The Eagles beat the Chiefs by doing the opposite of the Bills

[Strethor]

I'll be honest and admit that our lack of pass rush vs the Chiefs had more to do with our back end unit + coaching decisions than actual pass rushers failures. So I will agree

[All_Pro_Bills]

13 hours ago, MasterStrategist said:

@Einstein and all.

 

The OP's point is meaningless.  

 

It's like having a great/fast defense in basketball that can run a full court press and disrupt an offense. Then say, well why didn't Team B do that against them too.

 

It's clear as day to every NFL coach how to beat KCs offense.  A disruptive front 4 and strong secondary.  It's an easy concept.  If you have 1 and not the other, great QBs and coaches (like Mahomes/Reid) will always find ways to exploit it. 

 

Pass rush and coverage need to work in tandem - similar to a QB and his timing on routes with a WR.

 

Eagles have the luxury, because of stellar drafting, to have both a dominant front 4 and secondary.  Add in an all'pro in Baun at LB.

 

OP wants to say "it's the complete opposite of what Buffalo ran".  Well, we aren't Philly.  Philly mixed looks, but mostly ran cover 4/quarters coverage. Sounds familiar, what we ran with McD in past when our secondary was elite.

 

Bottom line, we shouldn't be debating "scheme".  This entire topic should be focused on talent and where we need to focus resources heading into 2025.  If it's not abundantly clear, dline and secondary need a makeover. 

 

I would have loved to have seen us try what Philly did last night against KC.  We would have been torched all night, because our front 4 gets ZERO pressure.  Mahomes is human when he feels pressure.  Problem is we don't have the juice up front, and our secondary was too slow to keep up with anyone. 

 

Again TALENT/execution, Vic isn't some mastermind....cover 4 has been around forever.  Seattle thrived mixing cover 4/cover 3 looks when they had a stud secondary, and a solid dline.

This is very insightful, yet simple Basically, identifying the answer to the problem and a solution to it is obvious. It's the execution of the solution that's the problem. The core question is, is our GM/HC and their staffs capable of finding the right players to solve the problem?

Edited February 11 by All_Pro_Bills

[Buffalo_Stampede]

On 2/10/2025 at 10:50 AM, Einstein said:

That was the most shocking part of last nights game. The Eagles essentially came out and said “everything the Bills did last week, we are going to do the opposite”.

 

Many fans are talking about the dominant Eagles d-line. They’re right. Talent plays a big part. BUT, part of the reason they looked SO dominant last night is because of the scheme the Eagles were running.

 

Instead of playing soft man, like we did a lot last week, the Eagles pressed on nearly every play (where in man or zone) This made the Chiefs old/slow (Kelce/Hopkins) and small (Hollywood/Worthy) have to fight for every yard from the second the ball was snapped.

 

This took away the quick passing game that Mahomes excelled with against the Bills. He HAD to hold the ball, because his receivers needed time to get open because they were being pressed at the line.

 

It was that combination of the Eagles talent on D-Line, AND the coaching scheme making Mahomes hold the ball. 

 

It was the completely opposite of what we ran. And it rattled Mahomes something fierce.

 

On the offensive side, they hit the flats REPEATEDLY. This made the Chiefs divert attention to the boundary and opened up the middle of the field for Hurts to run when the LB’s abandoned to cover the flats.

 

It was a beautiful coaching job. Vic Fangio deserves major kudos. I was happy when Miami jettisoned home - he was not the problem there.

 

 

Eagles did the opposite of the Bills. Bills were in press man the majority of the game vs KC and the Eagles ran off zone. lol.

Eagles didn’t do anything special. They just executed and bothered Mahomes.

 

Edited February 11 by Buffalo_Stampede

[Buffalo_Stampede]

22 hours ago, JohnNord said:

Um so….This isn’t correct at all.   It’s completely WRONG.

Buffalo came out playing man to man defense not a soft zone against Kansas City.  They played 41% Cover 1 which is the highest they’ve ever run in the postseason.   So your “soft zone” excuse just hit the skids.  It’s wrong.  

 

Cover 1 was the game plan and it blew up once Benford went out of the game.   They only slowed KC when they ran zone.

 

Benford and Douglas aren’t press corners.  They can press, but it’s not their strength.  They are zone corners.  You know who is a press corner?  Kaiir Elam who was the worst player on the field.  

The sticky coverage by Philly did take away the quick game but the pass rush also got there.  Pressure and Coverage working together.  

 

To say that talent wasn’t a factor in Philly’s performance is delusional.   They could run a style of defense that Buffalo doesn’t excel at.  
 

But yeah… they ran “soft zone”

 

They just executed very well. Had Mahomes questioning everything.

 

I always feel like where we fail vs Mahomes in the playoffs is we always let him break contained or scramble for big gains. I don’t know why we can’t play disciplined vs Mahomes. 

