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AFC championship game:
Steelers 23, Ravens 14

By Mike Batista
Steelahs.com
January 19, 2009

It was happening again.

Another home loss in the AFC championship game was taking shape.

The Steelers led the Ravens 13-0 in the first half, but then started trading touchdowns for field goals. They led 13-7 at halftime, and I tried to think of every possible way the second half could unfold.

Suddenly, just before the third-quarter kickoff, the thought of Hines Ward being out of the game with a knee injury gripped my gut like a vise. I worried that the Steelers wouldn't have enough offensive firepower to put the Ravens away.

Then with the clock melting down to less than five minutes left in the game, the Ravens were driving as the Steelers clung to a 16-14 lead. Joe Flacco finally seemed to be figuring out the Steelers defense, completing five straight passes.

My stomach was in knots.

Sure enough, CBS flashed a graphic indicating the Steelers hadn't lost after leading by 13 or more points since 2001, and never in the playoffs.

But faster than you can say "jinx," Troy Polamalu came to the rescue.

On third-and-13 from the Ravens' 29, Flacco threw a ball destined for the hands of Derrick Mason, who would have been close to a first down. It was about halfway there when Polamalu leaped and plucked it out of the air at the 40. Then came one of the most pleasing and entertaining sights for a Steelers fan, and there couldn't have been a better time for it. Polamalu made one of his patented zigzagging interception returns with his locks flowing wildly from the back of his helmet.

Flacco was the last possible tackler, and he made like a guy trying to hail a cab as Polamalu zoomed by for the touchdown. Jeff Reed's extra point gave the Steelers a 23-14 lead and more importantly made it a two-possession game.

Finally, the Steelers won an AFC championship game at Heinz Field, but the cathartic celebration was temporarily muted when Willis McGahee, who scored both of the Ravens’ touchdowns, was carried off the field on a stretcher after being whacked by Ryan Clark. Doctors said there's no neurological damage.

That play, the most violent hit in a game that delivered more hits than Casey Kasem, resulted in a fumble that Lawrence Timmons recovered.

But the Steelers’ third win over the Ravens in 2008 wouldn’t be any easier than the first two. Their third turnover of the game, combined with the trauma of a fallen teammate, wasn’t enough to make the Ravens fold their tent. The Steelers needed one more takeaway to ensure their second Super Bowl trip in four years. And it came when Tyrone Carter picked off a Flacco pass with 1:20 remaining.

Polamalu still had some unfinished business. As always, No. 43 lined up as the lone back in the Steelers’ victory formation, making their berth in Super Bowl XLIII official.

Speaking of numbers, none of them were pretty on Sunday. That’s what happens when the NFL’s top two defenses grind it out for the right to go to the Super Bowl. Even with his spurt of five straight completions, Flacco was a hideous 13 for 30 for 141 yards, no touchdowns and three interceptions. Not even Ben Roethlisberger could complete half his passes. He was 16 of 33 for 255 yards, one touchdown and no picks.

There would be no long touchdown drives in this game. The Steelers’ TDs came on Polamalu’s return and Santonio Holmes’ 65-yard catch on a busted play. Under pressure on third-and-9, Roethlisberger heaved a ball that easily could have been picked off. Instead, Holmes grabbed it and navigated his way around a slew of purple-and-white jerseys for the score and a 13-0 Steelers lead.

To score their 14 points, the Ravens needed a boost from special teams and a pass interference call in the end zone. In the second quarter, Jim Leonhard returned a Mitch Berger punt 45 yards to the Steelers’ 17. McGahee eventually took it in from the 3 to narrow the Steelers’ lead to 13-7. In the fourth quarter, Ike Taylor apparently thought he was fighting Marcus Smith for a rebound and boxed him out in the end zone.

The pass interference penalty put the ball on the Steelers’ 1. On the next play, Polamalu hurdled the line of scrimmage. It worked the first time when he stopped Flacco on fourth-and-1 at the Steelers’ 34 in the first quarter. But it didn’t work in the fourth quarter. Polamalu took himself out of the play with his jump, and McGahee ran to the outside and scored with ease, whittling the Steelers’ lead to a razor-thin 16-14 with 9:29 left.

