Steelers at Bills: DVOA Preview

Edit: This game has been moved to Monday at 4:30pm EST. That means lesser winds around 12mph and just a small chance of snow showers. It will still be very cold but not as cold as Kansas City on Saturday night.

Get the shovels ready! Buffalo could be pelted with Lake Effect snow right at game time this Sunday, throwing a big question mark into the middle of an otherwise lopsided matchup. Of course, virtually all sources predicting this Lake Effect snow are also careful to point out the unpredictability of these weather patterns, so perhaps the forecast will change. For the time being, that seems unlikely. 

In any case, the Steelers are on their third quarterback of the season (though he’s arguably their best at the position) and they’re facing a Bills team that was on a historical pace back in October. It’s consequently no surprise that they’re 10-point underdogs despite a total that has fallen to just 35.5. However, DVOA may paint a closer picture, at least at first glance:

When the Steelers have the ball, both teams are pretty average. When the Bills have the ball, both teams are well above average. The Bills have a slight advantage in each, but perhaps not as large of an advantage as you might expect, given the spread. Let’s dive deeper.

Teams adapt and evolve throughout the season as they simultaneously dodge or incur major injuries. For example, from Weeks 5-10, Buffalo’s pass defense was horrendous. They had no games with a pass defense DVOA under 0% and their second-best game in that time frame had a pass defense DVOA of +22.9%. However, the Bills are fifth in defensive DVOA ever since. We can zoom in on the last three weeks to get an enhanced picture of who these teams are right now. This is one of DVOA’s major strengths — it strips away much of the noise, the randomness of football, and gets to the heart of how teams are actually playing. Here’s how these teams stack up over the last three weeks only:

All stats are for the regular season only. Week-to-week charts represent that team’s single-game total DVOA, not just offense. 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.

WHEN THE STEELERS HAVE THE BALL

The encouraging thing for Pittsburgh is that they have improved across the board. Over the last three weeks, their pass DVOA is up 19 percentage points vs. their season average and their rush DVOA is up 13 percentage points. The problem for Pittsburgh is that the deeper we dive into the data, the worse it looks for them offensively. For example, the Buffalo defense is 23rd against deep passes but seventh against short passes. If they’re to have success through the air, chances are it will have to be through explosive plays, downfield. Mason Rudolph has unlocked George Pickens and the explosive passing game, but good luck with that in a windy snowstorm! Plus, Buffalo has made a 19 percentage point improvement of their own against the pass.

Buffalo’s pass rush has come to life, moving them up to ninth in season-long pressure rates. As impressive as Rudolph has been for the Steelers, this is another reason for skepticism. Rudolph is averaging a whopping 9.7 yards per attempt, but that number plummets to 3.3 yards per attempt on the 31% of dropbacks on which he’s been pressured.

Last but not least, Buffalo will throw a lot of zone coverage Rudolph’s way if their 61% zone coverage rate continues. Rudolph has been much better against man, albeit in a small sample this season, and he’s actually faced far more man coverage than zone despite the league-wide shift towards zone coverages. The pass rush and the elements will combine to force Rudolph to beat their zones quickly and with short passes, all while avoiding the crucial mistake that turns into six the other way. I’m not sure he’s up to the task.

Pittsburgh leaned heavily on the ground game to a win against Baltimore last week and may have to do the same here, but the picture isn’t much rosier. The Steelers use two blocking schemes far more than any other, inside zone and man/duo. Unfortunately for them, their success rates in each are right around league average and Buffalo has no weak links in their rush defense. In fact, the only rush concept where Pittsburgh appears to have an advantage is in the trick play/WR run category, which they use just 4% of the time. If the conditions are as bad as expected, it will be hard to catch Buffalo off guard and therefore this isn’t much of an advantage at all. 

Starting to understand why Pittsburgh’s implied team total currently sits around 13 points?

WHEN THE BILLS HAVE THE BALL

T.J. Watt is currently +200 to win Defensive Player of the Year, so it would be difficult to overstate the importance of his absence. Missing a player of his caliber, at his position, would be devastating in any matchup, but especially against Josh Allen. 

As good as the Pittsburgh defense has been, they’ve allowed a 35% DVOA to the deep middle portion of the field and a 68% DVOA to the deep right portion of the field. “Conditions be damned,” Josh Allen might say. His freakish arm strength and “f*** it” attitude could mean he’s still taking a shot or two (or five) deep, and that makes me extremely excited as a football fan. 

Outside of the rare deep shot, there’s not much to find in terms of an advantage for either Buffalo’s offense or Pittsburgh’s defense in this one. The Bills are pretty much equally effective against man and zone, blitz and no blitz. Their strengths in the ground game are Pittsburgh’s strengths defending the ground game. At the end of the day, though, they have Josh Allen and the Steelers do not.

Allen has thrown the second most interceptions and the third most interception-worthy passes, but has still played MVP-caliber football. He’s fourth in passing DYAR and has 44 combined passing and rushing touchdowns, six more than any other quarterback in the league. He has set consecutive season highs in rush attempts the past two games including his season high in rushing yards last week — I’m betting on more of the same as he looks to make his legs the difference maker in this game. Again, it’s just the worst matchup possible for the Steelers to be missing T.J. Watt.

SPECIAL TEAMS

Both teams are nearly exactly league average on special teams, so while it’s certainly possible that a special teams play or two flip this game, it’s pretty much impossible to anticipate for whom that would be.

OUTLOOK

Often, weather can be the great equalizer – it can take a lopsided game and add just enough randomness to make it anyone’s ballgame. Unfortunately for Pittsburgh, this doesn’t seem to be the case for this matchup. It’s squashing their best chance for offensive success (explosive plays in the passing game that then lighten the box for rushing success) and theoretically could even dull the chance of a crucial Josh Allen turnover. At the end of the day, there are two things that seem to tilt this game heavily in Buffalo’s favor:

1. The Bills have Josh Allen.
2. This week, the Steelers do not have T.J. Watt.