COMON Network

By COMON Network Team

Final Score – Buffalo Bills (10-3) 26 def. Pittsburgh Steelers (11-2) 15

After starting 11-0, the Pittsburgh Steelers have dropped two-straight games as they lost tonight to the Buffalo Bills 26-15, falling to 11-2 despite clinching a playoff spot earlier in the day by virtue of Miami’s loss to Kansas City.

The Steelers drew first blood following an interception off a deflection by Cam Sutton in the second quarter. It was James Washington catching a touchdown pass from Ben Roethlisberger of 19 yards before Chris Boswell’s point after made it 7-0. Buffalo answered about seven minutes later by driving for a 34-yard Tyler Bass field goal. On Pittsburgh’s two-minute drill, Ben Roethlisberger was intercepted and Taron Johnson took it back the distance. The extra point was no good and the Bills took a 9-7 lead to the locker room.

The Bills opened the second half with a 19-yard touchdown pass from Josh Allen to Stefon Diggs and made it 16-7 at the 10:23 mark of the third. A few minutes later Gabriel Davis caught a 13-yard TD pass from Allen to make it 23-7. The Steelers eventually answered at 12:18 of the fourth, scoring on a three-yard Roethlisberger pass to JuJu Smith-Schuster. The two-point conversion was successful as Ben completed to Eric Ebron. On the ensuing drive, Bass hit from 23 to make it an 11-point game at 26-15. That was all the scoring in the game.

The Steelers will travel to Cincinnati next Monday for their Week 15 game, having clinched the playoffs today with a loss by Miami.

COMON Network Team Commentary

DONNY CHEDRICK

• Nickelback. A band that gets unnecessary shit from every hipster alive and a position that the Steelers found a diamond in the rough. Mike Hilton was undrafted and struggled to stay on NFL rosters early in his career. Today he’s one of the Steelers most important players. Two huge plays in the first half stood out Sunday night: an interception of Josh Allen and a hit that forced what ended up being a pick by Cam Sutton. Unfortunately not many other high points than that.
• Watching this offense sucks. This team is 11-2 and the offense is an absolute eyesore. In 2017, a 13-3 season, it was a joy to watch the Pittsburgh offense go to work. And it’s a lot more than just losing Le’Veon Bell and Antonio Brown. Those were two world class football players. The offense line is older, the quarterback is 38 and the offense coordinator is an absolute doofus. I sound like an uneducated old yinzer here, but there are times when they run the same plays twice in a row. And if it wasn’t, they hit R2 on their controller and just ran the same thing on the other side.
• Go Ravens. Yeah, some of you are so tough and don’t want to do it, but you’re a Baltimore Ravens fan Monday night. A Cleveland victory makes it a one game lead in the AFC North. The Steelers do own the tiebreaker, but in a year that starts 11-0, I don’t think many expected things to be so close down the stretch. Do your thing tomorrow, Lamar.

Player of the Game – Stefon Diggs (BUF)

KYLE DAWSON

• What a horrible end to the first half. What is the benefit of calling and trying to execute a three-yard out route in the middle of the field and not even at midfield in the midst of a two-minute drill. That’s a chicken-shit play call and a horrible throw by Roethlisberger. That throw needs to be thrown as if it’s an out. A waste of a great first half played by the defense, holding one of the league’s best air attacks to basically nothing but a single drive that produced three points. The short passing game everyone wants you to love produced six points for the other team and three more drops by Diontae Johnson (2) and Eric Ebron (1). Horrible. Horrible. Horrible. It took a turnover and JuJu making a few plays after the Steelers got excellent field position for the offense to look competent in the first half. For the record, I just got done slamming Ben, but the throw on the touchdown was incredible. But that was his only great throw of the half.
• This game felt like 2019 felt after Ben’s injury. It feels like, especially over the last three weeks, that the offense is back to where it was. It’s incredibly one dimensional, the play calling and design is simply not good and the QB play, at least tonight, wasn’t good at all. I mean what did we think was going to happen? If the Steelers continued to throw it a million times short, teams are going to start putting a heavy amount of pressure on the QB to get it out even more quickly and disaster will strike. I said this is my post the other day. The team needs to start taking some more shots down field and stretching the defense out more. As a result of what is going on, it feels to me that everyone is packed in tight, ready to make a play on the ball. The offense has been hard to watch the last three weeks. Period. I don’t even know if “hard to watch” does it justice. At least through three quarters that was the case.
• I think I am pretty level headed when it comes to the Steelers. Oh, who am I kidding? If you know me, you know I’m in a, let’s call it, mood, after this one. I didn’t expect the Steelers to win tonight. They have some stuff to figure out now don’t they? On to the Bengals.

Player of the Game – Stefon Diggs (BUF)

JOE SMELTZER

• Randy Fichtner is terrible
• I’m sure somebody somewhere is complaining about how the Steelers defense looked in the second half, and sure maybe trying to cover Stefan Diggs would have been a good idea. Those of us on planet earth, however, understand that Keith Butler’s unit was out of gas, and missing a lot of top men. This loss is on the offense. End of point. 
• Forget the Chiefs for now. This team has a lot to worry about, and even getting a chance to play Kansas City isn’t a guarantee. 

Player of the Game – Stefon Diggs (BUF)