It was then that I wondered why a week couldn’t go by in these playoffs without a reminder of Alfred Pupunu.

With McGahee’s second touchdown, Sunday was beginning to resemble vintage 1994 in the gallery of Steelers’ playoff heartbreak. The Steelers led the Chargers 13-3 in the third quarter of the ’94 AFC title game at Three Rivers Stadium when Pupunu caught a touchdown pass to narrow the gap to 13-10. The Chargers went on to win 17-13.

Could the Pupunu Parallel be a harbinger that the Ravens would become the latest Confluence Conquerors? Would they be joining the Chargers, Broncos and Patriots on the list of visiting teams to win AFC title games in Pittsburgh over the last 15 years? Could the Steelers possibly lose a third AFC championship game in the eight-year history of Heinz Field?

Was it happening again?

Thanks to Polamalu, it didn’t happen again.

C’mon black (and gold)!

By Mike Batista
Steelahs.com
January 14, 2009

Can you see the talent discrepancy between the Ravens and Steelers?

Me neither.

The difference in the quality of these teams can't be spotted with the naked eye. You have to break out your chemistry set and watch the Ravens and Steelers through a microscope in order to see that the Steelers are just a little bit better.

You really have to be better than a team to beat them three times in a season. The Steelers' edge over the Ravens isn't that pronounced. They needed overtime to beat them 23-20 in Week 4 and they needed replay help to beat them 13-9 in Week 15.

And they face them again Sunday in the AFC championship game at Heinz Field.

With these teams so evenly calibrated, hoping for a third Steelers win over the Ravens is like spinning a roulette wheel and hoping the same color comes up three times in a row. I'd say picking this game is like flipping a coin, but the Ravens won the toss Sept. 29 before overtime in Pittsburgh. Didn't do them much good.

As dangerous as the Ravens are, I'm glad the Steelers are playing them and not the Titans on Sunday. The Titans moved the ball up and down the field on the Ravens last week. Had they been able to hang onto the football, I'd have been very concerned about the Steelers having to go back to a place where they lost 31-14 in Week 16.

Even if the Titans had won, the fear factor wouldn't have been quite what it was after the 2004 divisional playoff round. The Steelers were lucky to beat the Jets at home in the Saturday night game after a shaky performance by Ben Roethlisberger, who was finally starting to look like a rookie after leading the Steelers to a 15-1 regular-season record.

Then the next day, the Patriots shut down Peyton Manning and the Colts at Gillette Stadium, winning 20-3. Watching on TV at home, seeing how good the Patriots were, and remembering how bad Roethlisberger was the night before, as the clock hit 0:00, I said "Shit!"

Since 1994, the Steelers have reached seven AFC championship games. That one in 2004, which the Patriots won 41-27, was the only one I really expected them to lose.

The Steelers are 2-4 in their previous six AFC title games. The two toughest losses to take were the shockers against the Chargers in 1994 and the Patriots in 2001. I was surprised they lost to the Broncos in 1997, but the disappointment was nothing close to what it was in '94 and '01.

In the 1995 AFC championship game, the Steelers beat the Colts, sort of. Kordell Stewart, still in his "Slash" days, was credited with a touchdown catch after stepping out of bounds in the end zone during the play. And the Colts would have won if Aaron Bailey held onto the football on Jim Harbaugh's Hail Mary at the end.

So the only AFC championship game the Steelers REALLY won over the past three decades came in 2005, when they beat the Broncos 34-17 in Denver on the way to Super Bowl XL. They upset the Colts the week before and wanted Jerome Bettis to finish his career at home in Detroit. There was no way they were losing to the Broncos.

I wish I could say the same thing about Sunday's game. Spin that wheel!

Homeland security

Steelers 35, Chargers 24

By Mike Batista
Steelahs.com
January 11, 2008

The Steelers stopped the insanity.

Given their postseason history, who’d have thought the Steelers would be called upon to carry the torch for home-field advantage on this wacky playoff weekend?

