By Mike Tanier
December 11, 2018
Robert Quinn (94) sacks Tom Brady during the first half of the NFL game at Hard Rock Stadium on December 9, 2018 in Miami Gardens, Florida. (Staff Photo By Matt Stone/ Boston Herald)
It was time for Tom Brady to slip the dagger between the Dolphins' ribs and give it one of his patented swift twists.
The Dolphins were putting up a spirited fight, trailing 27-21 before halftime. But the Patriots defense just knocked Ryan Tannehill out of the game and blocked its second punt of the half, giving Brady and the offense the ball deep in Dolphins territory, and a toss to Rob Gronkowski made it 1st-and-goal at the 2-yard line with 21 seconds left (but no timeouts after they took their last of the half following the play). Surely, Brady would put an end to this Dolphins uprising and seize control of the game.
Instead of halting a two-game skid, Pittsburgh lost 24-21 to one of the worst teams in the league, blowing an opportunity to gain ground and playoff tiebreakers against the Patriots and placing themselves at risk of losing the AFC North, if not more.
Like the Pats, the Steelers just don't have that old killer instinct anymore
Basic instincts
"Killer instinct" is a hoary old sports cliche, the kind of metaphor we use to lionize or criticize instead of analyze. It's one of those imaginary sports forces like "momentum" and "swagger:" lazy mythmaking for casual fans who don't want to hear elaborate scouting reports or complicated situational breakdowns.
But it's also convenient shorthand for the many little things plaguing the Patriots and Steelers late in their life cycles as perennial contenders.
Brady threw the ball away in the face of a blitz on first down. No worries: a heads-up, veteran play.
Brady overthrew Chris Hogan in the face of another blitz on second down. No biggie: There's no shame in a pre-halftime field goal.
Brady pump-faked and hesitated on third down. Gronk was double-covered. His other receivers were smothered. The pass rush converged, Robert Quinn swatted, and Brady did the one thing he could not do in that situation: He took a sack that killed the clock and ended the half.
A field goal there would have given the Patriots a nine-point lead and, as the game turned out, enough of a cushion to make them impervious to the Miami Miracle, Drake Escape or whatever you want to call the schoolyard double lateral that allowed the Dolphins to win on the final play.
But the Patriots just don't have that old killer instinct anymore. ...
A few hours later and 3,000 miles away, the Steelers also found a way to turn a potential win into a befuddling loss.
The Raiders committed 13 penalties for 130 yards Sunday. All of their drives seemed to start at 1st-and-20. Having taken a 10-7 second-quarter lead almost despite themselves, they obligingly helped the Steelers move the ball down to the 15-yard line by committing a pair of facemask penalties.
Time for Ben Roethlisberger-to-Antonio Brown to get a belated blowout rolling, right?
Wrong. Big Ben took a sack in the red zone, Chris Boswell missed a short field goal and the Steelers dedicated themselves to playing down to their opponent for the rest of the afternoon. If the Raiders sacked and flagged themselves into 3rd-and-25 on one drive, the Steelers threw a zero-yard pass on 4th-and-1 on the next. When the Raiders fumbled, the Steelers answered with an interception.
Clinton McDonald (97) sacks Ben Roethlisberger in the first half of Sunday's game in Oakland (Ben Margot/AP)
The Steelers defense is vulnerable over the short middle of the field. Too many linebackers (L.J. Fort, mainly) and slow safeties (Morgan Burnett, mostly) get stuck in coverage mismatches. Their offense lives and dies by big plays and sometimes disappears for halves at a time, and their special teams are a disaster.
The Patriots are dinking and dunking through Brady's early-twilight season, and opponents are catching on to their unwillingness to throw deep. Their defense lacks speed—as the sight of Kenyan Drake streaking down the field on the final play (with Gronk, of all people, in pursuit as a deep safety) illustrates—and can be gashed against the run by teams that don't fall too far behind too fast.