Edited February 11 by Buffalo_Stampede

[YoloinOhio]

Well we nearly beat them too doing the opposite. And would have if Benford wasn’t out. And did beat them soundly not that long before. The chiefs just weren’t that good this year.

Edited February 11 by YoloinOhio

[Einstein]

33 minutes ago, Buffalo_Stampede said:

Eagles did the opposite of the Bills.

 

Yeah that’s what I said.

 

33 minutes ago, Buffalo_Stampede said:

 

Bills were in press man the majority of the game vs KC

 

No they weren’t. We barely played press at all.

 

33 minutes ago, Buffalo_Stampede said:

and the Eagles ran off zone. lol.

 

Eagles ran a mix of zone and man. With a ton of press and bail technique (which counts as zone in statistics but is actually a mix of zone and man).

 

16 minutes ago, YoloinOhio said:

Well we nearly beat them too doing the opposite. And would have if Benford wasn’t out.

 

Id like to believe that, but Benford played the first drive where the Chiefs walked down the field with ease.

[HamptonBillsfan]

That’s the problem with our brain trust, they keep fielding a “bend don’t break”, reactive defense with just average athleticism. We never get enough pressure to rattle good QBs, we never disrupt receivers at the line and give free releases that our mediocre secondary can’t cover. Our best LBs are often injured(Milano, Bernard) and it’s time to take a big swing. Beane and Sean are not great with defensive personnel. They think they have an all time great at QB and that will be enough if we surround him with a decent O -line and some good weapons. For most of our schedule it should be enough, but to bring a championship to Buffalo our defense must be dominant. When we went to SBs, our defense was dominant. When we won AFL championships, our defense was dominant. 

[Buffalo_Stampede]

23 minutes ago, Einstein said:

 

Yeah that’s what I said.

 

 

No they weren’t. We barely played press at all.

 

 

I read 41% of the time.

 

Eagles played 95% zone. The guy charted every snap.

[transient]

I mean, technically, winning is the opposite of losing. 🤷‍♂️

[Generic_Bills_Fan]

2 hours ago, Buffalo_Stampede said:

Eagles did the opposite of the Bills. Bills were in press man the majority of the game vs KC and the Eagles ran off zone. lol.

Eagles didn’t do anything special. They just executed and bothered Mahomes.

 

Really felt like the chiefs were trying to lose this game on offense lol. The longer I’ve had to think about it the more I’m baffled.  

whatever they did would’ve been a struggle but they seemed to straight up abandon a lot of the underneath stuff/screens that got them this far and just refused to run the ball. 

 

 

[WideNine]

On 2/10/2025 at 8:13 AM, Flip Johnson said:

It's not a man vs. zone situation - The Bills ran more man than normal against KC. 

We are lacking the high level athletes in the secondary to make that approach work - especially after Benford went down.

 

Losing Benford was huge and I did not see Elam playing press, if anything he was giving up quite a bit of turf as a cushion and just giving the KC WRs room to take him to school on the top of routes or free releases underneath.

 

They also went after him with motion and orbit motion and rubs. The kid had a rough outing and not sure how much of that is how he was coached up or just poor execution.

 

Also the Bills really cannot play press with back seven guys like Hamlin and Rasul who are not going to be able to go stride for stride vs receivers with speed. As soon as they lose leverage on a route they both are left in the dust.

 

Decent zone defenders, but not the kind of athletes that can play press, yet recover and make up any ground lost on a route break.

 

 

 

 

[Einstein]

4 hours ago, Buffalo_Stampede said:

I read 41% of the time.

 

Eagles played 95% zone. The guy charted every snap.

 

your lack of knowledge of the subject is preventing you from understanding what you’re arguing. Press man can be played in zone or straight man coverage. Read the OP again.

[Buffalo_Stampede]

1 hour ago, Einstein said:

 

your lack of knowledge of the subject is preventing you from understanding what you’re arguing. Press man can be played in zone or straight man coverage. Read the OP again.

You didn’t have to insult me. 
 

But anyways I was basing it off of what others  charted. I said I didn’t watch the Super Bowl.

 

BUT, you kind of called me out. So I quickly went through the game up until 34-0. Chiefs final play was the 4th and 5. Didn’t think watching further was necessary.

 

I personally charted 2 plays where the Eagles challenged the WRs at the line of scrimmage. Everything else was off coverage 5-7 yards. The 4th and 5 play they were off 7 yards. Imagine Bills fans watching McDermott call for the coverage to be off  7 yards on 4th and 5.

 

Cooper DeJean was typically a little tighter, but Taron Johnson is typically tighter than our perimeter CB’s as well. They play similar roles.

 

 I’m not sure what game you watched.