The Ravens winning in Tennessee wasn’t a huge surprise. But the NFC championship game will be played between a team whose quarterback didn’t know there could be ties in the NFL and a team that lost by 40 at New England in Week 16. Are you kidding me?

The Chargers had a chance to complete the first road sweep of the divisional playoffs since the merger.

Instead, the Steelers restored order on Sunday. And they did it by banning the unruliness that always seems to accompany “January Football” at Heinz Field.

Ben Roethlisberger wasn’t intercepted three times in the first half like he was against Jacksonville last season. There was no Rodney Harrison returning an interception 87 yards for a touchdown. No Troy Brown returning a punt for a touchdown.

There was Philip Rivers’ 41-yard touchdown pass to Vincent “walk a straight line” Jackson two minutes into the game. But I wasn’t too worried about that. Santonio Holmes tied it six minutes later with a 67-yard punt return for a touchdown.

I did start to feel uneasy, however, as the second quarter progressed and the score remained 7-7. It was starting to look like the sort of tight game that could turn on something goofy. And I thought such goofiness ensued when the Steelers tried a fake punt on fourth-and-1 at their own 48. Unfortunately, unsung hero Ryan Clark was the man left holding the bag on that one. The direct snap went to him and he was consumed by white jerseys. San Diego used the field position to take a 10-7 lead on a 42-yard Nate Kaeding field goal with two minutes left in the half.

Then the nonsense stopped.

The Steelers put on their two-minute riot gear and marched up the field. Roethlisberger threw a 41-yard yard pass to Hines Ward, beating double coverage, to put the ball on the Chargers’ 3 with 45 seconds left in the half. Willie Parker ran it in from there to give the Steelers a 14-10 lead.

In the third quarter, the Steelers had the Chargers in lockdown, permitting only two plays the entire period. They took the opening kickoff and held onto the ball for almost eight minutes, converting a third-and-7, a third-and-11 and a third-and-8 along the way. On the 13th and final play of the drive, Roethlisberger threw an 8-yard touchdown pass to Heath Miller for a 21-10 Steelers lead.

Darren Sproles, who kind of plays the same role for the San Diego 11 that Yen did for Ocean’s 11, returned the ensuing kickoff 63 yards to the Steelers’ 23. It turned out to be just a minor disturbance, however, because the Steelers put their foot down. As in Larry Foote.

On the first play of the Chargers’ possession, Brett Keisel tipped a Rivers pass into the air. Foote came down with it for the interception.

The Steelers didn’t get very far, having to punt from their 34. But because Eric Weddle impersonated a soccer player by taking the ball off his head, the Steelers didn’t have to give up the ball. They had it at the Chargers’ 23 and kept it for the rest of the quarter.

The fourth quarter started out much better than the third for the Chargers, who stopped Carey Davis on a fourth-and-goal from the 1. But on the Steelers’ next possession, Weddle the sweeper, er, free safety interfered with Nate Washington in the end zone, and Gary Russell punched it in from the 1 on the next play to give the Steelers a 28-10 lead with just under 13 minutes left in the game.

Still, there was one more suspect the Steelers needed to investigate. Legedu Naanee (LEG-a-doo NAH-nay) caught a 4-yard touchdown pass to pull the Chargers to within 28-17 with 9:09 left. Naanee was suspected of being this decade’s Alfred Pupunu.

Pupunu, a tight end from Tonga, caught a touchdown pass to get the Chargers back into the game in the 1994 AFC championship at Three Rivers Stadium. The Steelers lost the game 17-13, spawning their infamous home playoff vulnerability.

Naanee, however, had nothing to hide. Besides being a Charger, the only thing he had in common with Pupunu (Pah-POO-new) was a name that’s fun to say. He was officially absolved when Parker ran 16 yards for his second touchdown, increasing the Steelers’ lead to 35-17 with just under five minutes left.

Parker ran the ball 27 times for 146 yards, the most he’s had in a game since gaining a team-record 223 against the Browns on Dec. 7, 2006. It was a performance that returned the Steelers to their grind-it-out roots – just in time for what promises to be a smash mouth AFC championship game next Sunday against the Ravens.

