New York Post
http://www.nypost.com
January 24, 2011
PITTSBURGH -- One more time, here came the Jets, bearing down on Ben Roethlisberger, chasing him, pestering him. And one more time Roethlisberger, a brick wall with feet, proved impossible to pin down, impossible to contain.One more time he danced out of the pocket, buying time, waiting for a covered receiver to become uncovered, waiting for the Jets to blink. This was the Jets' season, reduced to one play. Get to the quarterback. Cover the receiver. Make a stop -- make one stop -- and keep the season from tumbling into a funeral pyre.
"I thought we were going to make the play," David Harris, the Jets' terrific young linebacker, said later. "I always think we're going to make the play."
But that's the gift of Roethlisberger: Sometimes, even when you do make the play, he refuses to surrender. It was third down, 6 yards to go. Two minutes to play. The Jets had trailed 24-0; now it was 24-19. There were 66,662 people in the stands who had started celebrating an AFC championship with a minute left in the first half; now they were as solemn as a confessional.
"All year long," Rex Ryan said, "we've asked our defense to make a play, give our offense a chance. I believed that's what would happen now."
Roethlisberger hadn't been the sharpest thorn in the Jets' thighs; they'd contained him fine, intercepted him twice, rushed him plenty. It was Roethlisberger's running backs who flummoxed the Jets on the way to 24-0, a greatest-hits collection of missed tackles and treadmarks left by a banged-up Steelers line.
And somehow, with the season practically buried, with the game all but over, with television sets all across America clicking on to something else, the Jets had risen. They'd kicked a late field goal to close the first half, added a quick touchdown, Mark Sanchez finding Santonio Holmes on a gorgeous 45-yard scoring strike to open the second half.
They had recovered from a horrific goal-line failure by forcing a sack for a safety, and adding a touchdown. Somehow, it all seemed perfectly poetic. How often had they won games precisely like this, spotting an opponent too many points and making up the deficit anyway, often in spectacular fashion?
Of course they would do it now.
"One more stop," Darrelle Revis said. "One lousy stop. That's all we needed."
On the sidelines, Ryan's face contorted with each Roethlisberger step, each stride, each second burned as he kept scanning the field. Ryan believed the Steelers would run the ball; even when they showed an empty backfield, he figured on a quarterback draw. Nine out of 10 teams, nine out of 10 times, run the ball there.But the Steelers are the Steelers. They are 15 AFC Championship Game appearances since 1972, they are six Lombardi Trophies, they are Franco Harris and Rocky Bleier, the two legends du jour they trotted out for the opening coin flip.
And they are Roethlisberger. Maybe you can't ever like him quite the same way again because of his off-field calamities. But there's a reason the Rooneys kept him around, even if it made them hold their noses. It was for plays like the second-and-9 play a few seconds before, a first-down toss to Heath Miller that put the Jets in this perilous bind. And it was for now.
The Jets had the Steelers receivers blanketed. Then Antonio Brown shook free from Harris, and before he could ever wave for the ball it was in his arms, and he was on the ground, and past the first-down marker, and the Heinz Field crowd exhaled with a roar that shook the place -- quite literally -- to its foundation. On the sidelines, a crestfallen Ryan removed his headset, slammed it to the grass. The Steelers were going to the Super Bowl.
The Jets were going home.
"We're gonna keep chasing this thing," Ryan vowed later, his voice cracking a hundred different ways with a hundred different emotions. "We're gonna chase it until we get there."
Ryan meant the Super Bowl, but he could have meant Roethlisberger. And he will need to take out one before he ever gets to the other.
michael.vaccaro@nypost.com
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