Generally speaking, when Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen completes seven of 15 passes for 94 yards and a touchdown against a team like the Dallas Cowboys, you don’t expect a 31-10 win in Buffalo’s favor. But that’s exactly what happened last Sunday, and the Bills’ run game is worthy of our attention.
New offensive coordinator Joe Brady, who’s been in that position since mid-November following the firing of Ken Dorsey, had already put some new much-needed wrinkles in the passing game. But what Brady did against the Cowboys was a different level of sea-change in philosophy. Brady and the Bills went into this game with a clear vision of how to disrupt Dallas’ defense with the run game, which was unusual for a number of reasons.
Joe Brady wasn't planning on the #Bills running the ball 49 times against the Cowboys.
But he adjusted IN-GAME.
"It wasn't broken so why try and fix it."
I LOVE IT because as @danorlovsky7 says, "There's a difference between calling plays and calling a game." #BillsMafia pic.twitter.com/bm3U8g0jcB
— Dan Fetes (@danfetes) December 19, 2023
Coming into this game, the Cowboys had allowed an EPA per rushing attempt of -0.11, sixth-best in the NFL. Their 4.1 yards per carry allowed, 2.2 yards after contact allowed, and 10 rushing touchdowns allowed were all among the NFL’s best. Now, the Bills’ EPA per rushing attempt of 0.04 was already the NFL’s best, but they had managed just 2.2 yards after contact per attempt, and while their 15 rushing touchdowns was a nice figure, 11 came from quarterback Josh Allen, so it wasn’t as if Buffalo’s rushing attack with James Cook as the lead dog was scaring anybody.
Where Brady and his staff may have seen their openings was in the Cowboys’ fronts and overall defensive philosophy. Through the first 14 weeks of the season, Dallas had faced just 337 rushing attempts this season, because their offense has been so explosive. And under Dan Quinn, the Cowboys aren’t focusing on the run in an old-school sense. They had put eight or more defenders in the box against 142 rushing attempts this season through Week 14, fifth-highest in the league, but it’s not a heavy run defense, and that’s especially true since defensive tackle Johnathan Hankins suffered a high ankle sprain in Week 14 against the Philadelphia Eagles. Without Hankins on the field this season, the Cowboys have allowed 5.3 yards per carry. With Hankins on the field? 4.2.
Moreover, per Sports Info Solutions, the Cowboys have had six defensive backs on the field for 221 opponent rushing attempts, which is wildly out of whack with the rest of the NFL. The New England Patriots rank second with 43. The number is a bit skewed because most advanced metrics sites have misclassified Markquese Bell as a safety when he’s more of a linebacker, but even so… Bell is a 6-foot-3, 205-pound player, so it’s not as if he’s thumping down on run fits at a Mike Singletary level.
Factoring all that in, Brady’s decision to completely turn his team’s offensive philosophy on its head was still quite revolutionary. Through Week 14, the Bills ran the ball on 37.9% of their offensive snaps. Against the Cowboys, they ran by design on 71% of their plays against the Cowboys, the highest rate for any team in any game this season. The aforementioned James Cook ran 25 times for 179 yards, 7.2 yards per attempt, 3.52 yards after contact per attempt, one touchdown, seven runs of 10 or more yards, and eight forced missed tackles.
In this week’s “Xs and Os with Greg Cosell,” the guys got into this difference in approach, and all the reasons it worked so well.
You can watch this week’s “Xs and Os” right here:
You can also listen and subscribe to the “Xs and Os” podcast on Spotify…
…and on Apple Podcasts.
Now, let’s get into the thick of this new Bills run game.
The Bills ran with heavy personnel, and a nasty attitude.
Through the first 14 weeks of the season, the Bills ran the ball 81 times with two tight ends on the field, which ranked 23rd in the league, gaining 280 yards with one touchdown and 2.0 yards after contact. Against the Cowboys, they had 22 runs with two tight ends, gaining 122 yards with two touchdowns, and 3.7 yards after contact.
