Getty Jordan Poyer celebrates after making a play
Through the first seven weeks of the regular season, the Buffalo Bills defense has been one of the worst in the NFL.
In terms of yards, they are currently ranked as the 15th best passing defense in the league and the 21st best rushing defense. But, before their standout performance against the New York Jets on Sunday it was even worse.
After allowing 186 yards of total offense in the first half at MetLife Stadium, the Bills flipped a defensive switch in the locker room and only allowed the Jets to gain four yards of total offense in the second half.
It was the lowest total they’ve allowed since at least 2000.
As the game came to a close though, the Bills were up 15-10 and were driving for their first touchdown of the game to close it out. But, in the back of defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier’s head, he was thinking it wouldn’t be too bad to have the defense close it out
“In the past, that’s usually the way it was,” Frazier said. “We had to go out and close games out. So, I’m hoping that this will be a confidence builder and something that we can build on as the season goes on. Every week is a little bit different, but deep down I’m hoping that this is going to be the catalyst for us to continue to improve.”
What Changed for the Bills Defense?
The success of the Bills defense in the second half of their game against the Jets could be attributed to several things. They started to bring an intense blitz on several occasions and also started to develop a real “pocket push” which created a type of pressure that the New York Jets couldn’t handle.
The Bills from behind in the first half though as the Jets jumped out to a 10-0 lead early. Then, just before the half, defensive back Dane Jackson, who was making his first NFL start in place of the injured Josh Norman, picked off Sam Darnold and the momentum immediately switched in the Bills favor.
“I really don’t think there was a whole lot of difference,” Bills safety Jordan Poyer said about the difference between the first and second half. “We obviously had a huge play right before the half that gave us a lot of momentum going into halftime. They had a couple of runs here and there in the first half, but we were able to settle down, especially in the second half, and get into a rhythm and get off the field on third downs. So, we want to continue to build off of that.”
The Bills allowed the Jets to score just 10 points, the lowest total Buffalo has allowed all year and after sub-par performances, the defense is hoping to use Sunday’s performance as a building block.
“Obviously we haven’t been playing well that past few weeks so to come out here and hold a team to 10 points, you never want to say you’re satisfied and there were obviously some things out there that we could’ve done better,” Poyer said. “But, in the end, a win is a win and we’ll have some good tape to learn from.”
Dialing up the Pressure
The Bills defensive pressure in the second half on Sunday looked like the defense Sean McDermott and Leslie Frazier dialed up during the first few years of their tenure in Buffalo.
Throughout the game, the Bills recorded six sacks, with Jerry Hughes tallying two himself, and they also tallied 11 total quarterback hits and two interceptions.
“I give credit to Leslie (Frazier), the staff, and the players, who were the ones who executed it,” McDermott said. “They got back to playing Buffalo Bills style defense. They were flying around out there and it was fun to watch.”
After the game, Poyer said that the Bills defense came into the game wanting to be aggressive and not allow the Jets to set the tone. As the game carried on, the defense made small adjustments as to how the Jets were attacking them and it led to dialing up the blitz and creating havoc in the backfield.
“We wanted to attack and not sit back on our heels and let them try to attack us and dictate us,” Poyer said. “We were dialing up the pressure early on in the downs and we even had some third and long pressures that we were able to hit home. We were just coming from all over and trying to disguise it as much as we could and we would like to think that we confused them a little bit.”
Finding Their Identity
Throughout the week leading up to their second game with the New York Jets, the Bills talked about finding their identity on defense, which is something every team develops over the course of the season.
It’s not a simple answer though and although they did find a piece of it on Sunday, the Bills defensive identity is something that is going to manifest over time.
“Each game is its own game obviously and you have to continue to work each week to get better,” McDermott said. “But I liked how the pieces fit together yesterday (Sunday) in terms of how the rush complemented the coverage and the coverage complementing the rush, then what we were able to do against the run in the second half was key also.”
Since McDermott took over the Bills in 2017, Buffalo has had two defenses ranked in the top 5 of the league in terms of yards allowed. In 2018 they finished 2nd and just last year they finished 3rd.
A key piece of that defensive success was the Bills’ ability to create turnovers, which they were 8th and 10th in, and limiting points, which they were 18th and 2nd in.
On Sunday, they were able to come up with key stops in key moments of the game and Poyer believes that will be a big part of re-establishing the identity that they created the last few years.
“We had some huge stops, huge takeaways in key moments of the game,” Poyer said. “You want to build off of that and continue to create that identity. Whether that’s taking the ball away two or three times a game or we are getting off the field and they are going for it on 4th down and we’re stuffing them. So we did some really good things that we can build off of moving forward.”