Mission impossible: How the Buffalo Bills might defend the toughest formation in football
How do you ask a defense to do the impossible?
That is the task facing Leslie Frazier this week. No, this is not yet another piece on how talented Patrick Mahomes and the rest of the Kansas City Chiefs offense is, but rather a deeper look at one formation in the Andy Reid/Eric Bieniemy playbook that has given defenses fits. A formation that the brilliant Greg Cosell said this week was “…just about impossible to defend:”
@gregcosell was saying on the @RossTuckerNFL pod that this is just about impossible to defend. https://t.co/V5wcamTTw0
— Doug Farrar (@NFL_DougFarrar) January 21, 2021
As you can see, this is a 3×1 formation with Travis Kelce as the single receiver to the left – a “Y-Iso” look that has been popular in the NFL for years – but with Tyreek Hill as the inside receiver to the trips side of the formation.
How dangerous is this formation? Look at the underlying tweet from Josh Cohen (who is a great follow on Twitter). This season the Chiefs average almost two more yards per attempt in this formation than in any other trips alignment.
It’s that dangerous.
So how might the Buffalo Bills look to slow this formation down? In this video we’ll dive into just a few of those 102 snaps from the 2020 season to see how teams have handled it. Whether zone coverage or man, there might be another critical factor in stopping this alignment, and it starts at the snap:
If and when the Chiefs use this formation Sunday, look to see how the release of Travis Kelce is handled.
