As the snow grew heavier, the Buffalo Bills decided to stay simple.
Footing was a struggle and limited what the Bills could do offensively, so offensive coordinator Joe Brady went to a basic play. The play worked and Brady decided to keep running it until the San Francisco 49ers could stop it.
Eventually James Cook popped a 65-yard run, the first 50-yard run since Devin Singletary on Dec. 19, 2020, and the longest run since LeSean McCoy rattled off a 75-yard run on Nov. 27, 2016.
The play used by the Bills was a zone run play, a staple of their running play, called “duo.” It’s a hybrid between a zone and gap-scheme play — players block the nearest man in their zone rather than an assigned defender — and the objective is to get a double-team by the guard and tackle at the point of attack.
Buffalo ran the play 10 times in a variety of formations — often with guard Alec Anderson in the game as a sixth offensive lineman — and averaged 11.2 yards per carry. Those plays accounted for 112 of the team’s 220 yards rushing and resulted in two touchdowns in the 35-10 win over the 49ers.
“There were other schemes that we thought maybe we can take a chance with and kind of work with, but I’m big on if it’s working, let’s make them stop it before we get away from it,” Brady said. “I felt the duo scheme was something that the guys feel comfortable in. We’ve had success throughout the season kind of doing it.”
After the first drive of the game netted 2 yards on the first two plays, Brady saw the snow coming down and realized the conditions wouldn’t be advantageous to run some of the traps and pulls in the run game that they like.
Ray Davis out-raced cornerback Charvarius Ward to the pylon for a 5-yard touchdown on the game’s second drive on a duo play. But the game’s biggest game was Cook’s touchdown run.
The 49ers just missed a 45-yard field goal and the Bills defense hadn’t shown much resistance at that point in the game. On the ensuing play, the Bills motioned Anderson from left to right and then motioned receiver Mack Hollins behind Anderson, while Khalil Shakir was split to the side of Anderson.
Anderson’s motion caused the 49ers defensive line to shift over, putting defensive tackle Maliek Collins between Bills right guard O’Cyrus Torrence and right tackle Spencer Brown. Meanwhile, defensive end Sam Okuayinonu moved closer so that he lined up with his outside shoulder on Anderson’s inside shoulder.
At the snap, Torrence and Brown got a double-team block on Collins, while Anderson got leverage on Okuayinonu and pushed him inside. Cornerback Nick McCloud also came inside, making it easy for Shakir to wall him off, while Hollins blocked Ward to create an alley for Cook to run through.
To compound matters for the 49ers, safety Ji’Ayir Brown came downhill to fill the hole on a straight line, while Cook hit the hole at an angle. Spencer Brown admitted he was supposed to move off Collins and block linebacker Jalen Graham, but never got there.
The play is designed to make the linebacker read which hole the running back is headed, but Graham hesitated and was caught in the wash, so it didn’t matter if Brown blocked him or not.
That allowed him to bounce the run outside and up the sideline for a touchdown. Cook’s score made the game 14-3 midway through the second quarter and the defense forced a punt on the next drive.
“No one could run laterally in the snow,” said Brown, who returned after missing Week 11 with an ankle injury. “Everybody’s traction was gone so it was more like you’re on skates than cleats. Duo is more like just choppy steps going vertical. That’s what we went with and it worked.”
The Bills went right back to the play on the next drive, right after the two-minute warning. It featured the same personnel, motion and alignment as the previous run and the Bills caught the 49ers in a light box.
Defensive end Yetur Gross-Matos slid all the way inside between Torrence and Spencer Brown, while Ji’Ayir Brown was across from Anderson, with McCloud and Ward also in the area. Torrence and Spencer Brown got a duo block on Gross-Matos, while Anderson tossed Ji’Ayir Brown out of the way and immediately moved on to Ward.
Shakir got the seal on McCloud this time to open an alley for Cook. The only reason Cook gained 18 yards instead of 56 was because safety Malik Mustapha took a better angle to track Cook.
Cook’s run eventually set up a 7-yard touchdown pass from Josh Allen to Hollins to cap a 97-yard drive, building a 21-3 lead with 41 seconds left before halftime.
“Sometimes a play works but we didn’t block it correctly, we just made a guy miss and you can get caught up sometimes in the results,” Brady said. “The guys did a good job just continuing to feel confident in the play and finding ways, even on some times where we didn’t get the necessary yardage, knowing that, hey, continue getting to it and good things will kind of happen.”