Bills Defeat Steelers on Snowy Day in Buffalo, Advance to Divisional Round
Photo By: Kirby Lee, USA Today
After having the game postponed and having Buffalo Bills fans cleaning the snow out of the stadium, the Buffalo Bills defeat the Pittsburgh Steelers 31-17 in the Wild Card round of the NFL playoffs on Monday at Highmark Stadium.
With a great game from quarterback Josh Allen and the defense neutralizing the Steelers dual running back threats Jaylen Warren, and Najee Harris, the Buffalo Bills jumped out to an early 21-7 halftime lead over the Steelers and maintained it from there by killing the clock and being on the field for 33 minutes of the game.
Buffalo Bills running back James Cook had a day having 18 carries for 79 yards, averaging 4.4 yards per carry. The second year RB has been a huge asset for the Bills in the run game all season long, which gave Josh Allen this season the coverage and support to be able to keep many teams defenses off balance.
Steelers hung around in the beginning, but what killed them was their offense not converting on third downs and turnovers was another factor as well. In the first six possessions of offense for Pittsburgh had four of them being punts, one fumble, and a crucial interception in the end zone that was picked off by the Bills cornerback Kaiir Elam which killed a huge momentum drive for the Steelers to gain confidence.
Even when the Steelers did get on the board, it was too late, already being down 21-0 midway through the second quarter. When Buffalo stopped Warren, and Harris on the ground, it was up to quarterback Mason Rudolph and Pittsburgh wide receivers Diontae Johnson and George Pickens had to step up in the air which they didn’t from the fact that Pickens fumbled, and Rudolph had the interception thrown in the end zone.
The Steelers did get on the board with a 10 yard touchdown pass from Rudolph hitting Johnson before the half. From there to start the half they got an additional field goal from veteran kicker Chris Boswell to only be down 21-10.
The Steelers may have fought back with a Calvin Austin III reception TD but Allen and the Bills offense continued holding the ball for a long amount of time and adding a field goal from Tyler Bass plus another Josh Allen TD pass to Khalil Shakir which iced the game and gave the Bills a huge win at home to stay in the NFL playoffs.
Josh Allen finished the game with 3 touchdowns, 2 passing, and 1 rushing which was a 52 yard scramble to the end zone, and had 229 passing yards on 22/39 pass attempts. The Bills are finally putting it together offensively at the right time in the playoffs, which they hope to have three more games to win.
There are now a lot of questions Pittsburgh must answer heading into the offseason, the first being will Head Coach Mike Tomlin stay at the helm for Pittsburgh or will it finally be time to cut the rope and move on to another head coach, even though he’s never had a losing season with the Steelers for 17 seasons.
For Buffalo, they will now host one of the two AFC Divisional Round facing the Kansas City Chiefs which they defeated earlier this season 20-17 but the history of previous face offs doesn’t help them out due to even though having a 3-1 record against Kansas City in the regular season, Buffalo also has a 0-2 record against the Chiefs in the playoffs. The X-factor to this though is that all of these games were played at GEHA field at Arrowhead Stadium, so now the tides have turned on Kansas City due to facing unfamiliar territory, a road playoff game in the Divisional Round.