Bills and Broncos prepare to go strength versus strength

The Buffalo Bills start their latest playoff quest for a Super Bowl on Sunday against the Denver Broncos, possessing the best offence in franchise history – one that scored more touchdowns and points this regular season than any Bills team ever.

Buffalo not only scored more than any previous Bills team, they did so while demonstrating proficiency both along the ground and through the air, becoming the first NFL team to score 30 touchdowns each way in a single season.

By utilizing three running backs and with star quarterback Josh Allen spreading the ball around to his various playmakers, it’s also the most unpredictable Bills offence. “Everyone eats” wasn’t just a slogan the Bills came up with during spring practices, it’s a mission statement they put into place early on and relied on throughout the course of the season.

Despite Allen having an MVP-calibre season and the Bills being the second highest-scoring team in the NFL, the Bills did not have a 1,000-yard receiver. In fact, only Khalil Shakir surpassed 800 yards receiving, with eight players having between 253 yards and 556 on the season and 13 different players catching touchdown passes.

All of which are good things since the Broncos possess perhaps the NFL’s best overall defence, ranking second in yards given up per play against the run and the pass, essentially mirroring the balance Buffalo has on offence, making Sunday’s contest a true strength-on-strength battle whenever Buffalo possesses the ball.

So, what happens when a balanced offence that averages more than 30 points per game faces a balanced defence that averages surrendering fewer than 20? We’re about to find out.

Defence has led the way for Denver this season, showing vast improvement from a year ago and buying time early in the year for rookie quarterback Bo Nix to figure things out.

It’s built on a ferocious pass rush that was among the league leaders in pressure and blitzing, and having cornerback Patrick Surtain II as one of the league’s elite at his position, capable of shutting down an opposition’s best weapon on a weekly basis. It was a combination that helped Denver lead the league with 63 sacks.

But the Bills have reason to believe they have answers for what the Broncos bring on defence.

Buffalo surrendered the fewest sacks of any team this regular season, thanks to the play of an outstanding offensive line bookended by tackles Spencer Brown and Dion Dawkins. On those occasions where teams have gotten in Allen’s face, he’s been among the league’s best quarterbacks throwing against pressure, characterized by his unparalleled ability to make plays outside of structure.

As for facing Surtain, this is where the Bills sharing of the football pays some dividends.

Against teams with true No. 1 targets, or even a pair of receivers to whom they funnel a high percentage of their passes, Surtain becomes an eraser. But the Bills offence isn’t dependent on any one player and Buffalo has demonstrated that Allen has the freedom on to go wherever he wants with the ball.

To cite just one example, in the Bills’ 44-point output at Detroit, receiver Amari Cooper, the Bills second-highest paid player on offence, didn’t receive a single target and there wasn’t even a conversation around that when the game was done.

Buffalo believes it has built an offence that is not only highly efficient but very difficult to shut down. The challenge for Denver is to slow the Bills attack enough to allow its offence to keep the game close.

That is certainly possible given the vulnerabilities that Buffalo demonstrated on defence this season, which include surrendering 86 points to their two most recent opponents that weren’t the New York Jets or New England Patriots.

Buffalo’s biggest challenge on that side of the ball is third-down defence. The Bills ranked 29th in that column, the signature of a trend where their defence struggled to get off the field against teams that stayed patient.

It’s been evident against good and weak offences over the course of the season, including three weeks ago against the Patriots, who engineered a 16-play touchdown drive against the Bills in Week 15.

And yes, the Broncos are trying to win a playoff game on the road with a rookie quarterback, but in Nix they have a player who is playing at a level beyond his experience right now.

Nix was already the most experienced quarterback ever to enter the NFL draft in terms of starts at the collegiate level, and the progress he’s made over the course of the season is notable.

He enters this game having completed 79 per cent of his throws over the past three games, including a franchise-record 18 in a row to begin last week’s win against the Kansas City Chiefs’ backups.

He may not be Patrick Mahomes or Joe Burrow, each of whom led their teams to playoff wins over Bufalo in each of the past two Januarys, but if Denver’s defence can keep this game within reach, it opens the door for Nix and the offence to try to take advantage of Buffalo’s vulnerabilities.

So often, the Bills solved this problem by creating turnovers to stem the tide, taking the ball away 32 times and finishing the year as an NFL-best plus-24 in turnover ratio. But counting on that trend to continue by sitting back and waiting for Nix to make mistakes is risky, so the Bills need to find ways to disrupt at the line of scrimmage.

In the big picture, there are all kinds of things that point to a Bills win on Sunday.

Buffalo is undefeated at home this season and the playoff-tested Bills are facing a team that hasn’t been to the playoffs in nine seasons and managed just one of its 10 regular-season victories against a team that is still alive (aside from the win over Kansas City’s subs a week ago.)

All things that suggest the Broncos will be challenged to step up in class against a Bills team that clinched the AFC East title at American Thanksgiving and enters the playoffs healthy on both sides of the ball.

But there’s undoubtedly still a path here for a Denver upset.