Game Overview ::
By mike johnson >>
- This game has huge AFC playoff implications, as these are currently the #1 and #2 seeds in the conference and have a history of being heated rivals.
- Josh Allen is 3-1 against Patrick Mahomes during the regular season during their careers, but Mahomes holds the edge in the playoffs 3-0.
- Last season, these teams had a competitive game in which Kadarius Toney was called for offensive offsides on a play that would have otherwise been a likely game-winning touchdown.
- Buffalo has a Week 12 bye and has several players battling injuries, so it will be interesting to see how aggressive or cautious they are with those players in a key AFC matchup.
- Despite both of these teams placing more emphasis on their running games and having better defenses than past seasons, they rank 2nd and 3rd in the league in pass rate over expectation during the last four weeks.
How kansas city Will Try To Win ::
The Chiefs continued their perfect season through Week 10 thanks to a blocked field goal as time expired. That game against Denver was a low-scoring dogfight, but Kansas City’s offense has quietly been improving in recent weeks. While we have often talked about how the Chiefs are built more around their defense and ball control now than in past seasons, prior to the Broncos game, they scored 26+ points in four straight games. That being said, Kansas City’s focus is winning games, not lighting up the scoreboard. As such, the two opponent types that seem to be a red flag for the Chiefs approaching games in an extra-conservative fashion are non-competitive teams and teams with very good defenses but less-than-aggressive offenses.
Kansas City’s offense has gone through multiple periods this season. Rashee Rice and Isiah Pacheco were the main pieces of their offense at the beginning of the year, but both have been out for several weeks now. After struggling for a while, the Chiefs picked up DeAndre Hopkins before the trade deadline, and their passing game now flows primarily through him and all-pro TE Travis Kelce. The Chiefs running game has been inefficient recently as veteran Kareem Hunt works as their “workhorse” primarily due to the fact that they trust him to pick up blitzes, not drop passes on dump-offs, and not fumble the football. Due to this inefficiency on the ground, the Chiefs have been targeting Kelce at an obscene rate in recent weeks. He has double-digit targets in four of the past five weeks, with 40 targets and 32 receptions in the last three weeks alone. Hopkins has been with the Chiefs for three weeks. In the first week, he played sparingly. In the second week, he was targeted 9 times and had a huge game with 2 TDs in a win over the Bucs. Last week, he was only targeted 5 times as he faced off with Patrick Surtain and the elite secondary of the Broncos, who play man coverage at one of the highest rates in the league and blitz at the second-highest rate. This week, the Chiefs face a Bills defense that blitzes at the second-lowest rate in the NFL and is near the top of the league in zone coverage rate. Based on how the Bills defense is built and what the Chiefs have in offensive personnel, we should expect Kelce and Hopkins to be targeted frequently in short to intermediate areas of the field against the Bill’s zones while Hunt once again touches the ball 20 to 25 times, albeit with modest efficiency. Buffalo will force the Chiefs to march the field methodically, and the Chiefs will have both the personnel and patience to do just that.
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