NFL Schedule: Steelers will face Bills on the road in Week 1 of 2021 season
By Tommy Jaggi
The Buffalo Bills will host the Pittsburgh Steelers in Week 1 of the regular season. Here’s what you need to know about the 2021 schedule.
The official 2021 NFL schedule is not going to be released until 8:00 PM Eastern Time, but the Week 1 game was released early Wednesday morning ESPN NFL Insider Field Yates broke the news. According to Yates, the Pittsburgh Steelers will travel to Buffalo to face the Bills for a 1:00 PM game in Week 1 of the 2021 season.
We have seen the Steelers open with some pretty big games in the past. In 2019, Mike Tomlin took his team to the road to face the New England Patriots – a game in which Pittsburgh would be humiliated with a 33-3 blowout loss. Two straight years before that, the Steelers opened with road games against the Cleveland Browns.
Remarkably, this will be the seventh straight year in which the Steelers will be forced to open the season on the road. The last time they did not is when they faced Cleveland in the opener of the 2014 season.
Steelers have a very tough task vs. Bills
This is not going to be an easy game for the Steelers. The Bills are coming off a 13-3 record as a legitimate Super Bowl-contending team last season. Just two years ago, Buffalo was a 6-10 team and quarterback Josh Allen threw just 10 touchdowns and 12 interceptions in 11 starts.
Fast forward two years, and a lot has changed. Allen is now considered to be one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL. His team is coming off a 13-3 season in which he threw for 4,544 yards, 37 touchdowns and just 10 interceptions. In addition, Allen punched in another 8 scores on the ground last year.
Allen’s 45 total touchdowns grossly outpaced any season Ben Roethlisberger has ever had, and he is still just 24 years old. In the 2020 postseason alone, Allen threw for 817 yards with 5 touchdowns and just 1 interception.
The Steelers should be a competitive team again in 2021. But while Pittsburgh’s roster may be in decline, the Bills seem to be one of the fastest-rising teams in the league.
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This Week 1 matchup between the Steelers and the Bills could have huge playoff implications down the line, and there’s nothing like facing one of the league’s most challenging opponents from the gate. Circle this one on your calendar, folks. It’s going to be fun!