After four years of waiting, the Bills are back in the AFC Championship Game to try and accomplish the goal that has eluded them since head coach Sean McDermott and general manager Brandon Beane took over in 2017. And just as it was four years ago, they'll have to go through the Chiefs at Arrowhead to finally get to the Super Bowl.
The Bills will have their hands full on Sunday against that Chiefs team whose starters have lost only once this season -- to the Bills -- and will be extra motivated to avenge their lone blemish on the 2024 season. But before we dive into this week's game, we'll look at some key characteristics of the Bills' win against the Ravens, which are learning opportunities moving into the AFC Championship matchup.
After studying the Bills All-22, here's what stood out.
Raise your hand if you thought it was going to be the defense -- not Josh Allen and the offense -- that served as the catalyst for the Bills advancing to the AFC Championship Game for the first time since the 2020 season. I'd guess not many of you moved a muscle. Although the offense took advantage of opportunities to just get ahead of the Ravens, the defense is why the Bills have a chance to go to the Super Bowl.
They stifled the Broncos in the first round of the playoffs, allowing only seven points. Then they forced multiple turnovers against a monster of a Ravens offense, limiting them to 25 points. The Ravens had not won a game this year with a point total of under 28 points, and the Bills held them below that mark. And for the second straight week, with his in-game adjustments, defensive coordinator Bobby Babich deserves so much more credit than he's currently getting. But this time around, doing it against one of the best quarterbacks and running backs in the league this season makes it all the more impressive.
To understand why Babich deserves more acclaim for this showing, one must understand the team's usual operating procedure in 2024 -- similar principles every week, similar to what has led to success throughout Sean McDermott's tenure as head coach. They played a heavy amount of zone coverage (71.3 percent) and blitzed at one of the lowest rates in the NFL, 12.8 percent.
They were all about the front four establishing pressure and playing good coverage on the back end to get off the field on third downs. It's an imperfect system because it will cede yardage and sustained drives, notably when the Bills are missing some core defenders. But with so many defenders back in coverage, mostly keeping their heads turned toward the quarterback, it allows for some turnover potential when players trust their instincts and recognition skills.
Much like the Broncos game, the Bills saw that their initial defensive approach was a bit flawed on the game's first drive. The defensive front did an excellent job against Derrick Henry and limited the run on that first series, shutting Henry down to only four yards on three carries. However, like in the wild-card round, their pass coverage and third-down defense let them down on the opening drive in a big way.
On their initial third down forced, with eight yards to go, Lamar Jackson scrambled for nine yards to extend the drive. Then Jackson hit Isaiah Likely deep down the field for a 39-yard coverage bust. Then, with a third down in the red zone, this time three yards to go, Jackson found Rashod Bateman for a 16-yard touchdown. On that opening drive, the Ravens gained 69 yards on four of their five dropbacks, including the touchdown.
What did those four dropbacks have in common? The Bills were in zone coverage for all of them. That drive, in a snapshot, was in line with their season-long averages having been in zone coverage on 80 percent, and man coverage on 20 percent of those first five dropbacks. Even though they were fully staffed on defense, their very season-long identity had let them down.
From that point forward, Babich made the switch. The Ravens dropped back to pass 26 more times the rest of the game. The Bills played man coverage on 53.9 percent of those dropbacks the rest of the way, which is a clear upending of their standard operating procedure, as they had only played man coverage on 22.3 percent of their snaps throughout the regular season. According to TruMedia and Pro Football Focus, excluding the Week 18 preseason-style atmosphere against the Patriots, the Bills played more man coverage against the Ravens than any other game this year. They also blitzed at the highest rate of the season, 26.3 percent. In Week 4 against the Ravens, the Bills blitzed on only 7.4 percent of their snaps and played man coverage only 20 percent of the time.
If you're looking for the smoking gun and why this switch from Babich was so successful, here it is. When the Bills played zone coverage against the Ravens, Lamar Jackson went a perfect 12-of-12 for 180 yards and two touchdowns. He added another 44 yards on four scramble opportunities. That yields a simply dominating 15 yards per attempt and with the scrambles mixed in, the Ravens averaged 14 yards per dropback.
When the Bills were in man coverage, Jackson completed only six passes on 13 attempts (46.2 percent), and the Ravens gained only 74 yards. On top of that, Jackson's lone interception and both sacks -- including the fumble takeaway -- were when they were in man coverage. The Ravens averaged only 5.6 yards per attempt against man coverage, and factoring in the yardage lost on the sacks, they averaged only 4 yards per dropback.
That is almost a 10-yard difference in yards per attempt, and exactly a 10-yard difference in yards per dropback. And if that doesn't drive the point home enough, Jackson didn't have a single scramble against man coverage -- taking out one of the prongs of his game that makes him one of the most dynamic in the NFL. The Ravens not having Zay Flowers available, who can destroy man coverage with his speed and separation skills, was likely a factor in committing to the switch. However, combining that in-game switch of defending Jackson with the fact that the Bills allowed fewer yards to Henry (84) in the entire game than they did on their first defensive play in Week 4 (87) shows a terrific job by the man pulling the levers. Of course, the scheme only goes as far as the player performance allows, and the players deserve plenty of credit.
However, to have a feel for the game and the gumption to completely flip tendency -- and early -- in a huge matchup, Babich should be getting talked up a lot more this week than he is. He has long been considered a budding coaching star in the building, and how he has helped get the most out of the Bills defense at the perfect time of year shows how much he's delivering on that potential. The Bills have a good one in Babich, who, along with how his players respond to him, has some underrated head coach potential in future years.
Moving that forward to the Chiefs game is a different challenge entirely for Babich and the defense. While the Chiefs haven't been the dynamic offense they've been in the past, it's still an offense led by Patrick Mahomes, with tight end Travis Kelce saving his best football for the postseason. They cannot be taken lightly, regardless of how it's gone for them during the season. How the Bills approached the Ravens game can undoubtedly have the added bonus of making the Bills defense at least a bit more unpredictable in how the Chiefs prepare for their game this week. Any little wrinkle helps in a seismic matchup like the one that's ahead, and while Chiefs defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo gets a lot of well-deserved praise for how he switches things up, the up-and-coming Babich could once again be one of the keys for the Bills this weekend.
Players with 15 or fewer snaps:
DB Cam Lewis (14), OL Alec Anderson (13), FB Reggie Gilliam (11), RB Ray Davis (6), DT Quinton Jefferson (3), CB Ja'Marcus Ingram (3), DE Javon Solomon (2), QB Mitchell Trubisky (0), OL Will Clapp (0), OT Tylan Grable (0), LB Joe Andreessen (0), LB Edefuan Ulofoshio (0)
When the All-22 film becomes available, we'll go through and watch every player on every play as many times as necessary to assess letter grades. It is a subjective analysis, and it's important to note we do not know the play calls and full responsibilities. The grades stem from technique, effort and presumed liability.
The study accounts only for players who take a snap on offense or defense. Players with fewer than 15 snaps -- unless they significantly impact the game -- will not factor into weekly rankings. The grades range from an 'A' (a perfect 4.00 GPA) to 'F' (0.00 GPA). There is no such thing as an 'A+' in this grading system. Season-long grades will be tallied and documented, with a single game's grade weighted based on how much the player was on the field in a given week.