Buffalo Bills: Focus for run game in 2021 should be more efficiency

Last year, the Buffalo Bills had one of the best passing attacks in the NFL as Josh Allen threw for over 4,500 passing yards and Stefon Diggs led the league in receptions and receiving yards. However, there is always a give and take and with such an excellent passing attack, there wasn’t as much emphasis on the run game.

The duo of Devin Singletary and Zack Moss certainly were a little underwhelming their first year together. Singletary this past year rushed for 621 yards on 156 carries for an average of 4.4 yards per carry while Moss ran for 481 yards on 112 carries for an average of 4.3 yards per carry.

The hope is that the Buffalo Bills could get improvement in this part of their offense this coming season. However, it will certainly be a balancing act because it doesn’t make sense to take the ball out of Josh Allen’s hand with a passing attack that performed so well last year.

Brian Daboll was recently asked about this and seemed to reiterate that this is going to be a pass-first offense but they need to find efficiencies in the run game.

"There’s yards and then there’s efficiency and there’s all these numbers you can look. It’s the same thing in the pass game like you know where you rank in a pass game versus where you ranked in the run game.We’re not really concerned with that to be honest with you. What we’re concerned with is you know the things that we do install and the things that we ask the players to do are we doing that the proper way and then are we going out there and executing it the proper way."

The efficiency is the key part to the run game for the Buffalo Bills this coming season. They are not going to likely have to lean on Devin Singletary and Zack Moss much this coming season with Josh Allen under center. The Bills are unlikely to be near the top of the league in rushing yards any time soon.

However, when these two players are given opportunities they need to make the most of them. One stat, in particular, that needs to improve, and this likely falls more on the blocking, is yards before contact.

Last year, Devin Singletary and Zack Moss finished in the bottom 10 among running backs with 100 or more carries in yards before contact with Singletary at only 1.5 yards and Moss at 1.8, according to Pro Football Reference.

If the Buffalo Bills were able to improve this one stat by one yard, which is about the mean among the 50 running backs listed, this would improve Singletary’s season total to 777 rushing yards and Moss to 593, their average yards per game to 85 yards without increasing their workload.

This is where the efficiency comes to into play and how Brian Daboll can improve the run game without an increase in carries (and also taking the ball away from Josh Allen) this coming season.