It’s ironic that Bo Nix broke his ankle near the end of the AFC divisional round. The Denver Broncos quarterback wasn’t in peril often throughout the game.
The Buffalo Bills managed to hit Nix just three times on 50 drop-backs. He was only pressured 10 times. And they never sacked him. Not once.
In fact, Nix was one of three postseason quarterbacks in the last 25 years to attempt 45 passes, completed fewer than 60% of them and not get sacked. Alas, it was a tale all too common in playoff losses under coach Sean McDermott.
A hyper-aggressive blitzer when he arrived in Buffalo, McDermott gradually became more conservative as the NFL blitz rate declined in favor of making quarterbacks dink and dunk rather than risking deep throws. But the Broncos loss was even more perplexing because the Bills blitzed 20 times, the first time they had double-digit blitzes in a playoff loss since 2019.
But most of those blitzes weren’t designed to generate pressure; they were soft or delayed blitzes intended to confuse Nix by changing the picture post-snap. Needless to say, it didn’t have much of an impact.
The Bills are attempting to remedy that by hiring Jim Leonhard to be the defensive coordinator. A man from the Rex Ryan tree, who blitzed over 50% of the time at the University of Wisconsin and worked under Vance Joseph in Denver, which had a high blitz rate.
Buffalo also signed Bradley Chubb to play opposite edge rusher Greg Rousseau in an attempt to fix a problem that has plagued them throughout the Beane-McDermott era. And Chubb had a career-high 12 sacks playing for Joseph as a rookie in 2018.
“I know (Leonhard’s) going to have his tweaks and do different things, but what he preached to me was that it’s going to be the same,” Chubb said. “Getting after the quarterback, making sure we’re covered in the back end, making sure, up front, we’re wreaking havoc and playing good team defense.”
Rousseau may be the biggest beneficiary of a new defensive strategy. Entering his sixth season, Rousseau has yet to tally double-digit sacks and there are doubts as to whether he’s ever going to be capable of doing it.
Although Rousseau’s tackles behind the line of scrimmage plummeted from a career-high 16 to six last year, he had three straight years of double-digits and is known as one of the NFL’s top run defenders.
Perhaps his struggles as a pass rusher are related to the scheme and the role he was asked to play. Quite often, Rousseau was asked to play rush contain — to keep the quarterback in the pocket or push the pocket rather than sacking the quarterback.
Leonard Floyd was the lone Bills player to notch double-digit sacks in McDermott’s nine seasons. And while the Bills ranked in the top-10 seven times apiece in tackles for a loss and takeaways, they only ranked in the top-10 in sacks once, nearly an impossible feat.
“I think Greg is going to be a valuable piece,” Bills general manager Brandon Beane said at the NFL scouting combine. “I think we’ve all decided that. It’s just a matter of how we deploy him. Part of how we deploy him, which I love, what Jim said is, ‘Show me the pieces we have. We’ll get them in the right spot.’”
But pairing Chubb (a natural right-side rusher) with Rousseau (who prefers the left) shouldn’t be the end of stocking up on pass rushers. Some are wary of taking another defensive end high in the draft after spending six picks on defensive linemen — four in the top-three rounds — since 2018.
But there are some unknowns on the edge. Michael Hoecht will be a critical part of the pass rush, but will he be ready Week 1 after tearing his Achilles tendon in Week 9, and if he is, how effective will he be?
Beane says Javon Solomon, a 2024 fifth-round pick, is better suited to play in a 3-4, but he wasn’t able to garner extended defensive snaps during his first two seasons. And last year’s third-round pick Landon Jackson is a major mystery.
Jackson had major knee surgery midway through the season, but he was a healthy scratch in six of the first nine games. He admittedly struggled to adjust to the speed of the game and it’s unclear whether he has the speed to play on the edge or the size to play on the interior of a 3-4.
It’s possible Leonhard won’t substitute as liberally as McDermott, but it’s no longer an every-down league. It’s a long season and Chubb is going to be 30 with three ACL tears in his past.
And the growing trend is to have an arsenal pass rushers who can attack the quarterback without the defensive coordinator needing to blitz.
That was Buffalo’s philosophy, but pressure percentage dwindled from 42.8% in playoff wins to 25.8% in losses. The average pressure percentage for playoff winners last year was 36.8%.
That’s extended into the Super Bowl as champions have averaged a 42% pressure rate in the Big Game. And the last two champions — the Eagles and Seahawks — generated six sacks apiece while blitzing a total of 10 times.
Although the Eagles had two edge rushers play over 50% of the snaps in 2024, they had five who played over 20%. And the Seahawks had three players over 50% and another with 37%. The Chiefs also had four players over 40% in 2022.
“I am always going to look for pieces up front, on both sides of the ball,” Beane said. “So if there’s an opportunity to add somebody in the draft, or free agency or trade or whatever it may be, I wouldn’t shy away.”
It’s a deep draft for edge rushers, so if the Bills opted to trade out of the 26th pick and back into the second round, they still could find a capable player. And that should be the focus for the Bills.
Good quarterback play gets teams into the playoffs, but beating up good quarterbacks leads to Super Bowls.