Overcoming turmoil is often the definition for championship teams to move past injuries and win games. With Thanksgiving week here, the final uphill battles are being set, and now is the time for excuses to leave vocabulary and pure football to define teams. Turmoil has defined both the Kansas City Chiefs and the Buffalo Bills over the past weeks. The Chiefs losing four of five games has seen schemes and alignments fall apart. The Bills three game slide has seen the abandonment of starting quarterback Tyrod Taylor for Nathan Peterman, while the defense has been slowly pierced. A week later, Taylor is back at the helm, looking to run over the Chiefs defense. The wide breadth of opportunity to overcome turmoil epitomizes the schematic desire for both teams to find their identity. The Kansas City Chiefs week 12 scheme focuses on getting back to identifying the core of their play calling featuring fundamental football.
Kansas City Chiefs Week 12 Scheme Breakdown – Focusing on Fundamentals
Traditional Football
The Chiefs offense has lost the core identity of running to set up the pass. Playing from behind, Andy Reid has synthetically changed his play calling and abandoned that which made the Chiefs so powerful in September. Against the Bills, the Chiefs will need to be consistent feeding the ball to Kareem Hunt in both the run and pass game.
Hunt started his career with an electric run and fumble in week one. Since that point, he has secured the ball, put on a stunning ride to rookie of the year favorite, and experienced a hard fall to becoming a question mark. The nuance, however, is not in Hunt’s running style or the rookie wall, but in play call timing.
Hunt has not received the grinding consistency featured in the first few weeks. He still owns a consistent spin and push that will bowl over defenders when given the chance. Even against the Los Angeles Chargers Hunt struggled early, but consistency led to game-icing explosive runs.
The Bills run defense has provided plenty of opportunity to running backs in the past three weeks, getting thrashed for 194, 298, and 146 rushing yards. Ironically, this comes after trading Marcell Dareus, one of their key interior defensive lineman. Although his play and leadership were controversial, the identity and mere threat of an imposing interior has allowed coordinators to scheme and pierce the middle.
Head coach Sean McDermott brings his ball-hawking, aggressive defense from the Carolina Panthers with a focused emphasis on the interior aspects of the defensive line. Pressure begins by deriving double teams from Dareus (now Adolphus Washington) and Kyle Williams. Ideally, both their interior pieces will create fundamental pressure in the pass rush while eating gaps in the run game.
The focus on the interior distracts offensive lines from the edge, where Jerry Hughes and Shaq Lawson use leverage to assign pressure. Lorenzo Alexander additionally launches from the strongside linebacker spot. Each player receives special attention to emphasize strength and mitigate weaknesses. Hence, the pass rush plays directly into opportune downs to create deceptive alignments for their secondary.
Zone coverage on the back end plays into the duality of Micah Hyde and Tre’Davious White. Unfortunately for the Chiefs, the combination of corner and safety in zone coverage not only bear down on the pass, but the run. Alignment allows for coverage of Travis Kelce and Tyreek Hill in short routes, putting the onus on the Chiefs to accomplish disguised motions to isolate and unleash their weapons.
The linebackers in the Bills system need to be quintessentially cerebral and dynamic in their attack. Reid will need to unleash his brightest play sets in order to confuse the linebackers and utilize their traditional targets. Hence, why enforcing the running game is essential to beating the Bills. Between Alexander and Preston Brown, this matchup may come down to whether Mitch Morse and Anthony Sherman are more aggressive and poignant on their run blocking than the Bills linebackers.
Passing deep is not Alex Smith’s bright spot, and passing deep on the Bills will be passing into the eye of a storm. Unless Hunt can start churning yards in the outside running lanes, Hyde and Jordan Poyer will be spending the afternoon playing up in the box, tackling check-down receivers immediately as they receive the ball.
Beating the Bills defense revolves around playing fundamentally more physical at the point of attack.
Controlling with Fundamental Style
The Chiefs defense has the onus of not only controlling the Bills, but their own play. The entire first 11 weeks has seen the Chiefs essential units playing out of control, either over pursuing, missing assignments, or committing egregious penalties. The blithering mistakes have resulted in the 28th pass and 29th rush defense by yardage. The slew of mistakes delve into schematic principles, but many of those schematic errors could have been covered up by the Chiefs playing faster, stronger, and more principled.
