Another Steve Spagnuolo Special Helps Chiefs Finish Off the Bills
For the fourth time in five years, the Bills’ season ended at the hands of the Chiefs. There were numerous plays on both sides of the ball that led to the final outcome in this one. But we have to start with Buffalo’s final offensive play.
You know the situation. The Bills trailed 32-29. There were 2 minutes remaining and it was 4th-and-5.
This one had a lot of different elements. Let’s dig in.
No Good Answers
If there’s one thing we know about Chiefs Defensive Coordinator Steve Spagnuolo, it’s that he saves his best for these types of situations. He gets aggressive, is able to dictate the protection, and then attacks where it’s vulnerable. The result is often free rushers, and usually they’re coming fast because he deliberately chooses to blitz frequently with his defensive backs.
He would dial up another great one on the biggest play of the AFC Championship Game.
Coming out of the 2-minute warning where they had time to think about it and talk it over, the Bills had to be ready for an exotic blitz here. There had to be answers for Josh Allen.
But there were not, and that was the biggest issue with this play.
First, take a look at it in full:
Let’s start with the formation. The Bills were in empty. They would send Khalil Shakir on orbit-return motion behind Allen, but this was a 5-man protection. And that was the first problem:
Utilizing empty and relying on a 5-man protection against Spagnuolo in a critical situation is dangerous. No one breaks down protections and gets free rushers in on the quarterback like he does. Particularly against empty.
That’s why I would have preferred to see the Bills keep a back in and potentially also have a tight end stay in or chip in this situation.
I’m not saying you should never use empty in these types of situations against Spagnuolo. But if you’re going to do it, you better have quick outlets for the quarterback to get rid of ball.
And that gets us to the personnel distribution. The Bills were in a quads look with running back Ty Johnson aligned on the perimeter to the backside in a tight split:
Here was the problem with that. A tight split into the boundary made it easier for the Chiefs to hold their disguise until the snap and blitz the cornerback (Trent McDuffie). He didn’t have a ton of distance to travel and could still get home early enough in the play to be disruptive:
And because this was a running back on the perimeter, the Chiefs really didn’t have to be concerned with him as a receiver. He wasn’t going to run an iso route against Trent McDuffie. If he did, Allen wasn’t going to look at him anyway.
Not to mention, K.C. also didn’t have to worry about how quickly another defender could get over top of Johnson if they brought a corner blitz. They likely weren’t going to get burned.
Buffalo played into the Chiefs’ hands and made it easier for them to bring McDuffie.
Most importantly, though, if the Bills did recognize the corner blitz, there would be no ability to throw quickly to Johnson on the back side. Running backs don’t typically align on the perimeter often, and they certainly aren’t experienced in breaking off or adjusting their routes when they see pressure.
Johnson would run the route of the play that was called in the huddle. He was the high crosser on a mesh concept, and his purpose was to create traffic for another receiver’s route.
It sure would have been nice for Allen to have a receiver aligned to that side who could adjust his route on the fly.
Now let’s go to the protection and the pressure. From the end zone angle, we can see how this blitz was set up. First, the Chiefs had 6 defenders on the line of scrimmage with Chris Jones aligned to the left. Given the 5-man protection, the Bills were in a no-win situation:
Time and time again, we’ve seen Spagnuolo put Jones on one side of the defensive line to get the protection to slide to him and then bring blitz pressure from the other side.
Here, the Bills didn’t have a lot of great options. They chose to honor the threat of Jones and slide in his direction:
That made them vulnerable on the backside, where Buffalo only had two blockers for 4 potential rushers (including McDuffie):