The Pittsburgh Steelers weren’t good enough against the Buffalo Bills Sunday. While they had the lead to end the first half, they ended up getting crushed. The game looked like it was over in the third quarter. Bills head coach Sean McDermott credited Patrick Queen’s late hit on Josh Allen for firing Buffalo up.

“It definitely caused a stir on our sideline,” McDermott said after the Bills’ 26-7 win via the team’s Twitter. “That was nose-to-nose, nobody backing down. They weren’t backing down, we weren’t backing down. We came to play. You hit our quarterback like that, you’re gonna spark our team a little bit.”

The play in question came with around three minutes left in the second quarter. Allen escaped the pocket and avoided the grasp of T.J. Watt. Then, he went to slide, and Queen laid a shoulder into him while he was on the ground.

While the play didn’t draw a flag, it’s a clear example of a late hit. Of course, that ticked off the Bills, and they took their anger out on the Steelers for the rest of the game.

There weren’t many bright spots for Pittsburgh after that. The Bills went on to kick a field goal on that drive, which essentially ended the first half. Following that, they siezed control of the game. Joey Bosa recorded a strip-sack on Aaron Rodgers that was returned for a touchdown on the first play of the game, and Mason Rudolph was intercepted on the Steelers’ next drive while Rodgers was getting treated for a bloody nose.

It was basically as ugly as it could get for the Steelers, and McDermott points to Queen’s play as the turning point. Something similar happened in the Steelers’ previous game.

Jalen Ramsey delivered a big hit to Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams in Week 12. However, it wasn’t as egregious as Queen’s hit on Allen. Williams was still in bounds, and Ramsey pushed him out of bounds. It was a completely legal play.

That doesn’t mean it didn’t fire the Bears up. And HC Ben Johnson said that hit gave the Bears “another spark.” That’s basically the same thing that McDermott said.

That’s another example of the Steelers’ defense hurting itself. That unit has been bad this year. The Bills ran for almost 250 yards Sunday, completely dominating the Steelers on the ground. Things have been rough for the team recently, and if the Steelers want to make the playoffs, they’re going to need to turn things around fast.