For the second time this season, the Pittsburgh Steelers allowed a game-winning touchdown with under a minute to play. And once again, it came after the offense took the lead in the fourth quarter just minutes earlier. Once again, it was a collective failure on offense and defense — even special teams.
And Steelers OLB Nick Herbig knows they can’t let it happen again, but they also can’t take things for granted.
“It’s the NFL. You never have the game won until there’s zeroes on the clock,” he said via the team’s website. “We’re gonna come out and fight every second. Every blade of grass, we’re gonna fight.”
To their credit, the Steelers did fight, tremendously, but so did the Browns. The Steelers forced them into a 4th-and-3 situation, but Jameis Winston managed to find Jerry Jeudy. It was a daring call, arguably inside of field goal range despite the horrid, snowy conditions.
Later in the series, the Steelers opted to forego another fourth-down play in favor of accepting a five-yard penalty. HC Mike Tomlin reasoned that, at their 25-yard line, up by one, he was playing the field position game more than anything else. The harder you could make a potential field goal attempt, the better.
But once again, the Browns struck on the Jameis-to-Jeudy connection, puncturing the Steelers’ balloon. A delay of game penalty on Beanie Bishop Jr. set up 1st and goal, and the Browns took the lead two plays later. The Steelers had a shot to get it back, ending on the Browns’ 35-yard line, but they were defeated.
“When it came down to the end of the game, they just made more plays than us,” Herbig said of the Steelers’ collective effort. “They executed on a better level than us. They were able to put the ball in [for] touchdowns. We’ve just got to take a look at the film and see what we can do to get better.”
Herbig, starting in place of the injured Alex Highsmith, did his part. He forced a critical fumble in the fourth quarter on a strip sack that got the Steelers back into the game. It was his fourth sack of the season (3.5 if you want to get technical), and third forced fumble. Only T.J. Watt on the Steelers has more forced fumbles, and Herbig trails only Watt and Cameron Heyward for sacks.
But the fact remains that the defense was unable to preserve two fourth-quarter comebacks by the offense now this season. The Steelers pride themselves first and foremost on their stout defense, and this is a critical test of just that. While they faced unfavorable conditions — a bad punt gave the Browns the ball on the Steelers’ 45-yard line on the game-winning drive — their job is to make stops regardless of the context. And their job doesn’t stop until the clock does and the last play is run.
