Chiefs face a Bills defense that hasn’t lived up to the hype

Advanced stats paint the ugliest picture

Last season the Bills were a top-10 defense according to Football Outsiders, finishing the season ranked seventh overall. Football Outsiders provides a standard metric and then an adjusted as well. In the adjusted metric, which accounts more for recent games on the schedule, the Bills actually ranked second only trailing the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Things have changed an awful lot since last season. Through five games the Buffalo Bills are one of the worst defenses in the league, ranking 27th overall. Both their defense against the pass and the run fall near the bottom of the league at 24 and 22 respectively.

The strength here appears to be their secondary, with their average number of yards gained by opponents in the open field actually coming in top-10 at number seven. This is followed by the defensive line at 18 and finally their linebacking unit at 27th.

Through five games the Chiefs have played on average the 17th best defense. The only team they played with a worse defensive DVOA was the Raiders trailing four spots behind at 31. Considering they scored 32 while playing one of their uglier games on offense, this should make Chiefs fans optimistic.

Interestingly, the Chiefs offense has struggled this season against the zone heavy schemes they saw from the Chargers, Patriots and Raiders. Under Sean McDermott, the Bills tend to run a lot of zone. However, I’d guess the struggles against zone are more the element of surprise than anything else.

The three aforementioned teams played a heavy dose of man coverage against the Chiefs last season. It stands to reason that was the expectation going in and the offense failed to adapt in enough time to get in a proper rhythm.

Unless the Bills pull a wild card from their deck, which seems more difficult with the probable absence of Tre’Davious White, it’s unlikely the Chiefs offense doesn’t improve from the last two weeks.