A theory I have been kicking around in re to the Bills defense is that they are purposely keeping things vanilla - “Bend but don’t break.” Some of that may be injury related, but I believe it is also strategic, & was created in the offseason.

I flashback to the defensive gameplan the Bills had vs the Chiefs (Alex Smith at QB) a few years ago. The Bills threw so many different looks at Reid and that O, especially the 3-3-5 look that did create some confusion.

I don’t normally believe in this sort of strategy but I think there are a lot of things that have contributed to their struggles but I do expect them to get better.

This is only against the passing plays but look at the coverage differences vs last year per SIS.

Those stats don’t show how many guys are in the box vs runs, but having watched the film a bunch, the Bills have gotten caught rocking & rolling/rotating safeties bc of pre/post snap motion or straight up caught with both safeties back (Cover 2/Cover4 etc).

Which obviously has led to some big run plays. They did well last week tho! Having Cover 4 be their primary coverage thus far isn’t surprising tho. With how the offense has been scoring, that is the epitome of a bend but don’t break coverage.

The balancing act that a defensive coordinator and even Head Coach in the Bills situation is a tough one. Having an explosive offense does affect the defensive game-plan. And based on what I have seen, the complement to this offense, didn’t quite show til last week.

They were playing bend but don’t break, and when they were able to get Carr in third and longs what happened? Stops, sacks, fumbles. Very opportunistic. The type of plays that need to be made when playing bend but don’t break.

There are many factors to the struggles by the Bills D and defenses across the league but I find it fascinating how the defense is being forced to tweak their approach, intended or not, because of how well the offense has played.

As the season progresses, and more and more film drops, will things change again? These are big picture things that the Bills staff has to worry about and definitely are on top of the million other things.

This season, maybe more than any other season is about adapting and overcoming. I trust this staff had a plan in place, has had to adjust it, and will continue to adapt.

This video on why Edmunds has struggled is directly related to the defensive calls/predictability in the calls and reliance on the very solid scheme. Is Bills Linebacker Tremaine Edmunds Struggling?

Adapt and overcome https://twitter.com/nflonfox/status/1315324066300125189

To kind of wrap this up, per SIS the Bills stacked box count (8+ men’s) last year was 24.6% of plays, this year its 18.8%. So there appears to be some truth to this theory in run and pass game.