3 Keys To A Buffalo Victory Over San Francisco
One Super Bowl team down, one more to go. After handing the defending champions their first loss of the season, the Bills’ next challenge is to deliver a potential death blow to the runner-up San Francisco 49ers. The Niners arrive at this game at 5-6 and are in desperation mode after getting whooped by the Green Bay Packers last week.
Of course, that was without Brock Purdy, who should return on Sunday. While the Niners have had injury woes with Brandon Aiyuk out, Christian McCaffrey is back, and Deebo Samuel and George Kittle are still backed up by receiver weapons in Juaun Jennings and Ricky Pearsall. This won’t be easy, especially because San Francisco can nearly double their playoff odds (from 15% to 28%) with a win.
So what do the Bills need to do to succeed on Sunday?
Don’t Let McCaffrey Find His Footing
McCaffrey is inarguably back in the lineup after recovering from his Achilles injury. Is he the McCaffrey that was the AP Offensive Player of the Year last season? Decidedly not… yet.
Still, even if the star RB is down from 126.4 yards from scrimmage per game last year to 93.7 in three games this year, the Bills must still respect the man’s body of work. He’s shown flashes of his game in pieces, getting six catches for 68 yards in his season debut, and rushing for 4.2 yards per carry on 19 attempts in Week 11, but the whole package has yet to materialize.
On paper, the Bills have the 13th-best run defense (119.1 yards allowed per game), but they’ve benefitted from blowout wins where teams had to turn to the pass to hope to make up ground. Closer games have seen stars run wild over Buffalo. In Week 4, Derrick Henry racked up 199 yards and two touchdowns. Week 6 saw Breece Hall get 118 yards on the ground and 169 total yards from scrimmage. They allowed 149 rushing yards total, as well as 121 yards from scrimmage and two touchdowns to dual-threat De’Von Achane, in Week 9.
Week 13 could easily be McCaffrey’s breakout. The Bills have to shut down that possibility to win.
Keep It Simple For Josh Allen
Who’s riding higher than Allen? His team is 9-2, he just knocked off Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs, and he’s engaged. There’s just one nasty little problem cropping up in recent weeks: Interceptions.
After throwing an incredible ZERO picks through seven games, Allen has thrown five interceptions in the past four weeks. The Bills prevailed in each game, and Allen is still on pace for a career-low in picks, but the Niners are more than capable of punishing bad throws.
While not quite as good as the fourth-place Bills, San Francisco still has managed to snag 11 interceptions this season, tied for seventh in the NFL. Just as important, they’ve gotten points on nine of those turnovers: one Pick-6, four touchdown drives, and four field goal drives. Going back to basics and leaning more on the run game to reduce Allen’s Hero Ball moments, as they did earlier this season, will go a long way to that.
Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow
The weather outside looks to be frightful in Buffalo on Sunday, with a storm looking to unload around a foot of snow onto the field.
The 49ers aren’t a cold-weather team, and while they won a playoff game in snow at Lambeau in the 2021 season (pre-Purdy, pre-McCaffrey), their playmakers were slowed down by the weather in a 13-10 win. Samuel led the Niners in yards from scrimmage with 83, Kittle was held to just four catches and 63 yards, and Jennings was a complete non-factor with a catch for six yards.
The snow should run its course by the time the game starts, but if the grounds crew wants to get a bit lazy in clearing the field off, let them. While the Bills’ offense is explosive and might be hurt by the snow, if Buffalo can make less of a track meet and force San Francisco to go into the trenches, that disrupts what the Niners will want to do on offense.
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