PITTSBURGH – Tears stream down Ben Roethlisberger’s face. As he sits next to him on the bench, Maurkice Pouncey, one of his best friends and longtime teammates, cries as well as the emotion overflows.
The scoreboard that looked at them lit up the unthinkable: their season was over, and so could their careers.
After falling behind by four counts in the first half, the Pittsburgh Steelers were unable to complete their return Sunday night and fell 48-37 to the Cleveland Browns in the game-card round of the playoffs. A promising 11-0 season is up to a 1-5 finish line with a first round at home, with a final score that looks closer than it has ever felt.
“We did not do enough,” coach Mike Tomlin said of the late-season crash. “We did not position them in good enough conditions. We did not make enough plays, especially in the critical moments. We were a group that died on the vine.”
Pouncey, a 10-year veteran, and Roethlisberger made a vow years ago to play as long as the other one, and with the loss of Sunday night and one year left on their contracts, the day is much closer than ever before . They sat on the bench long after their teammates left the field, chatted and drank it all in.
“I love that guy,” Roethlisberger said of Pouncey. “He’s one of the best rivals and teammates I’ve ever had. It was so much fun to share a football field with him. I hate it that it ended. I just wanted to apologize to him for wanting to win it. for him. ‘
While Roethlisberger and Pouncey sat on the bench, a couple of Steelers approached the couple and shared a few moments with them. Wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster, now starting for the first time in his career at the free agency, wept his quarterback.
“I’m so grateful to have him as a quarterback and I will not change that,” Smith-Schuster said of what he told Roethlisberger. ‘I told him,’ I do not know what you’re planning or what’s planned for you, but I’m sincerely grateful, from the time I stepped in, the first day until the time Ben took me under his wing. “you fought hard, you’re a fighter and thank you.” It was just all love. ‘
Roethlisberger (38) threw for 501 meters on 68 pass attempts with four touchdowns. But his four interceptions condemned the Steelers when they fell 28-0 behind in the first half.
From the start, the first snapshot of the pair’s last game at Heinz Field did not go as expected. A high blow from Pouncey sails over Roethlisberger’s head on the very first game. Roethlisberger and James Conner scrambled to correlate the loose ball, but neither made an effective move to secure it. Instead, the Browns hit on it and took a 7-0 lead with just 14 seconds off the clock.
From there, it only got worse when the Browns turned three more first-half interceptions in Roethlisberger into 21 points, which ultimately was an insurmountable lead as the defense could not slow down Nick Chubb and the Browns attack. The Steelers did not score a single bag or force a turnover. They are 1-4 this season if they have not had a turnover.
“We blew it,” defense captain Cameron Heyward said. “I can not sugarcoat it. You look at the score. As a defense we gave up too many points. And as a leader, as a leader of the defense, I failed miserably, and you know, it’s hard to lose It’s hard to lose guys in our locker room who did amazing things on and off the field. And you know, the unknown just kills me. To squander an opportunity like that and know we didn ‘t play our football brand it sucks. ‘
Roethlisberger’s sad first half – 20-of-30 that went 177 yards and three interceptions – was an ugly version of the first half against the Cincinnati Bengals and the Indianapolis Colts, when it looked like the future Hall of Famer was his touch lost. Against the Colts, he finds his groove for a return in the second half. Against the Browns, it was too late.
“It was not good enough,” Roethlisberger said of his actions. “If you lose a game like this, you can look back and evaluate everything you want on the season, how you did during this game, that game, run, stretch. I mean, at some point we will be in the whole looking back thing.
“But if it does not end the way you want, you will always feel in a way, as if you are missing out or it is your fault.”
The Steelers started to rise after halftime, defeating the Browns 13-0, but Tomlin chose to play for the field position and play the fourth-and-1 point from the 46 to open the fourth quarter, thus his to stop team momentum. The Browns took a 42-23 lead on the ensuing drive.
“We stopped a few times, wanted to pin it down, maybe provide the short field for our offense,” Tomlin said. “We had maybe two or three consecutive stops. I just wanted to keep the momentum going when it came to field positioning. But we were not good enough to do that.”
With the loss, the Steelers dropped three playoff games in a row, including the 2017 defeat to the Jacksonville Jaguars, when they conceded 45 points to the visitors.
“That’s what it is,” Tomlin said when asked about personal liability for the failures in the post-season. “Our record is our record. Our performances are our performances. Do not run away from it.”
Tomlin, who has not lost the solid coach as Steelers’ head coach, has just a 500-point lead in the post-season.
“We did not perform well enough tonight,” he said. “Not coaching, not playing. You can get it up to the turnover game. But we were not good enough in many other areas, communication, in terms of detail. Just not a good night for us. In the single elimination tournaments, if you do not have a good night, you go home. ‘
With the end of the season, Roethlisberger has an important decision on the doorstep. He has one last year left on his $ 41.2 million contract, and he has previously said that if he does not play in a way that helps his team, he will “hang on” to it.
However, after Sunday’s game, Roethlisberger said he had not yet made a decision on his future.
“It’s going to start between me and God, praying a lot. Talking a lot with my family, discussions, decisions. I have another year left on my contract. I hope the Steelers want me back, if that’s the way we are there. is going to be a lot of discussions, but this is not the time for that.
“This loss is fresh. It’s just sitting on our hearts and in our minds right now. It will take a while.”