What now for Steelers? Back to work
PITTSBURGH — The Steelers sit at 5-8 after Sunday’s 34-28 loss to Miami and must win out just to get back to .500 for the second season in a row.
As you might imagine, the locker room was full of disappointment at another opportunity lost. Another chance to win a meaningful football game gone by the wayside.
So, where does the team go from here?
Back to work, of course.
“We have to continue to get better,” said wide receiver Antonio Brown, who became the second player in franchise history to catch 90 passes in a season (Hines Ward did it four times). “We have a division opponent coming into our house next week, on Sunday night. I’m sure everybody’s feeling like me and they are going to come in ready to get better, as we prepare for Cincinnati.
That would be the soon-to-be-crowned AFC North Division Champion Cincinnati Bengals, a winner Sunday over Indianapolis. But the Steelers can beat the Bengals.
That’s the most frustrating thing about this team. The Steelers believe they can beat any team in the NFL and rightfully so. They just haven’t found their way to accomplishing it eight out of 13 times.
Jerricho Cotchery was asked about the last play of the game, which ended when Brown stepped out of bounds on the Miami 12-yard line. It was, he said, kind of a microcosm of this 2013 season.
“We just came up short,” Cotchery said. “It was a great effort at the end. That’s kind of how it’s been, you know? We keep coming up short. We make some plays here and there, but not enough.”
Sunday, the Steelers ran the ball well in the first, then abandoned the run and passed it well in the second half. Meanwhile, the defense was giving up more big plays and keeping Miami in the game before putting them in the driver’s seat.
The Steelers, believe it or not, have not been mathematically eliminated from the last wildcard playoff berth. It likely will come down to a battle between Baltimore and Miami, but stranger things have happened. So, like it or not, the Steelers have no choice but to keep doing most of what they have been doing.
“We aren’t going to quit,” quarterback Ben Roethlisberger said. “We are going to keep playing, come back tomorrow and get ready to go. We are going to give it everything we have every day. There isn’t going to be any quit from anybody.”
In other parts of the locker room, other players on both sides of the ball were saying basically the same things. As Yogi Berra once put it, “It ain’t over ’til it’s over.”
Cortez Allen summed it up quickly: “We have Cincinnati next weekend,” he said. “That’s the focus.”
To LaMarr Woodley said basically what Berra said many years ago, but he said it a bit more eloquently. “We have to take care of these last three games and, hopefully, something happens,” Woodley said.
They likely need a whole lot of somethings to fall into place, but all they can do is win and hope.
Sports editor Mike Ciarochi may be reached at mciarochi@heraldstandard.com.