Kansas City Chiefs at Buffalo Bills

Kansas City Chiefs (8-0, Away 3-0)
at Buffalo Bills (3-5, Home 2-2)

The undefeated Kansas City chiefs are bringing their 5th ranked defense (4.9 yards per play allowed) to Orchard Park this Sunday to face the fighting Bills of Buffalo and their 30th ranked offense (4.7 yards per play). At First glance the stats appear to indicate that the Bill’s offense will be swallowed up by the big red machine. But on closer inspection the bills offense strength, rushing (15th in the NFL in YPP, 4.0), dovetails nicely with Kansas City’s biggest weakness where they are allowing a whopping 4.7 ypp, good for a mere 28th in the league. The bills love to run the ball as you know, and do so 47% of the time, good for the 4th highest rushing percentage, so it’s a good thing CJ Spiller is going suit up. The strength of this KC defense of course is the passing defense (#3, 5.8 yppa), so if the bills can’t get into favorable down and distance numbers by 3rd down, it could be a long day on 3rd and long. I think we’d expect the Chiefs to stack the box and dare Thad lewis to beat them in order to take pressure off the run defense, and as some have already noted, the Chiefs have faced a very poor slate of QBs thus far so their pass defense numbers could be a little inflated. Thankfully for the Bills, even though he is nursing a new injury this week, Stevie Johnson will give it a go.

On the other side of the ball the Bills defense has been a nice surprise, they are ranked #15 in the league just behind the mighty dolphins at 5.3 ypp allowed. This unit is fairly balanced, the pass defense being ranked at #18, with the rush defense ranked #13. Count me as among those who view the KC offense as frauds (#25 in passing, 5.8ypp). Because of that lack of offensive potency, I think this game should remain close in all events, and Vegas agrees; They have the Bills as 3.5 underdogs a tiny number considering the relative win loss records, and as usual, my money will be on buffalo covering at home.

Final Score
Buffalo Bills Collar Jersey’s – 20
Chiefs – 19