LeSean McCoy plays a position and mans a role for the Bills that can easily grab the spotlight when he's productive. And it's when the lights shine brightest that McCoy provides some of his best performances.
We've already documented the production Buffalo's feature back delivers in Thursday night games where he averages over 111 rushing yards. He was right on that mark last week in the win over the Jets with 112 in the Bills' 22-17 victory.
His last five primetime games on Monday night paint a comparable picture. McCoy heads into this week's Monday night matchup averaging over 110 all-purpose yards in his last handful of Monday night games (111.6). That includes a pair of 100-plus yard rushing performances.
In fact his Monday night game at Washington in September of 2013 was the third-highest rushing game of his career when he rolled for 184 yards on 31 carries (5.9 avg.) and a touchdown in a six-point win.
What's most encouraging for the Bills is McCoy is just hitting his stride now at a point in the season where the Bills need to keep stacking victories.
"Winning the last two games we've got to keep that going. We have to," said McCoy. "Just go out there and play ball and get the win because right now we need wins."
Over the last four games McCoy is averaging almost 120 yards from scrimmage (119) and has been a catalyst for Buffalo's offense.
"LeSean McCoy is playing very, very well right now in both the run and the passing game," said New England defensive coordinator Matt Patricia. "This guy is dynamic. He's explosive. [He's] very quick, very fast. [He] can take the ball to the edge and can cut it back on a dime. He's got a great jump-cut. His ability to make people miss in space is the best in the league. This is a guy that's been very productive for them, a guy that looks obviously like he's healthy and at full-strength and very dynamic so they're doing a good job with him in the run game."
Buffalo enters the Monday night game with New England with the number two rushing attack in the NFL as they average better than 142 yards on the ground per outing.
Thus far this season New England has proven to be a solid run front allowing less than 90 yards rushing a game, which also ranks second in the league. It should be noted that the Patriots have also faced the second-fewest rushing attempts this season from their opponents (198) due mainly to being ahead on the scoreboard in most of their games. Their opponents have been forced to throw in an effort to climb back into games.
McCoy and Buffalo's offense just faced the number one run defense a week ago in the Jets and averaged 4.5 yards per carry as a team.
"The Bills are playing really well here, played very well against Miami, ran the ball for 220-some yards," said Patriots head coach Bill Belichick. "Big win against the Jets, offensively another 150 yards rushing against the Jets, which isn't easy to do."
McCoy averaged 5.9 yards per carry against New York, and in his last five Monday night games the Bills feature back has averaged about five yards a carry (4.9).
Buffalo head coach Rex Ryan is convinced that it's McCoy's elusiveness that makes him so productive.
"LeSean can make you miss in a phone booth," said Ryan. "It's unheard of some of the things he does. You don't see many guys who can do that. Shady has got speed, balance, all this type of stuff. It's hard to touch him."
All of McCoy's primetime figures only signify one thing for Patriots head coach Bill Belichick. Whether it's Monday night or not, McCoy is tough to stop.
"He always looks good," said Belichick. "He's fast, he's quick, he's got good vision [and] he's a good runner. We've got to do a good job of tackling this week. The more space you give him, the worse it is."