The Steelers need lots of highlight-reel plays and a little luck to win games. The Patriots need to efficiently roll up early leads and force opponents to become one-dimensional. (Or, when facing the Vikings, Jedi mind-trick opponents into becoming one-dimensional.)
Both formulas still work, more often than not, which is why the Patriots and Steelers lead their divisions.
But there used to be something more: that feeling Brady or Roethlisberger could go into deity mode whenever it was necessary, the confidence that the Patriots or Steelers defense would clamp down on weak opponents and make last-minute comeback drives or Stanford Band miracles impossible.
The Patriots and Steelers weren't just upset Sunday. They were upset by teams that weren't playing very well. They lost because they left gift-wrapped opportunities to win on the field. The Patriots allowed long touchdowns to guys named Brice Butler and Brandon Bolden while settling for field goals down the stretch of a close game. The Steelers allowed guys like Jared Cook and Marcell Ateman to gain more receiving yards than Antonio Brown.
They both lost because that ability to deliver the knockout blow, however you choose to define it, went missing.
Kill or be killed
Sunday wasn't just a bad day for the Pats and Steelers but also for other top contenders hoping to twist that dagger.
• The Rams hoped to pull ahead of the NFC field but contracted a bad case of frostbite in Chicago. It's hard to assert yourself as the NFL's team to beat when your quarterback's teeth are chattering and throws are wobbling just because the temperature dropped (a little bit) below freezing.
• The Texans took an early lead against the Colts and then let Andrew Luck and T.Y. Hilton pick apart their secondary while their own offensive line buckled in a 24-21 loss. If you felt the Texans were paper contenders taking advantage of an easy schedule during their nine-game winning streak, Sunday's loss only confirmed your theory.
• The Cowboys demonstrated a killer instinct against the Eagles, but it took some weird calls and bobbled balls to make it happen. The Saints blocked a punt and scored 17 fourth-quarter points to overcome and pull away from the Buccaneers, but it was more like grinding butchery than an elegant coup de grace.
Making too much of the whole "killer instinct" thing can lead to silly conclusions. The Rams and Saints are still the top teams in the NFC. The Cowboys and Bears (who upset the Rams) are tough but flawed. The Texans…yeah, maybe there is something to that "overrated" thing.
The one contender that definitely proved its mettle Sunday was the Chiefs. The Ravens threw Lamar Jackson and the kitchen sink at them. The Chiefs responded with a Patrick Mahomes no-look pass, critical fourth-down conversions, a late-game strip-sack and an overtime defensive stop.
The Chiefs also allowed the Ravens to stay close for the whole game and take a fourth-quarter lead; again, this whole "killer instinct" thing can be as much about hindsight wisdom as reality.
But the Super Bowl is typically won by a team that did what was necessary to secure a bye week and home-field advantage in tough late-season games. The Chiefs did what was necessary Sunday, as did the Saints. The Steelers, Patriots and others did not.
Survival instincts
The Steelers host the Patriots next Sunday. Unless there's a tie, the winning team might claim to have rediscovered its killer instinct, swagger, momentum, magical salad dressing or whatever you choose to call it.
But there's more to it than that.
The Patriots and Steelers must demonstrate that they can beat the Chiefs in a postseason rematch. That their offenses won't bumble and collapse when Joey Bosa/Melvin Ingram or J.J. Watt/Jadeveon Clowney come calling. That they won't mismanage the clock, get gashed in the running game or expose their linebackers in coverage in a stunning loss to some wild-card upstart like the Ravens or Colts.
The Patriots and Steelers must prove that their playoff experience can overcome their mounting shortcomings, that their leaders—Brady, Roethlisberger, Bill Belichick, Mike Tomlin, Gronk, Brown—still have the capacity to elevate their games when it matters.
That's what the "killer instinct" is all about: that sense of inevitability that the Patriots and Steelers will pounce and clobber you the moment you make one mistake.
That feeling has been absent for long stretches this year. And all it will take is another loss or two for either team to lose it forever.
Mike Tanier covers the NFL for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter: @MikeTanier.
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