The latest edition of the soon-to-be 43-game series between the Denver Broncos and the Buffalo Bills takes place in the 2025-26 NFL Playoffs. And Denver gets their chance to get retribution against the team
that knocked them out of the postseason in last year’s Wild Card round.
The Broncos get the added benefit of coming into this game fresh and hopefully with a concreted and bullet proof game plan while the Bills have a bit of a limp heading into Saturday. Their injury report is extensive. But how much will this help the Broncos out? Let’s take a look at three keys to victory.
1. Exploit the Buffalo run defense
At the end of the regular season the Bills sat 28th in the league in run yards per game given up (136 YPG) and the Jaguars took full advantage of this shortcoming in their Wild Card matchup. Even without including Trevor Lawrence’s 31 yards off of scrambled, Jacksonville put up 123 rushing yards with five rushes of 10+ yards, two of which went for 20+ yards.
The style of run offense the Jags employed was also very similar to the looks that Denver likes to employ, so hopefully that bodes well for Denver’s chances to copy this success.
If Denver is able to keep as much pressure off of Bo Nix as possible, then that should lead to increased success throughout the playoffs, and that starts with being able to establish the run. I’d like plenty of Pin and Pull concepts by both RJ Harvey and Nix while keeping the between-the-tackle stuff primarily for Jaleel McLaughlin.
2. Keep everything in front of them defensively
We all know that Josh Allen is an absolute game-breaker and is near unstoppable when he really gets going. So it’s up to this defense to contain him as much as possible on Saturday.
I think there’s going to be a lot of pressure on the back end of the defense. Luckily the Bills will be down two more wide receivers this week due to injury, so that means that Khalil Shakir will have to bear most of the burden of passing game success. And if you take him out, you eliminate most of Josh Allen’s options. Also, most of Allen’s success in the air this season has come against zone coverage, which Denver usually stays away from. If the defense is able to keep the lid on this offense, force Allen to hit his check downs or hold onto the ball, then things should trend in Denver’s favor.
They just can’t give up five yards a carry on QB sneaks like Jacksonville did.
3. Win the turnover battle
Sean Payton gave us an interesting note on the relationship between the turnover battle and Buffalo’s chances of winning football games.
So in all but one of Buffalo’s losses over the last couple of years the Bills have lost the turnover battle. Turnovers, however, have been difficult for this defense to manufacture. They did do some great things in this department against the Chargers in Week 18, but those were predominantly backups playing.
Once again, Denver needs to find a way to steal the ball away from the Bills and keep them off of the field. Interceptions will be hard to come by, so that suggests that fumbles will be the name of the game this week.
