Film Review of the Bills for the Giants Week 4 Game

Defensive Overview

Rex Ryan is known for his blitz every chance you can get philosophy but with the Bills he instead relies on the “Cold Front” of Mario Williams, Kyle Williams, Marcell Dareus, and Jerry Hughes to get a pass rush on the opponents side of the field. He flips between a 3-4 and 4-3 as his base formation as Jerry Hughes can play OLB and DE depending on the formation but the 3-4 is still his primary formation. He ran a lot of Over front against the Dolphins due to being in the nickel package most of the game but he will mix in Wide 9 and Under fronts as well throughout the game. He runs primarily the cover 2 and cover 1 against the pass and will rush four in his opponents side of the field. Once the offense cross the 50 though he turns up the heat and brings the blitz from every direction to try to disrupt the offense.

Defensive Scheme

Stats:

Jets vs. Giants Week 16 2011 (Last Time Giants faced Rex Ryan)

Bills @ Dolphins Week 3 2015

Overall Stats

The Bills run defense is more suspect than suggested by the gross stat number as they give up 4.3 Y/A which is 7th worst in the league. Against the Dolphins, a lot of rush yards were in garbage time though so the truth of how good their run defense is somewhere in the middle. The same can be said vice versa against the the pass as they only give up 6.4 Y/A which is top five in the league. The Bills in two of their three games have jumped out to huge leads therefore teams are forced to pass a lot on them to try to catch up and therefore the Bills give up a lot of pass yardage.

Run Defense:

Its hard to extrapolate what the Bills will do against the run versus the Giants as the Dolphins ran the spread offense most of the game and kept them in the nickel. The Giants do run a lot of three WR formations so it is still worth looking into. Against the Dolphins the Bills ran a lot of 3-3-5 or 4-2-5 depending on if you classify Hughes as a DE or OLB (He was standing up most of the game but he rarely dropped into coverage). Below is an example of this formation against the run

3-3-5
Situation: 2nd and 5 MIA 25
Description: Q1- (11:27) Lamar Miller Right Tackle for 5 Yards

The 3-3-5/4-2-5 front tends to be more even in its front 6 as shifting the LBs over to one side leaves a gap in the defense for the offense to exploit unless a safety is rolled down into the box. The Bills spent the majority of time in the Over or Wide 9 front. In an Over front, the DT on the strong side of the formation with play the 3-technique (gap between the guard and offensive tackle) while the weak side DT will play the one technique (the gap between the center and guard). Both DEs will play on the outside shoulder of the outermost linemen/TE typically. Th LBs in this formation will be even with a slight shift to a weak side if there is a shift. The DEs in this formation are the force edge defenders who keep contain and force runs to the inside. The DTs in this formation are one gap defenders whose goal is to push the interior of the offensive line backwards and get penetration. The LBs will flow with the run and fill the gaps that the defensive line does not fill. The difference between Over and Wide 9 is both DTs will play as 3-techniques and the DEs will be “wide” in there outside leverage to get a better angle on the pass rush. When in any nickel formation like this, the offense gains additional space to work with in the running game due to an extra defender out of the box. Holes in the running game tend to be bigger and the LBs have to cover a lot more ground to make up for a lack of a defender in the box. The risk in running this kind of scheme for an offense though is that there is less redundancy and mistakes are amplified. If a defense has an elite defensive line who can beat the offensive line regularly and athletic linebackers who can cover ground(Which Buffalo has) the 3-3-5 front can bottle up the running game while not having mismatches in the secondary. On this play, DT Kyle Willaims gets washed upfield by the by the guard blocking for the draw play. Combine that with the TE blocking the RLB Nigel Bradham and LLB Preston Brown being slow to react and a hole opens up for the RB on the draw play.

Against heavier sets, the Bills will mostly run a 3-4 with Mario Williams playing as a DE and Hughes playing as an OLB. The do occasionally put Hughes in a three point stance but that only happens in goal line situations. The Bills were in an Even or Over front instead of the usual 3-4 Under/Strong front typically seen. I will focus on the Over front as it is more interesting and they used it more often

3-4 Over
Situation: 2nd and 5 MIA 23
Description: Q2- (10:30) Jonas Grey Right Tackle for 6 Yards

The 3-4 Over shifts the defensive line to strong side even more than the usual 3-4 front as the NT or DE ends up being lined up between the guard and tackle on the strong side. The weak side DE/NT moves inside and plays in the gap between the guard and center on the weak side of the formation. The strong side DE will line up on the outside shoulder of the tackle like usual and the OLBs are still on the outside of the formation. The ILBs are shifted toward the weak side of the formation to compensate for the heavy shift of the defensive line. The defensive linemen in this formation played one gap technique based on the film instead of the usual two gap technique seen in the 3-4, aiming for penetration over clogging up the running lanes. The OLBs are the force edge defenders that keep the RB from bouncing to the outside. The ILBs are the tackling machines and are suppose to make most of the tackles against the run. The strength of this formation is that it takes away Iso runs to the strong side due to the NT/DE sitting in the intended hole of most Iso plays (B-Gap between Guard and Tackle) and the OT has to make a very tough reach block against the NT/DE. This formation struggles against the power run play as it doesn’t overload to the strong side with its LBs like in the more normal 3-4 front and the angles of the down blocks are very favorable. This is seen on this play as the offensive line is able to wash the defensive line down the line of scrimmage. OLB Manny Lawson gets too far upfield which allows the pulling linemen to pin him upfield. Both ILBs get blocked by the pulling linemen and it takes great pursuit by Hughes and DT Stefan Charles to stop the run from going any further.

