The Kansas City Chiefs are all too familiar with how Buffalo Bills QB Josh Allen can hurt you with his legs.
Back in Week 5, when the Bills defeated the Chiefs 38-20, Allen was his team’s leading rusher. He carried the ball 11 times for 59 yards and a score. He posterized Chiefs CB L’Jarius Sneed when he hurdled over him on a second-half carry and juked many others in the win.
In preparation for the rematch in the divisional round of the playoffs, Chiefs defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo has spent a lot of time game-planning and preparing his guys for Allen’s rushing prowess.
“Yeah, we’ve spent a lot of time this week, in the couple of meetings that we’ve had, on how to tackle this quarterback,” Spagnuolo said. “You don’t usually spend that much time talking about tackling a quarterback. But he’s big, he’s strong, he’s got a stiff arm. If you don’t get him down with a couple of guys, he’s already shown that he can break tackles, he extends downs.”
Allen had the third-most rushing yards in the NFL this season with 122 carries for 763 yards and six scores. The defenders in Kansas City know that it’s going to take some extra work, discipline and sacrifice in order to contain him.
“I think he’s a great athlete,” Chiefs S Tyrann Mathieu said. “He’s obviously a guy that can make all the throws, and any time he’s using his legs, it seems like it’s to his advantage. So, it obviously adds extra pressure on the guys that are covering, but it also adds pressure on the guys that are rushing him just to stay in their lanes and not let him break containment and get into open field. But I think anytime he decides to tuck and run the ball, we have to treat him like a running back and treat him like one of these wide receivers where all 11 guys have to pursue and get to the ball. I think it’s going to be one of those games where we’re going to have to tackle him, and we’re going to have to tackle him well.”
For Spagnulo, he’s really focused on thwarting two different types of situations where Allen carries the football. First off, there is the designed quarterback run, where his unit will be at a natural numbers disadvantage.
“Two things — when it’s a designed quarterback run, what happens is, there is an extra blocker for the offense,” Spagnuolo said. “That’s a guy that would normally be carrying the football, but he’s out there blocking for the quarterback. So you have to account for that. So they’re going to have the numbers if you just do the numbers game. Somebody has to beat a block and win a gap, or play two gaps and get off it quick enough to make a tackle. That’s the first thing with the designed quarterback runs.”
Beyond the designed runs for Allen, there are the plays where he scrambles and extends the play of his own volition. Those plays can be even more deadly than the designed runs if the defense isn’t prepared for them.
“In the scrambles, it’s going to come to disciplined pass rush lane integrity and we talk about it all the time,” Spagnuolo said. “Now, we have to make a decision — help the coverage, rush three, rush four, rush five — all of that goes into this game-planning.”
Whether it’s on the designed quarterback runs or the scrambling plays from Allen, Spagnuolo says the team won’t rely on just one player or one playcall. They’re going to have to throw a lot of different things at Allen and the Bills offense in order to dismantle what has become one of the most effective parts of their offensive attack this season.
“We won’t just do one thing, we’ll do a number of different things,” Spagnuolo said. “But everybody on the defense has to be aware, that when he drops back to pass if he turns into a scrambler and a runner, we need to be relentless. Everybody is needed, and not one guy can tackle him. I’ve seen him juke a bunch of guys. He looks like our running backs out there running the football. That’s scary. We’ll be all hands on deck and we’ll all be aware of it.”
