The Detroit Lions (12-1) will take on the Buffalo Bills (10-3) at Ford Field in Week 15. The Bills have been an incredibly strong franchise under head coach Sean McDermott, and have made the playoffs in seven of the eight seasons under his tutelage—including already clinching the AFC East this season.
While the Bills hired new offensive and defensive coordinators this offseason, both were internal hires and have allowed the team to continue their success. Let’s take a look at the Bills' coaching staff and how their offensive and defensive schemes operate.
Bills head coach: Sean McDermott
McDermott entered the NFL in 1999 with the Eagles as a scouting administrator, before evolving to be then-head coach Andy Reid’s assistant. He held several different assistant coaching roles, before finally landing a job as the defensive backs coach in 2006 (working with John Harbaugh). The next season, he shifted to coaching linebackers (replacing Steve Spagnuolo), and eventually took over as defensive coordinator after legendary Eagles DC Jim Johnson’s health declined in 2009. After the 2010 season, Reid felt McDermott was under too much pressure trying to replace Johnson and the two sides parted ways.
With a recommendation from Reid, Ron Rivera (another former Eagles position coach) hired McDermott as his defensive coordinator for the Carolina Panthers. He would remain in that role for six years before taking the Bills’ head coaching job in 2017.
Offensive coordinator: Joe Brady
Brady got his first shot coaching in the NFL with the Saints in 2017, working as an offensive assistant alongside Lions head coach Dan Campbell for two seasons. In 2019, Brady took a co-offensive coordinator/passing game coordinator position at LSU, where he gained massive notoriety for helping the Tigers win a National Championship behind a high-scoring offense that featured quarterback Joe Burrow and wide receivers Justin Jefferson and Ja’Marr Chase.
Brady seized the opportunity to land an offensive coordinator position with the Panthers in 2020 but the entire staff was fired following the 2021 season. Brady took a quarterbacks coaching position with the Bills in 2022, took over interim offensive coordinator duties halfway through the 2023 season—following the firing of Ken Dorsey—and was officially named the offensive coordinator this offseason.
“Josh Allen” offensive scheme
When Brady took over the 5-5 Bills halfway through 2023, he was charged with elevating a talented offense that was running into too many self-inflicted problems. Two of the most glaring issues he faced were a lack of red zone efficiency and turnovers. Brady’s solution was to simplify the offense, run the ball with more purpose, and center the offense around quarterback Josh Allen. The offense sparked and the Bills went 6-1 down the stretch, won the division, and beat the Steelers in the Wild Card, but lost to the Chiefs in the Divisional Round.
Brady carried his new Allen-focused offense over to 2024, and preached a new philosophy of “everybody eats,” meaning Allen would act as the team’s “point guard” and would spread the ball around to an offense loaded with skill players. The goal was to create a flowing offense that adjusted to the defense on the fly and leaned on Allen’s strengths, both as a passer and a runner.
In the running game, there are more designed runs (including from Allen) on early downs with the goal of getting the offense into third-and-manageable. The emphasis on the run game is noticeable, and Allen has previously mentioned that the plan is to keep running the ball until the defense proves it can stop it.
One of the ways the Bills have increased their success on the ground is by utilizing a sixth offensive lineman (typically Alec Anderson). The Bills have deployed jumbo sets with a sixth offensive lineman on an average of 15.2% of offensive snaps, the highest rate in the NFL. The high volume is designed not only to give them added blocking talent up front but to also force defenses into a base front-seven, which sets up their passing game.
In the passing game, Brady introduced and called more routes that created fluid movement, which resulted in more yards after catch (YAC) and played into the strengths of several of the team's skill players. At receiver, four or five players would get opportunities to catch passes on a weekly basis, instead of the offense running through just a few key options. Multiple tight end sets were utilized more (which they use around 20% of the time) and the running backs were incorporated more into the passing game as well. The running back usage is unique, because they’re not often used as behind-the-line-of-scrimmage options, and instead are sent out on routes, and can create mismatches downfield.
