The Buffalo Bills are now just two wins away from becoming Super Bowl champions, and it has become a very scary world if you are a folding table. It's been an incredible season thus far, highlighted by the big-armed Josh Allen and his new best friend in Stefon Diggs. Both of their career seasons catapulted the Bills into the tier of elite NFL teams, and they have the opportunity to make yet another jump in the court of public opinion by taking down the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC Championship game.
The Bills have won eight straight games -- seven of them by double digits -- and own a point differential of +136 during that span. Even if the Bills do take down the Chiefs, what will they have to show on Sunday to make fans of either the Green Bay Packers or Tampa Bay Buccaneers nervous about their team's chances? Buffalo has a legitimate chance to win Super Bowl LV, but what do they have to accomplish to make this dream a reality?
Below, I will give you three things Buffalo must improve on immediately if the Bills want to be hoisting a Lombardi trophy come next month.
1. Light a fire under the offense and keep drives alive
The Bills may be 2-0 and getting ready to compete in a conference championship game, but what happened to that explosive offense we saw in the regular season? They have been out-gained by both teams they have played in the playoffs! The Bills finished the regular season with the No. 2 offense in total yards per game (396.4), the No. 3 overall passing offense in yards per game (288.8) and scored the second-most points this season with 501. The playoffs have been a different story, however. Out of the four remaining teams in the postseason, the Bills are last in total yards of offense per game (308.5), last in passing yards per game (244.5) and last in rushing yards per game (64). They are tied with the Chiefs for last place in points scored per playoff game, but Kansas City didn't have MVP quarterback Patrick Mahomes for half of their divisional round contest.
The Bills also became just the second team over the past 10 years to have been held to less than 225 yards in a playoff game and win, joining the 2015 Denver Broncos in Super Bowl 50. It's interesting how the defense has become the main reason Buffalo is winning playoff games, which is good to see in many ways, but with the Chiefs and then either the Packers or Buccaneers next up on the docket, Brian Daboll is going to have to find a way to get some points on the board.
How can the Bills light a fire under their offense and score more points? Well, there are a couple of things they can do. Allen came out a little juiced up against the Baltimore Ravens in the divisional round and completed just 62.16 percent of his passes, which was his fourth-worst mark in a game all season, but Buffalo needs to learn how to keep drives alive. They converted just 2 of 9 third downs against the Indianapolis Colts and then 4 of 13 against the Ravens. That's a total of just six third downs the Bills have converted on 22 attempts in the postseason.
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2. Devin Singletary needs to step up
The Bills didn't need to do much offensively to beat the Ravens thanks to the incredible performance by their defense. They didn't have the offensive performance many expected they would, but did become the first team in NFL history to win a playoff game by 14 points despite being out-gained on the ground by 120 yards. Allen is a legitimate dual-threat quarterback, but Buffalo needs more than just a few scrambles here and there.
With no Zack Moss, it comes down to Singletary. He rushed for 21 yards on three carries against the Colts and then 25 yards on seven carries as the lead back against the Ravens. He has rushed for over 100 yards in just one game in his career and has never rushed for more than one touchdown in a game, but the Bills don't need him to become Derrick Henry, they just need a bit more. It's also totally fair to say that the Bills need to give him more opportunities to tote the rock. Singletary and T.J. Yeldon carried just nine total times on Saturday! We saw the San Francisco 49ers' ground game carry them to a Super Bowl last year, and Damien Williams of the Chiefs probably should have won Super Bowl MVP as he rushed for 104 yards and scored two total touchdowns. The run game is important, and the bottom line is that the Bills need a bit more help from their backs.
3. Buffalo's secondary needs to stand tall
The Bills defense is playing some of their best ball and it's a group that's recently tightened in the red zone. As my colleague Chris Trapasso points out, during the regular season, the Bills surrendered a touchdown on 60.6 percent of their opponents' trips there, the 14th-lowest rate in the league. In two postseason games, Buffalo has allowed a touchdown on just two of its opponents eight red-zone trips (25 percent). Also, Taron Johnson turned an opponent's red zone trip into six points for Buffalo with his pick six against the Ravens! If the Bills want to win the Super Bowl, that secondary is going to have to continue to play good football.
While Philip Rivers passed for 309 yards and two scores against the Bills, the secondary stepped up and stopped the Colts from orchestrating a game-winning drive late in the fourth. They then built on their performance the next week against the Ravens, and held Lamar Jackson to 162 yards passing and picked him off once. While both the Colts and Ravens were forced to throw against the Bills, Buffalo leads all defenses who played at least one playoff game in points allowed per game with 13.5! It goes without saying what this unit is up against in the Chiefs with Mahomes, Tyreek Hill and Travis Kelce, but another crop of talented wideouts are awaiting them in Super Bowl LV. Davante Adams of the Packers is arguably the best in the league and then Mike Evans, Antonio Brown and Chris Godwin are all basically No. 1 wideouts for the Buccaneers. If the Bills are going to win the Super Bowl, Tre'Davious White, Josh Norman, Jordan Poyer, Micah Hyde and the rest of this group are going to have to play incredibly well in the next two games.
