The Bills did a lot of impressive things Sunday night in a 26-15 victory over the Steelers that got you thinking (if you weren't already) about the correct way to look at the top of the AFC. Most impressive might have been the way they closed out the game.
Up 11 points with 7:11 to play, Buffalo intercepted a Ben Roethlisberger pass and never gave the ball back. The Bills ran 13 plays and gained 52 yards the rest of the way while Roethlisberger and the Steelers' offense just stood there on the sideline, powerless to do anything about it. Josh Allen converted a third-and-11 with 5:52 left, a third-and-1 with 2:06 left and one final third-and-1 with 1:08 left that allowed him to kneel down twice and put the thing in the books.
It was a soul-snuffing finish to a night on which the Bills looked like the better team. And while it left Pittsburgh 11-2 and Buffalo 10-3, it got us thinking about whether the Bills just might be the answer to the AFC's critical question: Which team can beat the Chiefs in the playoffs?
My friend and "Get Up" show colleague Paul "Hembo" Hembekides has, as he often does, some numbers to back up what my eyes thought they saw. There are two big reasons to think the Bills are the team best equipped to beat the defending-champion Chiefs, and one of those reasons is that they might be equipped to keep Patrick Mahomes on the sideline as much as possible.
Buffalo knows how to take its time on offense. The Bills have run 28 scoring drives of 10 or more plays this season, which is the second-most in the league, according to Hembo and ESPN Stats & Info. The length of their average touchdown drive is 4:03, which is the fifth-longest in the league. And they rank third in third-down conversion percentage (49%) and first in fourth-down conversion percentage (83%).
You might not think of Buffalo as the kind of dominant run team that keeps the ball away from its opponent, and it isn't. It ranks 22nd in rushing yards (1,333) and 23rd in yards per rush (4.0). But the Bills are top-10 in yards per game (375.4), yards per play (5.9), offensive points per game (27.7) and time of possession (31:19), so they're a killer combination of deliberate and productive. This is potential kryptonite for Mahomes, who is 19-1 as the starter in games in which the Chiefs win time of possession.
But keeping Mahomes off the field isn't the only way Buffalo is suited to give Kansas City trouble. The other way is to match the Chiefs' explosiveness. In the nine games Mahomes has lost as a pro, the Chiefs average 31.3 points per game -- the highest points average in losses for any quarterback since 1950 with at least five losses. You're not going to beat the Chiefs 19-17. You have to score to beat them.
Kansas City has lost once this season -- 40-32 in Week 5 against the Raiders. Las Vegas produced five plays of at least 40 yards in that game, the most by any team in any game against the Chiefs this season. It gained 262 yards on those five plays, and two resulted in touchdowns.
Can Allen and the Bills create explosive plays? You bet they can. Allen has 50 explosive pass plays (20-plus yards) this season. Only Mahomes, Aaron Rodgers and Deshaun Watson have more. Add in explosive run plays, and Buffalo ranks third in the league with 57, behind only the Chiefs' 68 and the Packers' 58. The Bills throw the ball on first down 63% of the time, which is more than any other team in the league. Their success rate on pass plays is 54.5%, second in the league behind only the Chiefs (54.9%).
Now, it's worth noting that the Bills did none of these things in their 26-17 loss to the Chiefs nine weeks ago. In that game, Buffalo had just 206 yards of offense and a 22:15 time of possession. It was one of the better defensive games the Chiefs have played all season, and it's possible they could repeat it if the teams rematch. But it's also worth noting that the Bills are 6-1 since that game, and that it came during a point in their season when they were in an offensive lull, from which they have recovered.
This isn't about whether the Bills are as good as the Chiefs. They probably aren't, because right now it's likely that no team is. It's about whether, on a given Saturday or Sunday in January, they are the team that can take out the defending champs. (The Raiders likely would scare the Chiefs, since they beat them once and nearly twice, but ESPN's Football Power Index gives the 7-7 Raiders only a 4.6% chance to make the postseason.)
There appear to be two ways to beat the Chiefs: light up the scoreboard the way they do and/or play keep-away from them. The Bills are a team built to do both, and Bills-Chiefs might just be the best possible AFC Championship Game matchup.
Two more notes as Week 15 gets underway:
The latest on a new rule that would reward minority hiring
Remember the rule the NFL team owners passed earlier this year that would award a third-round compensatory pick to a team that had a minority assistant coach or executive hired as another team's head coach or general manager? What you might not have known about that was that the NFLPA has to sign off on that rule change before it can take effect. The reason is that the compensatory picks would be additional to the 32 that are already awarded each year, and any expansion of the draft is subject to union approval.
The NFLPA discussed this on a conference call of its executive council this week, and the players want a say in how this rule is implemented and administered. Players are in favor of improving diversity in the league's coaching ranks, but they have questions about this particular process and want to make sure there aren't any unintended negative consequences that would allow teams to game the system.
There's also some concern about fairness. For example, the way the rule seems to be written, the Falcons might get a third-round compensatory pick if interim coach Raheem Morris is hired as a head coach by another team but not if Atlanta gives him the job. These are the kinds of questions the players would like to get answered. Commissioner Roger Goodell said on a conference call Wednesday that he and union chief DeMaurice Smith have been in regular contact about this issue. Both sides would like it finalized within the next couple of weeks so it would take effect for this hiring cycle.
The Ezekiel Elliott contract doesn't look great right now
We've talked a lot lately about how stuck the Eagles are with Carson Wentz's contract, but it's worth looking at a different potential contract albatross in the NFC East. Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliott is in the middle of the worst season of his career, on pace for 1,024 rushing yards and nine total touchdowns. His 3.9 yards per carry would be the worst mark of his career, and that rushing yardage total would be the lowest he has had in any full season. He has been over 1,300 yards in every year but the 2017 season, in which he served a six-game suspension.
The Cowboys signed Elliott to a massive extension before the 2019 season, and there's absolutely no way out of it anytime soon. He is scheduled to earn a fully guaranteed $9.6 million salary in 2021, and if he's on the roster on the fifth day of the league year in March, his 2022 salary of $12.4 million will become fully guaranteed as well.
He is scheduled to count $13.7 million against the Cowboys' 2021 salary cap -- the highest figure in the league for a running back. If they were to release him before the fifth day of the 2021 league year, they'd owe him $9.6 million in cash and would carry a dead-money charge of $24.5 million on their 2021 salary cap. If they cut him after the fifth day of the 2021 league year, they'd still carry that dead money charge and owe him his $9.6 million salary in 2021 but also would owe him $12.4 million in 2022, a number that would have to hit their cap in one of those two seasons. Cutting him in the 2022 offseason would result in a dead-money charge of $23.2 million on the 2022 cap.
The soonest the Cowboys could trade Elliott and get any cap relief at all would be the 2022 offseason. If they traded him then, they'd carry just a $10.8 million dead-money charge on the 2022 cap but save $5.7 million over his projected 2022 cap cost of $16.5 million. That would require a team to take on his fully guaranteed $12.4 million 2022 salary.
The Cowboys, who still want to sign quarterback Dak Prescott to a long-term deal before a 2021 season in which the salary cap is certain to be much lower than it is this year, simply have to hope that Prescott's return from injury and improved health on the offensive line return Elliott to the level at which he was performing when they gave him that deal. Or else it's going to hamper just about anything they try to do for at least the next two seasons.