Pittsburgh quarterback Ben Roethlisberger outdueled Bills quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick on Saturday night, and then the Steelers’ backups blew out the Buffalo reserves.
Roethlisberger took the Steelers on a 98-yard touchdown drive late in the second quarter to lead his team’s starters to a 14-7 advantage on the Bills’ starters over the first 30 minutes.
Both teams played their backups in the second half, and the Steelers dominated, pulling away for a 38-7 victory.
Roethlisberger was held in check for long stretches of the first half by the Bills’ starting defense. Buffalo forced the Steelers to punt on each of their first five possessions. But the Steelers got their first touchdown after Bills back C.J. Spiller fumbled deep in his own territory and Pittsburgh took over on the Bills’ 18.
Then Roethlisberger went to work in his two-minute offense, making play after play to lead the Steelers down the field. The two-time Super Bowl-winning QB completed 17-of-24 passes for 169 yards.
Fitzpatrick wasn’t as sharp as his counterpart in the face of a strong five-man pass rush from the Steelers. Fitzpatrick completed 7-of-18 passes for 89 yards, was sacked once and knocked down repeatedly.
The Bills’ starting offense managed one touchdown and seven first downs in seven possessions. The Bills had to punt five times in the first half against a Steelers defense that last year allowed both the fewest points and the fewest yards in the league.
“We ended up again in third-and-10 tonight,” said Bills coach Chan Gailey. “You cannot do that. We missed about two blocks. To be honest with you, I thought Fitz read [the defense] really well tonight. He knew what was happening. We are getting him hit too much. That stuff has got to stop.”
The Bills, 0-3 on the preseason, did not lose any starters to injury. The Steelers (2-1) lost one, guard David DeCastro, their first-round draft choice. DeCastro had to be taken off the field on a cart after suffering a right knee injury.
The key play of the first half was a 33-yard pass from Roethlisberger to running back Jonathan Dwyer with the Steelers facing a third-and-9 situation from their own 3-yard line. The Bills’ defense had a pretty good pass rush in the first half. But on this play, Roethlisberger calmly stood in the pocket, uninhibited, and found his running back along the left sideline. Roethlisberger completed six more passes on the march, the last a 6-yard scoring strike to Pro Bowler Antonio Brown with 13 seconds left in the half.
“Well, they made the one big play,” said Gailey, referring to the pass to Dwyer. “And then the one thing that we have not had all preseason camp is learning to handle our composure. They kind of got rattled and lost their composure a little bit, and that is what we have to work on. That is a great lesson to learn right there.”
The Bills scored on their second offensive possession, marching 49 yards in five plays.
Fred Jackson rushed for 15 yards around right end on the first play, then had an 8-yard cutback run off left tackle to bring the Bills to the Pittsburgh 26. On the next play, David Nelson ran a crossing route from the right slot against safety Troy Polamalu and caught a pass from Fitzpatrick at the 7. He was forced out of bounds at the 1. Two plays later, Jackson cut into the end zone off left tackle for a 1-yard scoring run.
Spiller’s fumble came 4:33 into the second quarter. He took a shotgun handoff on a first-down play from the Buffalo 17. Steelers linebacker Lawrence Timmons punched the ball out of Spiller’s hands and it popped into the arms of defensive end Ziggy Hood.
The Steelers took five plays to get into the end zone. Roethlisberger hit tight end Heath Miller on a 9-yard out pattern to get the Steelers to the Buffalo 6. After Kyle Williams blew up a run play for a 3-yard loss, Roethlisberger hit Brown. The Steelers tied it with 7:37 left in the second quarter on a 2-yard scoring plunge by Isaac Redman.
Pittsburgh stretched its lead to 21-7 early in the third quarter when backup quarterback Byron Leftwich threw a 39-yard TD pass to Brown, who beat Terrence McGee on a post pattern.
Vince Young relieved Fitzpatrick after intermission but threw an interception on his first drive, then threw another early in the fourth quarter.
Pittsburgh got its other second-half touchdowns on a 10-yard pass from Leftwich to Derrick Williams and a 41-yard run from Chris Rainey.
The Steelers were without starting running back Rashard Mendenhall, who’s expected to miss the early part of the regular season as he recovers from knee surgery. He’s being replaced by fourth-year man Redman.
Steelers star linebacker James Harrison also is coming back from knee surgery and has yet to practice. His backup, Jason Worilds, also is on the physically unable to perform list.
Starting in the Steelers’ key rush-linebacker position is Chris Carter, a converted college defensive end who was a fifth-round draft pick in 2011. Harrison needed to have doctors go back in on the surgically repaired knee last week to perform a clean-up arthroscopic procedure. He’s not expected back until the second or third regular-season game. Worilds is coming off wrist surgery.
It was the first exhibition meeting between the teams since 2009 and the Steelers’ first trip to Orchard Park for preseason since 1999.
