NFL incorporate strict policy over calls/no calls
Bills eliminate Steelers, 31-17
It was billed as “The Josh Allen Show” with the caveat that the Buffalo Bills’ QB was undefeated in the last 16 games in which he hadn’t turned the ball over.
Make that 17-0.
Allen, who turned the ball over 22 times during an uneven Bills season, didn’t turn the ball over in the first round of the playoffs, and the Bills ended the Steelers’ season with a 31-17 win.
The Steelers turned the ball over twice, early in the game, which helped stake the Bills to a 21-0 lead. But a blocked field goal gave the Steelers momentum and they made a game of it.
However, after pulling within seven in the fourth quarter, defensive lapses allowed the Bills to tack on a final touchdown to drive a stake into the Steelers’ rally attempt.
“Can’t come into an environment like this versus a playoff-caliber team and turn the ball over like that and expect to be competitive,” said Mike Tomlin. “We fought back in it over the course of the game. We cut it to seven and were excited about that. Then we gave up a touchdown drive. When you get a major penalty within a drive on defense that’s usually going to produce points. And that was the case and it put them back up by 14 and then the rest is academic.”
The Bills jumped on top with an easy touchdown drive on their first possession. A 10-play, 80-yard drive included only two third downs as the Bills gained 20, 10, 12, 12 in succession prior to Allen’s 9-yard TD pass to tight end Dawson Knox. Steelers CB Patrick Peterson expected help in the corner of the end zone, but it didn’t arrive and resulted in an easy score.
A George Pickens fumble at the Pittsburgh 29 set up a 29-yard Allen laser beam to the Bills’ other tight end, Dawson Knox, for a TD. The one-play drive gave the Bills a 14-0 lead with 4:10 left in the first quarter.
“We’ve had our issues with tight end matchups over the second half of the year,” Tomlin said. “We adjusted in-game, but they made some plays definitively early on.”
The Steelers closed on the Buffalo end zone to open the second quarter, but an interception in the end zone by Kaiir Elam, on a second-down pass from the Buffalo 4, ended the threat.
Elam, who hadn’t played a defensive snap since Week 6, was flagged for pass interference two plays earlier to put the Steelers at the Buffalo 3. He had also been run over by Pat Freiermuth on a third-and-8 to allow the drive to continue.
Steelers QB Mason Rudolph praised Elam, a 2022 first-round draft pick who was playing as an injury replacement.
“It was a great play by the defender, kind of a timing deal,” said Rudolph. “Thought he covered Tae (Diontae Johnson) well out of his break. I mean, he was in his low hip. The leverage was a little off. I just got to put that ball much more outside, us or nobody. But like I said, he made a great play.”
The Bills took advantage of the turnover with a 52-yard touchdown run by Allen on a third-and-8. The Steelers blitzed two, including safety Eric Rowe, and Allen scrambled free, broke a tackle, and outran the secondary for a 21-0 lead with 7:01 left in the half.
“We talked about quarterback mobility and what he and they are capable of,” said Tomlin. “Probably not the story of the game was the mobility but the turnover
component. You know, got to do better.”
The QB run was the second-longest in NFL postseason history behind a 56-yarder by Colin Kaepernick.
The Steelers broke through thanks to a blocked 49-yard field goal attempt. Montravius Adams came up the middle to block the kick that Nick Herbig recovered at the Buffalo 33. It was the first blocked field goal in Steelers postseason history.
Rudolph drove the Steelers inside the red zone before throwing a 10-yard TD pass to Johnson that cut the Bills’ lead to 21-7 with 1:39 left in the half.
The Steelers cut the lead further, to 21-10, with a 40-yard field goal that capped off their first possession of the second half. Rudolph’s 19-yard pass to Johnson and 13-yarder to Pickens were the key plays of the drive.
The Bills got the points back on Tyler Bass’s 45-yard field goal to push the lead to 24-10 with 1:32 left in the third quarter. A fourth-and-1 sneak conversion by Allen and a 13-yard pass to Stefon Diggs on third-and-8 were the key plays of the drive. Joey Porter Jr. was injured while tackling Diggs on the third-down play.
