Aaron Rodgers said, “I know what you’re trying to ask, and I’m not going to go down that road at all. I believe in the coaching staff. I believe in Mike Tomlin. That’s why I came here. Players need to take accountability, myself included, and I will. I will continue to. I’ve got to play better. But there are 11 starters on offense, 11 on defense plus with the personnel groupings that we run. We’ve got Monday to Saturday, and we can be really proud of our best Monday to Saturday and go out and play our best game (next week) and take control of the division.”

T.J. Watt said, “Playmaking is what sets things off. When you’re not making plays, it sucks. We need to find ways to be able to make plays. I’ve never seen a team run the same play as much as they ran it tonight and have as much success as they had. I’m out of words for it.”

Coach Mike Tomlin said, “(We’re) not putting together 60 minutes of action. Certainly there are tangible things, things that you and I both see. But we’d better look at it and look at it hard because there’s usually something beneath the surface that’s producing that, particularly in the consistency with which it is occurring. The third quarter was awful. It was awful last week. So we’ve got to absorb the responsibility of that.”

None of those assessments were wrong, and that’s the problem. The Steelers had an opportunity on Sunday to take advantage of an opponent weakened by injuries, that wasn’t living up to its own expectations of itself, that seemed ripe for an upset. And with the game played at Acrisure Stadium it just seemed to line up the dominoes neatly. But instead of knocking down those dominoes, the Steelers were crushed by them.

The Buffalo Bills came to Pittsburgh and had their way with the Steelers. The numbers on the scoreboard read, 26-7, but the arithmetic that led to those was more definitive.

The Bills offense lined up without both starting tackles and TE Dalton Kinkaid, who is their MVP quarterback’s security blanket. And since a win over Kansas City almost a month ago, QB Josh Allen had been sacked 11 times and thrown 5 interceptions over a three-week span that included losses to Houston and Miami.

What the Steelers had learned from a steady string of challenges from running backs named Jonathan Taylor and Josh Jacobs and D’Andre Swift and Quinshon Judkins and TreVeyon Henderson and Chase Brown: If you stop the run then the defense will create opportunities for the kind of splash they need. Against Bills RB James Cook, the Steelers failed in alarming fashion.

Cook arrived as the NFL’s No. 2 rusher in every meaningful category, and since the guy he was behind was Jonathan Taylor there’s no way he was sneaking into the building. Mike Tomlin started talking about Cook publicly 5 days before the game, and it’s a safe bet Cook was a priority in all preparations because his numbers jumped off the page and demanded it.

But Cook had his way from the start. In the first quarter, he had 8 touches – 7 of which were runs – for 46 yards. By halftime it was 19 touches – 17 of which were runs – for 98 yards. After three quarters, it was 26 touches – 24 of which were runs – for 151 yards. At the end, it was 35 touches – 32 of which were runs – for 177 yards. Josh Allen passed for just 123 yards, and no eligible not named Cook had more than 3 catches or more than 28 yards.

“We knew that No. 4 (Cook) was a heckuva runner,” said Watt. “We knew he likes to bounce outside, knew he was an elite running back. Weren’t able to stop it tonight.”

No, the Steelers never did stop Cook, nor were they able to use their offense to create a game situation where the Bills were no longer in a position to simply hand him the football.

Buffalo received the opening kickoff, and in three first quarter possessions, the Bills turned it over once – a Brandin Echols interception – and punted twice. But since the Steelers offense managed only 2 first downs in their first quarter possessions, the period ended in a 0-0 tie. That kept Cook viable. But still, when the first half ended with the Steelers holding a 7-3 lead and due to receive the second half kickoff, they were every bit as viable.

Then came the third quarter that Tomlin labeled “awful.” On the first offensive snap of the half, Joey Bosa strip/sacked Rodgers and CB Christian Benford capped it with a 17-yard scoop-and-score. And an injury to Rodgers on the play added to the calamity.

With Rodgers getting medical attention on the sideline, Mason Rudolph was called upon and looked nothing like the guy who had played a lot of meaningful snaps in the two previous games. His first pass was incomplete. His second was intercepted by Benford to set up the Bills at their 44-yard line.

Cook then rushed for 46 of the 56 yards needed to get into the end zone, and in just a smidge over 6 minutes of the third period, a 7-3 Steelers lead had become a 16-7 deficit. When the mountain had grown to 23-7 with 14:08 remaining in the fourth quarter that pretty much sealed the outcome, and that outcome marked the third time during the slump of 4-1 to 6-5 where the Steelers had played worse than their opponent.

Aha. Clearly the Steelers problem is the lack of halftime adjustments.

“I think it’s kind of a misnomer for the most part,” said Rodgers. “Twelve minutes for halftime. Part of that time is coming back in. Part of that time is going back out. There’s not a whole lot that happens at halftime. There are conversations between myself and the linemen and conversations from position coaches, and coordinators talk. But there are not wholesale changes that need or should be made at halftime.

“There are little adjustments that you talk about, things you like, openers for the second half. But players, we’ve got to take accountability for our performance. Mine wasn’t good enough tonight. I’m sure there are other players as well who feel the same way.”

Once he retired, Peyton Manning made the same point in a colorful way. “I don’t know if I ever made a halftime adjustment during my entire 18-year career,” Manning said. “I think that’s the biggest myth in football. The halftime adjustments, right? You go in, you use the restroom, you eat a couple of oranges, then the head coach says, ‘All right, let’s go!'”

But because the 2025 NFL season has been such a week-to-week proposition, the Steelers are not out of it. What their 6-6 gets them is a tie for first place in the AFC North, and a date to break that tie with the Ravens on Sunday in Baltimore. And hey, these Ravens are coming off a loss to the Bengals at home where their offense scored 14 points against a Cincinnati defense that was allowing an average of 32.7 per.

I know that seems strange. But it’s true.