The Buffalo Bills (6-6) take on the Kansas City Chiefs (8-4) on Sunday during a pivotal stretch of Buffalo’s season as the team is trying to hold on to their playoff hopes.After losing to the Philadelphia Eagles in Week 12, the Bills have a small margin of error in terms of losing games as Buffalo has most likely missed out on winning the AFC East.
With the Bills’ playoff hopes now resting on making it to the postseason as a wild-card team, they will have to play perfectly down the home stretch if they want to remain in the hunt.
With that being said, here are three keys to the Bills beating the Chiefs in Week 14:One of the ways that the Bills have been effective this season is running the football. Buffalo’s running game, led by running back James Cook and star quarterback Josh Allen, is middle-of-the-pack in terms of yards and attempts, but is one of the better teams in the league in rushing yards and rushing yards per attempt.
On the other side, the Chiefs are one of the lesser teams in the NFL when it comes to defending the run, especially in yards allowed per rushing attempt. As long as the game script is in their favor, the Bills have to be willing to run the football early and often.The best way to stifle Kansas City’s struggling passing game is by getting after Chiefs star quarterback Patrick Mahomes with the pass rush. While Kansas City has not had much success passing the football due to the lack of weapons on the outside, putting pressure on Mahomes makes it harder for him to find Travis Kelce and Rashee Rice within the rhythm of the offense.
As the Chiefs’ game last week against the Green Bay Packer showed, Kansas City can be knocked off-kilter with an effective pass rush that also can cause Mahomes to struggle seeing the field. The Bills have more than enough players along the defensive line to be able to apply a lot of pressure and there are enough playmakers in the secondary to make a big play or two.
While Stefon Diggs is on pace to have another season that gets him to the Pro Bowl and possibly All-Pro, he has been relatively quiet over the past few weeks. After going over 100 yards receiving in five of his first six games this season, Diggs has failed to go over 100 yards in any of his past six games despite getting at least 11 targets in half of those contests.
One of the differences for Diggs from the first half of this season to the second half is the yards per target. In the first half, Diggs’ yards per target was 9.39 compared to just 6.35 over the last six games. The offense has to do a better job of giving Diggs more targets further down the field to maximize his impact.
