How Concerned Should We Be About Buffalo’s Run Defense?
Credit: Mark Konezny-Imagn Images
The Buffalo Bills are clearly one of the best teams in the NFL, and at this point of the season, it’s all about nitpicking and cleaning up small weaknesses as the playoffs get closer and closer. One area that continues to get brought up as a potential Achilles’ Heel is the run defense. It’s not all that shocking, especially after the run defense struggled over the last month. But how concerned should we be? Is the 153 yards they’ve given up the new norm, or are the Bills actually fine? Let’s take a deep dive into the Bills run defense.
Bills opponents have rushed 297 times against them this season for 1463 yards and 11 touchdowns. The total yards against rates as middle-of-the-pack in the NFL, but the real red flags are their yards per carry against. Bills’ opponents are picking up 4.9 yards per carry which makes Buffalo’s defense third-worst in the NFL behind only the New York Giants and New Orleans Saints. Even the Colts, who are the second-worst rush defense in the NFL in terms of yards surrendered, are only giving up 4.6 yards per carry.
What’s going on in the games where the Bills’ defense struggled the most? There are seven games where Buffalo has given up 120-plus rushing yards, and a lot of those are the usual suspects, against the Arizona Cardinals, Miami Dolphins (twice), Baltimore Ravens, Jacksonville Jaguars, Indianapolis Colts, and San Francisco 49ers. It’s not exactly surprising that some of those teams would have big games on the ground.
Let’s take a team like the Ravens, who Buffalo gave up 271 rushing yards against. The sheer total of yards is a bit shocking, but that team has Derrick Henry and Lamar Jackson, who have been two of the best runners in the league. Even their most recent game against the 49ers, who ran for 151 yards, is very misleading. They struggled to slow down Christian McCaffrey before he got hurt, but Brock Purdy only passed a total of 18 times for 94 yards. It was the middle of a snowstorm, so San Francisco didn’t have much choice but to run the ball.
It’s easy to look at the stats and assume the defense is going to continue to be bad, but there is one area we seem to be overlooking: Matt Milano is back. Milano’s last game before Sunday night was on October 8th, 2023, when he suffered a leg injury that cost him the rest of his season. While he did play that last game against the 49ers (he finished with five total tackles), Milano should only get better as he shakes off the rust.
Was the run defense better in terms of yards on Sunday? No, but we know long-term historically, the Bills defense is better when Milano is on the field.
Back in 2020, Milano only played 10 games during the regular season, and the games he missed revealed how much of an impact the linebacker made. In games where Milano played, the Bills gave up 108.1 rushing yards per game, an average that soared to 138.3 yards in the games he missed. The points per game without Milano also jumped from 18.6 to 29.8. All of Milano’s abilities might not show up in the box score, but his ability to quickly diagnose the run and then break on the ball-carrier makes him one of the better linebackers in the NFL.
The run defense will continue to be tested in the next couple of games, starting with Kyren Williams in Week 14, followed by the dynamic duo of David Montgomery and Jahmyr Gibbs in Week 15. And the name of the game in run defending isn’t always about locking down star backs; it’s about slowing them down and not letting them kill you.
Make no mistake, the run defense killed Buffalo against the Ravens, but they haven’t been a fatal flaw in any other game. The stats can look rough occasionally, but as long as it’s not hurting the team in terms of the team winning, that’s all that matters. Regardless, Milano should give them that boost down the stretch to make sure that the running game stays in check. If that happens, the running defense shouldn’t hold this team back from contending for a Super Bowl.
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