Steelers’ defense falls apart in loss to Saints
NEW ORLEANS – The Steelers offense came to life, but the defense couldn’t hold up its end of the bargain in Pittsburgh’s 32-29 loss to the New Orleans Saints Sunday at the Superdome. “That was a very poor defensive effort,” coach Bill Cowher said. “We gave up too many big plays.”
The Steelers fell to 1-3 a quarter of the way through the season, while the Saints improved to 3-1.
New Orleans hit a 64-yard pass play and Deuce McAllister busted loose for a 52-yard touchdown run. The Saints also scored the game’s first 13 points, meaning the Steelers spent another Sunday battling back, instead of working with a lead.
“I’d like to see what this offense could do if we had a lead,” Cowher said. “I think the offense took some big strides today. You score 29 points, you should win the football game.”
“It’s tough to put yourself in a situation where the offense played well enough to win, but we lost anyway,” linebacker Joey Porter said. “Those guys really stepped up their game today and we let them down, but we’ll be back.”
“We can’t afford to lose anymore,” receiver Hines Ward said. “I’m tired of losing. We did do some good things in the running game and we kept the passing game going, but none of that really matters because it wasn’t enough.”
Quarterback Tommy Maddox played well in his first start in over a decade, but he couldn’t enjoy it because the team didn’t win.
“It felt good just to be out there playing, but it never feels good to lose a game,” Maddox said. “We may have scored 29 points, but it was good enough. I’d settle for scoring six if they only score three.
“I’m proud of everybody who was in there playing, though, because we were battling right to the end. We were fighting on both sides of the ball.”
Safety Lee Flowers took the blame for what was one of the defense’s worst games in years.
“We let the team down today,” Flowers said. “We’re scoring points now on offense and we have to pick up our game on defense. We need to step it up. We lost this game and we’ve got to take the blame for it. There is no excuse. We played like crap today.”
The Saints jumped out early on two of John Carney’s four field goals and a 15-yard Aaron Brooks touchdown pass to Jerome Pathon. Pittsbugh came back with a 77-yard drive that was capped by Maddox’s 20-yard TD pass to Plaxico Burress that made it a 13-7 game.
Brooks then hooked up with Pathon on a 64-yard pass play that set up Deuce McAllister’s 1-yard TD run to inhcrease New Orleans’ lead to 19-7.
“He got me on a double-move,” cornerback Chad Scott said, referring to Pathom’s 64-yard reception. “They played off my aggressiveness. The whole game seemed slow today. They kind of lulled us, then took advantage of it. I just really didn’t really play that well today.”
The Steelers came back to make it 19-14 with an 80-yard drive hat was capped by Maddox’s 2-yard scoring pass to Ward. It was originally ruled incomplete, but overturned by an official’s review, which showed Ward made the catch, then hit the pylon with the football on his way to the ground.
Then, early in the third quarter, McAllister broke the Steelers’ back with a 52-yard run off right guard.
“We overpursued on McAllister’s run,” Cowher said. “He made a good play there, but we had some breakdowns that we’re going to have to correct.”
After that play, John Fiala replaced Larry Foote at inside linebacker, but the damage already had been done. The inside linebacker situation will clear up as soon as Kendrell Bell is able to get back from an ankle injury. Cowher said Bell might be able to play Sunday, when the Steelers visit Cincinnati.
Still, the Steelers kept battling back. Jerome Bettis scored on a 6-yard run to cut New Orleans’ lead to 26-21 with six minutes remaining in the third quarter. John Carney added field goals from 31 and 48 yards out to boost the Saints’ lead to 32-21.
The Steelers scored late, with Maddox passing to Terance Mathis for a touchdown and to Ward for the 2-point conversion to make it 32-29. However, the Saints recovered Todd Peterson’s onside kick and ran out the clock.
“We’ve talked about this a lot, but we have to start doing something about it,” Cowher said of the defense’s woes. “We’ve got to go out on defense and set the tempo. We’ve got to make plays and get off the field.”