2024 AFC Championship Game: DVOA Preview

It’s now been five seasons since Josh Allen turned his career around and went from a disappointing prospect to the Josh Allen who competes for titles and MVP awards. In those five seasons, this is the fourth time that the Buffalo Bills will meet the Kansas City Chiefs in the postseason. So far, the Bills are 0-3, losing some classic close games including the 2020 AFC Championship Game and the “13 Seconds” game in the 2021 playoffs.

This looks like Buffalo’s best chance to finally get past the Chiefs and into the Super Bowl for the first time since the 1993 season. On paper, this looks like the weakest of the recent Chiefs teams, despite their 15-2 regular-season record. The Bills are strong and beat the Chiefs in the regular season, 30-21 back in Week 11. Can the Bills finally get past the Mahomes Magic and overcome Kansas City’s home-field advantage to make it to Super Bowl LIX?

One of the big storylines here is the number of players who missed that Week 11 contest but will be active for this week’s game. For the Bills, that includes wide receiver Keon Coleman, tight end Dalton Kincaid, linebacker Matt Milano (probably), and right tackle Spencer Brown. For the Chiefs, the list includes wide receiver Marquise Brown, running back Isiah Pacheco, edge rusher Charles Omenihu, cornerback Jaylen Watson, and kicker Harrison Butker.

Week-to-week charts represent each team’s single-game DVOA, with separate charts for offense and defense. The extra line is a rolling five-week average. If you’re checking out FTN’s DVOA for the first time, it’s all explained right here.

Except for WEIGHTED DVOA, which gives more weight to recent games, all stats are regular-season only unless noted.

WHEN THE BILLS HAVE THE BALL

The Bills had their best running game of the Josh Allen era this season, ranking fourth in DVOA. However, the Chiefs also had their best run defense in years. The Chiefs were ninth against the run compared to just 17th against the pass. There’s been some talk about the Bills leaning on the running game to beat the Chiefs this time, but in the Week 11 game, the three Bills running backs combined for just 49 yards on 19 carries. The Chiefs excel at preventing long runs, ranking second in the league in lowest second-level yards per carry and second in lowest open-field yards per carry.

I start with the run to point out the Chiefs’ run/pass splits and this table that is similar to one we ran a week ago, showing the development of the Chiefs defense during the season. The Kansas City pass defense went through a bad five-week stretch that included the game against Buffalo, but they’ve turned things around again since then. The run defense hasn’t been quite as good compared to the start of the season. This table takes out the pointless Week 18 game, by the way.

We know that Chiefs defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo will blitz with creative packages, and the Chiefs ranked fourth in blitz rate this season. Josh Allen is good against the blitz, ranking ninth in DVOA among quarterbacks, but he’s still better if you don’t blitz him, so expect Spags to do Spags things.

Allen also ranked second among quarterbacks in DVOA under pressure. In fact, Allen actually had a positive DVOA when a defense got pressure with just four pass-rushers — a positive DVOA under pressure is very rare — so the Chiefs are definitely going to want to blitz.

However, remember that those blitzes often open up holes for scrambles. The Chiefs faced 50 quarterback scrambles during the regular season, more than any other defense. They allowed 7.5 yards per carry with a 60% success rate on these plays. Allen iced the first game between these teams with a 26-yard scramble touchdown on fourth-and-2.

When it comes to man vs. zone on the back end, the strengths match each other here. Allen was second in DVOA against zones (38.1%) but fifth in DVOA against man coverage (18.4%). The Chiefs were sixth in DVOA when in zone coverage but 21st in man coverage. If you take out Weeks 9-13, the Chiefs were fourth in DVOA in zone and eighth in DVOA in man, much closer. That suggests that they may want to go with more man coverage to counter Allen’s strength against zone.

The Chiefs defense ranks second in frequency playing two high safeties but Allen ranked third among quarterbacks in DVOA against two-high trailing only Lamar Jackson and Baker Mayfield.

This is the second straight year where my coverage DVOA numbers have not agreed with Trent McDuffie‘s reputation as one of the top cornerbacks in the league. His coverage DVOA was a little worse than average. Chamarri Conner and Nazeeh Johnson were similar, while Jaylen Watson and Joshua Williams had much better coverage DVOA but in limited snaps since Watson was hurt for half the year and Williams mostly played in the final six weeks of the regular season.

One interesting note is how big-name trade acquisition Amari Cooper has somewhat disappeared from the offense over the last few weeks. Cooper has not had more than three targets in a game since the Rams shootout in Week 14. He had just two catches for 8 yards against the Broncos in the wild-card round and then one target (not caught) against Baltimore last week. Cooper had only three targets but two big catches for 55 yards in the Week 11 Kansas City game.

Instead, you can expect to see a lot of slot receiver Khalil Shakir and tight ends Dalton Kincaid and Dawson Knox. The Chiefs ranked third in DVOA against wide receivers lined up outside but 30th against wide receivers lined up in the slot. The Chiefs were also susceptible to big games from opposing tight ends. Kansas City was near the bottom of the league in yards per play and success rate allowed to tight ends; however, they were up to 11th in DVOA because of opponent adjustments and because they intercepted five passes intended for tight ends (including one to Knox in the Week 11 game).

