Steelers are last team to beat Patriots in game that counted
FOXBOROUGH, MASS. (AP) » When the New England Patriots unveil their sixth championship banner on Sunday night, the Pittsburgh Steelers will have a close-up view.
The last team to beat New England — in Week 15 last year — the Steelers missed the playoffs while the Patriots went back to the NFL title game for the second year in a row. Now, the only other franchise to win six Super Bowls will be in town for the defending champions’ season opener, as both teams begin their quest for a seventh.
“They are the world champs and we have to go to their place and do our best,” Pittsburgh quarterback Ben Roethlisberger said this week as he prepared to start his 16th NFL season. “I think it is cool to be a part of, honestly. You go out there and you watch it and you channel it to say, ‘OK, that needs to be us next year.’”
Himself a two-time champion,
Roethlisberger has watched some of his best chances to add another ring blocked by Tom Brady and Bill Belichick in New England. The Patriots have knocked Pittsburgh out of the playoffs twice in the Big Ben era (and another on their way to their first title in 2001).
This season they will meet in Week 1. And maybe again in January.
“Those are lofty goals,
and expectations are high for us and they’re high for them,” Brady said. “The NFL is tough. Every team starts at the bottom every year, and you can’t pick up where you left off last year. You have to earn it every day, and the competition has already started.”
Here are some other things to look for from Sunday night’s game: ABSENT RECEIVERS Brady, 42, and Roethlisberger, 37, keep on going. But they’ve lost two of their best targets.
New England tight end
RobGronkowski has retired, and Steelers receiver Antonio Brown wore out his welcome in Pittsburgh and was traded to Oakland for a relatively paltry third- and fifthround draft picks.
“Dynamic playmakers are going to come and go and others are going to rise and assume the roles,” Steelers coach Mike Tomlin said, adding that it was the same when the team lost Hines Ward, Mike Wallace and Santonio Holmes. “I’m sure, organizationally, New England feels the same way.”
Brown caught 686 passes
for 9,145 yards from 2013-18 — the most for a receiver in a six-year span — but Tomlin benched him for the finale last year and shipped him to Oakland in the offseason. The change in scenery doesn’t appear to have changed him: He showed up with frostbitten feet, and he has been fined $54,000 by the Raiders.
BOZ IS BACK
The Steelers held on to kicker Chris Boswell despite a rocky 2018 in which the former Pro Bowler made just 13 of 20field goals before ending the seasononinjuredreserve.