Preview: Wk13 vs. Bills
![We can only hope this is the precursor to a “suck it” [Kevin Jairaj/USA Today]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e40f3a094d5fa3ebbbedb09/1606874898843-7JJGRJ8M7SFS9TZKY8BH/josh+allen+dance.jpg)
We can only hope this is the precursor to a “suck it” [Kevin Jairaj/USA Today]
Opponent: Buffalo Bills (8-3; 1st in AFC East)
Date: Monday, 12/7
Location: Glendale, AZ (lol)
Kickoff: 5:15 PT
TV: ESPN/ABC, or wherever you stream it illegally
Everyone says they put effort into their relationships, but few can compare to the Bills’ commitment to Josh Allen. In the past two off-seasons the Bills have added three tight ends, four wideouts, and eight(!) offensive linemen—all in an effort to stoke the fires of their highly-polarizing first-round quarterback.
And it totally worked.
The Bills, a franchise whose last few decades have been shaped by the occasional strong defense, a perpetually middling (or worse) offense, and consistent sadness (which is only in part due to the fact that they’re in Buffalo), are now in a dog-fight with the upstart Miami Dolphins for the AFC East crown. And their team’s success is largely due to the explosive arm of their third-year signal caller.
INJURY REPORT
Everyone on the COVID list is expected to return this week, which means Brandon Aiyuk, D.J. Jones, Tom Compton, and Jordan Willis will be back from their double bye week. This marks just the third game this season where Aiyuk and Deebo will both be fully healthy and playing at the same time… Tevin Coleman almost played last week, so I’d assume he’s back in time for a Monday night kickoff… K’Waun Williams, whose PED suspension was overturned, is not healthy enough to return this game. He’s still a few away. Moseley is expected to start in the nickel… Ben Garland won’t be back this week either… on Tuesday, Shanahan said that he didn’t see Weston Richburg, Dee Ford, or Ronald Blair returning to action at any point this season. Oddly enough, it may be Blair—whose yet to play a snap this season and is on a one-year deal that expires in the spring—who has the highest likelihood of returning to the Niners next season. Barring any massive contract restructuring that is… a very very rough timetable has been set for the return of Jimmy Garoppolo and George Kittle, although if we see either of them at all likely depends on how we do in the next three games. It seems like the earliest the Niners are expecting either of them back is week 16 against the Cardinals, in a matchup that could have serious playoff implications.
OFFENSE
Josh Allen was widely panned entering the league because he was an uneven performer at a mediocre Group of 5 school, his accuracy wavered tremendously, and his decision-making seemed suspect at best. Even the most bull-ish Allen supporter would admit that he was a very raw prospect, but the Wyoming product got drafted 7th overall in 2018 for a very clear reason: he is perhaps the most physically gifted quarterback in the NFL.
Many teams would see a quarterback with tremendous physical talents and some (ahem) questionable decision making…
…and build an offense that was meant to protect him from himself, and the Bills—for Allen’s first two years—did just that. Until this season, when they decided to do the the exact opposite.
The Bills lead the NFL in first down passing rate (60%) and their 66% success rate is wildly ahead of second place (Dolphins, 63%). They want to, and will, huck it every single down if they need to, and this spread out attack that throws all the time has emphasized Allen’s physical tools while letting him learn and improve on the fly. It was a bold schematic change that—to their credit—has worked amazingly well.
Allen has the strongest arm in the NFL, which he proves on a regular basis. Unsurprisingly, this cannon attached to his shoulder allows him to stretch the field vertically, which you can see here as he casually hucks 80-yard bombs at the combine, causing draft analysts to go from six-to-midnight.
Allen’s arm strength (and velocity) allow him to be a tick slow on a read or a release yet still complete difficult passes on the NFL level. At the combine he was hucking the ball at 62 miles per hour, the fastest mark in combine history. At the Senior Bowl he was clocked with a pass over 66(!) mph. While someone like Brees or Brady needs to anticipate openings and get the ball out quick into tight windows, Allen’s arm has so much juice that he can hold the ball longer, see the play develop later, and still get off a forty-yard pass while under intense pressure.
On top of his bazooka arm, Allen has great size and athleticism, which he uses regularly on both scrambles and designed runs. In only 38 career starts, he has 22(!) rushing touchdowns, and has rushed for 1400+ career yards on 5.3 yards/carry. Allen doesn’t have nearly the speed or the quicks of someone like Lamar Jackson or Kyler Murray, but at 6-5 238 pounds, he brings a bit more power to the position.
Through the first month of the season, he was the MVP front-runner, torching teams that showed him man coverage and dared him to throw deep. But after that scorching start, his production fell off in the second month of the season. Teams started playing top-back zones, forcing him into underneath passes, and a few bad weather games depressed his raw stats.
Since then, he’s found himself oscillating somewhere in between those two levels of play. He put on an absolute clinic against the Seahawks, torching them for 415 yards and three scores on only 31 completions, then followed that up with ho-hum performances in a loss against the Cardinals and low-volume, mediocre efficiency game against the lowly Chargers.
Allen is far from a finished product, and the uneven results reflect that, but his scrambling ability makes him hard to pressure and his arm strength allows him to get away with throws that few others could even reasonably attempt, much less complete.
Surrounding him are a trio of wideouts with very clear roles. John Brown is the outside receiver who goes deep. Cole Beasley is the inside guy who works underneath and across the middle. Stefon Diggs is their alpha, lining up everywhere and soaking up the majority of their targets as a true three-level threat.
