Josh Allen won’t be the only dynamic player that the Kansas City Chiefs have to account for on Sunday against the Buffalo Bills.
The versatile safeties in the Bills’ secondary came up twice in Wednesday’s media availability session. Both Chiefs’ head coach Andy Reid and quarterback Patrick Mahomes addressed the game-breaking abilities of Buffalo’s veteran safeties Jordan Poyer and Micah Hyde, telling reporters they are well aware of the threat posed by the All-Pro tandem.
“I’d say they’re one of the better ones in the league,” Reid said. “They’re great communicators. They can get everybody lined up where they need to get them lined up, they can cover, and they can tackle.”
Hyde’s range was put on display during Buffalo’s wild-card win over the New England Patriots, with an impressive interception of Mac Jones. He also had a pick-six in the first meeting between Kansas City and Buffalo this season.
MICAH HYDE NO FLY ZONE
pic.twitter.com/ZXBkxNSwvd— PFF (@PFF) January 16, 2022
Speaking from experience, Mahomes echoed his coach’s assessment in his comments on Wednesday and expounded on what makes the Bills’ safeties so hard to deal with.
“They’re very smart, very athletic, and really have an understanding for what they want to do as a defense,” Mahomes explained. “They’re two Pro Bowl-caliber players. It’s hard to get two safeties like that on the same team and they play well off of each other. They know how to kind of rock the two high shells to go to one high, they both can play up top or down low so it’s a tremendous challenge to try to get a read for what they’re doing. I mean they have two great players in the back end that can really do a great job of disrupting what you want to do as an offense so have to account for both of them on every single play.”
If what they said on Wednesday is any indication, the Chiefs are in for a whale of a fight against Buffalo on Sunday and could be up against a wall offensively for the first time in the playoffs. Hyde and Poyer won’t make it easy on Mahomes, and identifying the presnap tendencies of the safety duo could be key in the offense’s ability to find success in the divisional round.
