Buffalo Bills & James Cook forced will to win over Pittsburgh Steelers

The Buffalo Bills entered a pivotal game against the Pittsburgh Steelers in Week 13 down both starting right tackles, and a starting tight end, among other positions. A revolving door in the wide receiver room and a windy day in Pittsburgh didn’t give any of us Bills fans great confidence in a strong passing day.

I felt that leaning on running back James Cook III and runs up the middle where the starting offensive line was still intact, and Pittsburgh was relatively weak, would lead to good results. I’m not always right, but I prefer it when I am.

The Bills fell one second short of 42 minutes time of possession in a dominating effort marred only by first-half turnovers. Let’s sum up the offense with just two pictures.

Simmer, not a boil

Let’s start things off with a look at Josh Allen’s passing chart from the game courtesy of the NFL’s Next Gen Stats.

Lol, what the **** is this? This is not the passing chart of a dominant road win behind the reigning NFL MVP quarterback. The 123 yards total should jump right off the screen as “not a lot.” On the scatter plot, only two passes were completed more than 10 yards down the field, and only one broke 15 (barely).

We all know I love efficiency stats, so how about we steer that way? In the air, the Bills had 5.34 yards per pass. The Cleveland Browns are the worst in this measure in 2025 at 5.3 yards per pass. Don’t worry, I’ll make it sound worse.

Allen had a 65% completion rate, which is almost perfectly league average. That’s fine, right? Take a look at the number at the bottom right. This isn’t a pure measure, but based on the distance thrown in the air Allen was -9.4% below CPOE or “Completion Percent Over Expected.” Put differently, the data suggest Allen should have had a 74% completion percentage based on how short the passes were.

I’ll come back to this, but first here’s James Cook’s rushing chart.

First and foremost, nothing is insane about this chart except for perhaps the total carries. Toting the rock 32 times in a game is quite a lot. The 4.5 yards per rush is 0.2 yards above league average.

The chart has a ton of yellow lines, which are the steady carries and a healthy dose of green ones that are bigger gains. Similar to CPOE, you’ll see RYOE or Rushing Yards Over Expected. At +1, Cook was basically 100% in line with what data nerds expected from the game.

What does this all mean? A ton of carries that helped move the chains on a regular basis, but don’t necessarily break anyone’s back. Want a crazy stat to illustrate this? The Bills had 26 first downs on 74 offensive plays.

The Final Straw

What’s most remarkable to me about the game is that Buffalo did exactly what Pittsburgh should have expected. Without left tackle Dion Dawkins, right tackle Spencer Brown, and tight end Dalton Kincaid, and with all the other factors like I mentioned above, it should have been clear. Lean on the run game. Lean on the three starting linemen. If you’re going to pass, make it short and quick to avoid disasters.

Let’s face it. I’m no football strategy guru, and even I called it ahead of time. I have to imagine head coach Mike Tomlin knew it too. That means the remarkable thing is that the Bills simply out-executed the Steelers. Over, and over, and over again. You love to see it.