Wild Bills: Analyzing the Buffalo Bills Offense Against New England

LeSean McCoy and Karlos Williams, Running Back

Mandatory Credit: Kevin Hoffman-USA TODAY Sports

Shady’s style of running is always high risk, high reward. Last Sunday against the Colts, it more often than not came up snake eyes – 5 of McCoy’s 17 carries went for negative yardage, and over half of his carries were for 1 or fewer yards. That’s particularly un-Shady-like, and it wouldn’t be surprising to see a few more passes coming McCoy’s way in this game, especially since, like former Patriot Shane Vereen, he does his best ankle-breaking work in open space instead of between the tackles.

Fortunately for Buffalo, Karlos Williams added the smash to McCoy’s dash (or lack thereof) against the Colts – the 6’1’’, 230-pounder blasted through Indy’s defense after avoiding a Colts overload blitz for his first NFL touchdown, racking up a cool 26 yards on that play alone. Williams finished with 55 yards on the day, and as SB Nation’s Pats Pulpit aptly noted, the presence of a Corey Dillon-esque bruiser like Williams forces the Patriots into deciding whether to roll the dice with a three-linebacker formation to stop the run, as opposed to their sub defense that typically only includes Dont’a Hightower and Jamie Collins.

Who Can Stop Them?

Put simply, if defensive ends Rob Ninkovich, Chandler Jones, and Jabaal Sheard don’t do a better job cutting off rushes to either side of the offensive formation than they did against Pittsburgh, it’s going to be a long night. This also might be a good opportunity for middle linebacker Jerod Mayo to see more action after barely playing against the Steelers. When he’s healthy, Mayo is a 100+ tackles per year player, and his return can’t come soon enough after New England gave up 127 yards to DeAngelo freaking Williams last week.

Next: Not Quite Gronk-Sized, Still A Threat