Bills Central

Stats show bad news coming for Broncos in playoff game vs Bills

Bills head coach Sean McDermott has a track record for winning these types of games.

Kevin Massare

Bills coach Sean McDermott
Bills coach Sean McDermott / AP Photos
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Sean McDermott has been a successful coach for the Bills in his first 8 seasons. He has made the playoffs in 7 out of 8 seasons. There is another impressive stat that is not talked about enough and that will come into play in the first round the this years playoffs.

McDermott is 9-4 in games against rookie quarterbacks (in the regular season) and his defensive approach has led to those rookie quarterbacks to commit 17 interceptions against just 7 touchdowns.

In the playoffs, McDermott is 2-0 with the Bills defense holding rookie passers to 3 TDs and 4 interceptions. The Bills beat Mac Jones in 2021 and Skylar Thompson in 2022.

Skylar Thompson, Dolphins, Bills
Thompson against the Bills / Yahoo Sports

The Bills regular season losses against rookie quarterbacks contains some positives. The first was in 2018 against Sam Darnold, where he won depsite having only had 170 yards, 1 TD, and 1 INT. The next loss to a rookie QB was a 9-6 game against Trevor Lawrence, in a week where the Bills offense fell asleep. The third was against Mac Jones in terribly windy conditions in which Jones only attempted 2 passes. The final loss to an opposing rookie QB was the last regular season game this past Sunday against the Patriots, in which Drake Maye and Joe Milton faced a mostly backup Bills defense.

Bills, patriots, mac jones
Mac Jones against the Bills in the wind / CBS Sports

Two weeks ago against the Patriots, Maye was the only rookie QB to score more than 1 passing TD (in the regular season) against the Bills. He had two in that game while throwing for 270 yards. Mac Jones also had two TDs as well in a 2021 playoff loss to McDermott's Bills.

McDermott's success against rookie QB's is a positive sign:

  • 2018 Darnold (L)
  • 2019 Haskins (W)
  • 2019 Hodges (W)
  • 2020 Herbert (W)
  • 2020 Tagovailoa (W)
  • 2021 Mills (W)
  • 2021 Lawrence (L)
  • 2021 Jones (L)
  • 2021 Jones (W)
  • 2021 Wilson (W)
  • 2021 Jones (W) - Playoffs
  • 2022 Pickett (W)
  • 2022: Thompson (W) - Playoffs
  • 2024 Maye (W)
  • 2024 Maye/Milton (L)

The Bills will face off against another rookie QB in Bo Nix and the Denver Broncos on Sunday's AFC wildcard game. It will be the third time in four seasons the Bills will face a rookie QB in the wild-card round.

McDermott's track record against rookie QBs should mean trouble for the Broncos. Add in the hostile home playoff crowd at Highmark, and the Bills' defense should flourish to confuse and disrupt Nix and the Broncos' offense.

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Kevin Massare
KEVIN MASSARE

Kevin has spent over a decade covering, writing, and podcasting about the Bills. He has experience working with multiple networks and has a deep-rooted history within the Bills community. His opinion-based commentary is accompanied by a data and analytics-based approach. You can commonly find him talking about playoff scenarios and playoff seeding projections.

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