Jason Kelce’s sihrtless, beer-soaked celebration following brother Travis’s touchdown against the Bills was an all-time athletic moment.
Future Hall of Fame center Jason Kelce has a lot of free time since his Philadelphia Eagles were bounced out of the postseason in the wild-card round, so what better way to fill the time than going up to Orchard Park, New York and watching his brother Travis play tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs? Travis was dealing with the Buffalo Bills’ defense at Highmark Stadium, and he scored a 22-yard touchdown with 3:33 left in the first half.
Jason Kelce went nuts at that point… not that he hadn’t been involved in a little pre-funk. Because when you can shoot beer out of a bowling ball at a Bills tailgate, that’s a must.
The Buffalo Bills’ defensive fronts have improved drastically this season. How can Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs solve it all on Sunday?
The Buffalo Bills’ defensive line has been dominant through the first five weeks of the 2022 season. With their offseason additions of Von Miller and DaQuan Jones, they set the tone early by opening up against the Los Angeles Rams and getting to Matthew Stafford seven times.
This defense has accumulated 13 sacks in the month of September, and they are on pace to double that number by the end of October. This is a big difference from this time last year — in 2021, the Bills were averaging 2.5 sacks per game, but this year, they are averaging 3.2.
These numbers last year were from blitzing at a 26.0% rate (according to Pro Football Reference), this year they are averaging at 13.5%. The Bills are getting more sacks, and blitzing less.
To put it simply, the Bills have a much more dominant front four. Last year, they were taking away players from their secondary to pressure the quarterback.
Let’s dive into the film to diagnose how this Bills defense has improved and increased their production from last year to this year, especially as this defense prepares to face Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday.
In 2022, Patrick Mahomes has learned to beat the coverages that used to upend him. The Bills will have to be on point to manage that.
Coming into the 2022 NFL season, Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes had two problems to solve. The first was the mastodon in the room: How would Mahomes, head coach Andy Reid, and offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy create explosive plays in the passing game without Tyreek Hill, who had been traded to the Dolphins?
The second, and perhaps more important question: How could Mahomes, Reid, and Bieniemy transcend Mahomes’ issues against two-deep coverage? Those issues were discussed ad nauseam during and after the 2021 season, but for good reason. Last season, including the playoffs, Mahomes faced two-deep coverage (Cover-2, 2-Man, Cover-4, and Cover-6) on a league-high 389 dropbacks, completing 215 of 332 passes for 2,532 yards, 1,401 air yards, nine touchdowns, nine interceptions, and a passer rating of 85.6, which ranked 10th in the league.
This problem reared its head especially clearly in Kansas City’s 27-24 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals in the AFC Championship game. The Bengals famously dropped seven and eight defenders into coverage over and over, especially in the second half, and Mahomes was lost against it — in that game against two-deep coverage, he completed 11 of 17 passes for 90 yards, 41 air yards, no touchdowns, one interception, and a passer rating of 53.6.
With Hill out of the picture and every defense prepping to stop Mahomes with the one thing that could consistently stop him, you’d imagine that Mahomes would see an equal amount of those coverages, and that he’d be similarly flummoxed by them.
Interestingly enough, neither has proven to be true. Mahomes has faced two-deep coverage on just 57 snaps this season, 17th-most in the NFL. And he’s ripped it to shreds in a relative sense. Mahomes has completed 34 of 50 passes for 425 yards, 260 air yards, two touchdowns, no interceptions, and a passer rating of 107.5 — third-best in the league, behind Geno Smith of the Seahawks, and Jalen Hurts of the Eagles.
This Sunday, Mahomes and the Chiefs will face the Buffalo Bills, who are eager for revenge after last year’s divisional round loss, which was one of the more insane football games in recent memory.
This season, the Bills are tied with… the Chiefs in playing the most snaps of Cover-2 with 105 opponent attempts, and in those coverages, Buffalo has allowed 65 completions for 550 yards, one touchdown, three interceptions, and an opponent passer rating of 66.8.
So, a great test for Mahomes, and his ability to beat what once has been his Kryptonite. How has Mahomes learned to get past it so far and so well this season?
(All metrics courtesy of Sports Info Solutions unless otherwise indicated).
Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce was the engineer of his team’s frantic 13-second drive to beat the Bills in the divisional round.
With 13 seconds left in regulation of the Chiefs-Bills divisional playoff game on Sunday, Buffalo quarterback Josh Allen hit receiver Gabriel Davis with a 19-yard touchdown pass. That was supposed to be the last salvo in a crazy two-minute drill for both teams that saw lead change after the lead change, but after Davis’ fourth touchdown of the game — a pro football postseason record — the Bills were supposed to have won this one.
