The six seed Buffalo Bills are en route to Colorado to take on the one-seeded Denver Broncos in a Divisional Round playoff game many expect to be close. Both teams have their strengths and weaknesses to leverage and exploit, as you’d expect.
If you’re looking for a what-if scenario for a Bills loss, it’s looking pretty safe to say that if Denver wins, it’ll be their defense getting the credit.
Denver Broncos’ defense is elite
For a brief refresher, per my rule of four only the top four teams in the league get to use the “elite” label.
The next four (5-8) are considered “good.” The middle 16 teams (9-24) are average. That means 25-28 are considered “bad” with ranking in the 29-32 range considered “terrible.” Now that that’s out of the way…
The stats outside the score that I put the most stock in are the per-drive numbers. With the score being the single most important stat in my opinion, it stands to reason then that I absolutely love points-per-drive numbers. In that regard Denver is for sure elite, with the third-fewest points allowed per drive with 1.64 (Seattle Seahawks and Houston Texans are the two better).
The question for Bills fans then, is has Buffalo faced similarly good offenses and what was the result? Based on just this measure, the Bills have faced one better defense in the Houston Texans. That’s it in the elite tier, but Buffalo has faced 75% of the “good” tier of teams in this measure. Cleveland Browns, Philadelphia Eagles, and Jacksonville Jaguars. Respectively, the Bills scored 19 points against Houston, 23 (Browns), 12 (Eagles), and 27 (Jaguars, playoffs).
Buffalo averaged 28.3 points this season, which means that they fell short of their usual mark against Houston and Philadelphia. They were a little shy against Cleveland, and did just fine against Jacksonville. Let’s explore some factors in those four games.
Against the Texans, quarterback Josh Allen was sacked eight times and was hit 12 times in total. The Bills committed three turnovers. They had no issues moving the ball though, with a respectable 7.44 yards per passing attempt and an absurd 5.95 yards per carry.
Against the Eagles, Buffalo had a similar yards per pass but only 3.63 yards per carry. Allen was sacked five times and the Bills had one turnover.
In Cleveland, Allen was kept cleaner with only two sacks and zero turnovers. They ran the ball well, with 5.65 yards per carry. If anything held them back it was their 6.84 yards per passing attempt. Allen’s completion percentage looks acceptable, but a lot of short passes behind the line of scrimmage limited opportunities.
Allen took a beating against the Jaguars despite only being sacked once and sustaining three QB hits. Remember that QB hits measures the quarterback being knocked to the ground after a pass. It’s a specific set of conditions, not just the amount of times contact occurred (which makes Houston’s 12 impressive). Their 7.8 yards per pass was excellent, but the 3.03 yards per rush was abysmal.
If we’re looking for trends, it’s simplified best by saying great defenses can do great things. If you want more nuance than that, the Texans and Eagles stopped the Bills in slightly different ways but both teams did record a lot of sacks. Houston shockingly allowed a ton of yards and Philly really only limited the running game on a yards-per-play basis. That said, both teams did find ways to impact both Josh Allen and running back James Cook III.
Cleveland’s defense had some success stopping the passing game, but without being able to check the running game completely they gave up enough points to lose. With Jacksonville it was the opposite: They shut down Cook, but Allen ultimately couldn’t be stopped.
Denver then will want answers for both Cook and Allen to take control of this game. Unfortunately for Bills fans the team is running on fumes when it comes to healthy wide receivers. Fortunately for Bills Mafia, the grouping wasn’t exactly a terrifying unit to begin with. Let’s check out more of the Broncos’ work to see what might be in store.
- The Bills have been average when it comes to allowing sacks as a rate, with 21st place in the league. Unfortunately, no one has a higher sack rate than Denver does, taking the quarterback down on 11.47% of passing attempts.
- The Broncos allow the fewest yards per pass (5.37) and the third fewest yards per rush (3.87).
- For some good news, they’re on the cusp of bad with interceptions with a 24th-place ranking at 1.69%.
We can dive just a little deeper than this and maybe have a ray of sunshine. In the run game, the Broncos are 17th in the league defending runs toward the right guard, and 14th in the league toward the left end. Those are numbers based off of average gain allowed. The Bills are seventh-best running toward the right guard and ninth-best toward the left end. It’s not their strongest two areas, but they’re no slouches there either. This could be an exploitable matchup that favors Buffalo.
Regarding Denver in the passing game, there’s no great zone when it comes to completion percentage with a top-nine or better in all areas of the field. A lot of this is likely due to the ferocious pass rush. When the Broncos do allow completions though, they’re susceptible to bigger gains with passes in the short middle of the field (24th) and deep right (17th).
Josh Allen has been respectable with short-middle passes (73% of this throws) for an average gain of 7.42 yards. With the wide receiver group in a less-than-ideal state, we might see more tight end work — which could help exploit this matchup. When it comes to deep-right passes, let’s just say that offensive coordinator Joe Brady will need to find some tendency-breaker plays to take advantage of this. The Bills have not been successful attacking this part of the field during the 2025 season.
The Final Straw
I don’t hate this matchup as much as the numbers might suggest. I am very concerned about the pass rush with Allen seeing more sacks than we’d like and Denver being so dang good at it. However, it seems that if the Bills have a plan to mitigate that, a lot of other things should fall into place.
There’s opportunity to be had throwing the ball and let’s face it… Josh Allen is Josh Allen. The top quarterbacks the Broncos have faced have managed to put up some numbers.
In the run game Denver has allowed seven teams to get over 100 yards on the ground, with the Indianapolis Colts hitting 167 early in the season and the Washington Commanders reaching 143 in Week 13. So there could be some opportunity there as well. The Broncos’ defense is elite, but the Bills have the reigning NFL MVP and this season’s rushing leader on their side.
