FanPost

Why the Bills offense isn't good as that 41-7 score...

I touched on this in another FanPost, but I wanted to elaborate a little more on why I don't think the Bills are nearly as good as the score showed in week 1. Thrashing the Chiefs in Arrowhead on opening weekend is an impressive feat no matter how you slice it, that's not debatable. No matter how good or bad the Chiefs are, Arrowhead is one of the toughest environments to play in. That being said, the Chiefs are bad. They defense was without prized free agent LB Brandon Siler and Pro Bowl safety Eric Berry as well. Without those two guys, the defense looks pretty awful.

I really want to pick apart the Bills drives, so this is going to be a little wordy. I apologize if it runs long. First off, I want to look at the Bills scoring drives...

This game got off to a great start for the Bills with Dexter McCluster fumbling the opening kickoff at the KC 26 yard line, giving the Bills a very short field to play with. The Bills have a short field would become a recurring theme in this game. The Bills punched the ball in for an early TD giving them a 7-0 lead.Even though the Bills scored, the most important thing about this drive happened on the third play, Eric Berry was injured and the Chiefs lost their best defensive player for the year. Huge advantage for the Bills.

No more scoring happened until the fourth Buffalo drive. This drive was, in my opinion, the only truly impressive drive of the game. A 6 play, 75 yard drive that lead to a Buffalo TD. The Bills abused the Chiefs depleted secondary by gaining 62 yards on the final 2 plays of this drive. A 35 yard pass followed by a 27 yard TD pass. 14-0, Bills. One can only wonder how that drive would have turned out if Eric Berry was hanging around in the secondary.

The Bills continued to get great field position, but could only manage FG's in the second quarter. Their next drive started at their own 39 yard line and went 50 yards and ended up in a FG. Then the Chiefs fumbled and the Bills recovered on the KC 21 yard line. The Bills gained one yard on 4 plays and settled for another FG. 20-0, Bills. That was all the scoring for the Bills in the first half and they went into the half with a 20-7 lead.

The Bills opened the second half with the ball and started with a 5 play, 26 yard drive that ended with a punt. Their next drive, they again got great field position due to a crappy punt by the Chiefs. This time they started on their own 41 yard line. Fred Jackson busted off a few nice runs to start the drive and by the third play, they were at the KC 26. Fitzpatrick punched it in for a TD from 11 yards out on 3rd and goal. 27-7, Bills.

The Bills D forced a 3 and out for the Chiefs and got a nice return to AGAIN give them exceptional field position. This time, they got the ball at the KC 32. It took the Bills 6 plays to punch this in the end zone with Fitzpatrick working the banged up secondary again. He completed 4-5 for 29 yards and a TD. Again, the Bills take advantage of the short field and now lead 34-7.

The next Buffalo drive was their last scoring drive of the game, and guess where they started that drive? The KC 28 yard line!! ANOTHER drive starting deep in the Chiefs territory. This time, the ran the ball down the Chiefs throats for a TD. Jackson ran twice for 14 yards and Spiller ran it in from 9 yards out. 41-7, Bills. At this point in the game, 14:01 in the 4th qtr, the Chiefs D had to be breathing heavy and struggling to put up a fight. It's no wonder that the Bills were able to run it on them and punch this one in.

So, in summary, the Bills scored TDs on drives that started on the KC 26, BUF 25, BUF 41, KC 32 and KC 28 and 2 FGs on drives that started on the BUF 39 and the KC 21. On top of this, they had a drive that started on the KC 44 that went three and out and ended with a punt. Outside of these short field drives, the Bills gained 71 yards on their other 7 drives. (the other drives looked like this: Started at BUF 24, 13 yards, punt. KC 44, 6 yards, punt. BUF 10, 10 yards, end half. BUF 20, 26 yards, punt. BUF 26, 17 yards, punt. BUF 33, 4 yards, INT. BUF 30, -5 yards, punt).

I believe that most of the Bills success is due to good field position. They got such good field position because of terrible punting by the Chiefs and 3 turnovers deep in Chiefs territory. The Bills will not be getting this good of field position off of Lechler's punts and if the Raiders don't turn the ball over on their side of the field, the Bills will be forced to put together long drives. In this game, the Bills only had 3 drives longer than 50 yards (50, 59 and 75). They also punted five times, a VERY high number for a team that scored 41 points.

In the end, the Bills deserve a lot of credit for pounding the Chiefs on the road last week, but maybe not as much credit as they are getting. I want to give a little more credit to the injured Chiefs defense, Daniel Colquitt's abysmal punting and Chiefs turnovers deep inside their own territory.