Why the Patriots’ rushing attack will be the Bills’ biggest challenge

Monday night’s matchup between the New England Patriots and the Buffalo Bills is the first of two this season between the AFC East’s two best teams, and those two games will have a lot to say about how a conference in which there is no one dominant team shakes out. You could say that the Patriots are the team of the moment with their 8-4 record, and their six straight wins (by an average score of 35-10), and their ability to put things together in every facet of the game.

The Bills are rolling with the NFL’s best defense by DVOA, and that’s been the case all season, but the Patriots are right on their heels — and with the loss of star cornerback Tre’Davious White for the rest of the season to a knee injury, there’s a new and unfortunate vulnerability. The passing game has been hit-and-miss, the run game must be schemed up to succeed, and Buffalo, which held a 5-2 record after their Week 8 win over the Dolphins, are 2-2 since. One of those losses was a greasy embarrassment against the Jaguars, but the real soul-stealer was a 41-15 Week 10 demolition at the hands of the Colts in which running back Jonathan Taylor set a franchise record with five touchdowns — four on the ground, and one through the air.

It wasn’t just Taylor who was great against the Bills; it was Indianapolis’ entire offensive structure for their run game. Taylor’s big plays were blocked up about as well as they could be, and even for a defense that has been one of the best against the run this season, there’s no real counter for that.

(Rich Barnes-USA TODAY Sports)

This is an important note for Monday night’s game, because if the Colts don’t have the league’s most dominant rushing attack right now, it might be because the Patriots do. That starts up front with an outstanding offensive line, it extends to the factor of fullback Jakob Johnson, and it all benefits Damien Harris and Rhamondre Stevenson, two great power/speed backs.

Harris has 643 rushing yards and eight touchdowns this season on 154 carries; he’s averaged 2.9 yards per carry after contact, and he’s forced 30 missed tackles. Stevenson spent a bit of his rookie season in Bill Belichick’s doghouse, but he’s figured that out, and he’s gained 351 yards and scored three touchdowns on just 76 carries. The Oklahoma alum has averaged 3.2 yards after contact per carry, with 16 forced missed tackles.

It’s a load to deal with, and as great as Buffalo’s defense has been throughout the season, it’s going to be an issue for them when this game kicks off.

How the Bills stack up against that ground game...

(AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)

The Bills are well aware of this, obviously. The return of defensive tackle Star Lotulelei from a three-week stint helps a bit, as the Colts were able to exploit Buffalo’s primary run defense issue — this is a very smart, fast, and gap-sound squad, but they don’t have that Vita Vea-style run-plugger who can not only suck double teams up in the middle, but can also appear all over the formation and has the quickness to jump gaps and stop run plays from everywhere. No, Buffalo’s defense needs to work in concert, and against the Colts, it didn’t. It got manhandled, and the Patriots have the ability to do the exact same with concepts both familiar and new to this defense.

“We’ve been preparing for games like this since OTAs and training camp,” defensive end Mario Addison said in an appearance on ‘One Bills Live.’ “Before we can even rush the passer, we’ve got to put them behind the sticks and stop the run. Our defense, we play gap sound football. When our ends are setting the edge and our three-technique is coming off the ball, we can dominate the game and there’s nothing they can do to harm us. If our D-line comes out and plays our best ball on Monday, everything they throw at us won’t even affect us.”

A nice thought, but one a lot of defenses have taken into games against the Patriots this season, with unfortunate results.

“They basically play the same defense all the time,” Belichick said of the Bills on Wednesday, when asked about the effect linebacker Matt Milano has on that unit.. “They’re in a nickel defense. It’s him and [linebacker Tremaine] Edmunds. They do what they do. They play a lot of zone, blitz zone. They play a little man, and they blitz a little bit, but not an extraordinary amount, but they’re effective when they do it. They’re good at everything. Edmunds is really one of the top players in the league. He and Milano complement each other well. Matt’s a little lighter, but Edmunds is a big guy. He’s a thumper. He’s fast. They’re both very instinctive. They work well together.

“It’s similar to [safeties Micah] Hyde and [Jordan] Poyer, the way they complement and work off each other at safety with their disguises and just kind of playing off each other times as plays develop, misdirection plays and things like that. Again, it’s a very well-coordinated defensive unit. The players work well and adjust well with each other on things that come up. I don’t know if that’s exactly the way they want to cover or handle certain things, but they work it out, handle it, and it’s effective. They work well together, Milano and Edmunds especially.”

Everyone will have to work well together if the Bills are to stop this run game.

