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The Buffalo Bills’ first-half woes against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers was highlighted by one oddity on Sunday.
The game will be remembered for the comeback the Bills (7-6) put together, forcing it to overtime where the Bucs ultimately won, 33-27.
However, the turnaround was required because Buffalo went into the half down 24-3… and in that first half, the Bills weirdly ran the ball a grand total of zero times.
It was the first time since 1991 that a NFL team did that.
With the dust settling, that begged the question: Why?
Buffalo head coach Sean McDermott deferred that answer to offensive coordinator Brian Daboll after the loss. On Monday via video conference, the OC explained it had to do with the game plan.
The Buccaneers (10-3) defense has their holes, but none of them relate to the rushing defense. They entered their meeting with Buffalo as the league’s second-best run defense.
So essentially, why bother?
Well, not exactly that, but instead of rushing the ball right at them, Daboll wanted to try a different approach.
“There’s different ways… you can turn and hand it off and let him run into that line of scrimmage which, you know, they were top-two, if not the best [run defense],” Daboll said. “You try to be creative and find ways to either tire a (defensive) line out or get the ball out to the perimeter, use RPOs, quarterback run game, or quick drop backs or perimeter screen (passes).”
Daboll also added that being aggressive was part of the plan as well… a.k.a. airing it out a bit more.
“That was the mindset going into it,” Daboll said.
As mentioned, McDermott deferred to Daboll. However, he did provide some brief analysis and McDermott did not sound happy with the way things went in the first half.
Clearly Daboll did pretty well in the end considering the offense and their turnaround… but between the lines, McDermott wasn’t the happiest.
“Offensively, overall, I don’t know. Didn’t really find a rhythm in the first half like we did in the second half,” McDermott said via video conference. “I liked adjustments the offensive staff made in the second half. We were mixing it up awfully well in the second half.”
“I’ll just leave it at,” McDermott later added. “I liked what we did in the second half, mixing it up. I thought Coach Daboll did a good job there.”
Moving forward, the Bills do not face the most daunting run defenses, thankfully for Buffalo. Because of that, don’t expect zero handoffs in a half again.
The best run defense down the final stretch lining up against the Bills offense is the New England Patriots, the 19th best in the NFL (114.5 yards per game).
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