Chess master; Andy Reid took the Bills apart
The Chiefs head coach added another legacy game to his resume in the AFC Championship
All the rules about playoff football said the Chiefs shouldn’t have been able to win the AFC Championship Sunday.
They lost the turnover battle 1-0. The Bills fell on every single fumble (I lost track of how many times Buffalo lost the football but managed to fall on it) and seemed to have every bounce go their way. Josh Allen played an incredible, electric game with almost no mistakes that he paid for, with Chiefs defenders dropping several picks. When two great teams play each other, the team that has the fewest big mistakes generally wins.
But that’s not what happened this time. And one of the biggest reasons was because the Chiefs’ head coach is Andy Reid. And in a season where Kansas City had yet to score 30+ points, Buffalo’s 29 wasn’t enough as Reid added another dismantling of a defense to his first-ballot Hall of Fame resume.
(NOTE: I’m going to be ducking out of the ridiculous “ref” discourse over the next several weeks, but if anyone is interested, the Bills false started on their late 1st half TD and also on 2nd down at the GL late in the 3rd, where they eventually scored. Here are the clips. So any “ref favoritism” claims would need to account for a pair of obvious, and important, missed calls that didn’t favor KC. Because it’s stupid)
There will be so much to talk about in the coming week (full disclosure, Mrs. MNchiefsfan and I are heading to Cancun on Thursday, but I promise even sunny beaches won’t stop me from breaking down film), but the first thing I want to talk about is Reid. Because more so than any other factor than PERHAPS Patrick Mahomes, Reid was the reason the Chief are headed to yet another Super Bowl, with a shot at making history by going back-to-back-to-back.
Kansas City scored 32 points on 9 actual drives (not including a kneeldown at the end of the first half), an absolutely sizzling 3.5 points per drive (nevermind that they weren’t trying to score their last drive, just move the ball). And this is despite having the game’s only turnover and the Bills having some success stopping the run. And Reid was a primary driver of this success from the very first play of the game to the very last 3rd down conversion. Let’s look at a few of the designs that took the Bills apart throughout the game, starting with that first snap.
This was the first offensive snap of the game for Kansas City. 1st down chunk plays aren’t supposed to come this easy, but that’s what it looked like on the first drive of the game for Kansas City. The Chiefs didn’t face 3rd down a single time on a 90-yard touchdown drive (it took nine plays to hit pay dirt), marching on a Bills defense that looked overmatched immediately and going up 7-0 to take control of the game early.
And a huge reason that happened? Reid’s “first 15” opening script had found a gap in the Bills defense with RPOs (run/pass options) and middle of the field throws, and just absolutely hammered them on it. These sort of looks used to be a staple of the Chiefs’ offense (think back to 2018 and 2019), but they haven’t used them nearly as much in recent years other than sprinkling them in with Rashee Rice. That’s in part a personnel issue, but it’s partly due to teams learning to play them well.
For one reason or another, Reid, recognized that the Bills defense wasn’t ready for the looks when combined with motion that spread out the defense. Watch LB Matt Milano as well as the Bills’ cornerback at the top of the screen in the above clip.
