Getty Josh Allen and Gabe Davis celebrate their touchdown in the third quarter of their Sunday Night Football matchup with the Pittsburgh Steelers.
The Buffalo Bills were slow out of the gate on Sunday Night Football against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Their first six drives of the game led to a punt or a turnover, and the longest of those drives lasted just five plays after tight end Dawson Knox fumbled a Josh Allen pass with 9:36 remaining in the first half.
The Steelers took advantage of it too as they recovered the fumble on Buffalo’s 30-yard line and Ben Roethlisberger hit wide receiver James Washington with a 19-yard touchdown pass three plays later to take a 7-0 lead.
It was a tough start but as the game carried on, Allen and the Buffalo offense started to settle in. On their final offensive drive of the first half, Allen put together a nine-play, 58-yard drive that led to a 34-yard field goal by rookie kicker Tyler Bass.
Buffalo took even more momentum into halftime when Taron Johnson picked off Roethlisberger and took it 51 yards to the house and the Bills took a 9-7 lead into halftime. But what the Bills did at halftime was what led to a second-half surge where they scored two third-quarter touchdowns in eight minutes.
“Coach (Brian) Daboll just came in and told us that we needed to do our jobs,” Bills wide receiver Stefon Diggs said in his post-game video conference. “We weren’t being us in the first half and it was evident. We weren’t moving the ball efficiently, as receivers we weren’t doing our job well enough and in the second half, he just told everybody to do their jobs. Everybody win their one on ones, and that’s how we started to get the ball rolling a little bit.”
The Bills came out of halftime and put together a 68 yard, eight-play drive that lasted 4 minutes, 37 seconds, and concluded with Allen finding Diggs for a 19-yard strike.
After the Bills forced a Pittsburgh 3-and-out, it took Allen and the Bills four plays to go 57 yards and Allen hit rookie Gabe Davis with a 13-yard pass to extend Buffalo’s lead to 23-7 as the Bills had scored 23 unanswered between the first and second half. Bills head coach Sean McDermott was happy with the way his team was able to respond.
“I thought there were good adjustments made at halftime in all three phases, good communication leading into halftime,” McDermott said in a post-game video conference. “I think Taron Johnson’s play going into halftime was a big momentum swing in the game. But the adjustments made at halftime and then to go out and have an opening third-quarter drive as we did was how we want to play. It was up to our standard and before that it wasn’t up to our standard.”
The Bills did produce another field goal in the fourth quarter after Roethlisberger found Smith-Schuster for a three-yard touchdown pass to extend Buffalo’s lead to 26-15.
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Stefon Diggs Stepped Up in Key Moments
Between Buffalo’s field goal in the first half and their two touchdowns early in the third quarter, Diggs was a man on a mission when it came to getting buffalo in scoring position.
He caught three different passes on the drive that led to Bass’s first field goal, then caught four more on the drive that led to his only touchdown of the game as well. He was everywhere for the Bills on Sunday night as he finished with 10 receptions for the second straight game and also recorded 130 passing yards.
“I started completing passes to the right guys and our guys did a good job of getting open,” Allen said in a post-game video conference call. “I came out and started targeting 1-4, we liked our matchup out there and I think I can say with a lot of confidence that I like any matchup with 1-4. He’s one of the best, if not the best guy in the league. I have supreme confidence in him. He had a lot of juice at halftime. He wanted the ball, we gave it to him and he took over for us.”
On their second drive of the second half, Diggs also caught passes of 22 and 19 yards before Allen hit Davis for his team-high sixth touchdown of the season.
No Fear for Josh Allen After Slow Start
Allen has improved many aspects of his game over the past three seasons and one of those aspects shined brightly on Sunday.
In the past, after a slow start like Allen’s, the third-year quarterback may have started pressing. He may have started looking further downfield looking to get everything back in one play. But you saw a different Allen on Sunday. He remained cool, calm, and collected and battled until he put his team in front.
After leading the offense to just three points in the first half, Allen started the second half 8-for-8 for 104 yards and two touchdowns. He led the Bills from there.
“It’s a long game,” Allen said about what he’s learned about starting games off slow. “I’ve been in games where we’ve started off fast and hit lulls in the third quarter and we’ve had to pick it up in the fourth quarter. So being in these slow starts the past few weeks and being able to find it late when it really matters the most, I think that’s a really good sign of a really good team.”
Allen finished Sunday with a 55.8 completion percentage, 238 passing yards, two touchdowns, and an interception.
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