Jamar Cain knows the number, though he’d prefer not to.
A year ago, Denver entered the playoffs having not allowed more than 147 rushing yards to any team in the regular season. They were riding high off a franchise-record 63 sacks.
Then the wild-card round began.
Buffalo ran the ball at will against the Broncos.
Ran it to the tune of 210 yards in a 31-7 victory.
“I was trying to forget they ran for 210 on us,” Cain, Denver’s defensive line coach, told The Post this week.
The reason it comes up in conversation is obvious.
The Broncos and Bills play again, this time in the divisional round, on Saturday at Empower Field.
Denver is once again salty against the run and once again coming off a franchise record in sacks, this year 68.
The Bills are once again the best rushing team in football.
So while the year is different and the matchup is different for a variety of reasons, the lesson is clear for Cain and the Denver front: Regular-season accomplishments and accolades mean very little.
“Last year just proved that, once you get into the postseason, none of that (stuff) matters,” Cain said. “We’ve just got to be dialed into our technique. Last year was last year. This is my second year with them.
“We’ll be dialed in and ready to go.”
There are stars aplenty in the postseason. Saturday afternoon in Denver, much of the focus will be on reigning NFL MVP Josh Allen and reigning defensive player of the year Pat Surtain II. Nik Bonitto and Buffalo tight ends Dawson Knox and Dalton Kincaid.
Control of the game, though, rests on the broad shoulders of less-heralded Broncos in Denver’s defensive interior: Malcolm Roach, D.J. Jones and Eyioma Uwazurike
“We’ve got guys that want to stop the run,” Cain said. “Thatap the biggest thing. D.J., Roach, ‘Eni,’ they want to play the run. Then that inspires Zach (Allen) and John (Franklin-Myers) to be just as good against the run. “
The matchup with the Bills is not just good on good. Itap perhaps best on best.
The Broncos faltered against Indianapolis in Week 2, allowing Jonathan Taylor to rush for 165 yards — 79 of them in one blast.
Since then, they’ve not allowed a rusher to total more than 73 in a game (Green Bay’s Josh Jacobs in Week 15).
They’ve held 10 opponents to 92 or fewer rushing yards and they rank in the top five in metrics across the board, including total rushing (91.1 yards allowed per game), yards per rush allowed (3.9), 10-plus-yard rushes allowed (30), rushing first downs allowed (85) and rushing touchdowns allowed (11).
“It all starts in OTAs, minicamp, training camp,” Cain said. “Pass-rush is the secondary. OTAs, minicamp and training camp, we don’t even talk about pass-rush. We just talk about, right now, letap stop the run. Then the pass-rush is easy. Because these guys go through the offseason and what do they work on all the time? They can’t hit sleds, can’t hit anything, so they work on pass-rush. All we’re doing is adding the sauce of pass-rush later on, once we’ve earned the right to say, ‘OK, today is a pass-rush day. Today we’re going to work on all these different rush moves, but we’d better stop the (freaking) run. …
“Overall, as hard as I am on those guys, at some point, I’ve got to give them their flowers. I think those guys this year have done really well against the run.”
This will be their biggest test yet.
Running back James Cook led the NFL with 1,621 rushing yards and added a dozen touchdowns. Allen himself added 579 rushing yards and 14 touchdowns, fewer than only Taylor and Baltimore’s Derrick Henry.
Buffalo, on the whole, leads the NFL in rushing (159.6 yards per game) and rush yards over expected. The Bills are second in 10-plus runs (68), stuff rate and rush EPA.
The Bills ran the ball the second-highest percentage in football (50.6%) while the Broncos faced the NFL’s lowest rush rate (37.7%).
“When we turned on the film this week, (Cook) is one of quickest guys I’ve seen,” Denver outside linebacker Jonah Elliss said. “Not only that, but when guys hit him, he gets so many yards after contact. Thatap something our defense does well is we rally to the ball. If one person has him wrapped up, the rest of the guys are running. So I think that will help, but, I mean, he’s a very elusive running back.
“It’ll be fun to play against him.”
