Sunday, Jan 23, 2022. 8:47 AM
Don’t miss the game between the Bills and the Chiefs starting at 6:30 p.m. on RDS and RDS Direct.
Avant-match Bills-Chiefs
The Buffalo Bills and the Kansas City Chiefs are two teams carried by exceptional quarterbacks. Who will have the upper hand? Josh Allen or Patrick Mahomes?
In Week 5, the Bills went on to win Kansas City 38-20. Allen had been significantly better than Mahomes with 315 passing yards and three touchdowns at 139.1 passing efficiency. For his part, Mahomes had gained 272 yards, with two touchdowns and two interceptions with an efficiency coefficient of 70.9, which is extremely bad.
At the start of the season, Kansas City had poor ball protection and suffered 17 turnovers in their first seven games, including four in the game against Buffalo alone. Luckily things have changed for them since then. The question now is which quarterback will play better on Sunday. Both teams are transported by the performance of their quarter.
The Bills have never won on the road under coach Sean McDermott. They are 0-3 in the playoffs and one of those losses was in Kansas City last year. This time, Buffalo shouldn’t be intimidated by the noisy stadium because it’s been there before and they’ve won there this year.
The Bills are currently on fire. They have found their offensive line which is playing good football. For the past month, the running game hasn’t rested solely on Allen’s shoulders and the most recent proof is Devin Singletary’s performance against the Patriots. The attack is more complete and healthy. The ground and aerial game works because the receiving group is incredible which stresses the opposing defenses. Also, play action is going very well for the Bills as the Chiefs are one of the worst defenses against this play. . ยป
Against the Bills, you need a lot of cornerbacks. Buffalo is betting that its 3rd, 4th and 5th receivers are better than the opponent’s 3rd, 4th and 5th receivers. It shows great depth. Allen excels on the ground and occasionally makes structured plays on third down. We saw it against the Patriots when games were selected for Allen at very specific times. Last week, the Bills went flawless: no quarterback sacks, no punts and seven touchdowns in seven series. I can already tell that won’t happen in Kansas City this week.
The Chiefs defense is playing better football in the second half of the season. They had a bit of a slump in the last two games, especially against the Bengals, but the club did well afterwards against the Steelers. To put it into perspective, in Week 5 when the Bills went to win at home, we were using Chris Jones, the Chiefs’ super tackler, at the defensive end position, Melvin Ingram was not yet with the club. , Frank Clark the top quarterback rusher was unhealthy, rookie Nick Bolton had less experience, Willie Gay was also unhealthy and Daniel Sorensen was up for safety. All of that doesn’t count anymore because some players have returned to their position, while others have regained their health or joined the team along the way with the result that the defense plays better together. Against the Chiefs early in the season, there was always an enemy wide receiver due to lack of confusion and a lack of cohesion. We don’t see that anymore because the defense is completely transformed.
Since Week 14, Mahomes has completed 17 touchdown passes against two interceptions. The offense is averaging 36.5 points and has suffered just four turnovers. The Chiefs are playing like they can and the Chiefs quarterback is using everyone. Last week, he targeted eight different receivers. Basically, we want to throw the ball, but the ground game complements the attack. The poor start to the season forced the Chiefs to transform and become a more complete formation. They learned from this bad start to the season.
For those who favor the Bills, I invite you to see which quarterbacks Buffalo won against this season. Other than Mahomes who they beat once, the Bills have beaten Mac Jones twice, Tua Tagovailoa twice, Trevor Lawrence, John Siemian, Taylor Heinicke, Cam Newton, Davis Mills, Zach Wilson and Mike White. There are no stars in this band other than Mahomes. That’s why you shouldn’t let the Bills’ defensive stats fool you.
Did the Bills learn?
The Bills will want to avoid reliving the disappointment of 2021. If we remember correctly, the biggest deficiency of the Bills in the conference finals last year is that they could never affect the work of Mahomes in the sense that they could never bother him enough with pressure. Buffalo also took advantage of the last draft to get quarterback hunters like Greg Rousseau and Boogie Basham.
The Bills often arrive at eight players on defense with a rotation to attack the quarterback. If they can’t upset Mahomes this year, the outcome may be the same.