On Cook’s 12-yard run with 12:26 left in the first quarter, they had Dawson Knox and Quintin Morris on the field, and Reggie Gilliam (a fullback!) in the backfield. This was Iso Lead Weak — just bully-ball — and the Bills just shoved it right down Dallas’ throats. Gilliam moved up to take Bell out, left guard Connor McGovern took linebacker Damone Clark at the second level, and Cook took it from there.
The Bills had set that up nicely with a 10-yard Pull Lead run on the play before with 13:06 left in the first quarter. Here, center Mitch Morse pulled to take Bell, which freed McGovern up to deal with nose tackle Carl Davis at the line of scrimmage. The Bills didn’t have a fullback on the field this time, but they still had two tight ends, and they also added a cool motion wrinkle we’ll get more into in a bit.
Speaking of attitude, it’s hard to top Cook’s 20-yard run with 2:00 left in the first half. The Bills clamped down on everything with their inside zone blocking scheme, and Cook showed great patience, vision, and acceleration as the gaps opened up. But the star turn here came from left tackle Dion Dawkins, who grabbed Clark and escorted him 20 yards downfield at Cook’s speed. It had no impact on the play per se, but this demonstrated how the Bills seemed to understand the importance of their alpha approach.
“It gets the juices flowing, I’ll tell you that,” Josh Allen said about Dawkins’ block. “A lot of guys love seeing that; it’s one of the more fun plays I think I’ve ever watched. For him to go do that 20-plus yards downfield right at the goal line… watching it live was awesome, because I was right there.”
Ride the painted Pony, let the spinning wheel glide...
Running back Ty Johnson had nine carries for 54 yards against the Cowboys, but he had an equal contribution to this game as a blocker. The Bills lined up in Pony personnel (two running backs) on four of Cook’s carries with both Cook and Johnson on the field. On all four of those carries, Johnson aligned to the wing, and provided fundamental blocks to seal one edge. Cook gained 39 yards on those four runs, and that included the 20-yarder with Dawkins’ ferocious block. Watch it again, and see Johnson take safety Jayron Kearse out of Cook’s preferred gap. Dawkins’ block was more metal, but Johnson’s block was more important to the play.
And on this nine-yard Cook run with 2:54 left in the first half, with right tackle Spencer Brown pulling all the way over, see how Johnson removes Clark from contention at the second level.
So again, this was four plays of Pony personnel in this game. Guess how many times the Bills had Pony personnel on the field through Week 14, regardless of the play?
Yet another change in philosophy that was both completely unexpected on the Cowboys’ part, and repped up on the Bills’ part as if they’d been crunching defenses with it all season long.
Motion creates emotion.
As Greg mentioned in “The Xs and Os,” Brady called several motions against the Cowboys in which Cook would shift from one side of Josh Allen to the other side of Josh Allen pre-snap. They did so eight times in this game with handoffs to Cook, and Cook gained 53 yards. And again, this was a relatively new thing. Cook had just five of those motions on his carries through Week 14.
Most of the time, Cook would then run opposite of his motion, and this 12-yard gain with 7:06 left in the first half was one example. The Cowboys were in Cover-1 here, and watch how the motion changes the run strength. Dallas plays a ton of man coverage, so this was a clear conceit to put that defense in bad positions from the start.
The Bills were eating with this from their fourth play of the game, with 13:06 left in the first quarter. Remember that 10-yard Pull Lead play we already discussed? Motion was a factor there, as well.
Joe Brady makes the Bills dangerous all over again.
On Saturday, the Bills face the Los Angeles Chargers, whose run defense is bad enough to be one of the reasons head coach and defensive shot-caller Brandon Staley was recently relieved of his duties. Not where you want to be if you’re the Chargers.
For the Bills, it’s clear that Brady has taken it upon himself to redefine the architecture of this offense in-season, which is very tough to do with limited practices and no offseason installs. Yes, Brady had been in the building as the team’s quarterbacks coach, but it’s an entirely different thing to make an entire offense your own to great benefit in such a short time. Brady had already given Allen a ton of effective zone-beaters with four-strong concepts, and it will be fascinating to see how these new and wildly divergent run concepts will develop over time.
What we do know is that this is a new Bills offense all of a sudden, and opposing coaches and players might be scrambling for a while to figure it all out.
