CINCINNATI -- With 2002 bearing down on them and home-field advantage a formality, the Steelers went out and partied as if it was 1999.
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Bengals wide receiver Danny Farmer beats Dewayne Washington to make an 18-yard touchdown catch to send the game into overtime. (Al Behrman, Associated Press) |
You mean that was the best team in the AFC yesterday? They played more like the 1999 Steelers, the ones who went 6-10 and made a habit of losing to teams such as the downtrodden Cincinnati Bengals.
Quarterback Kordell Stewart threw a career-high four interceptions, a Kris Brown field-goal attempt ended up a touchdown for the Bengals, the Steelers lost another controversial onside kick in the closing minute, the NFL's top running attack turned to mush, and the pass defense turned in early as the Bengals ended a seven-game losing streak, winning in overtime, 26-23.
It did not matter in the overall standings because the Steelers (12-3) clinched the AFC's top seed a few hours later when Oakland lost in Denver, but it mattered to them personally.
"We're going to be sitting at home after the first playoff game," Lee Flowers said, if they play the way they did yesterday. "We can't have a game like this ever again."
Wide receiver Hines Ward saw some possible good to come out of the Steelers' first loss since Nov. 4, "Maybe this will help us, gets us off our high; come back down to earth and everybody can look at themselves, see what we did and why we didn't win the ballgame. ... Maybe this is healthy for us."
Neil Rackers, who shanked an extra point with 37 seconds left in regulation that would have won it for Cincinnati, redeemed himself by kicking a 31-yard field goal with 4:08 left in overtime to lift the Bengals to 5-10. It came after Danny Farmer, a Steelers' draft pick last year, sent the game into overtime when he beat cornerback Dwayne Washington for an 18-yard touchdown reception.
Rackers missed two field goals and that extra point, and Brown missed an extra point on a slippery grass field that Coach Bill Cowher said "wasn't just bad it was terrible."
He could have said the same thing about his pass defense.
The Steelers' pass defense had a worse weekend than the city of Buffalo. Instead of snow, it was Cincinnati quarterback Jon Kitna who buried them. They will spend all week trying to dig out of it. Tonight, they'll drop the ball in Times Square, but the Steelers got an early jump on doing just that in Cincinnati's Paul Brown Stadium.
Kitna threw 68 passes, tied for the third-most in NFL history, and completed 35 with two touchdowns and one interception. The quarterback who came into the game with the worst passer rating (58.1) in the NFL, lit up the league's fourth-best pass defense for 411 yards. That's the fifth most against the Steelers and the most in 13 years.
"I don't think Kitna played any better since he's been in the league," Washington said.
Not many have played better in one game. Jonny K. turned into Johnny U. His team trailed by 13 when Kitna was presented the game ball by Stewart, whose pass was tipped and intercepted by defensive end Justin Smith.
Cincinnati had the ball with 3:54 left at the Steelers' 32. On third down, Kitna threw a 6-yard touchdown pass to Ron Dugans in front of safety Mike Logan with 2:46 left.
The Steelers new-and-improved onside kick coverage team then lost the onside kick, much the way it did last year when the Steelers collapsed at the end against the Eagles. The ball went through Bobby Shaw's hands, but he pounced on it and apparently had it until he somehow voluntarily gave it up and the officials somehow gave the ball to the Bengals.
Cowher wanted to challenge on replay, but he was told it was not a play to be challenged, even though such a play was reviewed when Mark Bruener recovered an onside kick against Tampa Bay this season.
"We recover that ball and the game's over," Cowher said.
Shaw said he did just that.
"It wasn't a thing where everybody was fighting for it. I had it for the whole time down there. It didn't get wrestled away or nothing like that."
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Plaxico Burress avoids Darryl Williams for a 42-yard touchdown reception. (Peter Diana, Post-Gazette) | |
Nevertheless, linebacker Riall Johnson of the Bengals was awarded the recovery at the Bengals' 46, and Kitna delivered the tying touchdown pass from the 18 with 37 seconds left to Farmer, cut by the Steelers after 2000 training camp.
The Steelers won the coin flip and advanced to the Bengals' 39 before punting. Miller's punt was downed at the 1, but Cincinnati quickly got out of that. Kitna passed for 9 yards to T.J. Houshmandzadeh and then Brandon Bennett -- not Corey Dillion, who ran for 91 yards but was out with a minor finger injury -- gouged the top rushing defense for 36 yards, the biggest run against them this season.
Kitna came back to find Farmer for 15 and came through on third-and-10 with a 13-yard pass to Peter Warrick that put Rackers in position for his winning kick.
"It was a great job by the offense," Bengals Coach Dick LeBeau said.
It took them awhile to get going.
The Steelers jumped in front 14-0 in the first quarter on two Stewart touchdown passes to Plaxico Burress, for 42 and 28 yards. The two of them made it look easy as Burress worked on inexperienced cornerback Kevin Kaesviharn, who began the season as a substitute gym teacher in South Dakota before the desperate Bengals signed him.
They moved in for the kill when they lined up for a 43-yard field goal in the second quarter that would have given them a 17-point lead. But Miller, the holder, took his eyes off the ball and it slipped through his hands. Cincinnati's Robert Bean picked it up and lateraled to Brian Simmons, who ran 56 yards for a touchdown.
That was a possible 10-point swing. Although Brown kicked a 38-yard field goal with one minute left, Kitna zipped his offense down field in the final 53 seconds to allow Rackers to boot a 34-yard field goal with no time left in the half to make it 17-10.
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Steelers place-kicker Kris Brown gets run over by Robert Bean as the Bengals return a bad snap on a field-goal attempt for a touchdown yesterday. (Peter Diana, Post-Gazette) |
Instead of getting blown out, the Bengals believed they were in a ballgame even after Chris Fuamatu-Ma'afala turned Stewart's screen pass into a 37-yard touchdown with 3:41 left in the third quarter.
Stewart was hot at that point. He had thrown three touchdown passes and one interception. He finished with his eighth 200-yard passing game with 251 (19 of 35), but a flurry of interceptions were about to happen. He had thrown an NFL-low five before he added his four yesterday. One came on a desperation pass that he lofted deep at the end of regulation. Another came when Burress, for some reason, stopped running, and that allowed Kaesviharn to catch it.
Fuamatu-Ma'afala, replacing the injured Jerome Bettis for a third consecutive game, went nowhere on the ground. He had 55 yards on 25 carries and played on nearly every down because Amos Zereoue left with a re-injured shoulder early in the game.
"We didn't do the things we've been doing all year," Cowher said. "Turning the ball over the way we did, giving up big plays, we had some penalties that kept drives going. We did a lot of things that aren't indicative of this football team."
They nevertheless achieved all of the goals they could accomplish in the regular season, and they did it with one game to spare. They just weren't in a mood last night to celebrate it.
Steelers still gain top seed, but 4th-quarter collapse stirs up memories of '99 
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