By Dan Shaughnessy
December 17, 2017
Jesse James had this fourth-quarter touchdown catch overturned (Don Wright/AP)
PITTSBURGH — When, oh when, will they ever learn?
When it comes to Patriots-Steelers, the Patriots will always win. It doesn’t matter if the game appears to have gone the other way. It doesn’t matter if the Steelers are playing at home and seem to have scored a winning touchdown with only 34 seconds remaining.
In the end, the Patriots will come into Steeltown and they will cut the Steelers’ hearts right out of their puffed-up chests. And they will send Pittsburgh’s proud fans into pigskin therapy.
It helps, of course, when you have Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski — a Ruth-Gehrig-like combo on this Sunday afternoon/evening. It helps when you have Bill Belichick looking across the field, never panicking, simply waiting for the other guys to step on their shoelaces or some other appendage. It helps when you have Mike Tomlin, ever looking like a deer in the headlights, and Ben Roethlisberger ending the bizarro game with an heinous act of stupidity.
I mean, why not throw a forced slant pass on the goal line in the final seconds against New England? Pete Carroll can tell you that’s a time-tested formula for success.
“This was 500 times worse than the play Seattle made in the Super Bowl,’’ quipped former NFL quarterback Scott Zolak.
The Patriots emasculated the Steelers and their rain-soaked fans Sunday, shocking the AFC’s top-seeded team, 27-24, and altering the upcoming playoffs in a fashion ever-favorable to the Kraft Athletic Club.
It was, even by the lofty standards of Patriot thrillers through the years, one of the very best and most memorable football games of this entire Brady-Belichick dynasty. It was perhaps the best of all regular-season games. The Patriots trailed for much of the day as the Steelers controlled the ball and the clock. It looked like it was over after a Dion Lewis TD and a Brady-to-Gronk 2-point conversion pass gave the Patriots a 27-24 lead with only 56 seconds left . . . but we were just getting started.
New England’s defense collapsed after the go-ahead touchdown, allowing a 69-yard pass-and-run play that moved the Steelers to the Patriots’ 10. At that point, it was safe to say that a tie was the worst the Steelers could do.
But no. These are the Patriots. They get the benefit of the Tuck Rule. They get Carroll refusing to give the ball to Marshawn Lynch. They get the Falcons losing their minds after taking a 28-3 lead. And Sunday they got a surefire touchdown called back because of the NFL’s tricky catch rule. Pittsburgh’s Jesse James appeared to score a winning TD with 34 seconds left, but it was reviewed and denied. James momentarily lost possession (sort of) after his hands came down with the ball on the TD side of the goal line.
So the touchdown was erased. The Steelers would settle for a chip-shot field goal. Or so we thought . . .
And then Roethlisberger, who should know better, rushed, went into confusion mode, got bad advice in his headset, threw the ball into coverage, and had the pass tipped by Eric Rowe, then caught Duron Harmon, making the Patriots winners.
Follow the bouncing football. Roethlisberger to Rowe to Harmon. Tinker to Evers to No Chance for Pittsburgh.
“You saw it all tonight,’’ said Patriots safety Devin McCourty.
“The emotions were up and down,’’ said All-World Gronkowski (nine catches for 168 yards). “A roller coaster. Down. Up. Down. Then boom. The ride ended very well.’’
When it was over, stunned Steelers fans felt the game was stolen from them. Any group of fans would have felt the same way. It’s a stupid rule. James’s TD should have been a TD just like Brady’s fumble should have been a fumble when he was stripped by Oakland’s Charles Woodson back in January of 2002.
The sum total of all this is that the Patriots went from being the No. 3 seed to being the No. 1 seed in the AFC. In a Pittsburgh Minute.
New England clinched its ninth straight AFC East title (which has the same degree of difficulty as signing up for Facebook), assured itself a first-round bye (unless something unexpected happens against the Jets and Bills the next two weekends), and set up a potential AFC Championship rematch IN FOXBOROUGH with these same poor Steelers on Jan. 21. Oh, and Brady (11-2 lifetime vs. Pittsburgh) probably copped the league MVP award, especially now that Steelers wideout Antonio Brown (calf) will miss the rest of the regular season.
Given the Patriots’ good luck, Brown will probably miss the playoffs, too. That’s just the way it goes for the Patriots.
Shell-shocked Tomlin took only three questions before stalking off from his postgame news conference.
“It’s really irrelevant how I feel about it,’’ he said, when asked about having the winning TD taken off the board. “I’m not going to cry over spilled milk and all of that crap and talk about replay. I ain’t doing it.’’
When Belichick was asked about “being lucky,’’ the coach quipped, “Just competing for 60 minutes.’’
That said, it’s no accident that the Patriots were prepared for Roethlisberger’s insane play.
“The fake spike is something we see all the time in practice,’’ said McCourty.
Of course they do. When you are the Patriots, you always prepare for the inevitable moment when the opponent loses his mind.
And then you pounce. And you win. And the beaten foes shake their fists and cry into the night after you have cut their hearts out once again.
Dan Shaughnessy is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at dshaughnessy@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @dan_shaughnessy.
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