Pass Defense

The Bills run four different coverage schemes, Cover 1, Cover 2 Man, Cover 2 Zone, and Cover 6. Below are examples of Cover 1 and Cover 2 Man

Cover 1
Situation: 3rd and 5 MIA 25
Description: Q1- (14:22) Ryan Tannehill Pass Incomplete to Greg Jennings

Cover 2 Man
Situation: 1st and 10 MIA 25
Description: Q2- (2:35) Ryan Tannehil Pass Short Left to Jordan Cameron for 9 Yards

The only difference between Cover 1 and Cover 2 Man is that in Cover 1 there is one safety deep and Cover 2 there is two safeties deep. The Cover 1 does a better job of taking the middle of the field away as there is a LB sitting in the middle of the field playing zone and the safety is deep middle. The Cover 2 does a better job of taking away deep routes in general as the safeties act as a security blanket which allows the defenders in man coverage to be more aggressive in their coverage. These defenses depend on how well the defenders can hold up in man coverage. If they can hold up well, the front four will have time to get pressure on the QB. If they cannot, the QB has easy completions all over the field. The Bills will switch who has who on man coverage if the receivers switch to prevent being picked or rubbed off routes. One miscommunication though and you can have a wide open receiver running down the field. On each of these plays, the LB was beaten on quick breaking route by the receiver and the receivers are open quickly.The receiver drops it on the Cover 1 play but picks up a nice gain against Cover 2.

Cover 2 Zone
Situation: 1st and 10 MIA 20
Description: Q1- (11:49) Ryan Tannehill Pass Incomplete to Greg Jennings

The Cover 2 Zone’s strength is that it takes away underneath routes well. Five defenders underneath can take away pretty much an combination of routes if the communication is good and the defenders are aware of the route concepts being run. The weakness is deep as the deep middle of the field and the sideline is very vulnerable as the safeties are playing the deep seams. The safeties need to be very aware of what deep routes are being run and their positioning has to be very good or else the defense can be exploited. The Bills will occasionally run Tampa 2 and drop an ILB in between the safeties to take away the deep middle and allow the safeties to push outside to take away the sidelines. This opens up the short middle of the field unless the two “hook” defenders can read the route concept and jump inside when needed. Against trips formation, the Bills will have the backside CB play man to man instead of playing zone to allow the safety to cheat to the middle of the field when needed like the Seattle Seahawks and the Atlanta Falcons will do (see https://nygiantsfilmroomreview.wordpress.com/2015/09/20/week-2-scouting-report-vs-falcons/ fora more detailed look on it). On the play above, the underneath coverage has every route taken away on the strong side of the formation and the only open route was the backside curl. The QB doesn’t look that way though and forces a very tough pass to the curl route that is well covered by the CB and the pass falls incomplete

Cover 6
Situation: 1st an 10 BUF 38
Description: Q1- (1:48) Ryan Tannehill Pass Intercepted by Preston Brown at BUF 32. Returned to BUF 35

The Cover 6 is very similar to the Cover 3 except one of the safeties is shifted over to one side of the field in there deep coverage. This coverage is typically run against trip formations and the deep zones become quarter-quarter-half with the two strong side deep zone defenders only responsible for a quarter of the deep coverage. This coverage takes away the seam route weakness of the cover 3 but it gives up the sidelines to the backside and maybe the middle of the field if the strong side safety is unaware. It also typically has the same weakness of the cover 3 in zone coverage underneath (Defenders late to getting into the flat and splitting the middle zone defenders is not hard) but in this version seen on this play the backside CB is playing man coverage. This takes away the deep sideline issues this coverage has but it can spread the short coverage defenders thin as a deep route on the backside of the formation leaves three defenders underneath to cover a lot of ground. On this play, the WR bobbles the pass and the nickelback Nickel Robey knocks the ball away from the. The LLB hustles to the pass and is able to make the diving interception. The RLB lets the TE beat him to the outside with ease though and the TE is wide open in the Flat. Either the RLB thought the CB would be the flat and messed up his role or the CB was playing man in a zone coverage and blew his coverage.

The Bills rushed four when the Dolphins were on their own side of the field but brought the blitz a lot when the Dolphins got into Bills territory. I want to highlight the two blitzes which helped lead to interceptions for the Bills because trying to explain Rex Ryan’s blitzing strategy would take as long as it took to write the rest of this article.

Blitz#1
Situation: 3rd and 10 BUF 47
Description: Q2- (1:53) Ryan Tannehill Pass Intercepted by Preston Brown at MIA 43. Returned for a TD

The goal of the blitz is to get to the QB faster than he can beat your coverage. If the blitz doesn’t hit, the coverage is very vulnerable and can be exploited for a big play. On this blitz, the timing of SS Bacarri Rambo on the blitz is perfect as the guard and center are occupied by the time he gets to the line of scrimmage. The Dolphins have five blockers for six pass rushers as the RB and WR in the backfield don’t stay in to block. Rambo gets a clean shot on the QB who can’t get enough on the ball to get it past the line of scrimmage let alone the WR he is aiming for. The blitzing LB from the left make the interception and returns it for a touchdown.

Blitz #2
Situation: 4th and 5 BUF 49
Description: Q2- (0:54) Ryan Tannehill Pass Intercepted by Ronald Darby at BUF 30. Returned to MIA 49

Not all of Rex Ryan’s blitzes try to bring the house. Sometimes his goal is to confuse the QB and offensive line. The Bills have everyone outside of the secondary on the line of scrimage and the offense has no clue who is coming on the pass rush. The Bills drop Mario Williams into coverage and bring Hughes and Robey off the edge. This blitz design keep the coverage compact while still trying to bring immediate pressure by confusion. The LT doesn’t block either Hughes or Robey and the QB has to the throw the ball quickly. He throws a very poor ball and CB Ronald Darby is able to make the interception in his deep coverage.