The Pittsburgh Steelers and Green Bay Packers played one of the best back-and-forth offensive battles in Week 15 of the 2009 season. Neither team could stop each other, but Pittsburgh came out on top thanks to a 19-yard touchdown pass to WR Mike Wallace from QB Ben Roethlisberger on the final play of the game. Roethlisberger revealed on his Footbahlin’ podcast that during that game, head coach Mike Tomlin had the Steelers try an onside kick in the fourth quarter with the intent of letting Green Bay have a shorter field to score so Pittsburgh could get the ball back quicker.
“It was so bad, when we scored a touchdown we kicked an onside with like, eight minutes to go, people are like, what are you doing, he’s like ‘I wanted to get them the ball with a shorter field so they could score faster and we’d get the ball back.’ That’s how bad Mike T., he was like ‘Give the ball to Aaron Rodgers, let him hurry up and score, because we’re gonna score again,'” Roethlisberger said.
Roethlisberger had the time wrong on the play, as the onside kick came with just under four minutes to go.
If that was truly the plan, as Roethlisberger said, it worked to perfection. The Packers scored a touchdown to take a 36-30 lead with 2:06 to go, and the Steelers got the ball back. Roethlisberger led a 12-play, 86-yard drive that ended with the game-winner to Wallace.
It was one of the best games of Roethlisberger’s career, as he threw for 503 yards. The Steelers were actually in the midst of a five-game losing streak heading into this game with Green Bay, but the heroic win got them back to .500 at 7-7. Despite beating Green Bay and then winning their final two games to finish 9-7, the Steelers missed the playoffs that year.
Given the situation the Steelers were in, it’s not completely implausible that Tomlin would chance letting Rodgers and the Green Bay offense score quickly to get the ball back to Roethlisberger, playing as well as he ever had. The Steelers were desperate coming into the game on a losing streak, and Tomlin was looking for any way possible to give the Steelers a chance to win the game at the end. If they kick it off normally, the Packers have four minutes to drive down the field and kill the clock, and Tomlin obviously wasn’t confident in his defense’s ability to stop Rodgers, who ended the day with 383 yards through the air.
Making them work with a short field gave Pittsburgh’s offense enough time to go down and match Green Bay’s score, even with the Steelers defense unable to get the stop. That’s a situation where the Steelers sort of benefit either way. Either they recover the onside kick and try to build their two-point lead into a bigger, potentially two-score lead, or the Packers get it and don’t have the luxury of sitting on the ball with a short field and have to kick it back to Pittsburgh with a chunk of time remaining.
While it was a forgettable season for Pittsburgh, the shootout against Green Bay is one of the most memorable games of Roethlisberger’s career. Knowing Tomlin’s confidence in ceding short field to Green Bay to allow Pittsburgh to get the ball back and score adds another cool bit of lore to that game.
Watch the full Footbahlin’ podcast below:
