Depleted Bills Bury Rodgers, Bully Steelers

If you were to boil down the ethos of the Pittsburgh Steelers from 1970 until present day, it would go something like this:

“We are physically and mentally tougher than you, especially in our home stadium. You might get lucky and beat us, but we will beat you up. We will push you around.”

Viewed through that prism, Sunday’s loss to the Bills stands as one of the worst losses not just of Mike Tomlin’s tenure, but of the team’s Super Bowl Era history.

That might seem like hyperbole, but it isn’t. The Bills came into the game reeling, losers of two of their last three, and most recently on the business end of a loss to the Texans that saw Josh Allen sacked a career-worst 8 times.

Buffalo was without both of its starting offensive tackles, too, and its starting center was banged up during the game. Did I mention that they were also without tight end Dalton Kincaid, and that they don’t really have anything resembling a reliable wide receiver, outside of Khalil Shakir?

None of that actually mattered, nor did the fact that the Bills played a sloppy first half, nullifying a huge yardage advantage with two turnovers, and staking the Steelers to a 7-3 lead at the break.

No, Buffalo didn’t panic in the slightest. And when they got a scoop-and-score touchdown on the Steelers’ first scrimmage play of the second half, they never looked back.

Buffalo’s lead at that point was 10-7, but it might as well have been 100-7. The Steelers had no answer whatsoever, possessing the ball for a grand total of 2 minutes and 55 seconds on their next two drives, and finishing the third quarter having been outgained 134-3.

It’s hardly a shock that the Steelers’ offense was impotent, even going against arguably the worst overall run defense in the NFL, but what was jarring was the degree to which Tomlin’s defense was emasculated by the Bills. Buffalo ran the same play at T.J. Watt what seemed like two dozen times, and probably had success on 95 percent of them.

What’s more, they ran it with equal impunity in the first and second halves. The Steelers couldn’t adjust; instead, they just got run over, over and over again. Buffalo had 125 yards on 26 carries at the half, and they finished the game with 249 yards on 51 carries.

You no doubt heard on the broadcast that the 249 yards were the most ever given up to a visiting team in Heinz Field/Acrisure Stadium history. You also no doubt heard that the only team to rush for more yards as a visitor in Pittsburgh was also the Bills, who churned out 310 yards on their way to a 30-21 win back in 1975.

Sunday marked just the seventh time since the merger that an opponent has run for at least 249 yards in a game. It’s also the third time that it has happened under Tomlin’s watch.

(Bill Cowher, come and claim your prize - you only ended up in “Club 249” once.)

The numbers were the story in this game to some degree, but the sights and sounds were what really drove home the gravity of what happened.

There was Aaron Rodgers, bloodied and beaten-down on the sideline after Joey Bosa crushed him from the blind side, jarring the ball loose for what proved to be the game-winning score.

There were personal fouls on D.K. Metcalf (unsportsmanlike conduct), Payton Wilson (unnecessary roughness) and Cam Heyward (taunting), as well as at least one instance of a Steelers player flexing and posing after a modest gain while down multiple scores.

Maybe most of all, there were the very audible “Fire Tomlin” chants that broke out at multiple points during the game, sometimes loud enough to be picked up by the CBS broadcast.

The paying customers, more emphatically than they ever had before, were declaring that they had had enough. Who could blame them? They were in the process of watching their team get bullied like they rarely have. If the Steelers had brought lunch money onto the field, the Bills would have stolen it.

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No one had any answers afterward, either. Tomlin was angry and frustrated, but there was no arrogance in his press conference performance, only a bit of resignation. Watt seemed completely at a loss to explain how Buffalo could run essentially the same play over and over, and continue to succeed with it. In fact, he quite literally said that that was exactly what was happening.

Rodgers was more prickly and defiant than anyone else, but even though he expressed faith in the team and particularly in Tomlin, he took time to throw at least some of his pass catchers under the bus for apparently missing film sessions and not running the right routes.

Heyward saw it fit to blame Allen for his taunting call, alleging that the reigning MVP kneed him in the stomach and admitted to it during the course of play. It was not a good look for a guy who has been a war horse more often than not in his Steelers career.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a desultory performance from this team, even at home. Most Steelers fans have, at one time or another in recent years, proclaimed the team dead and buried, only for Tomlin to somehow get the guys to do a zombie sit-up that would make the Undertaker proud. This feels different, though. What’s been put on tape lately looks worse than it ever has. A group that was 3-1 at the end of September has won three games total in the last two months.

One wonders how close the team’s most vocal leaders are to their breaking points. You can only say you’re at a loss for words, or that you have to go and watch the tape, or that you still believe in the coaches and their schemes so many times before it becomes cliche to the point of absurdity.

Does Rodgers really have the fire to keep doing this while it looks for all the world like things are coming apart? Watt got his huge payday this offseason; even though he commands plenty of attention, his play-to-play effort has come into question, and understandably so. Heyward looks visibly distraught both on the field and after games. He seems like a guy who knows his chances of making any kind of playoff run are slim and none.

That brings us back to the head coach, the guy most responsible for all of this.

Tomlin was asked point-blank why he still has confidence that the solutions to fix the team’s problems can be found inside the building. His response was short and not-so-sweet: “Keep watching.”

After that performance, I have a very simple question:

Do we have to?