PITTSBURGH – Tears streamed down Ben Roethlisberger’s face. Sitting next to him on the bench, Maurkice Pouncey, one of his best friends and longtime teammates, cried out as the emotion poured over.
The scoreboard ahead of them clarified what was unbelievable: Their season was over – and maybe their careers would be too.
After finishing with four scores in the first half, the Pittsburgh Steelers were unable to finish back Sunday night, falling to the Cleveland Browns in the wild card round of the playoffs 48-37 . A promising 11-0 season was reduced to a 1-5 finish by leaving the first round at home – with a final score that looked closer than ever felt.
“We didn’t do enough,” Steelers coach Mike Tomlin said of how the end of the season fell. “We didn’t set them in a good enough position. We didn’t do enough plays, especially in times of crisis. We were like a group that died on the vine.”
Pouncey, a 10-year-old veteran, and Roethlisberger vowed years ago to play as far as the other, and with the loss of Sunday night and a year left on their contracts, that day is much closer than it always was. They sat on the bench long after their players left the field, talking and sucking in it.
“I love that one,” Roethlisberger told Pouncey. “He’s one of the best competitors and players I’ve ever had. It’s been so much fun sharing a football field with him. I hate that he ended up as a I just wanted to apologize to him that I wanted him to win. “
As Roethlisberger and Pouncey sat on the bench, a few Steelers approached the couple and shared a few minutes with them. The wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster, now joining the free agency for the first time in his career, defeated his quarterback.
“I’m so thankful I got him as a quarterback, and I wouldn’t change him,” Smith-Schuster said in sharing what he said to Roethlisberger. “I told him, I don’t know what your plans are or what’s in store for you, but I’m really grateful, from the time I walked in, the first day, to the time Ben took me under his wing. Ben said to me, ‘You fought hard, you are a hero and thank you.’ It was just all love. “
Roethlisberger, 38, threw for 501 yards on 68 pass attempts with four touchdowns on Sunday. But his four comments stopped the Steelers, who fell 28-0 in the first quarter.
From the outset, the first leg of what could have been the last game of the Heinz Field pair did not go as planned. A high bounce from Pouncey sailed over Roethlisberger’s head on the first play. Roethlisberger and James Conner went out of their way to blame the loose ball, but neither made an effective move to secure it. Instead, the Browns jumped on and took a 7-0 lead with just 14 seconds off the clock.
It only got worse from there. The Browns turned Roethlisberger’s three interceptions in the first half to 21 points for an inevitable lead in the end, as Pittsburgh’s defense could not delay Nick Chubb and the Browns ’offense. The Steelers didn’t record a single sack or push a turn; they are 1-4 this season when they don’t have a turnaround.
“We blew it up,” Steelers defensive captain Cameron Heyward said. “I can’t make sugar. You look at the score. As a defense, we made too many points. And as a leader, as a defense director, I failed, sadly; and you know, it is It’s hard to lose It’s hard to lose guys in our locker room who have done great things on and off the field, and you know, that unknown is killing them. so lose it and know we didn’t play our football logo, and it sucks. “
Roethlisberger’s disappointing first half – 20-of-30 passing for 177 yards and three interceptions – was an ugly replica of the first half of the regular season against the Cincinnati Bengals and Indianapolis Colts , when the future Hall of Famer seemed to lose its grip. Against the Colts, he found his groove for a comeback win in the second half. Against the Browns, it was too late.
“It wasn’t good enough,” Roethlisberger commented on his accomplishments. “When you lose a game like this, you can look back and evaluate everything you want for the season, like you did through this game, that game, run , stretch.I mean, at some point, we’ll look back on the whole thing.
“But when it doesn’t end the way you want, you always feel somehow, like you came to a short distance or it’s your fault.”
The Steelers started surrendering after Sunday’s halftime, beating the Browns 13-0. But Tomlin opted to play for a field and pound position on the fourth-and-1 from 46 to open the fourth quarter, effectively halting his team’s movement. The Browns stopped on the way in to take a 42-23 lead.
“We had a few stops, we wanted to crush them down, maybe give up the short range for our offense,” Tomlin said. “We probably had two or three consecutive stops. I just wanted to keep the trend going in terms of field position. But we weren’t good enough in terms of doing that.”
With the loss, the Steelers have dropped three playoff games in a row, including the 2017 loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars, when Pittsburgh gave up 45 points for the visitors.
“Yes,” Tomlin asked when asked about personal accountability for the postseason failures. “It’s our record. Our achievements are our achievements. Don’t run away from that. “
Tomlin, who doesn’t have a regular losing season as the Steelers ’head coach, has just scored a .500 mark in the postseason.
“We didn’t do well enough tonight,” he said. “Not coaching, not playing. You can chalk up to the turnaround game. But we weren’t good enough in many other areas, communication, in terms of precision. It just wasn’t a good night. In the same- eliminating competitions, when you don’t have a good night, you go home. “
With the season over, Roethlisberger has a big decision to come. He has a year left on his $ 41.2 million contract, and has previously said that if he doesn’t play in a way that helps his team, he will “hang it.”
After Sunday’s contest, however, Roethlisberger said he had not yet made a decision about his future.
“It’s going to start between me and God, a lot of prayer. A lot of talking to my family, conversations, decisions. I still have a year left on my contract,” he said. “I hope the Steelers want me back, if that’s the way forward. There will be a lot of conversations. But now is not the time for that.
“This loss is new. It just sits on our hearts and minds right now. It will be for a while.”