Houston Texans vs. Buffalo Bills Preview & Prediction | PFF

Houston Texans vs. Buffalo Bills Preview & Prediction | PFF

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I’ll start with Josh Allen because he’s well the center of the universe there in Buffalo, right? And when you look at the splits in his numbers this year, he’s been outstanding against two things. A standard rush. when he’s not blitz, you just get that fourman rush. He has the fourth best passing grade in the NFL. And against zone coverage, he has the sixth best passing grade in the NFL. Now, these are two things that the Texans bring a lot, right? The standard rush. You talk about them having the third lowest pass blitz rate in the league and the fifth highest zone coverage rate. Despite having a really good secondary and a talented group of corners that includes Derek Stingley and Kamari Lacier, they don’t play a ton of man coverage. Now, what is interesting about this matchup is when the Bill when the Texans, I should say, really shut down the Bills offense last year, held Josh Allen to just nine of 30 when it comes to completions, they went with more man coverage than usual. They got a little bit more aggressive on the back end, and they were not afraid of this Bill’s wide receiving core, right? Even this year, they still don’t have that top guy. It’s Josh Palmer. It’s, you know, Terrell Shavers was making plays last week. It’s a lot of the tight ends, but Daltton Concade’s going to be out this week. I’d be curious if they go back to that approach again where last year they used man coverage right around a third of the time against the Bills in that win over them last year. I I think the Texans, if they wanted to do that, they can, right? The question is, okay, can you load up and stop the run with your front seven, which they’ve been a lot better with lately, too. Top 10 in run defense this great this year, uh, run defense, great, I should say, this this year as well. So, that’s going to be key without Kade. I believe Curtis Samuels out for the Bills also. This is going to be a game where Josh Allen’s going to have to take advantage when the Texans are in zone coverage, and he’s still going to have to work around a really good four-man rush. Yeah, I think a lot of the big plays, well, not a lot of, just some of the big plays that we got last week from the Bills on offense was really just Tampa not having the pass rush that they needed to. They don’t have the finishers, if you will, on their defensive line. And there were a couple of times when Josh Allen’s just in a scramble drill and the receivers very clearly had some good chemistry on where to go and and Josh was able to see those guys. And so, the breakdowns and coverage from Tampa Bay is something that I think really hurt them last week. And Houston’s one of those teams that they know Josh Allen pretty well. They’ve obviously rattled him uh as of last year. And so they know what he’s capable of. I feel like they’re going to be a little bit more buttoned up. They’re going to be more ready for it than Tampa’s defense was last week. So I think they’re definitely going to give the Bills more of a run for their money than the Buccaneers defense did uh the week prior. On the Texans side of things, CJ Stroud not going to play in this game once again. He’s missing. This would be his third game, I believe, missed due to that concussion. Uh we’ll get Davis Mills once again. And if you just look at the last two games that Davis Mills has played, he played really well. Played much better last week, I should say, against the Tennessee Titans, but then the week prior against the Jags, there were a lot of turnover worthy plays. Now, he limited those again last week. So, you’ll like to see him get a little bit more comfortable the more reps that he’s getting as the starter this season. But specifically going up against what he might see against the Buffalo Bills, you know, the Bills have been running a lot of two high coverages, I would say, for the last couple of years, but specifically this season, they have been more aggressive and they have gone with more of a single high approach and they have a lot of snaps where you wouldn’t necessarily think that this Buffalo defense would. Davis Mills over the last two weeks against single high looks, 62.5 passing grade. He has two and he has two big-time throws versus single high with two turnover worthy plays as well. So just a little bit more of an aggressive form of coverage. He’s had an equal amount of big time throws to turnover worthy plays. Now if you go to two high coverages, just more attacking zone coverages in general over the last two weeks. Mills has been better at that. He’s been more efficient, less turnover worthy plays. So clearly he feels more comfortable finding those soft spots in the zone. But Buffalo has been able to run a lot more cover one looks and I wonder if they’re just going to continue that. Looking at the tape over the last couple of weeks and seeing that, hey, when we’ve got that tight coverage, when we demand those better throws from Davis Mills versus man coverage, that’s when he really starts to struggle. So, I I think that it’ll be an interesting chess match there to see what the Buffalo Bills go with, but it does go towards uh I should say it leans in their favor where they’ve been going on defense and how they’ve been deploying their coverage. I think the Bills are the better team. I think they win this one. I’m gonna go 24-13 is my final score here. Buffalo wins it. I’m going to take the Bills also, but I don’t think it’s going to be that easy. I think this Texans defense is going to keep them in this game. And if if Houston can find a way to run the ball with Woody Marks, and I think they really do have a shot to win. If CJ Strad was in this game instead of Davis Mills, I might pick the Texans to win it outright, but I’m going to go Bills 19 to 16. And I think we’re getting an ugly defensive game in this

PFF’s Dalton Wasserman and Trevor Sikkema preview the matchup between The Houston Texans and The Buffalo Bills.

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