BUF (13-5)
\nDEN (13-4)<\/p>\n
DVOA
\n12.5% (8)
\n14.4% (7)<\/p>\n
WEI DVOA
\n14.0% (9)
\n18.5% (6)<\/p>\n
Bills on Offense<\/p>\n
BUF OFF
\nDEN DEF<\/p>\n
DVOA
\n15.0% (4)
\n-10.4% (5)<\/p>\n
WEI DVOA
\n14.1% (5)
\n-10.9% (7)<\/p>\n
PASS
\n25.3% (10)
\n-5.6% (8)<\/p>\n
RUSH
\n13.4% (2)
\n-17.9% (3)<\/p>\n
Broncos on Offense<\/p>\n
BUF DEF
\nDEN OFF<\/p>\n
DVOA
\n3.2% (20)
\n3.6% (15)<\/p>\n
WEI DVOA
\n2.0% (19)
\n6.2% (12)<\/p>\n
PASS
\n0.2% (12)
\n18.5% (14)<\/p>\n
RUSH
\n6.3% (31)
\n-5.4% (19)<\/p>\n
Special Teams<\/p>\n
BUF
\nDEN<\/p>\n
DVOA
\n0.7% (15)
\n0.4% (16)<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s start off with the Bills on offense, where we have strength against strength. However, the Bills have not been playing as well in recent weeks. There isn\u2019t as much of a difference between total and weighted DVOA, but that\u2019s because the Bills had excellent offensive games in Weeks 8 (at Panthers) and 9 (vs. Chiefs).<\/p>\n
If we look at Weeks 1-9 compared to Weeks 10-19, you can see the drops in DVOA. The Bills\u2019 pass offense declined from sixth to 13th since Week 10. (If you take out the horrible Miami game from Week 10, it is ninth since Week 11.) The Bills\u2019 run offense declined from first to fourth since Week 10 (third since Week 11). It\u2019s been a larger decline than the ranks make it sound, because the gap between first and fourth is a lot bigger than, say, the gap between fourth and seventh. The Broncos\u2019 run defense has also declined, from third in Weeks 1-9 to 15th in Weeks 10-18, and that decline is about the same as the decline for the Bills\u2019 run offense.<\/p>\n
The Broncos\u2019 pass defense, however, has definitely not declined.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/2025BUF19.png\")
<\/p>\n
Strength against strength is true of the matchup in the trenches as well. The Broncos ranked third in ESPN pass rush win rate<\/a> while the Bills ranked fourth in pass block win rate.<\/p>\n The Broncos do have some weaknesses on defense. For example, the Broncos are only 25th against \u201cother wide receivers\u201d \u2014 not the top two \u2014 and the Bills spread the ball around a lot. Of course, we don\u2019t know who those \u201cother receivers\u201d are because so many of the Bills receivers are injured. The Bills are down to three healthy receivers (Keon Coleman<\/a>, Khalil Shakir<\/a>, and Brandin Cooks<\/a>) and will be pulling guys like Kristian Wilkerson<\/a> and Mecole Hardman Jr.<\/a> off the practice squad. There\u2019s going to be a lot of 12 personnel with Dalton Kincaid<\/a> and Dawson Knox<\/a>, and the Broncos were only 18th in DVOA against tight ends this year. (Kincaid has been limited in practice but will likely play.)<\/p>\n The Bills are more successful as they move into heavier offensive packages with a fullback or two tight ends, but the Broncos also have better defensive DVOA against heavier offensive packages.<\/p>\n Also, I\u2019m not sure why this is, but the Broncos were 28th against passes to the right side. It\u2019s not related to a specific cornerback, as Pat Surtain travels with the opposing WR1 more than almost any other cornerback. (I have no idea who that is in this game. Cooks?) The Broncos were fifth against passes to the left and third against passes to the middle. And Josh Allen<\/a> was better passing to the right side than the left this season.<\/p>\n These are the top two defenses against running backs as receivers.<\/p>\n One place where the Broncos have a significant advantage is in their use of man coverage. Only the Eagles used man coverage more often than the Broncos, and the Bills\u2019 receivers really struggled to get open against man. Josh Allen<\/a> had 23.6% DVOA (sixth) against zone but -8.6% DVOA (25th) against man, although the Broncos will need to watch for Allen scrambles against man coverage.<\/p>\n Another place where the Broncos may neutralize a Bills strength is on the ground. The Bills are better running when they use zone blocking. They averaged 5.3 yards per carry from outside zone, and only two offenses used outside zone more often. However, the Broncos allowed only 3.4 yards per carry against outside zone, fourth in the NFL.<\/p>\n But the Broncos were not a great tackling team on runs, allowing a 22.8% avoided tackle rate which was third worst in the NFL.<\/p>\n The Bills led the NFL with 12.4% DVOA running against a stacked box, but were still higher (15.5%) without a stacked box. The Broncos were near the bottom of the league in how often they stacked the box but were much better against runs when they did (-26.7% DVOA, second in the NFL behind Seattle).<\/p>\n With the Bills on defense, you\u2019ve got a couple of issues. The coverage for the Bills is stronger than you might think, but they need to blitz to get pressure and of course have a terrible run defense.<\/p>\n The Bills are 27th in ESPN pass rush win rate and will be facing one of the top offensive lines in the league (eighth in pass block win rate). FTN Data charting has the Bills as a very surprising fifth in pressure rate (33.8%) but that\u2019s partly because they blitz 30.8% of the time (10th). Bo Nix<\/a> was very good against the blitz this season, seventh in the league with 22.4% DVOA.<\/p>\n The Bills defense is average in man\/zone split but only the Vikings were more likely to use two high safeties. That is a very good matchup for the Bills. Bo Nix<\/a> was 22nd (-6.8% DVOA) against 2-high compared to 13th (9.5% DVOA) vs 1-high. And Bills pass defense had -23.1% DVOA (second behind only Houston) with 2-high compared to 33.2% DVOA (29th) with 1-high.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The problem there, of course, is that going with two high safeties invites teams to run on you. The Bills\u2019 poor run defense was worst against man blocking (5.7 yards per carry) or outside zone (5.1 yards per carry). Those happen to be the two concepts the Broncos use most: 27.4% of their runs are man blocking and 21.3% are outside zone.<\/p>\n Broncos may want to go with heavier personnel more, as the Bills are -8.1% DVOA (10th) vs. 11 personnel but 19.6% DVOA (32nd) vs. 12 personnel and 23.4% DVOA (30th) vs. 21 personnel.<\/p>\n It\u2019s good to get Bo Nix<\/a> off his first read, and that happens a lot. Nix was near the bottom of the league, throwing to his first read just 41.8% of the time. He had -24.6% DVOA when forced off his first read, which was fifth in the league but still worse than his DVOA on the first read. (As you might imagine, Josh Allen<\/a> is also very good in this stat.)<\/p>\n However, you need to watch for Nix scrambling, as the Bills defense allowed a league-worst 9.4 yards per scramble.<\/p>\n On special teams, the Bills have a significant advantage on kick returns with Ray Davis<\/a> while the Broncos have an advantage on punt returns with Marvin Mims Jr.<\/a> Otherwise, the special teams units are close to average once we adjust for weather and the altitude in Denver.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Call Rodney Dangerfield, because the Broncos don\u2019t get no respect. Denver claimed the AFC\u2019s No. 1 seed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":679716,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2026],"tags":[7,6170,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-679715","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-football-outsiders","10":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115900215958496060","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=679715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679715\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/679716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=679715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=679715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=679715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/2025DEN18.png\")
<\/p>\n