WHEN THE CHIEFS HAVE THE BALL

So, the Chiefs offense wasn’t as good this year as in past years. They weren’t as good last year as in past years. That’s two years of this. But their best games have come in recent weeks, so there’s certainly the sense that “the Chiefs offense is back.”

I expect we’re going to see a lot of 12 and 13 personnel from the Chiefs. The Bills like to play their defense in nickel. The Chiefs want to get the Bills to play in base. The Chiefs offense is better against base (26.2% DVOA, third) than against nickel (9.6% DVOA, 13th) and they want to get the Bills to put linebacker Dorian Williams on the field instead of slot cornerback Taron Johnson. Williams had the worst coverge DVOA this year among linebackers with at least 200 coverage snaps, but Milano and Terrell Bernard are playing ahead of him when the Bills are in nickel.

The Bills were ninth in DVOA against tight ends, by the way, but Noah Gray was a big part of the Chiefs offense in the Week 11 game including two short touchdowns. Taylor Rapp, responsible for some of the coverage on tight ends, may miss this game with an injury and be replaced by rookie Cole Bishop.

As far as the cornerbacks, Christian Benford was second in the league in coverage DVOA among qualifying cornerbacks behind only Pat Surtain II. Benford is in the concussion protocol but is trending towards playing in this game. Rasul Douglas and Taron Johnson had slightly below-average coverage DVOA (i.e. a little bit above zero). This is a good example of how cornerback stats are inconsistent, as Douglas and Johnson were both very good in this stat in 2023.

Like the Chiefs, the Bills have a clear imbalance in covering wide receivers. They rank seventh in DVOA against outside wide receivers but 29th against wide receivers in the slot. (Some of those are covered by Taron Johnson, but this is all slot receivers, including against zones or other defenders. It’s not necessarily a “Taron Johnson stat.”)

Mahomes is better against single-high safety (sixth in DVOA) than against two-high (16thin DVOA). Bills are one of the top teams in the frequency of playing two-high, playing two-high and one-high at about the same rate. (Most teams play one-high more often.)

The Bills ranked eighth in DVOA against deep passes (16+ air yards) but only 30th against shorter passes and 31st against passes up the middle. And this is strange, but the Bills were very bad this year on “mid” downs. They were 29th on second-and-mid (3-6 yards to go) and 32nd on third-and-mid.

FTN has the Bills ninth in pressure rate although they were only 20th in adjusted sack rate. They were only 29th in blitz rate, so when they did get pressure it was generally with just four pass rushers. The Bills were roughly league average in how good the defense was when they got pressure. We have Mahomes listed as 10-for-17 with pressure in Week 11 but for only 86 yards, so that’s 5.1 yards per attempt, which is good, but it also included all three touchdowns.

One interesting note is how big-name trade acquisition DeAndre Hopkins has somewhat disappeared from the offense over the last few weeks. Hopkins has not had more than 40 yards receiving in a game since Week 13 against the Raiders. He had just two catches against the Steelers on Christmas and just one target (not caught) against Houston last week. Hopkins had only three catches on four targets for 29 yards in the Week 11 Buffalo game.

The running game presents a matchup where each team’s weaknesses match. As with last week, I feel like I need to explain how the Bills run defense ranks eighth in DVOA since they are much worse at yards per carry allowed. The reason is that the Bills present the defensive version of a “boom and bust” running back. The Bills ranked fifth in adjsuted line yards, first in success on short-yardage runs (allowing just 53% conversions), and second in stuffing runners for a loss or no gain. However, they ranked 24th in second-level yards per carry and 31st in open-field yards per carry. They allowed a lot of explosive long runs.

The Chiefs offense is their opposite. The Chiefs ranked 12th in run offense DVOA but they were 31st in second-level yards per carry, dead last in open-field yards per carry, last in yards after contact, and last in missed tackle rate. The first meeting between the Chiefs and Bills played out to these expectations, as the Chiefs had a lot of runs of 2-5 yards but only one run for more than 10 yards, a 17-yard carry by Kareem Hunt in the fourth quarter.

One more note. These type of quarter-by-quarter and half-by-half splits rarely mean anything, but just to put it out there, the Bills ranked 26th in DVOA on defense before halftime, and second on defense after halftime.

SPECIAL TEAMS

Special teams present a Chiefs advantage, especially now that they have kicker Harrison Butker back healthy. The Bills were particularly poor on net kickoff and net punt value, in both cases a mix of the kicker/punter and the coverage.

OUTLOOK

If we were going simply by the regular season, the Bills should be favored here, even on the road in Kansas City. But there’s also the question of “Mahomes Magic” and the way the Chiefs seem to hold something back in the regular season and then play their best in the playoffs. Plus, the Bills are dealing with more injuries right now, specifically on their defense. I don’t think those things give the Chiefs an advantage, but I do think those things make this game a 50-50 proposition. Should be a good one.