We all know what happened next.
The Bills kicked off with a standard kick into the end zone as opposed to the squib kick that would have taken some of that 13 seconds off the clock, and Patrick Mahomes had all of those 13 seconds to come up with field goal position to make it a 36-36 tie, and send the thing into overtime.
One 19-yard pass to Tyreek Hill and one 25-yard pass to Travis Kelce later, the Chiefs had moved from their own 25-yard line to the Buffalo 31, which allowed Harrison Butker to boot the game-tying 49-yard field goal. The Chiefs bombarded the Bills defense in overtime to win the game and advance to their fourth straight AFC Championship game, but let’s go back to the drive that tied the game.
Mahomes, head coach Andy Reid, and offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy were all involved in the process, but as NFL Films shows us with its usual brilliance, it was Kelce who kept things straight on the two passes that put Butker in position to succeed.
First, he told Hill that the Bills were probably going to play man coverage on the first play, so Hill should go outside and come back in so that Kelce could “get in the way” to create room. Then, Kelce told Mahomes that the seam would be open on his catch, which it very much was.
It was an amazing demonstration of defensive awareness, and everything Kelce advised came true.
“It is a pretty common defense in a situation like that,” Kelce said after the game. “The defense will try and take away the sideline throws to give you more of the seams and the middle of the field open. That and they are soft so you can get a head start. I just told him right before they called a timeout right before we ran out there to run the play. I told him I am probably not going to run the route that is called. I am just going to run to the open area. Midway through his cadence, he was screaming at me at the line of scrimmage, ‘Do it’. ‘Do it. Do it.’ I was just like, alright — here we go, boys. It was just a little backyard football with a couple of seconds left that gave us an opportunity to take the game into overtime.”
Mahomes was most appreciative after the video came out.
Kansas City Chiefs (4-1) vs Buffalo Bills (4-1) Game Preview
For latest lines and to bet on the NFL, go to BetMGM
Why Kansas City Chiefs Will Win
What kind of shape is Buffalo in after being rolled over by Tennessee in a strange Tuesday night game? The Bills continue to have turnover problems – giving it up three times and eight times on the season – and the running game just can’t get going.
The Bills have failed to hit the 100-yard mark three times and have yet to roll for over 112 yards. The bigger problem, though, is a secondary that’s getting hammered for big yards, timely throws, and is among the worst in the NFL at converting on third downs. However …
As bad as Buffalo was against the Titans, it still connected on its third down chances because it always connecting on its third down chances. The Bills lead the NFL on third downs, and even though KC can strike quickly, keeping Patrick Mahomes and company off the field is everything.
Derrick Henry came up with the highlight of the NFL season when he tossed Josh Norman aside, but the run defense hasn’t been all that bad. What’s been KC’s problem lately? The running game can’t get going – it hasn’t hit 100 yards in the last two games.
WR Mecole Hardman, Kansas City
With Sammy Watkins out for a few weeks, here come the uptick in targets for Hardman. He has only been targeted six times in three career games, and in those games he managed 220 receiving yards and two TDs. This is his turn to be a part of the Patrick Mahomes big play rotation.
What’s Going To Happen
Which team gets over its bad outing faster? At home, Josh Allen improves on his bad Tuesday night with a huge game against a mediocre Chief secondary that’s giving up way too many big yards, the Bill run D will be great, and the team will get back on track in a thriller.
Kansas City Chiefs vs Buffalo Bills Prediction, Line
Could the Kansas City Chiefs, Buffalo Bills Week 6 game move back to Thursday Night Football?
The Kansas City Chiefs and Buffalo Bills had their Week 6 meeting on Thursday Night Football moved back to some time the ensuing weekend by the NFL due to COVID-19 concerns in the league causing scheduling changes.
In Week 5, the Bills were scheduled to visit the Tennessee Titans on Sunday, but due to the Titans’ outbreak of COVID-19 in their clubhouse, the game was pushed back to Tuesday. That move caused Chiefs-Bills to be pushed back from Thursday.
However, all those moves were tentatively announced and there’s an important piece of the original report to reflect upon with the latest Titans news. Sunday saw the Titans report a new positive COVID-19 pop up in one of their staff members. The NFL has yet to announce what will happen to Tuesday’s Titans-Bills game just yet, but if it is canceled, it was originally reported that if the game is axed off the schedule, the Chiefs could once again be playing in Buffalo on Thursday Night Football.
Stay tuned to Chiefs Wire for the latest updates on Week 6’s Chiefs-Bills contest.
