Buffalo Bills: Injuries Piling Up in First Half vs. Pittsburgh Steelers
By Ryan Brennan
The Buffalo Bills haven’t gotten off to a picture-perfect start and injuries continue to haunt them. Anything can happen with another 30 minutes of play.
Hang in there Buffalo Bills‘ fans, there’s another half to play and plenty of time to pull out a victory.
In the first quarter of play on Sunday, in what could be the end of the Bills’ season, Buffalo went down a few players to injury. It’s something that has haunted the Bills all season.
First, left tackle Cordy Glenn went down with a bank injury — something he’s been dealing with almost all season — and was listed as questionable to return. Later on, linebacker Zach Brown went down with an injury and was later seen walking around rather slow with Buffalo trainers.
Cordy Glenn was replaced by Cyrus Kouandjio, who hasn’t found a good groove in his stint with the Bills. Zach Brown was replaced by Ramon Humber.
Jerry Hughes also saw some time off the field, with Shaq Lawson starting opposite Lorenzo Alexander.
Related Story: Buffalo Bills Need to Stick With Tyrod Taylor and Rex Ryan
With that being said, we do have to accept the fact that we just played one of our worst first quarters of the season — if not the worst. After the first 15 minutes of play, the Buffalo Bills only had one first down — off a Steelers’ penalty — just 5 minutes of possession, 3 sacks on Tyrod Taylor and -1 total yards.
Not to mention, Tyrod Taylor almost threw an interception on a 3rd down deep in our territory, which was taken to the endzone for a touchdown. However, a holding penalty nullified the play — and that was the play that gave the Bills their first down.
On defense, the Buffalo Bills have done a terrible job of containing the Steelers’ offense. Lorenzo Alexander did intercept Big Ben on the first drive of the game, but even then the Steelers drove the ball down the field too easily.
Pittsburgh would bounce back and score a 3-yard touchdown by Le’Veon Bell later in the quarter. They would later open up the second quarter with another touchdown run by Bell, this one a 7-yarder.
With 12 minutes left in the second quarter, the Bills were down 14-0.
The offense for the Bills wouldn’t get much better throughout the quarter, but Stephon Gilmore would intercept Big Ben on a ball that was intended for Antonio Brown.
Buffalo got the ball on Pittsburgh’s 7-yard line and they would later find the endzone with a 7-yard TD pass from Taylor to Sammy Watkins. That sequence alone put the Bills back in this game with 7 minutes left in the half.
At the end of the first half, the Buffalo Bills were down 14-7. Taylor had 46 yards and one TD. McCoy had 25 yards on 10 carries.
A lot of speculation arose before the game started and a lot of websites and analysts were already predicting both Rex Ryan and Tyrod Taylor‘s careers with the Buffalo Bills could be done this week. We have one more half to prove them wrong.
Let’s Go Buffalo!
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