With the AFC Wild-Card Game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Buffalo Bills moved to Monday due to significant travel issues due to snow, there’s been a lot of speculation about who this helps. While any extra time is a godsend this time of year due to the arduous grind that is an NFL season, it appears that most experts and fans believe this delay – and improved weather conditions – will help the Bills. While it’s difficult to disagree with some of the reasoning, there’s some hope that this could also help the Steelers as well.
The decision to postpone the game was the right one despite my feelings that football is meant to be played in any conditions. This wasn’t so much about that as it was the difficulty for the Steelers, officials and everyone else to get to Orchard Park. As former Bills’ offensive lineman Eric Wood put it on social media yesterday, “Last year’s blizzard saw 47 people die.” It was a dose of reality that was needed. No, I’m not crazy that this game has been moved to Monday but I understand it too.
As for the impact the change could have we must understand that the weather isn’t going to be that much different. It’s going to be brutally cold, windy and we still may see some snow. As I write this there is some talk that the game could be moved to Tuesday… but we shall see. Much of the talk centers on the fact the with somewhat better weather, this will greatly assist the Bills’ passing game. Josh Allen literally has a cannon for a right arm and the ability to spin the ball through the conditions can’t be understated.
Mason Rudolph has a nice arm but he’s nowhere near the same category in terms of overall arm strength but here’s where that could play to his advantage. While I still believe the way to win this game is to run the ball efficiently and burn some clock, Rudolph has three or four guys who could be able to do some damage without having to run deep routes. While Josh Allen likes to push the ball down the field to Stefon Diggs and company, Rudolph should look to do something a bit different.
While Rudolph actually throws a pretty good deep ball, Eddie Faulkner and Mike Sullivan should focus more on getting the ball into the hands of Diontae Johnson, George Pickens, Jaylen Warren and perhaps even Calvin Austin III a lot quicker. The footing on Monday should be better but it’s not going to be great any way you cut and that always favors the offensive player. We’ve already seen Rudolph connect on slant and skinny post routes that Kenny Pickett struggled to throw earlier in the season. If Rudolph can connect with Johnson or Pickett on those then they can put their open-field running skills to work (just don’t go backwards DJ!).
As for Warren, we’ve seen numerous times in his young career how short throws to him can turn into 10 and 15 yard gains simply because of his running skills. The Steelers have to get something out of him in this regard. Austin meanwhile, could be a sneaky X-factor. None of us should expect miracles from him but the capability is there to break off a few big plays and we also saw some bigger returns from him in recent weeks too.
The weather, whenever this game will finally be played, isn’t going to be great and there are many other factors like injuries and turnovers that the game will turn on, but the Steelers need to get some productivity from the passing game. It doesn’t have to be big throws, it just has to be catchable balls then let the receivers go to work. Maybe it’s wishful thinking on my part but then again, did any of us think we’d be here four weeks ago?
