Pittsburgh Steelers/Buffalo Bills Week One Recap: Steelers Win in a Comeback

Both the Bills and the Steelers have playoff aspirations this season.  Based on last year's performance, the Bills will be looking to at least return to the AFC Championship Game. This matchup of defending division champions proved to be a tale of two halves, with the Bills winning the first half and the Steelers dominating the second half.  Pittsburgh's second half was enough to defeat Buffalo, 23-16, in an entertaining opening game.

After the 2020 NFL regular season was played in front of nearly empty stadiums, the huge crowd in Buffalo showed how much difference a crowd makes.  The Buffalo Bills came out of the gate running at full speed with a 75-yard return of the opening kickoff.  The Steelers' defense picked right up where it left off last year, preventing the Bills from gaining a first down and holding the home team to a field goal.  

In fact, the Steelers' defense kept them in the game in a first half controlled by the Bills.  The Steelers managed only 53 yards of offense in the entire first half.  Buffalo put together only one sustained drive, that coming near halftime, culminating with a perfectly thrown touchdown pass from Josh Allen to Gabriel Davis.  

The second half was a different story altogether.  The Steelers' first drive after halftime only resulted in a field goal but covered more yardage, 62 yards, than the team had managed in the entire first half.  Their next drive ended in their first touchdown of the season, a pass from Ben Roethlisberger to Dionte Johnson, who made a beautiful catch in the end zone for the score.  The offense found a rhythm that was missing in the first half, while the Bills' offense seemed to lose the consistency it showed in its earlier touchdown drive.

A blocked punt returned for a touchdown put the Steelers up 20-10, and after the Bills cut the lead to 7 points with a field goal, the Steelers again put together a nice drive.  The resulting field goal effectively put the game away.

New Steelers offensive coordinator Matt Canada's squad did show more of a commitment to running the football.  Roethlisberger finished with 32 passing attempts, as compared to 21 rushing attempts for the team.  Rookie Najee Harris flashed some of the slick moves that made him a first-round draft choice this year.  It will be interesting to see if this trend toward a more balanced offense continues as the season wears on.  

The Bills offense was more focused on passing the football, with Allen attempting 51 passes while the team only rushed 25 times, with 9 of those attempts by Allen himself.  With the strong receiving corps Buffalo has, led by Stefon Diggs (9 catches for 69 yards on Sunday) the Bills offense figures to continue to be a pass-first one.   

Bills coach Sean McDermott continued his aggressive posture by going for it on fourth down three times, including on successive drives in the third quarter.  Those two attempts failed, the second one losing 7 yards on an inexplicable backward toss deep in their own backfield.  Despite this, expect the Bills to continue to operate very aggressively on fourth down this season.  

One area that didn't factor much into the game was the Steelers' rebuilt offensive line.  The Bills had two sacks on the day and did put pressure on Roethlisberger occasionally, but overall the line had a quiet day, which is a good sign for the Steelers going forward.  The Bills' offensive line was more noticeable, incurring several costly holding penalties trying to contain the Steelers' relentless pass rush.  The Bills will need to clean up those mistakes if they want to have more overall offensive consistency.  

In the National Football League very little is learned in the opening weeks of the season.  Real contenders are not yet separated from those teams that put up a couple of early wins and then fade fast.  It is important not to put too much importance on the outcome of this game, but the Steelers have to be happy with the win in Buffalo, especially the play of the new offensive line.  The Bills showed some of the characteristics that led to 13 wins and a division title last season, but they will need to show more discipline on the offensive line and get more stops at critical times from their defense if they hope to return to the AFC Championship Game for the second year in a row.

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-By: Damian Mastrangelo