Ah, the Ravens. Another orderly bunch coming to the shores of the Confluence.

Charge this

By Mike Batista
Steelahs.com
January 6, 2009

This is my favorite sports weekend of the year.

The Super Bowl, as great as it is, is just as much a stage for celebrities to be seen as it is a football game. The conference championships is just a one-day affair. Wild-card weekend is a full two days of football, but it’s also a process of weeding out the second-tier teams.

The divisional playoffs is a weekend of wall-to-wall football, four games featuring teams that all have a case for a spot in the Super Bowl.

And for the first time in three years, the Steelers are involved.

History lesson

The good news for the Steelers is the Colts are out. They were the monster in the closet, the hottest team in the NFL with a victory at Heinz Field under their belt.

So the Steelers get the Chargers on Sunday. The Chargers entered the playoffs 8-8, but the Steelers won’t take them lightly. I mean, the Steelers have never underestimated the Chargers in the playoffs before, have they?

Oh, yeah. There was that time when they rehearsed for a Super Bowl video in the week leading up to the 1994 AFC championship game. They lost 17-13 to the Chargers at Three Rivers Stadium. Woops.

The Chargers are 2-13 all-time in Pittsburgh, but both of those victories have come in playoff games.

In 1982, the Chargers beat the Steelers 31-28 in the first round of a 16-game playoff tournament that was instituted after a players’ strike shortened the regular season to nine games. Terry Bradshaw completed a career-high 14 straight passes in that game and the Steelers had a 28-17 lead in the fourth quarter. But Dan Fouts and the Air Coryell Chargers came back.

One of the drawbacks to the tournament format was that not all first-round games were shown in every TV market. And this was long before DirecTV. I was 10 years old at the time, and I was at home watching whatever game was being shown in Rhode Island. My only access to the Chargers-Steelers game was the ticker that flashed at the bottom of the screen every time the score changed. And the score changed a lot. I felt so helpless. The Steelers’ season ended, and I couldn’t be there to pay my respects.

By any “Mean”s necessary

The Steelers and Chargers easily could have met in the 1979 playoffs. That game would have been in San Diego. The Steelers were spanked 35-7 at Jack Murphy Stadium that season. The Steelers and Chargers both finished 12-4, but the Chargers had the No. 1 seed in the playoffs by virtue of that win. The Steelers didn’t have to go back to San Diego. The Houston Oilers took care of the Chargers in the divisional playoffs, with perhaps a little help from the Steelers.

Mean Joe Greene said something interesting in an interview on WFAN in the days leading up to Super Bowl XL. To the best of my recollection, he said the Steelers watched game film of Fouts after their loss to the Chargers and noticed that he shifted his feet a certain way before passing. He said the Steelers gave this information to the Oilers, and the Oilers upset the Chargers. That earned them a ticket to Pittsburgh, where they lost 27-13 in the AFC championship game. The Steelers went on to beat the Rams 31-19 in Super Bowl XIV.

If Mean Joe is to be believed, maybe those two playoff losses to the Chargers was karma biting the Steelers in the ass.

Winter wonderland?

As the Steelers and Chargers meet in the playoffs for the third time in three decades, again there is intrigue. The Steelers’ win over the Chargers on Nov. 16 came by the quirky final score of 11-10, the first such score in NFL history. The specter of malfeasance was raised by the Steelers’ 13 penalties to the Chargers’ two, which didn’t help them cover the spread, and Troy Polamalu’s disallowed touchdown at the end, which directly prevented them from covering the spread.

Conspiracy theories aside, the fact remains that the Chargers almost beat the Steelers back when they sucked. They fell to 4-6 with that loss. Now the Chargers don’t suck so much. They’ve won five straight games. This might finally be the team that everyone, including me, thought was the best in the NFL before the season began.

At least the Chargers won’t get the same break with the weather they got in 1994. As I recall, the temperature was in the 50s or 60s for that game. They’re supposed to be in the teens on Sunday. Still, let’s not make any Super Bowl videos.

