The Buffalo Bills fiddled with their kickoff attempts in a meaningless Week 18 game.
The Buffalo Bills traveled to take on the New England Patriots in a Week 18 contest that was not meaningful in the traditional sense of winning being important. That said, the Bills found plenty of meaning trying to set team and league records and allowing players to lock in bonuses and streaks. Head coach Sean McDermott hinted that there was additional value in taking a look at specific players to evaluate, and similar to that, my penalty focused mind may have noticed even more meaning.
I’m pretty confident that the Buffalo Bills took the opportunity to fiddle with kickoffs to see if they can gain a field position advantage.
I hinted at it in my penalty recap, but I felt the flag for Tyler Bass failing to kick the ball into the landing zone was intriguing. We all know Tyler Bass can just boot the ball into or even out of the end zone with ease, so what’s the deal? Did his foot slip? Wind was about to knock the ball over? Mental lapse? Let’s take a look at the kick that was flagged.
I know I have this in the “players look like ants” view, but that looks like a solid kick to me. That would suggest then that the Bills and Tyler Bass intended to kick it short. Why, though? There was over four minutes left in the first half, the Bills were only down four, and it was pretty clear they weren’t trying all that hard to win. What good is it to kick the ball short and force a kick return? Make no mistake, that had to be the intent. With the new kicking rules, a ball that falls in the landing zone HAS to be returned. There’s no fair catch in in this area.
That penalty immediately piqued my curiosity, and the next kickoff seems to confirm my suspicion. This occurred in the third quarter, right after James Cook tied O.J. Simpson’s single-season rushing touchdown record. Once again, there’s no objective reason to try to force something to happen in a game the Bills were now leading by two and not trying very hard to win in the first place.
I can’t draw any conclusion other than the Buffalo Bills were treating this more like a preseason game than even many of us thought at the time. This smacks of an attempt to gain live data. The Buffalo Bills wanted to know the results of kicking the ball short to see if they can gain a competitive advantage in the playoffs.
It’s hard to see in the second GIF, but the ball lands at about the ten-yard line. The kicking team is for the most part hanging out at the 40-yard line as I’ve circled. That means they’re ten yards away from the touchback spot. Were the Buffalo Bills testing to see if their players can get to the 30 before the opposing team can with the ball? If so, it worked out pretty well on that second kick. For the first kick, if it were just one or two yards deeper, I bet that has a decent result too.
If the Buffalo Bills feel like they need a small edge in a game, don’t be surprised if they break out shorter kicks to try to gain a smidge of field position. Their Week 18 preseason game was a pretty good proof of concept. The Patriots returned the ball to the 23. Seven yards may not seem like much, but secret weapons are often more like Baby Knife than something massive.