Three tight ends being on the field together usually tells a defense exactly what’s coming.

Bring the linebackers onto the field. Walk a safety down. They're about to see who’s willing to spend the afternoon getting hit in the mouth.

That’s the assumption the Buffalo Bills are using against defenses.

Through two games, Buffalo has run 42 plays from 13 personnel — one running back and three tight ends. That’s 34.7% of the offense, the second-highest rate in the NFL. The Bills have used three tight ends almost as often as they’ve used the league’s standard three-receiver package.

But once everyone gets to the line of scrimmage, this doesn’t look much like a traditional three-tight-end offense. Dalton Kincaid might wear a tight end number, but Joe Brady moves him around like a receiver. Dawson Knox and Jackson Hawes bring the size. James Cook makes the run threat impossible to ignore.

But Kincaid's the piece that turns the whole thing into a problem without a clean answer.

And this isn’t just a clever personnel grouping. The Bills have scored 77 points and gained 855 yards in Joe Brady’s first two games as head coach. Kincaid's led the team in receiving both weeks, catching 12 passes for 225 yards and a touchdown. No tight end has had more yards through two games since Jared Cook in 2019.

Buffalo’s three-tight-end experiment has somehow turned into a passing offense.

Kincaid's A Tight End In Name Only

The simplest way to understand what Buffalo’s doing is to stop picturing Kincaid with his hand in the dirt next to an offensive tackle.

Against Houston, Kincaid was basically a 246-pound receiver, even though the Texans still had to account for three tight ends in the huddle.

That gap between the personnel and the formation is where the stress starts.

Teams see Kincaid, Knox, and Hawes come into the game, so they respond with bigger bodies. Then Kincaid leaves the core or lines up as the widest player on the field. Suddenly, a linebacker or safety has to cover a first-round pick who moves like a slot receiver. If the defense checks into a lighter group, Buffalo can bring everyone back inside and run right at them.

Against the Texans, the Bills were patient enough to make the whole thing believable. They ran the ball the first seven times they showed 13 personnel. Then, backed up at their own 4-yard line, Josh Allen faked the handoff, rolled right, and dropped a 38-yard shot to Kincaid down the sideline against All-Pro cornerback Derek Stingley Jr.

Kincaid finished that game with five catches for a career-high 130 yards. Four came at least 10 yards downfield. Three gained 35 or more.

That’s not a safety-valve tight end living on checkdowns. That’s a vertical receiver hiding in a heavy package.

James Cook Makes The Choice Miserable

Detroit knew what was coming four days later. It didn’t matter.

Buffalo used 13 personnel on 21 more plays and had at least two tight ends on the field for nearly two-thirds of the night. All the Lions could do was match that size with linebackers ‚ their secondary was just too beat up to put extra bodies out there. That left Kincaid against slower coverage players.

Cook ended up running for 135 yards and a touchdown, including 101 yards before halftime. Allen added 69 yards and two scores on the ground. Kincaid caught seven passes for 95 yards, and his 16-yard touchdown came on a post route fired right through the middle of Detroit’s defense.

Those weren’t three separate problems. They were the same problem showing up in different ways.

Cook’s presence forces linebackers to respect play-action. Allen’s legs add another gap to the running game. Kincaid can line up inside, in the slot, out wide, or even in the backfield. Before the snap, Allen can see who follows Kincaid and get a pretty good idea of the coverage. After the snap, he can attack the matchup or hand the ball to the reigning rushing champion.

That’s what offensive coaches mean when they talk about making the defense wrong. It sounds complicated, but it’s really just asking the same annoying question over and over: Do you want to be too slow to cover us, or too small to tackle us?

It Finally Stopped Being A Tell

Buffalo’s wanted some version of this ever since they drafted Kincaid 25th overall in 2023. The plan just kept running into the same problem.

Kincaid could always get open. Keeping him on the field without tipping off a pass was the tricky part.

A PCL injury he suffered in 2024 lingered into last season. Kincaid missed nine games over two years, and even when he was active in 2025, he played just 38% of Buffalo’s offensive snaps. His efficiency was ridiculous — 39 catches for 571 yards and five touchdowns in 12 games — but the Bills were still managing his workload.

Defenses notice that kind of thing.

Kincaid attacked his lower-body strength early in the offseason and showed up to camp looking bigger. He’s healthy enough to play more, and he’s blocking well enough that Buffalo doesn’t have to take him off the field every time they want to run the ball.

After the Houston game, Brady said Kincaid was “outstanding” as a receiver and in the run game. That second part is what unlocks the first. If Kincaid can block, the defense can’t look at him and immediately decide what’s coming before the snap.

This Looks Sustainable, Even If The Numbers Aren’t

Kincaid probably isn’t going to average 112.5 receiving yards for five months. He’s averaging 18.8 yards per catch and Allen is playing out of his mind right now. Numbers this loud usually come back down to earth.

The structure underneath them is much harder to to just shrug off.

Buffalo's thrown on 44.7% of their 13-personnel plays, but those passes have produced 0.313 expected points per play — third-best of any team with more than 10 dropbacks in 13 personnel. The runs are basically neutral. The Bills don’t need to throw constantly. They just need to run often enough that defenses can’t treat Kincaid like a receiver every time he lines up away from the formation.

There’s league-wide evidence behind the idea, too. From 2018 through 2025, passes from 13 personnel produced more EPA per dropback than passes from 11 or 12, even though runs from 13 were actually less efficient. Sean McVay pushed the concept to an extreme with the Rams last season, and now everybody’s borrowing it. League-wide usage is above 9% through two weeks.

Defenses will adjust. Some will use bigger safeties, crowd Kincaid at the line, or dare Knox and Hawes to become featured receivers. Injuries can wreck the plan, too. Buffalo kept four tight ends for a reason.

But the Bills aren’t asking Kincaid to win the same matchup every Sunday. They’re using him to create different matchup before the ball’s even snapped.

That’s the part that feels real.

Three tight ends used to mean the Bills were getting ready to run through you.

Now it might mean Kincaid’s about to run right past you instead.

The Bills host the 0-2 Chargers on Sunday at 1 p.m. on FOX, with streaming available on FOX One.

All stats courtesy of Fantasy Points Data.

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