PITTSBURGH: Tears fell on Ben Roethlisberger’s face. Sitting on his bench on the bench, Maurkice Pouncey, one of his best friends and longtime teammates, also cried as the excitement spilled over.
The scoreboard they faced illuminated the unthinkable: their season was over and their career could be over as well.
After falling behind by four goals in the first half, the Pittsburgh Steelers were unable to complete the comeback Sunday night, falling to the Cleveland Browns in the 48-37 playoff round of wildcards. A promising 11-0 season reduced to 1-5 with a first-round start at home, with a final score that seemed closer than ever felt.
“We haven’t done enough,” coach Mike Tomlin said of the season-ending collapse. “We didn’t put them in good enough circumstances. We didn’t make enough plays, especially in critical moments. We were a group that died in the vineyard.”
Pouncey, a ten-year veteran, and Roethlisberger made a vow years ago to play while doing the other, and with the loss of Sunday night and a one-year contract, that day is much closer than ever. They sat on the bench long after their teammates left the field, talking and absorbing everything.
“I love this guy,” Roethlisberger said of Pouncey. “He’s one of the best competitors and teammates I’ve ever had. It’s been a lot of fun sharing a football field with him. I hate that he finished the same way. I just wanted to apologize to him for wanting to win it for him. “.
As Roethlisberger and Pouncey sat on the bench, a few Steelers approached the pair and shared a few moments with them. Wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster, who now enters free agency for the first time in his career, hugged his quarterback in tears.
“I’m very grateful to have him as a quarterback and I wouldn’t change that,” Smith-Schuster said of what he told Roethlisberger. “I told him I don’t know what plans and what you have planned for you, but I’m very grateful from the moment I walked in, the first day until Ben took me under his wing. Ben told me that ‘you fought a lot, you’re a warrior and thank you. “It was all just love.”
Roethlisberger, 38, threw 501 yards on 68 passing attempts with four touchdowns. But his four interceptions doomed the Steelers when they fell behind 28-0 in the first half.
From the start, the first shot of what could be the couple’s last game at Heinz Field didn’t follow the path they had hoped for. A quick blow from Pouncey overtook Roethlisberger’s header in the first play of the game. Roethlisberger and James Conner struggled to correct the loose ball, but neither made an effective play to secure it. Instead, the Browns took it and took a 7-0 lead with just 14 seconds left on the clock.
From there, the Browns worsened three more interceptions from Roethlisberger in the first half by 21 points to gain an ultimately insurmountable advantage, as the defense was unable to stop Nick Chubb and the Browns ’offense. The Steelers did not record a single sack or force a turnover. This season they are 1 to 4 when they have not billed.
“We blew it up,” defensive captain Cameron Heyward said. “I can’t sugar it. Look at the score. As a defender, we’ve given up too many points. And as a leader, as a leader of the defense, I’ve failed, unfortunately, and you know, it’s hard to lose. It’s hard to lose guys from our locker room they’ve done great things on and off the field. And you know, that unknown just kills me. To waste an opportunity like that and know we didn’t play our football brand and it sucks. “
Roethlisberger’s sad first half (20 of 30 passes for 177 yards and three interceptions) was an ugly echo of the first halves against the Cincinnati Bengals and Indianapolis Colts, when it looked like the future Hall of Fame was losing touch. Against the Colts, he found his groove for the comeback victory in the second half. Against the Browns, it was too late.
“It wasn’t good enough,” Roethlisberger said of his performances. “When you lose a game like this, you can look back and evaluate everything you want in the season, like you did during this game, this game, run, stretch. I mean, at some point we’ll look back on something together.
“But when it doesn’t end the way you want it to, you’ll always feel some kind of path, as if you’ve fallen short or it’s your fault.”
The Steelers began to increase after the half, beating the Browns 13-0, but Tomlin opted to play in the field position and bet on fourth and 1 from 46 to open the fourth quarter, effectively stopping the boost your team. The Browns scored on the next push to advance 42-23.
“We had a few stops, we wanted to fix them, maybe provide the short field for our offense,” Tomlin said. “We’ve had maybe two or three consecutive stops. I just wanted to keep the momentum in terms of positioning on the field. But we weren’t good enough to do that.”
With the loss, the Steelers have dropped three consecutive playoff games, including the 2017 loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars, when they conceded 45 points to the visitors.
“It’s what it is,” Tomlin said when asked about personal responsibility for postseason failures. “Our record is our record. Our performances are our performances. Don’t run away from that.”
Tomlin, who doesn’t have a regular losing season as a Steelers coach, only has a .500 mark in the postseason.
“We didn’t perform well enough tonight,” he said. “Not training, not playing. You can do it until the billing game. But we weren’t good enough in many other areas, communication, in terms of detail. It just wasn’t a good night for us. ‘only elimination tournaments, when you don’t have a good night, you go home.’
With the season over, Roethlisberger has an important decision coming up. He has one year left on his contract worth $ 41.2 million and has said before that if he doesn’t play in a way that helps his team, he will “hang on”.
After Sunday’s game, however, Roethlisberger said he had not yet made any decisions about his future.
“It’s going to start between God and me, a lot of prayers. A lot of conversations with my family, discussions, decisions. I still have a year left on my contract. I hope the Steelers want to get me back, if so go. There will be a lot of discussions, but now is not the time for that.
“This loss is new. Right now it is sitting in our heart and in our mind. It will do so for a while.”