One play after a fumble by second-year wide receiver George Pickens gave the Buffalo Bills the football in great field position inside Pittsburgh Steelers’ territory, the Bills and quarterback Josh Allen went for the kill shot.
They nailed it, too.
On a 1st and 10 from the Steelers’ 29-yard line with 4:10 left in the first quarter, Allen fired a strike up the seam to rookie tight end Dalton Kincaid for a 29-yard touchdown and a 14-0 lead that was all but insurmountable for the Steelers.
Kincaid, who was going to be a problem coming into the matchup considering his skill set and the Steelers’ struggles against tight ends this season, beat linebacker Myles Jack on the play, running freely up the seam for the wide-open touchdown. On the play, it appeared as though Jack was expecting help over the top from either safety Minkah Fitzpatrick or safety Eric Rowe.
“Yeah, it was a little bit of miscommunication, but I’ll just take the blame for it,” Jack stated to reporters after the loss, according to video via the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on YouTube. “Yeah. But yeah, it was a lot going on out there tonight. I’ll just leave it at that. But yeah. Yeah.”
Jack was rather frustrated about the play after the game, just based on his comments and his body language when giving his perspective on it.
The Steelers were in a split-safety look with Fitzpatrick and Rowe on the field, and the Bills had a great design, drawing their attention to the outside, allowing Kincaid to run past Jack in a complete mismatch up the seam for the score. Allen threw a strike, Kincaid made a great catch and the 14-0 lead went a long way toward the Bills’ 31-17 win over the Steelers.
The miscommunication wasn’t the first of the game for the Steelers and certainly wasn’t the last. Cornerback Patrick Peterson and linebacker Elandon Roberts had a miscommunication on Buffalo’s first touchdown of the game to tight end Dawson Knox, leaving Knox wide open in the end zone for the opening touchdown.
With a couple of key players back in the fold in Fitzpatrick and veteran safety Damontae Kazee, there were probably some adjustments that needed to happen from a communication standpoint, especially with those two out of the lineup for three weeks. It appears that those adjustments didn’t occur though, and it ended up in the Steelers being sloppy and disjointed defensively in big spots.
That shouldn’t be happening in a playoff game, yet it did, and it cost the Steelers. It’s nothing new, either. The players come and go, but the communication issues remain the same.
