A rested Buffalo Bills team hosts the 0-3 New Orleans Saints this Sunday in a Week 4 matchup. Buffalo comes in with an undefeated 3-0 mark, having last played last Thursday when beating the Miami Dolphins. The Saints stumble into western New York for their second straight road game after a 44-13 pummeling at the hands of the Seattle Seahawks last Sunday.
On paper, this looks like a lopsided mismatch in every way imaginable. New Orleans has a vanilla offense incapable of putting points on the board and a leaky defense that is near the bottom of the league in third down and red zone percentage. Buffalo is armed with a top-10 total defense and an offense that’s ranked first in total yardage. It’s easy to assume that the Saints will have to figure out a way to stop quarterback Josh Allen and a big-play Bills passing attack. However, that’s also underestimating Allen’s legs and an underrated Buffalo ground game. That’s where we’ll focus in this analysis.
Bills Running Game
- 163 yards per game (1st)
- 4.8 yards per carry (8th)
- 7 touchdowns (1st)
2024 Rankings
- 131.2 yards per game (9th)
- 4.5 per carry (11th)
- 32 touchdowns (1st)
Buffalo attacks opposing defenses on the ground in numerous ways. Josh Allen is probably the NFL’s best runner at quarterback not named Lamar Jackson. He’s averaged nearly 600 yards on the ground over his first seven seasons and has an eye-popping 67 career rushing scores. Allen is a threat to take off from the pass pocket or on designed runs and has the speed to run away from defenders along with the strength to plow through them.
Fourth-year running back James Cook is coming off consecutive 1,000-yard seasons, including an NFL-best 16 rushing scores in 2024. He’s had two 100-yard games already this year and leads the league with 4 rushing touchdowns. Cook is underrated between the tackles and has lethal game-breaking speed. Complementing him is the very capable Ray Davis, but the Bills also tax defenses with jet sweeps to any of their five very elusive wide receivers. Buffalo has a looming physical offensive line that routinely blows opponents off the ball, allowing Allen and Cook their choice of rushing lanes.
Saints Run Defense
- 103.3 yards per game (14th)
- 3.6 per carry (6th)
- 2 touchdowns
2024 Rankings
- 141.4 yards per game (31st)
- 4.9 per carry (32nd)
- 20 touchdowns (24th)
Not much has gone right for New Orleans this season, but their improvement against the run is noticeable. Granted, opponents have had their way with the Saints through the air. Still, the improvements so far for the run defense is something for Brandon Staley’s unit to build on as they finish off the first quarter part of the schedule.
Defensive linemen Nathan Shepherd, Davon Godchaux, and Bryan Bresee have stood their ground against run blockers, with Bresee getting consistent penetration into backfields. Carl Granderson has improved against the run on the edge, while Cam Jordan and Chris Rumph both remain solid in that area on the other side.
At linebacker, the Saints have an excellent run-stopping duo in Demario Davis and Pete Werner. Davis is still one of the league’s top off-ball linebackers. He leads the team with 31 tackles, including 3 for loss. Werner may be struggle in space and is a liability against the pass, but reads running plays between the tackles extremely well. Both linebackers are more effective when the linemen in front of them can stalemate blockers, an important factor against the physical linemen with Buffalo.
A struggling New Orleans secondary will certainly have their hands full with Josh Allen. Their jobs can be made a little easier if the Saints can contain the Buffalo rushing attack. The bigger problem in that capacity may be Allen’s legs over James Cook. New Orleans has traditionally been helpless against athletic quarterbacks. The Saints could manage to contain Cook, but their ability to keep Josh Allen from having his way is one of the many reasons why the Bills are so heavily favored to win this matchup handily.
This article originally appeared on Saints Wire: Saints vs. Bills preview: James Cook, Josh Allen will test run defense
