Even though Buffalo Bills players won’t say it, Sunday’s victory over the Chiefs was a big one. Not only because they were able to exorcise some postseason demons by getting a crucial defensive stop late in the game, but because the Bills now have sole possession of first place in the AFC after arguably the most difficult stretch of their schedule.
While we take stock of the win and what the performance on the field means for the rest of the season, we’ll dive into another edition of Studs and Duds.
As a reminder, this column looks simply at the performance in the most recent week, identifying who stepped up and who struggled and what those performances might mean for the Buffalo Bills going forward. Some heroes will just have one-off great games while some struggles could signal major issues, so we’ll make sense of that together here.
Duds
Let’s get the bad news out of the way first.
Red Zone Efficiency
Buffalo entered the day 20th in the NFL in red zone percentage at 55.6%. Kansas City came into the game with the 31st-ranked red zone defense, giving up TDs 81.3% of the time. Yet, the Bills settled for one field goal on their first three trips to the red zone before scoring touchdowns on both drives in the second half.
That means the Bills ended the week tied for 18th in the NFL with a 54.5% red zone touchdown conversion rate. Last year they were the best in the NFL with a 66.3% rate. Something clearly has to give here.
The initial reaction is simply that first-year offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey has gotten a bit too cute with his playcalling in the red zone. Too often he has abandoned the running game altogether, even when Devin Singletary was gaining chunk yards at will in the first half. He’s also kept Allen in the pocket too often, limiting the use of his mobility, or called gadget plays that simply take the ball out of Allen’s hand.
It’s part of the nature of new coaches to want to prove their worth, so it’s possible that Dorsey is simply trying to do too much. In the second half, the Bills converted on both chances from the edge of the red zone, so Josh Allen was able to hit deeper passes. Dorsey will still need to prove that he can dial up the right call when the team gets in close.
Isaiah McKenzie
McKenzie missed last week’s game while recovering from a concussion he suffered in the Miami game, so it’s tough to have him on the Duds list here, but he certainly looked out of sorts in his first game back.
He dropped a lateral from Josh Allen on the first drive and then was unable to secure it even though it was between his feet. He then tripped over his own feet in the end zone on a 4th-down play that would have been a touchdown and then dropped another pass at the end of the first half.
For the game, he finished with just two catches for nine yards on five targets.
Now, I don’t think McKenzie needs to be banished. He has proven that he can be a dynamic player in the open field and on gadget plays. He has come up big for Buffalo in the past; however, the concern for him is how many chances he’ll get to remain the primary slot receiver if rookie Khalil Shakir keeps playing well.
Shakir has had very few chances so far, so we don’t want to immediately label him the better option, but he is working into a bigger role after being a healthy inactive the first few games of the year. According to Next Gen Stats, McKenzie ran 23 routes on Sunday to Shakir’s eight. McKenzie played 37 snaps to Shakir’s 15, and McKenzie saw five targets to Shakir’s two, but Shakir still finished with more yards with 14 on his one catch.
It’s certainly a battle to watch as the season goes on.
Studs
Now for the good news.
Josh Allen
What a surprise, starting with Josh Allen again. But how can you not? He continues to show up in big games and has delivered against the Chiefs time and time again.
Josh Allen's last 3 game against the Chiefs:
– 315 yards, 3 TD, 0 INT
– 329 yards, 4 TD, 0 INT
– 329 yards, 3 TD, 0 INTHe joins Drew Brees as the only players in NFL history with 300+ passing yards, 3+ TD, 0 INT in 3 straight games against a single opponent, per @EliasSports.
— Field Yates (@FieldYates) October 17, 2022
He continues to put this offense on his back, even hurdling defenders to pick up extra yards and a first down.
However, what’s even more impressive is the way that he adapts in the middle of the game. The Chiefs were sending pressure with extra rushers, and it was getting to Allen early in the first half. He was double-clutching and seemed frazzled. But he adjusted. Starting with the final drive before the end of the first half, Allen went on a stretch where he completed 13 straight passes and led two straight touchdown drives. He didn’t throw any incompletions until the 4th quarter.
Stretches like that make it seem as though Allen is a player who is impossible to keep down.
Von Miller
This is what Buffalo paid Von Miller for. After Allen led a go-ahead drive, Patrick Mahomes got the ball with 1:04 left, and many fans were thinking, “It’s too much time.” But unlike the playoff loss, the Bills now had Von Miller on defense, and he was tasked with doing one thing: as Stefon Diggs put it, “finish it.”
Finish it he did. Von Miller collapsed the pocket on Mahomes, forcing him to roll out into pressure from Matt Milano. It forced a back-foot pass that Taron Johnson was able to step in front of for the game-sealing interception.
On the day, Miller had two sacks but also played 78% of the snaps, which is almost double his usual rate. The Bills love to rotate their linemen to keep everybody fresh, but in a game as big as this, they knew they couldn’t keep Miller off of the field and it paid off. The veteran was a thorn in the side of the Chiefs all afternoon and was a clear catalyst in the Buffalo win.
Dawson Knox
Knox finished with three catches for 37 yards and the game-winning touchdown, but his presence on this list is about more than that. In addition to the physical hurdles that Knox has had to overcome on the field, battling through multiple injuries and even leaving Sunday’s contest after a big hit, the biggest obstacle for Knox has been off the field as he continues to recover from the death of his younger brother this offseason. It’s impossible to know the grief and struggle that Knox is enduring as he continues to suit up for the Bills, but it’s not lost on his teammates.
Stefon Diggs gave an incredibly raw and powerful response to @JaySkurski's question about Dawson Knox scoring the game winning TD and the obstacles he's had to overcome the last few months #BillsMafia pic.twitter.com/7GHPQS2Bqh
— Matthew Bové (@Matt_Bove) October 17, 2022
The fact that Knox is out there every week is commendable in and of itself given what’s going on in his life, so to see him having this moment absolutely makes him one of the studs of the week.
Jordan Poyer
I had to mention Poyer quickly here because the safety DROVE 15 hours to Kansas City to play in this game when he wasn’t cleared to fly because he had resolving pneumothorax or a collapsed lung. He was cleared to play in the game (somehow), so Buffalo rented a sprinter van for him and his family, and he drove up to Kansas City and back. Oh, and he played 100% of the snaps.
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