills’ linebackers.
Big man in middle
Maybe more beef in the middle would allow linebacker Tremaine Edmunds to make more tackles for loss. While Poyer and Hyde deservedly get a ton of credit from Bills fans, the linebackers had to be doing something right in helping the Bills’ defense reach all its superlatives. There’s no stat for completions prevented or check-downs forced, something Edmunds’ length provides.
A hamstring injury caused Edmunds to miss the first Jets game and the Colts loss, when he clearly was missed. Not counting those two games, he played 99% of the defensive snaps.
“Tremaine in the middle, he’s probably one of my favorite linebacker prospects coming out of college in a long time,” Jets coach Robert Saleh said before the regular-season finale. “You talk about the prototypical create-a-player on Madden, that’s what you draw a linebacker to look like.”
Matt Milano ranked second among off-the-ball linebackers in the NFL in tackles for loss with 15. Edmunds had seven.
The Bills have the luxury of letting Edmunds play out the fifth year of his rookie contract in 2022 and then using a franchise tag if they want to keep him. From this perspective, Edmunds' length and elite traits would be tough to replace.
Extra points
No. 1 parade: Besides points and yards allowed, the Bills were No. 1 in fewest completions allowed, lowest completion percentage allowed (56.0), fewest yards per attempt (5.7), fewest passing yards (163 a game), fewest TD passes allowed (12), lowest passer rating allowed (65.3) and three-and-out rate (25.8%).
More irony: The Bills’ defense also was best on passes that traveled 20 or more yards beyond the line of scrimmage, allowing just 9 of 43 passing for 251 yards with one TD and five INTs. That does not count the postseason. Last season on passes 20 or more yards deep, the Bills allowed 18 of 36 passing for 633 yards, with five TDs and two INTs. ... In the regular season, the Bills allowed 54 catches to tight ends for 629 yards (sixth fewest), three TDs (tied for third fewest) and the fourth-fewest fantasy points. Why the Bills were playing outside leverage in zone coverage on the last completion to Kelce in regulation we might never know. After watching the Chiefs methodically march down the field, the coaches rolled the dice to try to get a big play and called a blitz. That left Milano in a near-impossible coverage for a linebacker on Kelce.
