PITTSBURGH - If there’s one thing you can count on from Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin, it’s that win or lose, he’ll give you an honest assessment after every game.
The man is not big on cliches or small talk. He gets right to the point and Sunday night, in the wake of a 26-7 beatdown at the hands of the Buffalo Bills, Tomlin did not mince words.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement“Not a lot needs to be said; that’s an awful performance by us,” Tomlin said. “We didn’t do a lot well tonight obviously. We didn’t possess the ball or maintain ball security on offense, we were highly penalized, we allowed those guys to run the ball. Didn’t play 60 minutes of action. Didn’t play complementary football. So, we’ve got to absorb that result.”
A couple hundred feet away in the Buffalo locker room, Sean McDermott had an entirely different feeling after watching his team dominate the Steelers in a game he knew the Bills had to have, given their tenuous playoff position.
“A great effort,” McDermott said. “Certainly things we can work on, but good to come on the road and show our toughness.”
Here’s how I graded the Bills:
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementPASS OFFENSE: D
Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen (17) looks to pass during the third quarter against the Pittsburgh Steelers at Acrisure Stadium.This is probably a little harsh because the Bills did not need their passing game Sunday, but they do not have a functional aerial attack right now, and that seems utterly insane given how explosive they have been for most of the previous six years. Those days are gone, at least until Brandon Beane can address the wide receiver position in a meaningful way.
Josh Allen is almost helpless when he drops backs to pass because there’s nowhere to go with the ball. The entire passing attack is predicated on throws made no further than five yards downfield, with many of his attempts being caught behind the line of scrimmage. Luckily for the Bills, they didn’t need any help via the pass because they were so dominant in the run game.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAllen finished 15 of 23 for just 123 yards with an interception and a touchdown. His WRs caught five passes for a grand total of 32 yards. James Cook, Dawson Knox and Ty Johnson all caught three passes which totaled 81 yards. The only positive was that Allen was not sacked even though the Bills had to play without both their stud OTs, Dion Dawkins and Spencer Brown.
RUN OFFENSE: A+
Nov 30, 2025; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA; Buffalo Bills running back James Cook III (4) rushes as Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker Payton Wilson (41) attempts to tackle during the fourth quarter at Acrisure Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Charles LeClaire-Imagn ImagesCook had another tremendous game. Yes, he had a damaging fumble in the first half that gave the Steelers a short field at the Bills 39 and they capitalized for their only score of the game, but otherwise, Cook was Buffalo’s only threat on offense. He soared past 100 yards for the seventh time this season, the most such games for a Bills RB since LeSean McCoy had seven in 2016. The franchise record is 11 set by O.J. Simpson in his 2,003-yard 1973 season.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementCook set a new career high for carries with 32, and he was able to bite off big chunks even with the patchwork offensive line. Alec Anderson, who had two brutal false start penalties, and fellow reserve Ryan Van Demark did a great job run blocking, along with the always strong interior of the Bills’ line.
Ray Davis had some definite juice with limited opportunities, gaining 62 yards on just nine carries. And Allen was also a little more active running the ball, sometimes on scrambles, but there were a couple designed run calls as well as he finished with 38 yards. This was the third time this season the Bills have topped 200 yards as a team and their 249 yards was a season-high.
PASS DEFENSE: A
Christian Benford #47 of the Buffalo Bills celebrates after his interception against the Pittsburgh Steelers in the third quarter of a game at Acrisure Stadium on November 30, 2025 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.Joey Bosa has been frustrated by the fact that while he has been getting QB pressures, he hasn’t been getting sacks. That changed on the first play of the second half when he trucked Aaron Rodgers and forced a fumble that Christian Benford and scooped and scored on to give the Bills a 10-7 lead. It was Bosa’s fifth forced fumble of the season, tying the Bills franchise record, most recently achieved by Aaron Schobel in 2007.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAnd then a few plays after the kickoff, Benford picked off Mason Rudolph - who had replaced Rodgers who was in the medical tent with a bloody nose - at the Buffalo 44 and the Bills went on to drive to a touchdown for a 16-7 lead. Benford was great all day as he traveled with Pittsburgh’s lone WR threat, DK Metcalf, and held him to three catches for 32 yards.
