Inside the action: Bills, Eagles earn statement wins in Week 6
By Geoff Schwartz
FOX Sports NFL Analyst
The NFL reminded us on Sunday it is still the sports entertainment king.
The Chiefs hosted the Bills in a rematch of their thrilling AFC divisional game last season. Buffalo made a late comeback to go ahead with a Josh Allen touchdown toss to Dawson Knox, then intercepted Patrick Mahomes to secure a 24-20 victory. The Eagles beat the divisional rival Cowboys 26-17 in their quest to continue a perfect season.
Here are my takeaways on each of these four teams following their Week 6 matchups.
1) Von Miller continues, and will continue, to be worth every cent. The Bills added the veteran Miller to the roster this offseason for games like Sunday. Miller was unblockable, with two sacks and multiple pressures on Mahomes. The benefit of being able to pressure with just your front four, or even three rushers, is at least seven defenders can be focused on the passing attack.
It showed throughout the game as the Bills defense gave the Chiefs offense and Mahomes very few clean looks for easy completions. The Chiefs had to account for Miller by using extra blockers to chip and harass him. That's one less offensive player available in a route for Mahomes.
2) Allen continues to grow as a player. His ability to make ‘Wow’ plays while cutting way down on the variance makes Buffalo's offense nearly unstoppable. Last season, the Bills offense was 32nd in Football Outsiders variance. The simple way to explain that ranking is their offense was the least consistent in the NFL. It could produce excellent results, and then just as easily show nothing the following weekend.
The Bills entered the Chiefs game ranked 15th in variance, just above the league average. Their offense takes what the defense gives them, hence their reliance on the rushing attack in the win. Excluding kneel-downs, Buffalo produced 29 carries for 133 yards. Allen was 27-of-40 as a passer, with no errant pass attempts near Chiefs defenders. It wasn't totally perfect, with Allen deciding to go off-script on an opening drive pitch that was recovered by the Chiefs. However, defenses need to be almost perfect for 60 minutes to avoid allowing points to the Bills.
1) Kansas City is still finding its way without Tyreek Hill. The Chiefs offense is fine. They entered Sunday third in offensive DVOA and left the game ranked ever so slightly ahead of the Bills for the best offensive expected points added in the NFL.
However, it seems clear that Mahomes is still working to find a receiving option outside Travis Kelce he trusts. Mahomes is so good outside the pocket, and that is where he often found Hill streaking across the field for an explosive pass play. There doesn't seem to be the rhythm in the pocket as often when he's not targeting Kelce. Part of that might be his offensive line, especially at tackle, where the play has been up and down at times. I have to believe as Mahomes continues to play with this current receiving core he will develop more trust in those guys.
2) The most glaring issue on the field for Kansas City was a pass rush. Or lack thereof. The Chiefs secondary was hampered by injury, and with their starters back, I would assume they don't lose all the one-on-ones. The reason for the one-on-one matchups so often is the Chiefs must bring extra defenders to create pressure because their front four are not doing it themselves. Unfortunately, there isn't a snap of fingers fix for this problem. Their pass rushers need to win individual matchups, which will allow more defenders to stay in coverage.
1) Cooper Rush is an awesome football story and the perfect backup quarterback story. Without any expectations of success, the Rush-led Cowboys won their first four games he starts in place of injured Dak Prescott. While Rush is rarely the primary reason the team wins, he's also not the reason they lose. He does his job.
However, his job only works when the surrounding parts are doing their best job. The defense needs to get stops to give him a short field. The run game needs to allow the play-action pass to open up. Nothing I'm saying is much news to Cowboys fans, but it was just glaring against the Eagles when the Cowboys defense struggled in the first half. When the defense played better and the Cowboys run game picked up, Rush was able to move the ball with short pinpoint throws. They need Prescott back to compete in a game against a team as good as the Eagles.
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The Philadelphia Eagles remain the only undefeated team in the league after beating the Dallas Cowboys last night with a final score of 26-17. Skip Bayless discusses the biggest reasons his Cowboys lost to their NFC East rival.
2) Even in a loss, the Cowboys pass rush is so fierce. They do so many unique things that stress an offensive line. Their ability to move defenders around and find matchups to exploit is the best in the NFL. It's difficult to do this against the Eagles offensive line for an entire game when your offense can't do anything to help you. I would suspect we continue to see elite play from this unit
1) If the Eagles only played the first thirty minutes of every football game they'd go undefeated. They are a force early in games. However, an NFL game is a minimum of sixty minutes and the Eagles need to play better in the final half of games.
In Week 1 they were up 31-14 on the Lions but held on to win 38-35. In the next two weeks, the Eagles scored zero second-half points. Against the Jaguars in Week 4, it was seven second-half points. And finally in Week 5 at Arizona, the Eagles scored only six second-half points. I don't have a concrete reason for these offensive second-half woes, but I can make an educated guess. The Eagles staff, and by extension their players, do not make adjustments well. Their staff does an outstanding job preparing their opening script and finding mismatches, but then when the opposing defense makes adjustments, the Eagles have no answers. It needs to be fixed ASAP. The Eagles have too much talent for this to be a trend each weekend.
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The Philadelphia Eagles remain undefeated after defeating NFC East rival Dallas Cowboys 26-17. Colin Cowherd explains how the Eagles' 'ceiling is wide open,' including what the game showed about Dallas.
2) Howie Roseman deserves more credit for building this roster than he probably gets. His draft picks have been successes. The additions of AJ Brown, James Bradbury and C.J Gardner-Johnson have paid immediate dividends. Brown has given Hurts a legitimate deep threat that scares defenses, and both of their new cornerbacks have given the Eagles one of the better secondaries in the NFL.
Geoff Schwartz played eight seasons in the NFL for five different teams. He started at right tackle for the University of Oregon for three seasons and was a second-team All-Pac-12 selection his senior year. He is an NFL analyst for FOX Sports. Follow him on Twitter @GeoffSchwartz.