Top three storylines heading into Bills vs Steelers preseason game

A new chapter in the Buffalo Bills preseason is here and we can finally turn away from the Week 1 disaster against the Chicago Bears. Bills fans are hoping that Buffalo can put on a better display of football in Pittsburgh. The Steelers and Bills are familiar with each other and it all starts with their head coaches.

Sean McDermott and Mike Tomlin were teammates at Williams & Mary and have a great amount of respect for each other. Whenever the Bills and Steelers go against each other, it is always a physical battle. This game should be no different, even if the starters don’t play a full game.

With that, we take a look at the top three storylines heading into this second preseason game for the Bills.

More spark from the offensive starters

It was announced that the Bills will play their starters for over a “quarter and a half”, per Sean McDermott from Sal Capaccio. The starters had just one and a half drives last week against the Bears (due to the fact that the Buffalo defense couldn’t force Chicago to punt). However, Buffalo’s offense had a quick three-and-out so there was really no shot at them showing what they can be as a unit.

The hope is to ultimately give the Bills’ starters two or even three opportunities to make the most of their opportunity. There needs to be more spark from this offense led by Josh Allen. Joe Brady needs to draw up some magic in order to not just build momentum, but ultimately get into the endzone which is something the Bills couldn’t do last week.

More progress from depth players

Preseason is more so for the players that are not starters or are not guaranteed to even make the final 53-man roster. Buffalo’s depth players, much like the starters, were very underwhelming last week. Guys like Marquez Valdes-Scantling and KJ Hamler had unimpressive performances and are not locks to the roster. The same thing applies to the defense, who could not stop Chicago’s offense from driving down the field.

Hopefully we will get a chance to have a better look at which players have a legit shot at securing a roster spot. Especially at positions like linebacker and in the secondary who have had injuries throughout training camp and early on in the preseason.

Avoiding injuries at all costs

This should be the ultimate goal for the Bills at the end of the game. If Bills fans have to endure more injuries, it will be yet another nightmare to deal with. It seems like the Bills always get hit with a big injury bug at some point during the season. The sad part is that it has already happened with linebacker Matt Milano, who tore his bicep this past week.

Players have to be careful and the coaches need to be careful of how long starters are playing. While injuries are part of the game and are unavoidable, Buffalo cannot do anything careless that can affect potential health for any of their players.