First off, sample size caveat.
I love week one of the NFL season. The vibes, the food, the weather…we talked about the things I love last week in my article.
But I also kind of hate week one. Obviously, the phrase “week one is a liar” exists for a reason. We see weird and fluky phenomena during the first regular season game of a season every year. We look back at week one when the playoffs come around and frequently see results and play that make us wonder if we’re even in the same season. And if we’re trying
to be intellectually honest (and we are), it makes it a necessity that every week one reaction conversation is absolutely dripping in a heavy pour of “but remember, it’s only week one”.
With that statement as a precursor, one of the most interesting conversation points from the 2026 offseason surrounded what the Buffalo Bills’ defensive scheme would look like under new defensive coordinator Jim Leonhard. After getting very used to a similar year-over-year look from previous head coach Sean McDermott (almost regardless of the person who held the “defensive coordinator” title), Buffalo was in for a change up under Leonhard, who came to the Bills most recently as the assistant head coach/defensive passing game coordinator for the Denver Broncos.
But what would that change up look like? Through the first week, the main highlight from watching the game on broadcast and again on the all-22 was that there was a diversity in coverages being played on the back end on the Bills defense that showed a difference when compared to the coverage splits in 2025. That was reinforced by the coverage metrics from Fantasy Points Data Suite.
Bills were charted as having 42 drop backs against them.
Snap in Cover 0 = 0 (0%)
Cover 1 – 3 (7.14%)
Cover 2 – 5 (11.90%)
2 Man – 4 (9.52%)
Cover 3 – 13 (30.95%)
Cover 4 – 8 (19.05%)
Cover 6 – 9 (21.43%)
To put those numbers into perspective, here are the 2025 regular season coverage split percentages:
Cover 0 = 2.83%
Cover 1 – 15.33%
Cover 2 – 16.22%
2 Man – 6.22%
Cover 3 – 26.60%
Cover 4 – 15.09%
Cover 6 – 12.26%
The spike in Cover 6 usage the first week of 2026 when compared to 2025 is the most interesting change here in coverage diversity splits (as a reminder, Cover 6 is half-field Cover 4 and half-field Cover 2, with the dividing line being the center line of the defense running end zone to end zone). What this means is that on a whopping 52.38% of all the Buffalo Bills’ defensive snaps against the Houston Texans in week one, the Bills appeared to have three defenders in deep coverages (two safeties and a corner in Cover 6, two corners and a safety in Cover 3).
Why is this notable? The main point of pain for the Bills passing defense (when they didn’t miscommunicate and blow a coverage) was when dealing with in-breaking routes. Cover 3 and Cover 6 can both be had through in-breaker route combos like Cab (dig and drag from the same side of the field, see image below) or Shallow Cross (dig and drag from opposite sides of the field).
Against dig and drag routes versus Houston, the Bills gave up 8 completions on 10 attempts for 111 yards, (11.1 yards per attempt, 112.9 passer rating against).
As I mentioned above, it’s one game. I know nothing about how it will look moving forward. Is this just the way that Leonhard prefers his coverage splits or was this a Texans-only plan that leans towards Cover 2 against a Jared Goff-led Lions passing attack?
As with all things after week one, it’s simply an interesting data point until we see more.
…and that’s the way the cookie crumbles. I’m Bruce Nolan with Buffalo Rumblings. You can find me on Twitter and Instagram @BruceExclusive and look for new episodes of “The Bruce Exclusive” every Thursday on the Rumblings Cast Network — see more in my LinkTree!
