Colts Loss Exposes Buffalo’s Biggest Weakness

NFL Week 11 – The Buffalo Bills have now been featured on Any Given Sunday twice in the last three weeks, with their last appearance coming after a loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars. One such loss can be written off as an aberration. Anyone can have a slip-up game against an opponent who seems inferior on paper. Just ask the Baltimore Ravens, Kansas City Chiefs, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Los Angeles Rams, or any of the teams considered contenders in the 2021 season.

Two losses, however, begin to define a trend.

Let’s not completely bury Buffalo before the typical end-of-section evaluation, because this is also about the historic day Jonathan Taylor had on the ground. Taylor has already been dominant this year while facing off against some of the top run defenses in football. He currently leads the league with 356 rushing DYAR, absolutely dominating the category.

Jonathan Taylor is on pace for 550 rushing DYAR for the season. That would be the second most valuable rushing season by DYAR since 1983 trailing only Terrell Davis in 1998.

1998 T.Davis 602
1999 S.Davis 526
1997 T.Davis 526
1995 E.Smith 505
2000 M.Faulk 501#Colts #ForTheShoe

— Aaron Schatz 🏈 (@FO_ASchatz) November 22, 2021

Our Vince Verhei made a case for Taylor’s MVP candidacy in this week’s Quick Reads. This will provide some of the historic context for the day Taylor had, including the fact that he’s only the fourth player in league history with at least 185 yards rushing and five total touchdowns. With Sunday’s game under his belt, Taylor also tied the NFL record of eight straight games with 100 scrimmage yards and a rushing touchdown. And while Taylor has put the team on his back, the run game is often a group effort in conjunction with the offensive line. That team effort resulted in an absolute drubbing of the Buffalo Bills.

The Colts offensive line simply overpowered Buffalo on Sunday. With Tremaine Edmunds and Star Lotulelei absent from the Bills’ front seven, Indianapolis had no problem handling a smaller, rangier Buffalo defense. They did an exceptional job of driving Buffalo’s four-man front off the line of scrimmage, getting to the second level with ease. While that should be nothing new for an offensive line that ranks second in second-level yards and leads the league in open-field yards, it was a point of emphasis on Sunday. Taylor consistently had holes he could have driven a semi truck through, and it showed in his consistent output. Taylor had one run stuffed for no gain and two go for negative yards, meaning 29 of his 32 runs went for positive yards.

Jonathan Taylor generated +10.8 EPA on his 32 carries in the #Colts 41-15 victory, the most by a RB in a game this season.

Taylor gained +47 rushing yards over expected, building on his league-leading +322 RYOE this season (only RB over +200).#INDvsBUF | #ForTheShoe pic.twitter.com/4k6cr4N2Gh

— Next Gen Stats (@NextGenStats) November 21, 2021

The Colts’ most successful plays of the game involved big personnel and pulling blockers. Indianapolis brought in an extra tight end or two to the line of scrimmage to match up nearly one-to-one with the personnel Buffalo brought into the box. Instead of mauling, slow-developing power runs, the Colts ran variants of trap and wham with quick releases. Taylor finished the day averaging just 2.58 seconds behind the line of scrimmage, per Next Gen Stats. That mark was good for eighth-quickest across the league in Week 11, and only two of the backs ahead of Taylor had more than 10 carries on the day. Man-on-man blocking, coupled with a guard or tight end pulling backside to pick up the trash, meant Taylor often had a one-on-one with a linebacker or defensive back in the second level. Considering Taylor leads the NFL in yards after contact, that seems like a matchup Taylor wins most of the time.

On the defensive side of things, Indianapolis had a very similar game plan to that of Jacksonville. The Colts presented a lot of two-high looks to Josh Allen. This took away the Bills’ typical over-the-top deep shots, instead forcing Allen to hold the ball, make reads, and find holes in the coverage. Indianapolis added an extra wrinkle, often presenting one look pre-snap then rolling into another post-snap. The Colts were able to make Allen uncomfortable while only rushing three, meaning they could drop their linebackers into coverage as well.

Allen’s first interception on the day was indicative of just that strategy. The whole first drive of the game, Indianapolis was able to get penetration just rushing three or four down linemen. Allen adjusted as best as he could, often settling for checkdowns to keep moving downfield. On the interception, the Colts defense rolls five up to the line of scrimmage with another linebacker 3 yards off. Three Colts rush the passer while three linebackers drop back. Allen, who has more time than he thinks he does, quickly works through his progressions and forces a ball to a tightly covered Gabriel Davis. George Odum, sitting back in zone, reacts quickly enough to undercut an already underthrown pass and picks Allen off.

Also, I’m not sure whether to credit a Colts defense that ranks second in rushing DVOA or chide a Bills offense that ranks 18th in rushing DVOA, but Buffalo couldn’t get anything going on the ground. In a week where every other game seemed to be plagued by precipitation, Buffalo was particularly rainy. While Taylor and the Colts ran the ball down Buffalo’s throats, the Bills run game failed to see any production. Matt Breida performed the best of the bunch, and more than half his 51 yards came on one 28-yard carry. Devin Singletary mustered three carries for 17 yards, while Zack Moss posted an additional three carries for just 5 yards.

