How the D can lead a playoff win over Allen’s Bills
Ahead of a playoff rubber match, the obvious bears repeating.
The Patriots and Bills have done more than play each other twice this season. They’ve faced off twice a year for decades. They are very familiar.
Under their current coaching staffs, the Pats and Bills have met 10 times, with Bill Belichick’s bunch edging Sean McDermott’s crew 7-3. Though lately, Buffalo has seized the upper hand, winning three of the last four. The primary reason? Josh Allen.
“Josh is one of the best players in the league, dynamic player,” Belichick said this week. “The ball is in his hands a lot. He can do a lot of things with it, make all the throws at all levels of the field, obviously run with the ball, scramble, extend plays, and throw it. … He’s a tough guy to stop.”
Allen’s play — and therefore the Bills offense — elevated as soon as his decision-making improved and his accuracy sharpened over the 2019 and 2020 seasons. The two most critical skills for quarterbacking were the last steps to unlocking one of the best players in the league. A top-10 pick, Allen always had the raw, physical tools to win.
Now, those are luxuries, given how he can bowl over defenders or speed by them as a scrambler to break defenses who have blanketed his receivers. Allen’s scrambling ability gouged the Patriots, who threw a ton of man-to-man at him in their last meeting after opening in soft zone. Allen had no trouble with either. So what’s left?
Here’s how the Pats can make life harder on Allen and the Bills in Buffalo.
1. Pressure more on early downs
According to Pro Football Focus, Allen owns a lower completion percentage, yards per attempt average and scramble rate against the blitz. Extra rushers are far from a cure against Allen, but it’s time for the Pats to gamble.
They’ve managed only 10 tackles for loss since their bye week, including three versus Jacksonville. If they can’t penetrate the line of scrimmage, Allen will live comfortably in the pocket and pick them apart. He was blitzed at the 10th-highest rate in the NFL this season among starters, evidence opponents believed they could succeed against him by rushing five or more.
Though the best did it selectively. Allen’s worst performances — versus Pittsburgh, Atlanta and Indianapolis — came against defenses that blitzed him barely on 20% of his dropbacks. They timed their blitzes perfectly to maximize a defensive profit, and for a Patriots defense with an injured secondary, that means early downs to eventually force him into thirdand-longs; either by blitz or “simulated pressures” that rush four players, including one unexpectedly from the second or third level of the defense.
2. Shadow Diggs with Jackson
It’s time to give J.C. Jackson what he wants: another round in the ring with the Bills’ No. 1 wide receiver.
“This is exactly what he wants. He wouldn’t have it any other way,” Pats safety Adrian Phillips said Thursday afternoon. “Whoever the top receiver in the league is, he wants to guard that person. When he has a chance to go out there and go against (Stefon) Diggs, he’s locked in. He don’t want it any other way.”
Jackson lost their last meeting, a 33-21 Bills win in December. Diggs caught four passes against him, most of them costly. Diggs scored a touchdown, converted on third-and-10 during Buffalo’s final touchdown drive and made a fourth-down conversion. If Jalen Mills had practiced and/or was definitively available, it might be wise to double Diggs with him and a safety.
But since the drop-off from Jackson to the Pats’ next available corner is so significant, he needs to lock down Buffalo’s go-to threat and let the rest of his teammates try their luck with receivers No. 2 through 4.
3. Corral Allen on third downs
If the Patriots lose a close game tonight, Allen’s mobility will be why. The Bills are hard enough to defend on designed plays, between the quarterback’s rocket arm, their top-10 receiving corps, tight end Dawson Knox and a stable offensive line. But Allen can still win when things go wrong, either by scrambling or extending plays outside the pocket to deliver.
Edge rushers cannot fly behind Allen where they’re nullified, as they were in December and on a couple Tua Tagovailoa scrambles last weekend at Miami. Interior rushers must calmly push the pocket to deny Allen scrambling lanes through the A or B gaps. This is the ultimate game within the game.
“It’s rushing, but pass rushing with discipline and awareness. If you miss him and he gets loose, that’s going to be a big problem,” Belichick said. “You just can’t stand there and watch him throw. That’s not the answer. … We’ll have to try to balance aggressive rush with vision and an element of containment on him.”