Buffalo Bills have formula to be a juggernaut to rival the Chiefs

The Bills offense will be extremely hard to stop.

The Buffalo Bills maintained their grip on the AFC East on Monday Night Football with a 34-24 victory over the San Francisco 49ers that owed much to the remarkable play of quarterback Josh Allen and the overall aggressiveness of an offense that appears capable of keeping pace with any team in the NFL.

Allen produced one of his best displays of an excellent third season in the league, completing 80 percent of his passes for 375 yards, four touchdowns and no interceptions.

It was a performance in which he continually frustrated a 49ers defense desperately missing edge rusher Nick Bosa with his ability to escape the pocket and make pinpoint throws on the run.

The Bills were able to sustain drives through success on early downs, consistently putting themselves in short-yardage situations, giving Buffalo the confidence to eschew punts and further dishearten the Niner defense by attempting several fourth-down conversions in a showing that should have worried potential opposing defenses in the AFC playoffs.

Early-down efficiency

Per data collected by Ben Baldwin of The Athletic, the Bills averaged 0.29 Expected Points Added per play on first and second down against the Niners.

Their success rate, which measures the proportion of plays that contributed positive EPA, on early downs was 64 percent, with 42 percent of those plays resulting in a first down.

The efficiency on early downs was built on a reliance on Allen’s incredible gifts. Forty-one of their 59 plays on first and second down were pass plays, which had an EPA per play of 0.64 and a success rate of 73 percent. Fifty-four percent of those plays resulted in a new set of downs.

Buffalo’s success in that regard is reflective of what the Bills have produced throughout 2020.

The Bills perform well in Sharp Football Stats’ Successful Play Rate metric, which determines a successful play as one that gains 40% of the required yardage on first down, 60% on second down and 100% on third and fourth down.

Sean McDermott’s team rank third in Successful Play Rate when throwing the ball on first and second down.

And when they were not able to move the sticks on early downs against the Niners, they displayed a fearlessness on late downs that will be required if they are to compete with the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC.

Ruthless aggression

Buffalo went for it on fourth down on three occasions in the win over the 49ers. They failed with their first effort as the Niners made a red-zone stand but were twice successful thereafter, with both of those drives on which they converted ending in touchdowns.

The first conversion in the second quarter set up Dawson Knox’s go-ahead score, while the second in the fourth quarter – a seven-yard pass to Stefon Diggs – thwarted the 49ers’ efforts to keep it a two-score game, with a 28-yard connection to Gabriel Davis making it a three-score game soon after.

Per Baldwin, win probability recommended the Bills go for it in each of those situations, and their willingness to do so is in line with a clear change in thinking that took place when they landed their franchise quarterback.

In 2017, the first year of McDermott’s tenure, the Bills were one of the most conservative teams in the NFL when it came to going for it in situations where they were forecast to gain at least 1.5 percentage points in win probability.

However, after the Bills drafted Allen in 2018, they became significantly more aggressive, attempting fourth-down conversions in those situations around 70 percent of the time, per Baldwin. And the drop-off in their ambition in that area over the subsequent two seasons has been minimal.

The Bills’ confidence in their ability to move the ball on fourth down should not be surprising given they have a quarterback who is playing the best football of his still-young career.

Allen outperforming expectations

Aided by an offensive coordinator in Brian Daboll who is likely to get plenty of attention from teams looking for a head coach during this hiring cycle, Allen has made a year-three leap few anticipated.

There have been some dips in his play, but his performance against the 49ers was one of a quarterback whose physical abilities are being expertly harnessed by his coaching staff.

He led the league with a completion percentage above expectation of 10.9 in Week 13, per the NFL’s NextGen Stats, and is third among all quarterbacks in that metric for the season behind Kirk Cousins and Russell Wilson.

Allen is fourth in EPA per play and fifth in Football Outsiders‘ Defense-adjusted Yards Above Replacement (DYAR).

The Bills’ offseason trade for one of the best all-round receivers in football in Stefon Diggs has paid huge dividends, the former Minnesota Viking recording his third successive 1,000-yard season, while the efficient play of slot receiver Cole Beasley is reflected by him being ranked seventh among all receivers in DYAR and fifth in Defense-adjusted Value Over Average (DVOA).

Buffalo has a quarterback with the tools to be a true dual-threat and make all the throws at every level, a gifted play-caller, and a deep cast of pass-catching options. The result of that combination is an offense that is hugely successful on early downs and has little hesitation in going for it on fourth down.

In other words, the Bills’ offense has the formula to be a juggernaut, which is what San Francisco ran into on Monday night. The teams that collide with them in the playoffs will have to devise something special to stop an attack perfectly set up to contend in 2020.