Bills vs Steelers: The Good and The Bad 

The Bills suffered a 27-15 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers on the road in week 2 of the preseason and there are a handful of takeaways from the Bills’ performance. 

The Bills played their starters for the first quarter against the Steelers and scored zero points. The backups played the rest of the game and didn’t score until the fourth quarter. 

The Good 

Josh Allen 

Josh Allen finished off the first quarter with a loss of 6 yards but had some good downfield connections beforehand. Allen threw 10 passes and completed 7 of them for 64 yards. Allen didn’t get the Bills into the endzone but put together a couple of nice throws behind a lackluster o-line. 

Kyle Allen 

Kyle Allen had a good game in the second half taking over for Matt Barkley. Allen led the Bills to their only touchdowns of the day in the fourth quarter throwing 15 passes and completing 12 of them for a total of 112 yards and 1 passing touchdown. 

Kyle Allen fired in a dart to rookie receiver Justin Shorter for their only passing touchdown of the game. 

Justin Shorter

Buffalo Bills rookie receiver Justin Shorter played a great game and made a name for himself being the leading receiver in the game with 5 catches for 47 yards and a touchdown. 

Shorter is a big receiver out of Florida standing at 6’ 4” and weighing 174 pounds, Shorter was also the number one ranked receiver coming out of high school. 

Pass Rush 

The Bills pass rush was solid with Kingsley Jonathan leading the way with 4 total tackles, 1 sack and 1 tackle for loss. Greg Rousseau followed that up with 3 total tackles, 1 sack and 2 tackles for loss, Kameron Cline also had a sack. The Bills finished with 3 sacks, 7 tackles for loss and 3 quarterback hits. 

The Bad 

Matt Barkley 

Matt Barkley had a great game in preseason week 1 but struggled heavily against the Steelers in this week’s game. Barkley completed 7 passes on 12 throws, 3 of which were intercepted and also had a fumble. 

Offensive Line 

The Bills offensive line performance against the Steelers was horrific, from penalties to o-lineman struggling to sustain blocks the Bills offensive line was bad. The Bills racked up a total of 13 penalties against the Steelers most of which were false starts or holding calls. 

The Bills offensive line allowed 1 sack, 4 tackles for loss and 2 quarterback hits. Tommy Doyle also left the game early with a leg injury which didn’t help the Bills cause.

Run Game 

The Bills run game was also very miniscule and couldn’t get going at all especially behind a struggling offensive line. Damien Harris was out to begin the game with a knee problem. 

Latavius Murray was the Bills leading back with 6 carries for 26 yards, following him was Darrynton Evans with 6 carries for 25 yards and Jordan Mims with 4 carries for 24 yards and a touchdown. 

Defense 

The Bills played poor defense from start to finish playing very slowly, to begin the game the Bills allowed a 62 yard touchdown run from Jaylen Warren. 

The secondary was also lacking, causing penalties which ate away at the defense and gave the Steelers offense a better chance to score. 

Bills safety Jordan Poyer looked slow along with the middle linebacker position which is being competed for but no one seems to be standing out to win the position. Rookie linebacker Dorian Williams led the team with 4 total tackles, middle linebacker Tyrel Dodson had a total of 3 tackles and A.J. Klein had 2 total tackles. 

Penalties 

The Bills were penalized 12 times in the first half alone and it dampened the entire game for the Bills as their field position was heavily affected.

The Bills offensive line were making mistakes left and right causing 3 penalties in a row on one series. The Bills secondary was also a bit too touchy causing a lot of pass interferences in the red zone.