Bob Sutton will be scheming for the ticking time bomb, Taylor and running back LeSean McCoy. Neither have been overtly impressive on the season, but both have also exploded for incredible plays at different moments inside of the season. Taylor specifically possesses the arm and legs to kill in two lanes. Unless a defense is principled and forces Taylor to turn into a clone of check-down Charlie, they will be spending the afternoon running in circles.
The Bills offense commences operation much in the same way the Chiefs does: handing the ball to McCoy and letting him grind. The functional use of the run game is to set up the pass game using similar formations in both. McCoy’s running style fits their zone scheme, and will force Derrick Johnson to close off gaps quickly. McCoy has an uncanny ability to find the holes in the line of scrimmage, quickly change direction, and break into the secondary – hence, more of the run game is left to McCoy’s foresight.
The wings of the offense are the use of multiple tight ends Charles Clay and Nick O’Leary. Offensive coordinator Rick Dennison understands how to implement both of their skills in blocking and the short passing game. Using a tight end to pin and hold on the line, then release on a quick play action makes them a dangerous duo.
Although Taylor may not be known for overt deep ball prowess, he has a cannon on the run. Hence, why the Bills needed a secure possession receiver, leading to them trading for Kelvin Benjamin in the middle of the season. Rookie Zay Jones also has the potential to be a deep ball threat upon further development.
However, most of the passes Taylor settles for are high-percentage, shorter routes. Again, a scheme very similar to the Chiefs own fundamental style of play. Smith and Taylor, in some regards, are clones of one another in the check down progression critiques.
The deep ball is important to note due to the Chiefs being burned multiple times in one-on-one routes. Due to the lack of Eric Berry floating in the deep zone, teams such as the Oakland Raiders developed a deep ball model to burn isolated corner. Between Benjamin, Jones, and Jordan Matthews, the Chiefs secondary will need to keep their head on a swivel.
The onus of winning the matchup against the Bills comes down to the methodology in which Ron Parker and Daniel Sorensen work. Parker needs to focus on assisting in deep zone coverage, while maintaining integrity to nailing curl routes before they develop after the catch. Sorensen needs to do what he can in sky coverage while being attentive to McCoy in the run game.
One of the methods the Bills passing game can burn defenses is in converting short routes to long targets based on athleticism after the catch. The style is akin to the Chiefs own identity, except the Bills have a network with high possession to include more sideline routes. Jones is a slippery rookie, and unless Marcus Peters adheres to principled tackling, those two or three extra yards will allow the Bills to convert insistently frustrating third downs. Parker will play an emphatic role in charging and nailing receivers at the point of reception.
One of the more unpredictable points to watch will be newly signed cornerback Darrelle Revis in coverage for the Chiefs. Due to him being signed on Wednesday afternoon, his snaps may be limited to 10 or less. However, due to his age he would fit into a slot or nickel zone. ‘Revis Island’ could fundamentally add in a third safety concept, combining nicely with the Chiefs ‘dinner plate’ secondary concept. Revis does not need to play man coverage for success in Sutton’s defense, and instead can play a tight zone that builds on his veteran intelligence.
However, the key to forcing the pass is shutting down the run in conjunction with Johnson and Reggie Ragland adhering to principled zone defense. Allen Bailey and Bennie Logan must take the onus of owning the double team to break apart the ‘zone walls’ the Bills offensive line attempts to create.
The Chiefs egregious run defense could be their death knell. Often the Bills will simply run to control and massacre teams, foregoing any fancy passing scheme unless necessary. However, the run game has been up, down, and all around – the Chiefs offense can assist by getting to an early lead.
Summarizing the Plan of Attack
The Chiefs offense will need to play a fundamentally pronounced game relying on the run. The Bills defense can be punctured if Hunt spends the day consistently getting the ball. Reid will have to be intrinsically inventive with motions and alignments to confuse and unsettle the poignant Bills secondary. Optioning to the pass too early will put the Chiefs in a difficult position to dig themselves from.
Establishing an early lead will be essential to helping the Chiefs defense manipulate the Bills game plan early and often. If McCoy can grind the run game in his own right, the Bills will be putting up points early and often. The Bills bevy of receivers may be difficult for an injured Chiefs secondary to cover, but if they tackle with fundamental prowess, then the Bills will be turning into a check-down offense unable to convert third downs.
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