Breaking Down Josh Allen's Game-Sealing 26-Yard TD Run vs. the Chiefs

The Bills handed the Chiefs their first loss of the season on Sunday with a 30-21 win that was much closer than the final score indicates.

The biggest play of the game came with just 2:27 remaining. Buffalo led by 2 points and faced a 4th-and-2 from the Chiefs’ 26-yard line. Do you kick the field goal to take a 5-point lead and force K.C. to have to drive for a touchdown? Or do you go for it and keep the ball out of Patrick Mahomes’ hands?

That’s actually not much of a decision. And Sean McDermott would correctly choose to go for it.

These critical short-yardage situations generally lead to the defense playing man coverage, so offenses like to dial up their best man-beaters. In fact, in a similar situation in Week 2 against the Dolphins, Bills Offensive Coordinator Joe Brady dialed up one of his best on a 4th-and-3 that completely broke down Miami’s man coverage (we posted about it this weekend).

It was a mesh concept with the running back releasing out of the backfield to the opposite flat and two receivers creating traffic for his defender:

Josh Allen would initially look to the right, where the Bills had a receiver releasing after motioning into the backfield, to try and draw the defense. Then he turned left and hit a wide-open James Cook for the touchdown:

That’s a great man-beating concept. And as it turned out, the Bills had the same play called on this season-defining 4th down. It was just dressed up a bit differently to throw the Chiefs off the scent.

This time, they would flip the play, running it in the opposite direction. They also didn’t use the same type of motion pre-snap. And on top of that, it would be a wide receiver (Khalil Shakir) instead of a running back releasing to the opposite flat out of the backfield after sneaking through the line:

Similar to the play against the Dolphins, running back Ty Johnson would release to the left and Josh Allen would pump his way to create some “eye candy” for the defense, as he said after the game.

But as it turned out, Chiefs Defensive Coordinator Steve Spagnuolo was all over this one. He obviously was aware of that Week 2 play and guessed right that Buffalo would call it again. So he dropped out into zone at the snap:

That negated the pick play and left Shakir covered:

So Allen went into super-hero mode:

“They dropped out into zone. Again, just trying to create and keep the play alive. There was a crease, and just trusted the feet.”

Spagnuolo and the Chiefs won the first phase of the play. But against Allen, you always have to worry about his ability to win the second phase and create when things don’t work as designed. Here, K.C. did not have an answer for that:

You just can’t give Allen escape lanes.

This was a huge win for the Bills, to be sure. But we’ve seen them beat the Chiefs in the regular season before. In fact, they’ve won their last 4 regular-season meetings. Can they finally beat them in the playoffs? I hope we get a chance to see in January.

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