The Pittsburgh Steelers have a tough matchup in their Wild Card Weekend playoff matchup on Sunday against one of the best quarterbacks in the league in the Buffalo Bills’ Josh Allen. Allen is a dynamic player with both his arm and his legs, and he’s not going to be an easy guy to stop.
“Gotta keep him in the pocket,” Steelers DL Cameron Heyward said on his Not Just Football Podcast. “He’s a great A-gap to B-gap runner up the middle, and he’s a strong guy to bring down. You gotta get full body weight on him. And I’m not talking about dumping on his head. I’m talking about, you gotta wrap up. You have to wrap up. You gotta get multiple guys to the ball. If we can do that, we can have some fun.”
Heyward also credited the Bills for relying more on their run game with James Cook to take some pressure off Allen but noted that Allen is “still the guy.”
It’s going to be tough to stop Allen without T.J. Watt, who will miss the game with an MCL sprain. But if the Steelers are going to win, they have to limit Allen. They failed to do so last season in Week Five, a game for which they also didn’t have Watt, and Allen torched the Steelers to the tune of 424 yards and four touchdowns in a 38-3 win in Buffalo. A repeat of that, especially on a playoff stage, would be disastrous, and the Steelers can’t let that happen again.
Allen uses his legs well, as Heyward noted, as he ran for 524 yards and 15 touchdowns this season. Against Pittsburgh last year, he also used his legs effectively with five carries for 42 yards, and the Steelers won’t win this game if they allow him to consistently break contain or scramble for yardage if there’s nothing downfield. Given that the Steelers are going to have a healthy secondary, they should be better in coverage, but losing Watt will affect their pass rush. Not letting Allen pick up extra yards when they have an opportunity to get a sack or an incompletion is going to be extra important for Pittsburgh’s defensive front.
It’s going to be a team effort getting to Allen and bringing him down, and he is a player who has struggled with turnovers and decision-making at times this year. He had 18 interceptions this season, and if the Steelers are able to bring consistent pressure and force Allen into a few mistakes, the Steelers might actually have some fun. Still, it’s no easy task, and we’ll see if Pittsburgh’s defense will be up to the challenge and can help the Steelers win their first playoff game since 2016.
