Bedard: Patriots surge as Steelers melt down -- again

PITTSBURGH — In a football game that was more like a six-act play with multiple heroes, villains, and twists and turns, the bottom line is this: the Steelers had multiple chances to dispose of their nemesis from New England and ...

They couldn't get it done. Again.

In an area of the country where Spygate is still talked about like it should be an active investigation (hello, Hines Ward), what you will hear in the aftermath of the Patriots' thrilling 27-24 victory at Heinz Field is a lot of talk about Jesse James' overturned touchdown with 28 seconds left, and the fact that Tony Corrente's crew called just two penalties for 4 yards against the Patriots — and one was a false start (the other was illegal touching on Brandin Cooks for zero yards).

“That last call was bull (excrement),” said rookie wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster. “He scored. That’s it.”

It will dominate the Pittsburgh and national airwaves all week (my advice: turn off ESPN and start spinning your Three Games to Glory Blu-Ray sets). It will be brought up again, especially if the two teams square off again in the postseason.

“I’m just (ticked) off how a great game turned into a joke,” said defensive end Stephon Tuitt.

What you won't hear is much discussion about how, when they finally had a chance to vanquish their conquerors from the North, the Steelers — especially coach Mike Tomlin and quarterback Ben Roethlisberger — choked. Repeatedly.

First, you have to give the Steelers some credit. Despite a rough start — a four-play opening offensive drive, and then allowing a 77-yard Patriots scoring drive — Pittsburgh basically played a perfect first half. The Steelers held the ball for nearly 20 minutes, kept Tom Brady off the field and surprised him with man coverage. Offensively, the Steelers mixed the run and pass beautifully, and converted 7-of-9 third downs. They capped the half with a 15-play, 78-yard drive that took 8:39 off the clock and made Brady kneel on the ball going to halftime.

Other than losing the incredible Antonio Brown to injury (on a hospital ball that should not have been thrown by Roethlisberger), you couldn't draw it up any better than that.

In the second half, the Steelers increasingly got to Brady to the point that they forced him into an ill-advised interception, and that set up Pittsburgh to take a 24-16 lead late in the third quarter.

And then when Brady was nailed on third down by Tuitt to end the next drive, there was blood in the water. The Yinzers were in full throat, and it seemed like it was only a matter of time before the Steelers put the game out of reach with their pass rush getting home, and Roethlisberger picking apart the Patriots' secondary that didn't have any help from a pass rush.

As the game turned to the fourth quarter, the Steelers were doing whatever they wanted. On third-and-3, Le'Veon Bell rushed for 4 yards. On third-and-4, Roethlisberger scrambled for 5 as Patriots defensive coordinator Matt Patricia shook his head on the sidelines. The Bearded One knew what we all knew: the Patriots were on the ropes. They had no answers. The Steelers were on the verge of claiming true contender status from their repeated conquerors.

And then two penalties — oh yeah, those again — caused the Steelers to be backed up into a second-and-23 situation at their own 25-yard line.

Did the Steelers' brain trust let Big Ben continue to weave his magic? No. Did they get the ball into Bell's hands? No.

With an offense that had punted just one time since their first possession, the Steelers handed off to third-string running back Fitzgerald Toussaint for a 3-yard gain. With a third-and-20 to defend, the Patriots dropped back to the sticks and let Martavis Bryant catch a harmless 6-yard crosser to set up a punt.

That sequence was the beginning of the end for the Steelers.

Rule No. 1 when playing the Patriots is: you must always push the issue. If you play not to lose, you will lose.

Tomlin and offensive coordinator Todd Haley basically waved the white flag. Let Roethlisberger be Roethlisberger. He was carving up the Patriots' secondary with any weapon he wanted to use. Let him air it out, get half the distance back, and then let him do it again.

The Patriots took the ball and got a field goal to cut it to 24-19 with 3:56 remaining.

On the next possession, the Steelers had third-and-4 and again failed. Roethlisberger threw over the middle — there tends to be a lot of people there — to Smith-Schuster despite seeing two Patriots converging on the receiver. Roethlisberger missed Eli Rogers wide open about 8 feet to the right.



But the Steelers punted again, and this time it was Tomlin and defensive coordinator Keith Butler's turn for a collective brain freeze. Oh, and Sean Davis. The head-hunting safety had the game literally in his hands when a Brady deflection went right to him, and he dropped it.

That pass was intended for Rob Gronkowski. Did the Steelers double cover Brady's favorite target after that? No. What about after his 26-yard reception on the next play? No. Did they double Gronk after another 26-yard catch on the next play? Of course not. They brought Gronk's cover man on a slot blitz against the best QB in the league against the blitz. What about after the 17-yard pass down to the 8-yard line with one minute remaining? You know where this is going. After Dion Lewis scored to give the Patriots a one-point lead and they went for two. Surely they gave safety help over the top to Davis when Gronk lined up wide right as a receiver, right? No, Mike Mitchell inexplicably ran to the flat to cover no one.



Despite all that incompetence, the Steelers, as usual, still had another chance to win the game because they're just that talented and are used to bailing out their leaders. After Smith-Schuster's dash to near-glory and even after the overturned touchdown, the Steelers still had the ball at the New England 10-yard line and 28 seconds left.

Did they have their collective stuff together and call two plays in case the first one was tackled in the field of play? Of course not. Darrius Heyward-Bey was tackled by Malcolm Butler (key underrated play) before the sideline and then all hell broke loose. Roethlisberger, who wouldn't be afraid to throw his mother under the bus if it made him look better, said he wanted to clock the ball.

“It wasn’t a fake spike,” said Roethlisberger, who indeed ran a fake spike. “I was yelling clock it because it felt like it was the thing to do, clock it and get one more play.”

But Roethlisberger said he heard something else.

“It came from the sideline, ‘Don’t clock it, don’t clock it,'” Roethlisberger said. “At that time, everyone thinks it’s a clock (situation) so we didn’t have time to get everyone lined up. Eli saw it and ran a quick slant.”

But the Patriots weren't fooled. They had players in the middle of the field, Eric Rowe was on Rogers' hip and the situation didn't look good. Instead of making the best out of a bad situation — as quarterbacks are paid a lot of money to do in the NFL — and throwing the ball away to set up a game-tying field goal and forcing overtime, Roethlisberger did the one thing he absolutely could not do there: threw an interception.

It was the final and fatal mistake in a series of then for the Steelers. They wilted when the game was on the line while the Patriots played their best and smartest football of the game. Again.

But you won't hear much about that on Monday, or for the rest of the week. It will be all about the officials, and how the Steelers got screwed again in favor of the Patriots.

In reality, the Steelers — Tomlin, Haley, Butler and Roethlisberger — have only themselves to blame.

This is why they're still looking up to and talking about the Patriots, instead of winning on the field and putting them in their rearview mirror