One of the drawbacks of running such a pass-happy scheme is that if Allen doesn’t play well, the Bills offense falls off the rails. That’s largely because their non-Allen running game is often non-existent. Outside of Allen’s scrambles and designed runs (yes, we will have to account for those in our scheming), the Bills average only 75 yards/game. While it’s usually a low-usage, low-efficiency affair, the team has flashed the ability to run effectively—namely in a snowy win over the Patriots where both Devin Singletary and Zack Moss rushed for 80+ yards and last week where they randomly ran train on the Chargers—but the ground game is far from our primary concern in this matchup.
Their offensive line is a solid unit. Mitch Morse has held it down for years at center while both Dion Dawkins and Daryl Williams have had strong seasons at the bookends. If there’s a weakness, it’s at the guard position. Cody Ford failed to take the second-year leap before going down to injury last week and current starters Jon Feliciano and Brian Winters have yet to prove they’re anything more than stop-gap options/reserves in the NFL.
DEFENSE
Head Coach Sean McDermott built the Bills up into a contender on the back of a stout one-gapping 4-3 front with a defensive line that applied a ton of pressure without the need for blitzing. This year, that unit has taken a step back.
Once the strength of this defensive, their line has seen sizable regression practically across the board. Second-year pro Ed Oliver—who burst onto the scene as a rookie first rounder with five sacks in a rotational role—has seen a steep decline as a full-time starter. Stanford-alum Trent Murphy still has some pass rush juice, but has struggled against the run. Speed man Jerry Hughes is the only guy who hasn’t seen a real drop-off, but his 11 QB hits and 4.5 sacks across 11 games doesn’t make for great raw stats for a leading edge rusher. With his speed, Hughes is always dangerous, but the Bills’ drop-off in pass rush has led to a sharp decline in pressure rate (23rd) and has forced them to blitz much more than they’d like to—often to mixed results.
While the underperforming defensive line has led to issues against the run (22nd in rushing defense DVOA), the linebackers certainly haven’t helped offset any of those woes. Tremaine Edmunds was always a size/speed project, but now—in year three—he’s pointing more bust than anything. While I hesitate to lean too heavily on PFF rankings, especially when it comes to linebacker play as it features some of their sketchier grades, the wild trends in the Buffalo linebackers make the grades at least worth mentioning.
When looking at this chart it’s important to note that all grades are out of 100 but anything in the mid-70’s or above is very good and stuff in the mid-50’s is on the lower-end of middle-of-the-pack. Everything sub-50 needs work. This has been reflected in the color-coding.
This all points to a crop of linebackers with a lot of plus blitzers and some serious issues stopping the run. While everyone’s going to defend the run a bit better against us because they DGAF about our passing game, this is a contest where we really need to have success on the ground and have the matchup to do so.
In the secondary, Tre’Davious White is their top cover guy. He’s probably somewhere in that Shaquill Griffin area in terms of caliber, but when he’s on he’s very on. The healthy return of Levi Wallace shores up their other outside corner spot, while both their safeties are solid performers on the backend. This is a talented secondary; the only real potential weak spot is their nickel corner, Taron Johnson.
MATCHUP
While the Bills have undoubtedly had a better season than we have, this is actually—as far as games against division leaders go—a decent matchup for us. This Bills passing attack is always scary, and stopping the deep ball must be the number one priority. But with Richard Sherman back in the fold, Jason Verrett playing lights out, and Tarvarius Moore patrolling center field, we should have the ability to limit the deep ball and force underneath throws. Additionally, our ability to hide coverages has proven devastating against less-seasoned quarterbacks and will be key against the much-improved-but-still-young Allen. If we can take away the easy stuff, we have a better shot of getting Allen out of rhythm early, which could then allow our defensive line and a few well-timed blitzes to apply pressure on their suspect interior line.
The Bills have been spotty against the run, and a strong blend of misdirection in the run and pass game could give us favorable matchups on the second level both on the ground and through the air. Taking advantage of mediocre linebacking corps was considerably easier with Kittle in the fold, but with Juice available and our wideouts regularly moonlighting in the box out of tight splits, there are still ways for us to force the kind of mismatches that can jumpstart our passing attack. Brandon Aiyuk’s return should help in that regard as well, as Nick Mullens has yet to see the field alongside a fully healthy Aiyuk and Deebo Samuel.
We’ll need to have success in the air because without Kittle or Jimmy G, it’s pretty clear that teams—even those with the most suspect of run defenses—will 100% sell out against our ground game if we can’t punish them through the air. There’s no run play that works against a numbers disadvantage and a box full of defenders who are flying forward with not a worry in the world that they’ll get beat over the top. We need to give our backs room to run, and that means passing effectively early in this game and shoring up our turnover problems. We’ve had 11 giveaways in our past four games and our mark of 20 on the season is fourth-worst in the NFL. It should go without saying that for us to win on Monday night (and beyond), that trend can’t continue.
When you’re a super talented team, you can pivot on a dime and win games in a variety of different ways. When you have an off-day you’re still in games and when teams with bad records come along, you know that you’re more than likely able to beat them regardless of their strengths and weaknesses. But when we’re this year’s 49ers, in our current hobbled state, we have to rely more on matchups, and despite the Bills’ impressive record, this is a matchup where we can potentially force an advantage. At this point in the season, we have little room for error, but if we can upset the Bills on Monday night, the path to the playoffs suddenly becomes much more realistic.
Go Niners 👍🏈