STEELERS CAN’T BACK UP SWAGGER
Pittsburgh didn’t give the Jags much credit, but any team will take wins over kind words
Fluke? What fluke?
The Jacksonville Jaguars on Sunday shocked both a packed house at Heinz Field and the football world for the second time in four months, smashing the overconfident Pittsburgh Steelers again, this time 45-42, to advance to the AFC championship game.
The Jaguars play the New England Patriots next Sunday in Foxborough, Mass., for a spot in Super Bowl LII on Feb. 4 in Minneapolis.
Pittsburgh hadn’t lost a homefield NFL divisional playoff game since 1993, but the Steelers deserved this defeat.
For the past two months, they’ve been talking about how much they were looking forward to playing the Patriots again in the AFC title game after last year’s 44-21 loss. Such brazen, publicly expressed predictions and overconfidence are rare in the NFL for good reason: they often backfire.
It started with Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin, in a late November interview, saying if both the Steelers and Patriots do “what we’re supposed to do, the (AFC title game) is really going to be big.” He stood by those words, even after New England edged the Steelers in Pittsburgh last month.
Then a couple weeks ago, quarterback Ben Roethlisberger said he hoped to face the Jags in the playoffs. On Saturday night, after New England beat the Tennessee Titans to earn the right to host next week’s AFC title game, Steelers running back Le’Veon Bell tweeted about his “love” of playing in Round 2.
If all that wasn’t enough, a number of Jacksonville players said starting Pittsburgh free safety Mike Mitchell called out the Jaguars outside their lockerroom shortly before Sunday’s kickoff.
“Y’all gonna know my name,” Mitchell told the Jags, according to a New York Newsday report.
All this arrogance unfocused the Steelers and riled up the Jaguars.
It was on Oct. 8 that the Jaguars first demolished the Steelers in Pittsburgh 30-9, intercepting Roethlisberger five times and returning two for touchdowns, with rookie running back Leonard Fournette cramming it down Pittsburgh’s throat for his season-high of 181 yards.
This time, with temperatures of -8 C on a bright, but frigid, January afternoon for western Pennsylvania, the underdog Jags picked up where they left off.
They burst out to a 21-0 lead, withstood furious rallies by the Steelers as their own momentum crumbled and found their offensive rhythm again in the fourth quarter, scoring 17 points on their final three possessions to nail down the victory.
Fournette amassed 80 rushing yards by the time the Jags went up 21-0 at 3:29 into the second quarter — more than he’d rushed for in any full game but one in two months. The rookie hurt his ankle a few minutes later, which limited his effectiveness the rest of the game. Still, he finished with 109 yards and three touchdowns on 25 carries.
Roethlisberger was heroic for Pittsburgh, completing 37 of 58 for 469 yards and five touchdowns, the first four of which were pinpoint throws to blanketed receivers.
Steelers wideout Antonio Brown, in his first game in nearly a month after tearing his right calf, was spectacular. He caught seven passes for 132 yards against maybe the NFL’s best cornerback combo in Jalen Ramsey and A.J. Bouye, and scored twice with breathtaking catches of long Roethlisberger throws.
The Steelers narrowed their deficit to 28-14 by halftime, then to 28-21 by the end of the third quarter. On the second play of the fourth, the Steelers partly blocked a Brad Nortman punt to set up Roethlisberger and company at the Jacksonville 48-yard line.
It felt like the Steelers were about to take command.
But on one of the game’s pivotal plays a few moments later, Tomlin elected to go for it on fourth-and-one at the Jags’ 39, presumably O King a pass play featuring two deep routes — moves that informed the Jaguars that the Steelers did not respect their offence anymore because who cares if they get the ball back there, and that Pittsburgh’s coaches felt at least one of receivers Brown and rookie Ju Ju Smith-Schuster could beat either Ramsey or Bouye.
Ramsey took away the Brown fly-pattern option and Bouye was all over Smith-Schuster when Roethlisberger finally had to pick one and throw. Bouye broke it up.
From there, the Jaguars offence caught fire. Quarterback Blake Bortles suddenly found the confidence again to throw to, and hit, receivers up field, and Fournette started denting the Steelers defence again.
“We did not play well enough today,” Tomlin said. “We did not coach well enough today. The effort was there, the resolve was there, but just not enough detail execution to win versus good people in January football, and that’s about the only way to cut it.”
Had his team paid too much mind to a matchup with the Patriots?
“No,” Tomlin insisted. “This (Jacksonville) team whacked us good in October. You kidding me? We realize this is a good football team. They played better than we did today.”
Jaguars defensive end Calais Campbell tried to return the compliment, saying of the Steelers: “We knew they were a great team. They’re a really good team, and they were deserving to be here, and—”
D-line mate Marcell Dareus cut him off right there, inserting himself into the scrum of reporters to admonish Campbell.
“Stop saying, ‘Great team.’ ” Dareus said. “You can’t say they were a great team, ’cause they got their ass whipped again.”
The effort was there, the resolve was there, but just not enough detail execution to win versus good people in January football.