The Denver Broncos upset the defending AFC Champions in a wild shoot out in Denver. When Demrayius Thomas flew by Ike Taylor in overtime to send the Steelers home from the playoffs, it wasn’t just the end of the Steelers playoff hopes; it was the end of an era. The play marked the quickest overtime defeat in the history of the NFL. The loss kept the Steelers from their 34th playoff win, which would have broken a tie with the Cowboys for the most ever.<\/p>\n
The Steelers defense had its worst day since the beginning of the season. For the first time in\u00a0ten seasons the Steelers\u00a0let up two plays of more than fifty yards in one game. Few people expected Tim Tebow who was in a\u00a0three game swoon to come out firing. He did and the Steelers\u00a0number one pass defense was shredded\u00a0for over 300 yards for the first time this season.<\/p>\n
Ike Taylor, who had a fine season, played by far the worst\u00a0game of his career and the secondary couldn’t hold up\u00a0in man to man coverage.\u00a0Ryan Mundy and Troy Polamalu played close to support the run and Tebow took advantage.\u00a0The linebackers had a tough day as well, the pass rush was virtually non-existent, LaMarr and Silverback were non factors throughout the game. Silverback was flagged for a nonsense penalty and struggled against the option play.<\/p>\n
As bad as both the secondary and the linebackers played, at least they didn’t go down with injuries. The Steelers lost 2\/3 of the defensive line within the first half. Casey Hampton and Brett Kiesel both went down\u00a0with serious injuries. Cameron Heywood and Steve McLendon both\u00a0played\u00a0well but were clearly wearing down. Heyward had a big forced fumble to create a turnover that the Steelers turned into the tying touchdown.<\/p>\n
The Offense played an inconsistent, albeit spirited\u00a0game.\u00a0The receivers had an up and down game. Manny Sanders and\u00a0Antonio Brown put together\u00a0nice performances and had several big catches in the game. Mike Wallace\u00a0ran an amazing end around to score a big\u00a0TD and was RIPPED off on a\u00a050 yard catch. Jericho Cotchery made the game tying catch\u00a0after a huge drop. Hines Ward was a non factor.<\/p>\n
The Offensive line held up well considering they were missing Maurkice Pouncey and lost Max Starks in the 3rd. Doug Legursky, who was filling in for\u00a0Pouncey\u00a0made a costly mistake\u00a0and cost the Steelers points in the first half, but he held his own and\u00a0put together a good game otherwise.\u00a0They made holes for Ike Redman who was the lone highlight of the day for the Steelers. He had a great game and will push for playing time next year.<\/p>\n
Ben Roethlisberger did what Ben Roethlisberger does. He played hurt and made some huge plays and brought the team all the way back.\u00a0The down side he had a costly turnover and his clock management was\u00a0terrible at the end of the game.\u00a0He also had a costly fumble, which he recovered, but it\u00a0might have cost the Steelers the game.<\/p>\n
Tim Tebow\u00a0deserves a great deal of\u00a0credit. The Steelers challenged him and he punished them for it. He is a polarizing figure but one thing is certain, he is a gentleman and he\u00a0is\u00a0a tank when\u00a0he runs.\u00a0He played and amazing game and helped his team\u00a0win. The Steelers smacked up the Broncos defense and Tebow carried them through the game. When he had to make a play, he made it!\u00a0You can say what you want about the guy, he is a class act and a credit to the game. \u00a0<\/p>\n
It would be easy to criticize the coaching as the media has done since Sunday. In the end though, the Steelers came in\u00a0with a game plan that everyone believed in.\u00a0The Steelers made several costly mistakes in their execution.\u00a0 In the coaches defense, you are missing, the starting Free\u00a0Safety,\u00a0the starting Center, the starting Left Tackle,\u00a0the Starting Nose Tackle and his backup, your missing your best Defensive End and your QB is banged up\u00a0pretty bad and you damn near pull it out when you are down by 14 in someone elses building.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0Chalk it up to Tim Tebow and the Broncos played the game they needed to, to win, The Steelers simply didn’t. \u00a0<\/p>\n
BEER WE GO STEELERS, BEER WE GO!<\/p>\n
My \u201cGAME BEER\u201d goes to<\/strong>: Ike Redman, He needed to play big yesterday and he did it! Also Considered:\u00a0NO ONE, seriously it was rough.\u00a0<\/p>\n Where I watched the game: <\/strong>Finished out the string at KGB’s with my kids who were crushed by the loss. I made sausage and peppers and we had a ton of food as usual. It was\u00a0my home base this season for most games and I will miss it next year when we move on!\u00a0The Beer of choice was IC Light.\u00a0<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n My thoughts on Next Week: <\/strong>I AM GOING TO MISS THE STEELERS! I will be pulling for the NY Giants over the Packers and the Broncos over the Evil Patriots!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Denver Broncos upset the defending AFC Champions in a wild shoot out in Denver. When Demrayius Thomas flew by Ike Taylor in overtime to send the Steelers home from the playoffs, it wasn’t just the end of the Steelers playoff hopes; it was the end of an era. The play marked the quickest overtime […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bwg-gr"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bwgsteelers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bwgsteelers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bwgsteelers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bwgsteelers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bwgsteelers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=670"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/bwgsteelers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":672,"href":"http:\/\/bwgsteelers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670\/revisions\/672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bwgsteelers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bwgsteelers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bwgsteelers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}