As a result of Brady’s changes, the Bills offense ranks in the top 12 in most offensive categories, including their biggest problem areas: red zone scoring (they are now fifth in the NFL, with a 68.5% efficiency rate) and turnovers (second in giveaways, first in turnover differential).
Defensive coordinator: Bobby Babich
Babich entered the NFL in 2011 with the Panthers, the same season McDermott was hired as their defensive coordinator. After two seasons as an assistant, Babich left the Panthers, bouncing around for a few seasons, before joining McDermott’s staff with the Bills (where his dad Bob was the linebacker coach). Babich worked his way up from assistant defensive backs coach, to coach safeties and then took over the linebackers from his dad when he retired in 2021.
When previous defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier left the Bills after the 2022 season, McDermott took over defensive play-calling duties in 2023 and did not hire a defensive coordinator. This offseason, McDermott felt they needed a full-time DC again, promoted Babich to the role, and handed over play-calling duties.
4-2-5 Base defensive scheme
Typically, when we refer to a “base” scheme, it involves a seven-man front, fully knowing that most NFL teams spend 70-80% of the time in subpackages. But with the Bills, they operate in subpackages nearly 100% of the time and will deploy six defensive backs (DIME) as much as 20-30% of defensive snaps—especially when injuries hit their linebacking core.
Overall, McDermott wants his defense to be disciplined, physical, opportunistic, and aggressive with a downhill mentality. They show a lot of complexity pre-snap in an effort to be unpredictable, disguise their intentions, and force offenses to react to what they’re doing post-snap.
To accomplish this disguise, the Bills will use their linebackers and corners to hide their intentions, often moving their coverage assignments away from traditional sets. This works because the Bills operate in zone coverage 74-77% of the time (eighth most per PFF, fifth most per NextGen Stats), which allows defenders to cover a zone instead of matching with specific players. At the safety level, they’ll often show Cover-2 looks pre-snap, then shift into Cover-3, which they run more than any other coverage (around 30% of the time).
Up front, they deploy a 1-gapping front similar to the Lions—using a 1- and 3-technique inside, with a 5/7-Technique at one defensive end spot and a 7/9-technique on the other side. They will threaten the A-gap with a blitzing linebacker, but more often than not, it’s just pre-snap bluster because they only blitz around 18% of the time (the third-lowest amount in the NFL).
The Bills defensive line has been a bit Jekyll and Hyde this season and appears to be one of the most frustrating parts of the defense.
For example, they are the top team in the NFL in “stuffed rate,” meaning they stop runs at or behind the line of scrimmage on 23.6% of run plays. Yet, running backs average 1.62 yards before contact (23rd) and 3.11 yards after contact (22nd). Buffalo has given up 49 rushes of 10+ yards (26th) and allow 4.7 yards per carry (26th). Essentially, what this shows is that unless the defensive line is stuffing the run at the line of scrimmage, they are often susceptible to explosive plays on the ground.
It’s even worse in creating pressure on passing downs. According to Next Gen Stats, the Bills have generated 152 pressures (20th) through 13 games—Greg Rousseau has 44, no one else has more than 25—a 6.2% pressure rate (20th), just 29 sacks (21st), and average 2.7 seconds before they can achieve a pressure (21st).
The Bills defense has a stigma attached to them, that they shine when playing middle to lower-level offenses, but often collapse when faced with the top-tier offenses in the NFL.
This season, the Bills have only faced one top-10 scoring offense and they lost that game, giving up 35 points to the Ravens (third). If we look just outside the top 10, the Texans, Chiefs, and 49ers are all tied at 11th, but the news doesn’t get much better, because Buffalo lost to Houston, faced San Francisco in a snowstorm, and played arguably the best game of their season to beat Kansas City. If we expand it out to include all top-half of the league offenses they’ve faced, the Bills have a win over the Seahawks (15th) but also lost to the Rams (16th), giving up 44 points, just last week. That’s a 3-3 record. Their remaining seven games were all wins, but six of them came over offenses in the bottom 10 of the NFL.
To see how they’ll match up against the Lions' No. 1 scoring offense in the NFL, check back later in the week for our Honolulu Blueprint: Keys to victory article.