 

Here’s the 4th and 5. We’d be screaming pre snap to tighten up.

 

 

Edited February 11 by Buffalo_Stampede

[Thrivefourfive]

22 hours ago, Richard Noggin said:

 

He had a really bad habit of retreating in the pocket, and trying to escape out the backdoor, so to speak. He tried climbing the pocket on a number of occasions Sunday, with some success. But he also scampered up into the DTs collapsing and the DEs doubling back a bunch. He had happy feet and dropping eyes all day. 

 

*also, his throwing motion/release caught my eye again (more below)

 

 

To that point about preparation: that Mahomes release, especially on deeper throws, has become seriously elongated by the end of this season. He would really load up and rear back his upper body for deep throws. His elbow was dropping way too much, too often. Almost reverting back to a pitching off the mound wind-up, in a way. I see regression.

 

Totally correctable, no doubt. But he's played a TON of football the last 6/7 seasons, and has a ton of off-field pursuits (which might slow a little now). I don't know anything about his regimens and capacities for relentless self-criticism. I'll bet he gets a lot better next year as long as his offensive line improves. (I recall KC fixing the line after the TB Super Bowl loss, so there is precedent.) 

 

Noticed it. On the long worthy throw—a beautiful ball—he really slung his arm around his body like throwing a cat by the tail. It’s fun to give him grief 😂 So yeah! He Sucks!! 🤣🤣

4 hours ago, Buffalo_Stampede said:

You didn’t have to insult me. 
 

But anyways I was basing it off of what others  charted. I said I didn’t watch the Super Bowl.

 

BUT, you kind of called me out. So I quickly went through the game up until 34-0. Chiefs final play was the 4th and 5. Didn’t think watching further was necessary.

 

I personally charted 2 plays where the Eagles challenged the WRs at the line of scrimmage. Everything else was off coverage 5-7 yards. The 4th and 5 play they were off 7 yards. Imagine Bills fans watching McDermott call for the coverage to be off  7 yards on 4th and 5.

 

Cooper DeJean was typically a little tighter, but Taron Johnson is typically tighter than our perimeter CB’s as well. They play similar roles.

 

 I’m not sure what game you watched.

 

Here’s the 4th and 5. We’d be screaming pre snap to tighten up.

 

 

You should thank @Einstein Wasn’t that enjoyable?!?!?!

[Scott7975]

 

Chase Daniels some play breakdowns. They were just in 2 high shell all game. Same stuff we have been running since McD got here. Their pass rush just got there and Mahomes was uncharacteristically off most of the game.

[dayman]

I think the answer is that the majority of defensive players on the eagles are just way better than our guys

 

 We really don’t have that many good players on that side of the ball it’s a lot of average and some below average…with Elam obviously being straight up bad

Edited February 13 by dayman

[NastyNateSoldiers]

On 2/10/2025 at 5:50 PM, Einstein said:

That was the most shocking part of last nights game. The Eagles essentially came out and said “everything the Bills did last week, we are going to do the opposite”.

 

Many fans are talking about the dominant Eagles d-line. They’re right. Talent plays a big part. BUT, part of the reason they looked SO dominant last night is because of the scheme the Eagles were running.

 

Instead of playing soft man, like we did a lot last week, the Eagles pressed on nearly every play (where in man or zone) This made the Chiefs old/slow (Kelce/Hopkins) and small (Hollywood/Worthy) have to fight for every yard from the second the ball was snapped.

 

This took away the quick passing game that Mahomes excelled with against the Bills. He HAD to hold the ball, because his receivers needed time to get open because they were being pressed at the line.

 

It was that combination of the Eagles talent on D-Line, AND the coaching scheme making Mahomes hold the ball. 

 

It was the completely opposite of what we ran. And it rattled Mahomes something fierce.

 

On the offensive side, they hit the flats REPEATEDLY. This made the Chiefs divert attention to the boundary and opened up the middle of the field for Hurts to run when the LB’s abandoned to cover the flats.

 

It was a beautiful coaching job. Vic Fangio deserves major kudos. I was happy when Miami jettisoned home - he was not the problem there.

 

 

Plus the DEs were lined up wide to take away Mahomes running to the outside like he did vs the Bills that lineup also put the Chiefs offensive tackles on a island and forced them to block in space. Mcd is not a good coach when it matters most he doesn't attack teams weaknesses

[billsfan89]

Seems like the film analysis indicated the Eagles played a lot of zone it was just that the Eagles pass rush was getting to Mahomes quickly and thus even if he did get the ball out it was hurried and there were defenders ready to make a tackle for modest gain. The Eagles basically just bet on their pass rush and said if the pass rush can't get there we are gonna just be in a 7 man zone so the big gains won't be there. IF KC was able to rush the ball and protect the Eagles defense would have looked a lot like the Bills defense.