Brief flicker of hope goes up in smoke for Steelers
PITTSBURGH – Here it comes, there it goes. Just like that, the Steelers season came to a screeching halt before 58,797 paying customers at Heinz Field Sunday afternoon.
Just when you thought the Steelers were going to turn the corner, they ran smack into it. The injury was minimal, the impact could be devastating.
“Nothing ends,” Steelers coach Bill Cowher insisted after the game, in fact, ended with the Cincinnati Bengals ahead by four, 24-20. But Cowher has no choice.
He must continue to encourage his team to play as well as it can and to try to win the last four games. That, many believe, would salvage an 8-8 season. But, after such lofty aspirations followed this team through training camp and even though the first month of the regular season, 8-8 would be way below mediocre. Abysmal is what it would be. And that’s the most positive outcome the Steelers can achieve.
“Coming into the season and having the high expectations we had,” Joey Porter said, recalling those happy times, “we’re nowhere near where we thought we’d be.”
Sad, but true.
Cowher can’t say as much, nor can the players. But, face it. It’s over.
It would feel good (well, at least better) if the Steelers can scratch and claw their way back to .500, but what are the chances of that happening? This is, after all, a team that has yet to put together two wins. And they’re going for four?
When they look back on this disaster of a season, it will sink in to each and every one of them that they were knocked out by the Cincinnati Bengals, their long-time divisional doormat. That will hurt, once it sinks in.
As Cowher and countless players have said through the first 12 games, the Steelers had their chances against the Bengals on this chilly winter afternoon. Players who normally make plays had plenty of opportunities to do so, but didn’t.
James Farrior blew coverage on the game-clinching touchdown pass to somebody named Matt Schobel.
Jeff Reed got a kickoff up into the wind and cut the field in half prior to Cincinnati’s winning march.
Antwaan Randel El dropped a sure touchdown pass late in the second quarter.
The Steelers’ run defense, which many believe to be great (I’m not one of them) gave up a 16-yard run to a nobody named Brandon Bennett on his only carry of the game. It came with the game (and the season) on the line. All told, the Bengals ran for 113 yards, which isn’t great. It was, however, effective.
“We knew what was at stake at the end,” Joey Porter said. “But we thought we were ready to stop them. We had just taken the lead and our defense had just started playing up to our capabilities. We gave them two touchdowns already and we were ready to put down the hammer.”
Only instead of applying it to the Bengals, the Steelers hammered themselves. Into submission and out of the playoffs.
NFL football is a game of emotion and the Steelers were forced to experience the thrill of victory and the gut-wrenching agony of defeat within about five minutes of each other. They went from the high of a lead-snatching touchdown with 65 seconds remaining to the low of watching the Bengals not settle for a tying field goal, but grabbing them by their collective jugular and not letting go.
“You go through a lot of emotions,” Jerome Bettis said. “We were up pretty high one minute, but the letdown a minute later was like a drop to the floor.”
So, how do they do it? How do they continue showing up for work and give it their all when they know there isn’t a light at the end of this tunnel? That will be the trick.
Cowher won’t allow them to believe the playoffs are not a possibility, so until the math catches up with reality, they will have that glimmer of hope.
Other than that …
“The veterans have to let the younger players know that this is the hard part of this game,” Bettis said. “You’ve got to go forward, knowing that these are the toughest times you’ll have playing this game.”
That doesn’t sound like much fun. Nor is it very encouraging.
“We’ve got to see what the guys in this locker room are made of,” Bettis said. “We’ll find out a lot over the next four weeks.”
Not fun and not encouraging, but real, very real. Let’s see what these guys are made of. Time will tell us a lot about this team, maybe more than we care to know.
“It’s been that type of year for us,” Hines Ward said. “We’ve got to fight for our jobs right now. We want to finish strong.”
Which is exactly what they could not do against the Bengals.
Here it comes. There it goes.
Mike Ciarochi may be reached online at mciarochi@heraldstandard.com.