There are two statistics from Monday night’s Patriots-Bills game that you probably haven’t seen yet, that will tell you as much about how New England did what it did—turning a showdown into tractor pull, and subsequently grinding out a battle of wills—as anything.
• Bills linebacker Tyrel Dodson played 27 snaps on defense.
• Bills cornerback Taron Johnson played 22 snaps on defense.
Johnson, the Bills’ nickelback, signed a three-year, $24 million extension at the beginning of the season, recognition from the Buffalo brass that the former fourth-round pick had emerged as one of football’s premier slot corners. Dodson, conversely, was an undrafted free agent in ’20 and plied his trade the last two years primarily as a special-teamer, having taken just 51 defensive snaps in 11 games this year before Monday.
The Bills didn’t play Dodson more than Johnson by choice. The Patriots essentially forced them to do it by implementing the plan they did.
It’s just one example of why, as the ’21 season has worn on, the NFL has seen run games surge on a stage set for outsized passing numbers. And New England is just one in a slew of teams pulling it off. We’ve seen it from the Eagles, Colts, Ravens, 49ers and Titans, too—and it’s not just those teams leaning on the run game. It’s those outfits winning on the ground, and for an easy-to-understand reason.
Most teams, in 2021, are built to throw the ball and stop other teams from throwing it.
The aforementioned half-dozen have essentially combatted that by throwing hands, taking the bet that big people can still beat up little people.
The interesting part is the guys leading teams the way Bill Belichick led his on Monday didn’t just decide to do it this way on a whim. They’ve built themselves into it—with the kinds of the rosters that can, in an era where conventional wisdom is leading others not to. So, sure, seeing either a nickel defense or a linebacker who barely plays out there was an invitation for the Patriots to run it 46 times on the Bills. But it wouldn’t be for everyone.
“If you're built to win that way, then it is a huge invitation [to run],” said one NFC head coach on Thursday. “But not everybody's built that way, right? A lot of teams are built skill- first. And so it is an invitation, but if you go out there and you're not built for it, and you go two-yard run, two-yard run, two-yard run, a lot of coaches get impatient with that.”
Belichick didn’t. The rewards were obvious. Look closely enough, and the trend here is, too.
