Defence the key to success as Bills await playoff opponent

As the Buffalo Bills prepare for a final, meaningless game to close out their regular season at New England on Sunday, they are doing so with a mind to next week’s opening round of the NFL playoffs when they will host one of Miami, Cincinnati or Denver.

A win by the Broncos over Kansas City – a Chiefs team resting quarterback Patrick Mahomes and other starters – and Denver can book its ticket next week for a visit to Western New York. Meanwhile, the Dolphins need a win over the hapless Jets and a Denver loss to get in. Cincinnati needs both the Dolphins and Broncos to lose while they take care of business against the Pittsburgh Steelers.

On the surface, it would seem the Bills shouldn’t have much to worry about against any of those opponents, each of which has had to scratch-and-claw their way to a chance to make the playoffs. Buffalo, on the other hand, clinched the AFC East title back at American Thanksgiving and has been gifted a soft schedule to finish the season with two games against New England sandwiching last week’s blowout win over the New York Jets.

The Bills regular season has exceeded all expectations, setting franchise records for touchdowns and points scored, racking up a perfect record at home and leading the NFL in the all-important turnover ratio category.

Offensively, they’ve been almost unstoppable this season. They lead the AFC in points scored, putting up 40 or more in three of their past four games and 30 or more in nine of 10.

With that consistency in mind, Buffalo has to feel confident about its abilities to score against any of those three potential opponents, with Denver presenting the toughest challenge on the defensive side of the ball based on the numbers.

But by far Buffalo’s biggest concern heading into the playoffs comes on defence and specifically their tendency to allow teams to string together long, efficient drives while their unit struggles to get off the field.

It’s a trend that was evident right from the opening week of the season against the Arizona Cardinals, who controlled the time of possession during much of the opener and carried a 17-7 lead to halftime at Orchard Park. It was evident also against the New England Patriots and rookie quarterback Drake Maye two weeks ago, who engineered a 16-play touchdown drive against the Bills during the first half.  And it was even present in during the first half of last week’s blowout win over the New York Jets before the Bills’ 3-0 turnover advantage helped break that game wide open.

There have been times where it feels as though Buffalo’s defence must create a turnover to get off the field. They are tied for the NFL lead with 31 takeaways. And it’s the is the kind of thing you need when you’re 29th in third down defence.

If that seems like a risky formula to be counting upon heading into the playoffs, well, it is.

And it would be especially treacherous against the Bengals, a team with the fifth-best success rate on third down during the regular season and a quarterback whose completion percentage is 69.8 per cent on the season (sixth best in NFL) and whose interception percentage of 1.4 (fifth best).

The Bills dynamics on defence are partially by design.

With Josh Allen leading the offence, Buffalo expects to be leading in most games and thus will surrender short throws or rush yardage to prioritize preventing explosive plays to opposing offences, betting that a teams won’t have the patience to work 12 or 16 play drives the length of the field without making a mistake.

But missing from that equation has been the ability to consistently disrupt opposing quarterbacks at the line of scrimmage, which is perhaps why Buffalo has continued to tinker with their defensive line personnel down the stretch of the regular season.

It’s not hard to imagine Burrow and the Bengals coming into Highmark Stadium and being able to play that patient offensive game that would allow them to toy with Buffalo’s defence up-and-down the field all day long.

In fact, if you want to know what that would look like, go back to the 2023 divisional playoff game at Orchard Park where the Bengals converted 60 per cent of their third down opportunities, put up 412 yards and walked away with a 27-10 win.

This Bills offence should be better able to keep pace more than the one of two seasons ago, but their vulnerability on defence remains a legitimate concern against anyone, especially Cincinnati.