Smash-and-grab: The inside crunch for the big run

(Bob DeChiara-USA TODAY Sports)

“The whole defense is aggressive in everything,” Belichick said when asked if Buffalo’s defense is aggressive against the run. “It’s why they’re one of the best defenses in the league. They’re aggressive on the run, aggressive on the pass. They cover well. They rush well. They play zone, play man-to-man, they blitz and mix it up. They’re good at all of it.”

The Bills have to be aggressive against the run, and it doesn’t work well for them if you can get a hat on a hat through the formation. The Colts used all kinds of power run concepts against Buffalo’s defense, and they blocked them up magnificently. Taylor’s first touchdown run of the day came with 8:55 left in the first quarter. The Colts had two tight ends — Mo Alie-Cox [No. 81] and Jack Doyle [No. 84] to the play side, and Doyle’s crash inside against defensive tackle Harrison Phillips was a key component to the success of this play.

Taylor had a truck-sized hole to run through, and between Doyle’s block inside, left guard Quenton Nelson [No. 56] moving to take out 330-pound defensive tackle Vernon Butler [No. 94], center Ryan Kelly [No. 78] moving to linebacker Matt Milano’s [No. 58] right shoulder to seal that block, and left tackle Eric Fisher [No. 79] erasing end Carlos Basham [No. 96], the touchdown was a fait accompli.

The Patriots have no problem doing this, as they showed against the Browns in Week 10 against the Browns in a 45-7 whomping. On this 10-yard run, fullback Johnson [No. 47] leveled defensive tackle Jordan Elliott [No. 96] to secure the outside lane, tight end Hunter Henry, right guard Shaq Mason, and right tackle Trent Brown capsized Cleveland’s entire defense to that side, and center David Andrews [No. 60] kicked up to the second level to deal with linebacker Elijah Lee [No. 52]. This is how the Patriots use a defense’s aggressiveness against it.

Using motion to create commotion

(Brett Davis-USA TODAY Sports)

This nine-yard Taylor run with 4:29 left in the third quarter showed how well the Colts used motion to set Buffalo’s front defenders and linebackers up for the cutback.

The Patriots can do that, but they’ll also use dual motion — the first on this play to give Mac Jones a pre-snap indicator, and the second, a timed sweep handoff to tight end Jonnu Smith for a nine-yard gain. It will be imperative for the Bills’ linebackers to maintain gap discipline no matter what New England throws at them in the run game.

Sweep the leg!

(AP Photo/Mary Schwalm)

In the case of the Patriots, the Bills will have to deal with all kinds of evil sweeps led by Jakob Johnson, and that is a highly unpleasant prospect for any defender. Motion can be a factor here, as well.

The Patriots' run game also gives Mac Jones an advantage.

(David Butler II-USA TODAY Sports)

Not that you need a great run game to get play-action passing efficiency going (you don’t), but the Patriots are using it to give rookie quarterback Mac Jones advantages in that department. Jones attempted 12 play-action passes against the Titans, completing 11 for 169 yards, and as Greg Cosell of NFL Films and ESPN’s NFL Matchup points out in this breakdown, many of New England’s passing concepts come out of defenses over-correcting to a power run game they can’t quite solve.

The Bills have the NFL’s best defense against play-action passes this season, allowing 48 completions in 85 attempts for 561 yards, three touchdowns, five interceptions, and 5.7 yards per coverage snap. But the Bills have not faced a heavy play-action passing game (or any other passing game) without Tre’Davious White on the field this season. So, that’s another thing the Bills have to deal with here.

The Bills must play to the gap at all times.

“They do have a good variety in their system,” Belichick said this week of Buffalo’s defense. “I’m not saying they just do one thing. They don’t do that, but the things they do complement each other well. It’s hard to tell which one they’re doing because they all kind of look the same. They’re basically in the same personnel group. It’s hard. It’s hard to know which safety is coming or if it’s a boundary corner or which linebacker is coming or if they’re going to drop out and fake like they’re going to come, if they’re going to stunt the line, if they’re going to play base, if they’re going to rotate, not rotate, and they just do a good job on all those things.”

Multiplicity might work against the Bills in this case. Mac Jones has not been great against the blitz this season, and he’s far from a consistent deep thrower. Even with White out of that defense, Buffalo has more than enough formidable pass defenders to give Jones a problematic day. The key to stopping this Patriots run game is to attack the attack when it happens, but to avoid over-pursuing an offense that can set you up and put you away with everything from traps to iso leads.

If the Bills can meet this challenge, it’ll give them a leg up on claiming this game — and one step closer to control of the division.

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