DEJA OOOH!
For the fifth time in 11 years, the Steelers come to the final Sunday of the season needing help to make the playoffs. But this story line goes back (so) much further than that.
PICTURED: Terrell Edmunds and Roosevelt Nix watch the end of the 2018 finale between the Browns and Ravens on the Heinz Field video board — a game that determined the Steelers playoff fate.
The eyes of Steelers fans will be on Houston Sunday afternoon, just like they were 42 years ago when the Steelers needed the Oilers to beat the Bengals in order for the Steelers to qualify for the playoffs following the 1977 season. The Oilers came through, and the Steelers extended their playoff streak to six consecutive years.
Now how’s this for irony: the Steelers need the old Oilers, who relocated to Tennessee 22 years ago, to lose to the new Houston team in order to make it into the playoffs.
The Tennessee Titans travel to Houston to face the Texans Sunday in a game that will go a long way toward determining if the Steelers are home for the playoffs for the second year in a row or participating in them. If the Titans win, they’ll seize the final playoff spot in the AFC. But, if the Titans lose, the Steelers can qualify if they beat the Ravens. There are some other long-shot scenarios for the Steelers to quali fy if they and the Titans lose, but the easiest — and most likely — way involves the two franchises that were born in Houston.
But what else is new? Week 17 of the NFL season means only one thing in Pittsburgh: nail-biting time.
The Steelers ought to be used to this by now. It’s become part of their DNA.
Final-week dramatics have become part of the franchise’s fabric. In 1989, the Steelers needed four results to go their way on the final weekend of the regular season. They got the help they needed and made the playoffs. It was one of only four times in NFL history that a team needing four results to fall their way on the final weekend made the postseason.
But the odds are stacked against the Steelers. Since the 1970 merger, about threequarters of the teams that controlled their own playoff fate entering the final weekend of the season qualified while teams that needed two results to go in their favor only made it about one-third of the time.
This will be the fifth time since 2009 the Steelers enter the final weekend needing help to make the playoffs. They won their games on each of the previous four occasions, but they only got the help they needed from other teams once in that time. In 2015, the Buffalo Bills upset the New York Jets to secure the No. 6 seed for the Steelers after they won in Cleveland.
As a show of thanks, the Steelers sent the Bills boxes of Primanti’s sandwiches.
“Is that the year Succop missed?” defensive end Cam Heyward asked.
No, that was 2013 when former Kansas City Chiefs kicker Ryan Succop missed a 41-yard field goal against the then-San Diego Chargers that prevented the Steelers from making the playoffs. The Chargers made it instead. The date was Dec. 29, 2013 — six years to the day for the regular-season finales this season.
Ironically, Succop began this season as the Titans kicker, but he’s now on injured reserve.
“All I know is we’ve been in this position way too many times,” Heyward said. “All I can remember is us taking care of our business. I know you have to look around and hope for stuff to happen, but if we don’t take care of our business, it’s a long shot. With all that crazy stuff, when things have to add up, my main goal is we have to go forward and stay on the task at hand.”
In 1977, after the Oilers beat the Cincinnati Bengals, Steelers players took up a collection and purchased leather attaché cases for
Oilers players and their coaching staff as a show of thanks for helping the Steelers get to the postseason.
The Steelers have plenty of connections in Houston who might be able to help motivate their teammates. T.J. Watt’s brother, J.J., plays for the Texans.
“I was a Texans fan for eight years growing up, so I’ll be a Texans fan again on Sunday,” he said.
Heyward is good friends with Texans corner Bradley Roby. They grew up on the same street outside Atlanta and played together at Ohio State.
“We’ve got some guys down there that can hopefully get the job done,” Heyward said.
The Texans might not have a lot of motivation of their own. They clinched the AFC South Division title last week and likely will be the No. 4 seed in the AFC playoffs. The only way they can become the No. 3 seed if they win and the Chiefs lose to the now Los Angeles Chargers.
Texans coach Bill O’Brien said early in the week that he wasn’t going to rest his starters and was playing to win
the game, but he’ll know if the No. 3 seed is on the line by the time his game starts. The Chiefs and Chargers play at 1 p.m. If the Chiefs lose, it could come down to the Texans deciding if they want to play the Titans for the third time in a month or the Steelers. If the Chiefs win, the Texans would be locked into the No. 4 seed and would play the Bills in their first playoff game.
The Super 1970s Steelers didn’t show their thanks to the Oilers on the field. In 1978 and 1979, the Steelers beat the Oilers in the AFC championship en route to their third and fourth Super Bowl victories. Bum Phillips, head coach of those “Luv Ya Blue” Oilers, famously said after the second title game loss: “One year ago we knocked on the door. This year we beat on the door. Next year we’re gonna kick the son of a bitch in.”
Phillips was fired after the following season, and the Oilers didn’t break through that door until 20 years later. By then they were in Tennessee and renamed the Titans, who lost to the Rams in Super Bowl XXXIV. It remains their only Super Bowl appearance.
NFL Red Zone will never be more popular in
Pittsburgh than Sunday, and Steelers fans, just as they did 42 years ago, will be rooting for Houston.
The Titans (and old Oilers) have been in control of their playoff fate eight times since the 1970 merger. They qualified for the playoffs on seven of those occasions. The only time they missed was last season when they lost to the Indianapolis Colts on their home field.
The Colts got into the playoffs instead and won their wild-card game in Houston before bowing out in the divisional round to the Chiefs. The Steelers did the same in 2015 after the Bills lent a helping hand. They beat the Bengals in a wild-card game, and had the Denver Broncos on the ropes in the divisional round before Peyton Manning led a late fourth-quarter comeback.
The reason the Broncos came back?
It’s Roby, who was a second-year corner for the Broncos then. He forced running back Fitzgerald Toussaint to fumble midway through the fourth quarter when the Steelers were driving and trying to add onto their lead. The Broncos went down and scored instead and won, 23-16.
Now there is a scenario where Roby can help the Steelers and keep Succop from earning a playoff check. You know what Steelers fans would call that?
Justice from the football gods.
“You just have to get in the dance,” Heyward said. “I know coach [Dick] LeBeau always used to say, ‘Let’s just get to the poker table.’ It doesn’t matter how we get there as long as we get there. Then let’s see if we can run the table.”