Jason Elam beat the Steelers with his foot Sunday night.
So now the shoe is on the other foot.
Five weeks ago, the Red Sox ruined my night
after a Steelers victory. On Sunday, the Steelers ruined my night after a Red Sox victory.
On Sept. 16, the Steelers easily defeated the Buffalo Bills in the afternoon to improve to 2-0. That night, the Yankees beat the Red
Sox to take two out of three in their series at Fenway Park and seemed poised to make a run at the Red Sox in the American
League East.
Now, the Yankees are
long gone and looking for a manager. The Red Sox are in the World Series and the Steelers haven’t won a game on the
road since the season opener. What a difference five weeks makes.
While the Red Sox were beating the Indians 11-2 in Game 7 of the American
League Championship Series Sunday night, the Steelers were bungling their way to a 31-28 loss to the Broncos, who won on a
last-second field goal by Elam.
As Steelahs.com faithful know, there’s a reason for the “ahs” in “Steelahs.com.” This is Steelers commentary
with a New England accent, and my football and baseball rooting interests overlapped on Sunday night with the Steelers and Red Sox playing at
the same time. But thanks to the DVR that was installed at Steelahs.com corporate headquarters Sunday afternoon, I didn’t
have to choose which game to watch. The only decision was which game to watch live and which one to record. It was ALCS Game
7 vs. regular-season NFL game. So the Red Sox came first.
My Sam Adams Octoberfests (what else am I going to drink during a Red Sox
playoff game?) got me through some anxious moments in the Red Sox game before they broke it open in the late innings. I downed
my fifth and final Sam while soaking up the Red Sox celebration on Fox (which thankfully didn’t flash any football scores
during the game).
Then, at 12:24 a.m.,
I called up the Steelers game on the DVR (does that stand for DENVER?). I should have known something was off early in the
game when the Broncos’ defense was introduced. Playing defensive tackle was none other than Sam Adams, thus throwing
a wrench into my efforts to form a Red Sox-Steelers karma alliance.
Want another eerie parallel? The Steelers came to the Rocky Mountains as
the better team on paper, but a lot of things went wrong and they left with their heads bowed. Guess where the Red Sox are
going next weekend. Games 3, 4 and 5 of the World Series are scheduled to be played at Coors Field on Saturday, Sunday and
Monday. The Sox will have to do better in Denver than the Steelers. I think the Red Sox will win the series, although the
Rockies’ run of 21 wins in 22 games concerns me.
The Broncos, on the other hand, weren’t quite as hot as their baseball brethren. This is a team that
two weeks earlier absorbed its worst home loss since 1966. This is a team that played without Champ Bailey, its best cornerback.
But it wouldn’t haven taken the Orange Crush teams of the 70s and 80s to beat the Steelers on Sunday. Not with two interceptions
by Ben Roethlisberger. Not with a Roethlisberger fumble returned for a touchdown. Not with a Broncos’ touchdown drive
that included two conversions on 3rd and 14. Not with another Broncos’ scoring drive that included an unnecessary
roughness penalty on Troy Polamalu, which put the ball on the Steelers’ 7-yard line. Not with two offsides penalties
in the final minute to help the Broncos get within Elam’s field goal range. Not with a holding penalty on Kendall Simmons
to drag the Steelers out of field goal range late in the first half. And not all the ineptitude showed up on the stat sheet.
There was Roethlisberger’s pass off offensive lineman Marvel Smith’s back. Very Keystone Kops-like.
I thought stupid penalties
were a thing of the past under the Mike Tomlin regime. The new Steelers coach doesn’t have the Whisenhunt Factor or the old “We Weren’t Going to Go 16-0”
excuse to fall back on in explaining this loss. This was a game the Steelers should have won. Now teams like the Chargers
and Broncos, who looked like they were going to have off years like the Steelers did last year, are 3-3 and just a game behind
the 4-2 Steelers.
During one of the pre-recorded
NBC segments coming out of a commercial, one of the Steelers players said that Tomlin treats them like men. The Steelers might
have hit a stretch where they need to be treated like Pop Warner players and get back to basics. We’re going to find
out just how good a coach Tomlin is, because for the first time this season, the Steelers are facing some questions. Good
football teams don’t make the kind of mistakes they did on Sunday night.
It’s
enough to drive me to drink a few more Octoberfests.