The real jinx

As I pointed out in a previous column, my research shows that the Steelers have done pretty well against the Sports Illustrated cover jinx. But the SI cover jinx is like playing the Kansas City Chiefs compared to the ESPN the Magazine cover jinx.

Fifteen Steelers defensive players appeared on the cover of the Dec. 29 issue. Unlike SI, there’s no readily available gallery of ESPN the Magazine covers. But in surfing the Web I came across two past Steelers covers.

Ben Roethlisberger, then a rookie, appeared on the Jan. 1, 2005 cover – then went on to perform like he slipped on a banana peel in the playoffs. Willie Parker appeared on the Nov. 22, 2007 issue – a month before breaking his leg.

So, yes, there is an ESPN the Magazine cover jinx, and I thought it had struck again when watching SportsCenter Monday morning. They introduced “Breaking News” and mentioned Steelers linebacker James Harrison. I thought, “Shit! He’s injured.” But thankfully, he wasn’t. He had just been named Associated Press NFL Defensive Player of the Year.

But the Steelers aren’t out of the woods yet. They should be afraid, very afraid of the ESPN the Magazine cover jinx. They need a good-luck charm. How about borrowing some horseshoes from Indianapolis? The Colts don’t need theirs anymore. Except maybe for Marvin Harrison.

January men

By Mike Batista
Steelahs.com
January 9, 2009

Ah, January Football. Steelers coach Mike Tomlin coined that term to refer to the NFL playoffs. He ought to license the term and rake in untold millions.

The Steelers wouldn’t be playing January Football without their accomplishments in September, October, November and December Football.

So let’s take a look at five twists and turns, one from each month, that shaped the 2008 regular season. There are two from November because the Steelers played five games in that month compared to four in September, three in October and four in December.

These aren’t routine plays. These are plays that no one could have seen coming, and all were turning points in those games as well as the season.

September 29 (Steelers 23, Ravens 20, OT): It looked like the Steelers were heading toward .500 territory. After starting 2-0, they lost the previous week to the Eagles and were down 13-3 to the Ravens in the third quarter. They scored their first touchdown in nine quarters to pull to within 13-10. On the first play of the Ravens’ ensuing possession, James Harrison strip-sacked Joe Flacco, and LaMarr Woodley recovered the fumble and returned it seven yards for a touchdown and a 17-13 Steelers lead. The Steelers didn’t trail again. If there was one play that saved the Steelers’ season, that was it. Instead of falling to 2-2, they started on a three-game winning streak that put them at 5-1.

October 26 (Giants 21, Steelers 14): The Steelers desperately clung to leads of 14-9 and 14-12 against the defending Super Bowl champions. Then with 7:21 left in the game, the Steelers had to punt from deep in their own end. James Harrison, replacing injured long snapper Greg Warren, snapped the ball out of the end zone for a safety, tying the game 14-14. The Giants took advantage of the good field position on the free kick to score the winning touchdown. This was the first of two losses in three games for the Steelers, their only real slump of the season.

November 3 (Steelers 23, Redskins 6): In the WTF moment of the year, the Steelers opened this Monday nighter with an onsides kick. The Redskins recovered and kicked a field goal. On the Steelers’ first possession, Ben Roethlisberger was intercepted at the Steelers’ 30, and the Redskins kicked another field goal. The Redskins didn’t score the rest of the way, but the Steelers mustered just a field goal in the first half until Andre Frazier, who was taken off the field on a stretcher five weeks earlier, blocked a punt late in the second quarter, giving the Steelers the ball at the Redskins’ 13. Roethlisberger eventually scored on a 1-yard sneak to give the Steelers a lead they wouldn’t relinquish. The Steelers closed out the first half of the season with a 6-2 record.

