The Buffalo Bills won their fourth game in a row on Monday night, handling the Minnesota Vikings, 23-6, in their second-largest victory of the season. Buffalo's offense fared well against Minnesota's daunting defensive unit throughout the back half of the game. The Bills defense continued to stay hot since the bye week, allowing the fewest points of the season in the primetime matchup.

Here's some added context as to what gave Buffalo the edge:

Handling the Brian Flores blitz

The Vikings defense blitzed at a historic rate throughout their first seven games of the season prior to Monday night. QB Josh Allen and the Bills saw the aggressive defense they had been preparing for throughout the week, with Minnesota blitzing on 68.6% of his dropbacks, according to NextGenStats, the highest blitz rate he has faced in his career.

Allen was blitzed on 24 dropbacks, 10 of which got to him and created pressure (41.7%). When facing five or more rushers, he completed 12-of-20 passes for 108 yards and an interception, also taking four sacks.

When he wasn't blitzed, Allen completed 9-of-11 passes for 126 yards and a touchdown, facing pressure on just three of the 11 dropbacks (27.3%). The 30-year-old found his most success getting the ball out quickly before the rush could get home, completing all 14 of his attempts with a time to throw under 2.5 seconds.

Buffalo finished the week 19th in pressure rate at 37.1% despite facing the highest blitz rate.

A big reason for the success in picking up the blitzes came from keeping extra blockers in to help. The Bills had five receivers out running routes on just eight of Allen's 35 dropbacks (22.9%) in the win. That mark was less than half the rate of any other game in Brady's career calling plays for the team.

Allen was pressured on four of the eight plays with five targets to throw to. Despite dealing with less time to throw, he led the team to 66 total yards (8.3 per play) and scored the only passing touchdown of the night in those situations.

Having extra receivers in the pattern was a high-risk, high-reward play throughout the night. When Buffalo kept at least one extra blocker in to help, they only surrendered pressure on 9 of 27 plays (33.3%), but also only averaged 5.1 yards per play.

The Vikings didn't play man coverage on a single dropback against Allen and the Bills in Week 9, according to TruMedia. Keeping the quarterback in the pocket and not leaving any lanes to scramble seemed to be a point of emphasis for Minnesota, who did not allow Allen to have a single scramble rush in Week 9, his first game without one this season.

Buffalo's receivers found the open space between zones in the win, finishing the night with the NFL's fourth-highest average target separation (4.0). WR Khalil Shakir led the way, with an average of 5.3 yards of separation on his targets, which was good for the second-best mark among qualified wide receivers in Week 9.

Persistence on the ground helped open the passing lanes for the Bills as well, with Brady's squad tallying the third-highest play-action rate in the league last week (34.3%).

Jim Leonhard keeps Minnesota guessing

On the other side, Buffalo did a great job getting after Vikings' QB Carson Wentz. Defensive coordinator Jim Leonhard had a completely different game plan than Flores did for his unit, still finding success getting off the field.

The Bills had the lowest blitz rate in the NFL in Monday night's victory, sending extra rushers on just 11.8% of snaps, 56.8 percentage points lower than Flores's group. Leonhard blitzed the second most out of all teams the week prior against the Baltimore Ravens (64.5%), showing off his unit's versatility game to game.

Despite the lack of aggression up front, Buffalo had the sixth-highest pressure rate in Week 9 (41.2%). A big reason for that came from the team posting the quickest average getoff (0.73) in the league. The Bills limited rushers on any given snap did well to win their matchups, allowing more bodies to be back in coverage.

DL Ed Oliver led the way with a dominant showing on the interior, leading all qualified defensive linemen in pressure rate last week at 31.6%. The 28-year-old generated six pressures on Monday night, his most in a game since the start of the 2025 campaign.

Oliver didn't get many 1-on-1 matchups in the trenches against Minnesota. His presence on the inside seemed to be a focal point for the Vikings offensive line's blocking assignments, being double-teamed on 12 of his 19 pass rushes (63.2%) in the win.

Even with the added attention, Oliver found ways to impact the game in a big way, recording three pressures against double teams. This made him the tenth player this season and the first Bills defender in over two seasons (DaQuan Jones, Week 7, 2024) to earn a pressure against a double team.

Coverage marries the rush

Paired with the pass-rushing success, Buffalo frequently having seven defenders in coverage helped to limit open passing windows. Week 9 was the second week in a row that the Bills have allowed the fewest total yards in the league.

Facing a deficit early and throughout the rest of the game, the Vikings were forced to throw the ball at a league-high 73.9% clip. Buffalo finished with the NFL's best Expected Points Added (EPA) per play (-0.77), a metric that quantifies the value of yards gained in terms of points scored, measuring the average value added by the defense.

Single-high coverage was where Leonhard's group found the most success in the win. The Bills were in single-high for 10 of Wentz's 26 dropbacks, allowing just one completion for two yards, while also intercepting a pass.

Wentz had a -1.41 EPA per dropback against Buffalo's single-high looks, the fourth-fewest by any passer since at least 2018 (min. 10 dropbacks). Wentz had an 8.9 overall passer rating on Monday night, a career low and the lowest passer rating by any quarterback to attempt five or more passes in a game in 2026.

Leonhard called man coverage much less in Week 9, dropping down from 54.8% (fourth highest) the week prior, to 15.2% (21st) on Monday night.

The increased zone coverage didn't bother CB Davison Igbinosun, who finished the week second in average target separation (0.7) among qualified defenders. ILB Terrel Bernard was also efficient against Minnesota, sitting in third place among qualified defenders in target EPA (-10.8), which quantifies the net value added when a player is targeted in coverage by translating yards gained into points scored.