X's and O's: Patriots at Bills
The Patriots play the Bills this week and quite frankly who knows who is gonna show up for the Bills. One week they suck, and Nathan Peterson is throwing five interceptions and another week they're beating the Vikings, a Super Bowl contender in the NFC, by 21 points.
The Bills love to play zone defense. The Bills ran a zone defense 68.3% of their defensive plays last year. The Bills run a 4-3 front with a Tampa-2 secondary schemes. Off of the top of my head I can't really think of anyone on the Bills defense. Which should mean an easy win for the Pats tonight, right? Well lets not get ahead of ourselves here.
The Bills have allowed the fourth fewest total yards per game behind the Ravens, Jags, and the Cowboys. The Bills have only allowed 320.9 yards a game, while allowing 210.1 passing yards per game and 110.7 rushing yards per game.
The Bills play a true Tampa-2 defense. A Tampa-2 is a zone scheme where the field is broken in half by the two high safeties, the cornerbacks are rolling corners, while covering anything from 5-15 yards on their side of the field, The outside linebackers cover the middle of the field from 5-10 yards off of the line of scrimmage and the middle linebacker covers 5-15 yards in the middle of the field, pretty much a straight drop back from where he stands. Pictured Below.
This week, the offense is gonna be a little banged up. Gronk's status was still unknown as of this morning and Sony Michel has been downgraded to out. I believe its going to be a week of Josh Gordon. Gordon is going to tear it up tonight and show everyone why he was the league's best receiver a few years ago. James White and Edelman will have good games as well. The Patriots are going to do a lot short methodical drives, as usual. Edelman will be used on a lot of slant and out routes, Gordon will be used in a post, drag, and vertical routes. For example you could run Gordon and Edelman on the same side, while having Edelman run a slant route and have Gordon run a shallow post about 10 yards deeper than Edelman. James White can run a flat route to the opposite side of the field to even out the field.
On the other side of ball the Bills actually suck really badly. They're the second worst team, when it comes to offensive yards. The Bills average 234.0 yards per game, 129.4 passing yards and 104.6 rushing yards. With Shady McCoy being injured, if the Patriots can eliminate the run game and force the Bills quarterback have to make decisions quickly, the Patriots are going to make the Bills look really bad. Like I said earlier though, it depends on what Bills team shows up.
The Patriots are going to embarrass the Bills tonight, I think that the Pats Beat the bills favorably, 38-7. The Pats force a fumble and pick the Bills off twice. Gordon has 2 touchdowns, James White gets 2 touchdowns, and Edelman gets one as well.
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