The losses will continue. As will the weird. We’re through the looking glass people…
– The Steelers’ 35 point defeat to the Bills, 38-3, is the worst loss from a point differential standpoint since the infamous 51-0 loss to the Cleveland Browns in 1989. Not a game you want to mention in these articles. Usually means it was a bad day.
– Pittsburgh becomes the third team in history to possess the ball for 36+ minutes and lose by 35+ points, joining the 2019 Bengals (49-13 vs Ravens) and 2014 Raiders (52-0 vs Rams).
– In his first start, Kenny Pickett threw 52 passes Sunday. Compare that to Ben Roethlisberger, who never threw more than 28 passes in any regular season game his rookie season. A different era. And definitely a different team.
– Pickett blows the team record for most attempts in a first start out of the water. His 52 are far more than the previous high of 37, Cliff Stoudt’s first start in 1980.
– Pickett becomes the 8th QB in history with 50+ attempts in a first start. Only Sam Bradford, Kyler Murray, Tyler Heinicke, and Matt Barkley have thrown more. Quarterbacks are now 0-7-1 in first starts when they have to throw the ball 50+ times.
– Pickett’s 34 completions were spread across ten different receivers. Three players – Connor Heyward, Miles Boykin, and Derek Watt – caught passes for the first time this season. It was Heyward’s first two career catches.
– The Steelers have only eight total touchdowns through their first five games for only the second time since 2002. 2013 was the other season.
– TE Zach Gentry caught five passes today. The only other time in his career, college or pro, he had 5+ receptions came at Michigan in 2018 with seven grabs against Maryland.
– No Steelers’ wide receiver has a touchdown through five games. That hasn’t happened since 1990.
– Pittsburgh’s defense had zero sacks and just one QB hit today.
– In Week One with T.J. Watt, the defense had seven sacks. In Weeks 2-5, they have a combined three sacks. Since 2017, Watt has missed three of the four games the team has failed to record a single sack.
– QBs to throw for 400+ yards and 4 TDs against the Steelers.
Tom Brady (2013)
Josh Allen (Sunday)
The Steelers will see Brady next week.
– Allen’s 424 yards are the second most ever against the Steelers, falling just shy of the 432 Brady posted in that 2013 matchup.
Allen had 466 total yards of offense yesterday. 424 passing, 42 rushing. And he was pulled in the fourth quarter.
– Bills’ WR Gabe Davis is only the second player in history to have no more than three receptions and 170+ yards against the Steelers. He joins the Giants’ Homer Jones, who like Davis, had a 98 yard TD that day.
– Davis is the first player with a 98+ yard TD catch against the Steelers since Jones, who did so in 1966. The only player who had a longer receiving score versus Pittsburgh has Washington’s Andy Farkas in 1939, a time when the Steelers were still called the Pittsburgh Pirates. Fun fact – Farkas is believed to be the first NFL player to wear eye black in 1942.
– Davis finished the game with a pair of 60 yard touchdowns, 62 and 98 yards. Since the merger, he’s only the third player to do so against Pittsburgh in one game, joining Paul Warfield in 1971 (60, 86 yards) and James Lofton in 1983 (71, 73 yards).
– Gabe Davis and Stefon Diggs are the first pair of wide receivers to each have 100+ yards receiving in the same game against the Steelers since the Colts’ T.Y. Hilton and Donte Moncrief did in 2014. TE Travis Kelce and WR Sammy Watkins did the same in 2018 but Davis/Diggs are the first two receivers.
– Buffalo had 552 yards of total offense. Third most ever allowed by the Steelers only trailing the Bengals’ 559 in 1988 and Patriots’ 610 in 2013.
– Today marks just the second time in Chris Boswell’s career he missed two field goals in one game and the first since 2018. Pittsburgh’s now 0-3 in games in which he misses two field goals, not that he was the root cause for Sunday’s defeat.
– Pittsburgh started yesterday’s game 2/2 on third down. They finished it 3/13.
– Finally, the Steelers had only three failed red zone trips over the first four weeks. They went 0/4 yesterday.