The Steelers got back into the game with a 12-play, 75-yard touchdown drive that ended with Calvin Austin catching a 7-yard touchdown pass from Rudolph. During the drive, Rudolph threw 19 yards to Pickens while under heavy pressure on third-and-11. Pickens then ran 15 yards on a reverse the next snap, while a key third-and-7 catch and run by Johnson for 8 yards set up the TD that brought the Steelers to within 24-17 with 10:32 to play.
The Bills, though, answered with their own TD drive. Khalil Shakir broke a tackle attempt by Minkah Fitzpatrick at the 15 before completing a 17-yard TD pass from Allen for a 31-17 lead with 6:27 left. A 13-yard designed run by Allen, and then a 2-yard run with a 15-yard roughing penalty on Myles Jack, set up the TD pass for the Bills.
“When we got it down to seven points, I thought we were going to make a run,” said defensive captain Cam Heyward. “It comes back to the defense. We got some penalties that kept the drive alive, and we didn’t get off the field and missed tackling led to a touchdown. We just need to get the ball back to our offense one more time with a seven-point lead, then we could make things interesting”
The Steelers would only advance one more time into Buffalo territory, with the final drive ending at the Buffalo 25.
Rudolph finished with a passer rating of 80.0 after completing 22 of 39 for 229 with 2 TDs and an interception.
“I thought he was solid,” said Tomlin. “I thought he was competitive. I thought his confidence was unshakable. I thought he displayed the things that he displayed
really for the last month or so.”
“We had to be a little more balanced,” said Rudolph. “I don’t know what I started the game, throwing-wise, but we didn’t have enough completions to really stay balanced. We knew they were a tough defense up front, and it wasn’t going to be an easy job, but like I said, when you’re hitting some more balls on the outside like
I and we weren’t, it makes it a little more easier to keep them off balance.”
Rudolph completed 50 percent of his first-half passes and 61 percent of his second-half throws.
The Steelers’ running game was held to 106 yards on 23 carries, their lowest output since the loss at Indianapolis. Najee Harris, one of the catalysts down the stretch, was held to 37 yards on 12 carries.
It was the fifth consecutive playoff loss by the Steelers.
“That’s the thing that bugs me the most at night, not having an opportunity to win a Super Bowl,” said Heyward, who’s contemplating retirement but sounded like a guy who won’t. “You know, seeing all my teammates before that have won it, seeing the culture and the tradition here, every man should feel that way. It stings, you know, to be out of the playoffs, to not have a chance to continue to move on and man. I’m not ready to give that up.”
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Steelers-Bills, A to Z
The numbers and the tape say the Steelers have a chance
Similar to today’s scenario with the Steelers’ starting quarterback in the first round of the playoffs, only today’s Steelers are doing The Opposite. Back then, Bill Cowher, in his first season as coach, went back to starter Neil O’Donnell for the playoffs after missing three-and-a-half games. Bubby Brister had the offense percolating (2-2) by the end of his stint, but Cowher surprised the team by re-naming O’Donnell. The Bills came to town off the greatest comeback playoff victory in NFL history, against the Houston Oilers, as the Steelers turned up their zone-blitz schemes of secondary coach Dick LeBeau. Bills center Kent Hull called reading the Steelers’ defense “Chinese,” because he and his line couldn’t figure out whom to block. The confused Bills couldn’t cross the Pittsburgh 46 until late in the first half. The Bills had a 7-3 halftime lead, but had converted only 29 percent of their third downs and were being outgained. But the Steelers’ offense couldn’t get untracked and the defense finally collapseBills put it away with their final touchdown in the middle of the fourth quarter. The Steelers outrushed the Bills, bd. A fumble by holder Mark Royals set up the Bills at their 31, from where they grew the lead to 17-3. The ut O’Donnell turned the ball over three times. The Bills went on to the Super Bowl as the Steelers celebrated the dawning of the Blitzburgh Era with their defensive performance. The Bills saw it coming. “This was the first defense we played against that could control a game,” WR Steve Tasker said about this playoff game.