November 30 (Steelers 33, Patriots 10): The Steelers ate up seven minutes in the third quarter and took a 13-10 lead on Jeff Reed’s 25-yard field goal. Matthew Slater muffed the ensuing kickoff, giving the Steelers the ball at the Patriots’ 8. Two plays later, Ben Roethlisberger hit Hines Ward for an 11-yard touchdown, giving the Steelers a 20-10 lead late in the third quarter. It was the first of five turnovers on five straight possessions for the Patriots, which allowed the Steelers to pile on more points. This was the Steelers’ first impressive road win that wasn’t subsequently devalued. The Jaguars and Redskins tanked after being beaten by the Steelers. But the Patriots didn’t lose again, which means the Steelers essentially eliminated the Patriots from the playoffs. With the Christmas season under way, the Steelers put to rest the Ghosts of Patriots Past with this win, and they cemented their status as legitimate Super Bowl contenders.

December 7 (Steelers 20, Cowboys 13): Deshea Townsend’s interception return for the game-winning touchdown is the lasting memory from this game. But the Steelers don’t win it without Santonio Holmes’ 35-yard punt return to the Cowboys’ 25 with 8:42 left in the game. The Steelers trailed 13-3 and their offense had done squat the whole afternoon. Even after Holmes’ punt return, they only moved the ball two yards, but it was enough for Jeff Reed to kick a field goal to make it a one-possession game. The Steelers finally strung together a legitimate drive to tie it, then Townsend won it with his interception return. The Steelers again did serious damage to the playoff hopes of a team many picked to reach the Super Bowl. They also established their knack for fourth-quarter comebacks, which they used again to beat the Ravens the following week and clinch a first-round playoff bye.

I said THAT?

By Mike Batista
Steelahs.com
January 2, 2009

Now that 2008 is over, it’s time to take a look back. So here are my most accurate predictions of 2008. And I am quoting myself directly from my 2008 Predictions column.

I see the Steelers going 11-5 this season and winning the AFC North.

Turns out I sold the Steelers short. But that forecast looked pretty ballsy considering the general consensus was 10-6 or 9-7. By the way, the Steelers’ schedule was just about as tough as advertised. Their opponents’ combined 2007 winning percentage was .598. Their combined 2008 winning percentage was .548. They’re pretty much guaranteed to not have the toughest schedule in 2009. How do I know that? Because one of their opponents will be the Lions.

Lawrence Timmons and LaMarr Woodley will be household names far beyond the Western Pennsylvania hills by the end of the season.

Well, Woodley made the cover of Sports Illustrated. I’d say that equates to household name. Timmons won’t be on Letterman anytime soon, but he had 65 tackles, five sacks, a forced fumble and an interception he returned 89 yards to send fans flooding to the exits in Foxboro. Not bad.

I say the Patriots are still a 10-6 team without Brady.

Again, I was a win short. I wrote this after Brady got hurt in Week 1. I also said that Brady could move around with a cane and the Patriots would still get into the playoffs. His rehab didn’t progress quickly enough for him to play with a cane, so we’ll never know.

The Browns are an organization on the way up, but the rise will take a year off.

The “on the way up” part might be the only thing wrong with that one.

n n n

When judging my predicting prowess, please keep those three brilliant prognostications in mind as I ’fess up to some blunders.

The offensive line might not be much better than it was last season. But I think the minimal improvement there, combined with the increased power on offense, will allow the Steelers to put a lot of points on the board.

Woops! Instead, the Steelers scored 347 points, their fewest since 2003, when they went 6-10 and scored 300.

Despite all their problems, I still think the Jaguars are a little bit better than the Steelers, and I think this is the year they finally overtake the Colts and win the AFC South.

Well, the Colts’ five-year reign as AFC South champions did come to an end. It just wasn’t the Jaguars who unseated them. Instead of being “a little bit better” than the Steelers, the Jaguars turned out to be “a lot worse.” Not the same thing.

Let’s hope Rashard Mendenhall can learn to hang onto the football and be heard from by the end of the season.

Remember Rashard? He had a case of fumble-itis in the preseason. He learned how to hang onto the football, but he didn’t learn how to avoid Ray Lewis.

Super Bowl XLIII: Chargers 31, Saints 21 … Drew Brees will get a chance to prove that the Chargers kept the wrong quarterback.

Yeah, that’s a tough one. Brees against his old team. The lesson I learned there is to not be a sucker for a storyline.

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