The Bills have an advantage on offense against the Chiefs.
The Kansas City Chiefs and Buffalo Bills square off in an epic AFC Championship Game showdown on Sunday. One advantage the Bills have over the Chiefs is efficiency on offense. That’s why I think the Bills’ gameplan is going to be to shorten the game, and make the Chiefs try to outscore them on fewer drives.
What do I mean by that? On a per-play and per-drive basis, the Bills gain more yards, score more points, and turn the ball over less than the Chiefs. Giving fewer chances to Kansas City forces them to be more efficient than you, and they haven’t done that this year.
The Bills gain more yards than the Chiefs
Most folks look at raw data to prove their points, so let’s start there. The Bills gained 6105 yards this season (10th in the NFL) and the Chiefs gained 5570 (16th). When you move into efficiency metrics, the Bills do even better. The Bills were sixth in yards per play at 6.0 while the Chiefs fall all the way to 21st at 5.1.
Thanks to their propensity to generate turnovers on defense, the average drive for the Bills started at the 33.4, tops in the NFL, so their drives don’t need to be as long to reach scoring range. The Chiefs started at their own 30.1, so they needed to gain more yards just to reach scoring range. Still, the Bills averaged more than two yards per drive more than the Chiefs. Buffalo was eighth with 35.4 while Kansas City was 13th at 33.0.
The Bills score more points than the Chiefs
Returning to raw cumulative stats, the Bills scored 525 points this year, good for second in the league, while the Chiefs were in the middle of the pack at 15th, scoring 385 points.
Using per-drive metrics, the Bills scored on almost 50% of their drives to come in third in the NFL while the Chiefs were 10th at 43.2%. Buffalo came out on top in points per drive, too. Buffalo was second at 2.92 while KC came in 10th at 2.27.
The Chiefs’ offense topped out at 30 points this season, a number the Bills have blown past ten times. (Buffalo also scored 30 points three times.)
Time of possession shows both Chiefs and Bills want to hold onto the ball
The Chiefs led the league in time of possession per drive at 3:08 thanks in large part to an excellent third-down conversion rate. Buffalo held the ball for 2:56 per drive.
For the per-game averages, the Bills were eighth, holding the ball for 30:34 per game while the Chiefs were 10th at 30:31. Not exactly a huge difference.
Bills and Chiefs are not turning over the ball
One last note on efficiency is that neither team is going to beat themselves. Kansas City hasn’t turned over the ball since mid-November’s game between the two teams, a span of more than two months or eight games. The Bills only have one turnover in that time span — Josh Allen’s 50-yard pass to the goal line against the Patriots on third and 16.
Kansas City started the year with a lot more turnovers, though, so they finished ninth in the NFL with an 8.3% turnover percentage while Buffalo was second at 4.6%.
Playoff performance this year favors Buffalo’s scoring over Kansas City’s
In their game against the Houston Texans, KC scored field goals on their first two possessions before punting. Then they found the end zone on consecutive drives (removing the kneel down). A punt, a field goal, and their punter running out the back of the end zone were the rest of their drives.
On the drives where they were trying to score, they were five of seven (71.4%) but only found pay dirt on two of seven (28.6%) and managed just 23 points.
Against the Ravens, Buffalo had a touchdown, punt, touchdown, and a touchdown in the first half. A slower second half started punt and punt before a long Tyler Bass field goal and short Tyler Bass field goal put away the game.
On the drives they were trying to score, they were five of eight (62.5%) and scored touchdowns on three of eight (37.5%) scoring 27 points.
Against the Broncos, the Bills only punted once on the seven drives they were trying to score before kneeling out the game, scoring three touchdowns.
Buffalo’s combined numbers for the postseason are six of 15 drives scoring touchdowns (40%) and 11 of 15 total scoring drives (73.3%). Buffalo averaged 29 points against two top-10 scoring defenses in the league. All those numbers are better than the Chiefs against the 14th-ranked scoring defense in Houston.