Rodgers finished just 10 of 21 for 117 yards as the Steelers had the ball for just 18 minutes, accruing 10 first downs and 166 total yards.
RUN DEFENSE: A
Pittsburgh Steelers running back Jaylen Warren (30) rushes and is tackled by Buffalo Bills linebacker Matt Milano (58) during the first quarter at Acrisure Stadium.The Steelers never got anything going on the ground and that crippled their offense because their passing game is worse than Buffalo’s. Of course, when you have the ball for as little as Pittsburgh did, there isn’t much time to get any type of rhythm. Because of the inability to get into favorable third-down situations, the Steelers went just 3-for-9 plus went 0-for-1 on fourth down.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementJaylen Warren and Kenneth Gainwell totaled just 55 yards and the Steelers averaged only 3.2 yards per attempt as the Bills front seven was tremendous. Shaq Thompson, starting in place of injured Terrel Bernard, was a hammer in the run game and he finished with a team-high nine tackles, while the safeties, Cole Bishop and Jordan Poyer, combined for nine tackles.
SPECIAL TEAMS: C
Buffalo Bills place kicker Matt Prater (15) kicks a field goal during the second quarter against the Pittsburgh Steelers at Acrisure Stadium.Sam Franklin committed a holding penalty on a first-quarter punt that created lousy field position at the Bills’ 13; Punter Mitch Wishnowsky had his first touchback with the Bills which resulted in a poor net of 27 yards in the first quarter; and kicker Matt Prater missed an extra point for the second game in a row, so it was not great in any way.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThe Bills made an interesting choice on the Steelers’ first extra point. There was a 15-yard penalty against Pittsburgh, so the Bills could have pushed the PAT back to the 47, or taken the yards on the kickoff. Chris Boswell is a great kicker, but there was some wind to contend with. However, they took it on the kickoff, but under the new kickoff rules, the covering players are still lined up in the same spot. So it actually made a good return harder to accomplish and Ray Davis gained only 14 yards to the 31.
There were only two kickoff returns and they totaled a mere 36 yards, one each by Davis and Ty Johnson. There were no punt returns, just three fair catches by Shakir.
COACHING: B-
Buffalo Bills head coach Sean McDermott looks on during the second quarter against the Pittsburgh Steelers at Acrisure Stadium.The sequence at the end of the first half was kind of a mess. The Bills were in a fourth-and-3 at the Steelers 4 with 55 seconds left. The right call would have been to kick the field goal, and then they had three timeouts to use so a defensive stop might have gotten the ball back for the offense and a potential last-second field goal.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementInstead, the Bills decided to try to draw the Steelers’ offside to get closer, and when it didn’t work, McDermott called timeout. Then, he decided to go for the touchdown again, but this time Connor McGovern false started, so only then did they kick. However, with only two timeouts, they couldn’t get the ball back and the half ended quietly.
In the fourth quarter, the Bills took a 22-7 lead and for some reason, McDermott didn’t go for two to make it a three-possession game.
Joe Brady’s creativity in the passing game is gone, neutered by the lack of weapons he has. Still, there has to be a way to get someone open more than five yards beyond the line of scrimmage. It wasn’t necessary in this game because the running game was so dominant, but the problems are mounting.
The Steelers are terrible on offense, but that doesn’t detract from the great job Bobby Babich’s unit did. Through three quarters, the Steelers had only one possession where they achieved more than one first down, and that one came when the defense was put in bad field position after Cook’s fumble.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementSal Maiorana has covered the Buffalo Bills for more than four decades including 36 years as the full-time beat writer/columnist for the D&C. He has written numerous books about the history of the team, and he is also co-host of the BLEAV in Bills podcast/YouTube show. He can be reached at [email protected], and you can follow him on X @salmaiorana and on Bluesky @salmaiorana.bsky.social.
Sal Maiorana has covered the Buffalo Bills for more than four decades including 36 years as the full-time beat writer/columnist for the D&C. He has written numerous books about the history of the team, and he is also co-host of the BLEAV in Bills podcast/YouTube show. He can be reached at [email protected], and you can follow him on X @salmaiorana and on Bluesky @salmaiorana.bsky.social.
This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Bills report card: James Cook, backup offensive linemen bully Steelers
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