2020 Steelers Season Recall: Steelers drop second-straight 2020 loss against the Bills
Steel City Underground presents our 2020 Steelers Recall: a look back at Pittsburgh Steelers games and storylines from last season.
The disappointment of an unbeaten season being busted the previous Sunday hadn’t worn off yet as the Steelers traveled from Pittsburgh to Buffalo to face the 9-3 Bills, in a game that would further dictate AFC playoff seeding.
The first quarter featured both offenses struggling to make anything happen. As has been the norm for the Steelers, they were unable to do anything on their first possession… for first five possessions.
The Steelers would punt five consecutive times with drives that encapsulated 3, 4, 3, 8 and 6 plays.
Their first points, and the first of the game, would come in the second quarter, as Buffalo also struggled mightily with drives of 3 plays, 4, 3, 4, 5, and 3, before they’d get on the board – two of those possessions ended with turnovers including a Mike Hilton interception that the Steelers couldn’t capitalize on.
Hilton would be involved again in the later forced fumble, recovered by Cameron Sutton. RB James Conner would fumble on the very next play but Pittsburgh would retain the football, scoring two plays later with a Ben Roethlisberger 19-yard pass to James Washington.
Up 7-0, the next points came after the two-minute warning, when Buffalo’s Tyler Bass converted on a 34-yard field goal.
Bad luck would hit Ben Roethlisberger’s attempt to score more points before halftime, when his pass intended for JuJu Smith-Schuster was picked off by Taron Johnson, who returned it 51 yards for a defensive touchdown. Bass would blow the point-after, giving the Bills the advantage at 9-7 entering the third quarter.
The Bill would adjust at half, putting together an 8-play, 68-yard drive to start the third quarter as Josh Allen found Stephon Diggs for 19 yards.
The Steelers would go three-and-out next, as the Bills got a nice punt return off of a 46-yard Jordan Berry boot that was returned 21 yards by Andre Roberts. The field position set the Bills up for three chunk pass plays of 22, 19, and a 13-yard score by Gabriel Davis.
The Bills would go up 23-7 as Bass made the try.
Pittsburgh once again showed its ineptness on offense with yet another three-and-out, but the Steelers defense would hold the Bills this time, as Roethlisberger orchestrated a scoring drive that went into the fourth quarter, with a short pass to JuJu Smith-Schuster and a two-point conversion to Eric Ebron.
The score now closer with Buffalo up 23-15, the Bills would chew a good four minutes off of the game clock as another Bass field goal added to their lead, 26-15.
Roethlisberger got the ball back, but threw another interception three plays into the new drive.
With 7:11 remaining, the Steelers could do nothing to stop the Bills from killing the entire amount of time left, as Allen and company ran 13 plays which took all of the time left off of the scoreboard.
The Bills would give the Steelers their second loss of the season by a final score of 26-15, as Big Ben had one of his worst games of the season – only second to the one that would follow the next week in Cincinnati.