Where the Game Swung

First off, let’s just take time to appreciate the fact that Jonathan Taylor wasn’t the only Colts player with success on the ground. Carson Wentz’s Matrix-style slow-mo duck out of a sack pivoted perfectly into an 18-yard scramble. The Colts receivers’ crossing routes cleared out the middle of the field, allowing Wentz to run for a first down on third-and-long.

This one was over before the fourth quarter even started, so there isn’t much to glean from the win probability. Buffalo’s costly kickoff cough-up all but buried the Bills. Buffalo had just held Indianapolis to a field goal after Wentz’s scramble (a feat they would muster just two more times before the Colts starters exited the game). They were getting the ball down 17-7 with about two minutes to go in the second quarter, plenty of time to cut the margin to one score at halftime. However, McKenzie fumbles and Carrie recovers and takes it all the way back to the 2-yard-line. One Jonathan Taylor leap later, the Bills go down 24-7.

By the DVOA

The Colts offense has ascended our DVOA rankings, with this performance leaving them second in rushing offense and eighth in total offense. Buffalo’s offense, on the other hand, is doing a fun interpretation of the Michael Scott “snip-snap” GIF: down to 19th overall after Jacksonville, up to 14th after their blowout against the Jets, then back down to 18th after this week. The Bills defense, still clinging onto the title of league-best in DVOA, has slipped from third-best against the run all the way down to 11th. This is only Buffalo’s second game this season where they have posted a positive DVOA against the run, positive being worse for defense. Here are their weekly logs for rushing defense:

While Buffalo has stymied the likes of Antonio Gibson, Myles Gaskin, Mark Ingram, Darrel Williams, Najee Harris (in his NFL debut), and Carlos Hyde, the Bills have been run over by Derrick Henry and Taylor. In a now-contentious AFC East, the Bills still have two matchups against a run-heavy, big-personnel New England Patriots team.

Circling the Wagons 2: Broken Axle

The Buffalo Bills offense is currently suffering from the same ailment Kansas City’s offense suffered from earlier this season (and is still somewhat suffering from, to a degree). This is, after all, an offense somewhat modeled in the Chiefs’ image: a quarterback with a cannon, equipped with speedy receivers who are a nightmare to cover in man. The result is a high-flying offense that, when operating at its peak, can score at will from practically anywhere on the field. Teams have responded in the same way: two-safety coverages with multiple looks, slowing the passing game down and forcing more precision passing. Buffalo started the season off scoring 30-plus points in five of their first six games. Since their Week 7 bye, however, the Bills offense accomplished that feat just once in four games, going 2-2 in the process.

The Chiefs had their tune-up game against Las Vegas, where Gus Bradley is bucking the rest of the NFL by almost exclusively running Cover-3. Buffalo’s get-right game came in a dominant performance against the New York Jets, who couldn’t have done much to stop this offense on their best day. Instead of building off that momentum, the Bills are right back to where they were a few weeks ago. Josh Allen had his second two-interception game in three weeks and posted his fourth-lowest completion percentage of the season. Further, Buffalo doesn’t have a passing attack built to overcome a more physical pass coverage. The Bills’ top three receivers—Stefon Diggs, Emmanuel Sanders, and Cole Beasley—have contested catch rates of 36.8%, 30.0%, and 11.8% respectively, per Player Profiler. Outside of the occasional Dawson Knox ball over the middle, there isn’t really anyone Allen can throw to that can get up and get one. Take away the over-the-top speed, and you take away a major aspect of this Bills’ passing attack.

The Bills defense is still faring well, sitting atop the league in total DVOA, but their ability to match up against larger-bodied rushing attacks is an issue. As stated earlier, this is going to be a major problem against the New England Patriots, whom the Bills will see twice in a four-week span (one such matchup comes after a Patriots bye). New England zagged when the rest of the league zigged. When everyone else got smaller, New England beefed up. Their size on the offensive line is almost comical, boasting the likes of 380-pound Trent Brown and 350-pound Michael Onwenu. They have the personnel to run two-tight end sets and overpower most front sevens at the line of scrimmage. While Damien Harris and Rhamondre Stevenson aren’t exactly Derrick Henry and Jonathan Taylor, the Patriots now boast the eighth-best rushing offense in the league in terms of DVOA and look very similar to the units Buffalo has struggled against this year. Even worse, the loss this weekend means that the Patriots leap-frogged the Bills in division standings.

Buffalo has a tough road ahead of them. Their future schedule ranks 11th in difficulty in our database. In a wide-open AFC, the Bills had a chance to separate themselves as a contender, then lost two of three games against beatable opponents. This loss alone has dropped Buffalo’s chances of making the playoffs by a whopping 22.3%, down to 73.5%. That’s a shift from near-certainty to still strong, but with some slight worry. This is a team that still boasts a talented defense and a high-upside offense that still hasn’t fully clicked this year. The odds are still in their favor, but their road to a Super Bowl—the benchmark expectation headed into the season—is looking more and more difficult as the weeks go on.