As fans are well-aware of, it’s been a while since the Pittsburgh Steelers won a playoff game. However, Mike Tomlin’s Steelers do have several signature playoff victories. Maybe the most surreal example is the win against the Cincinnati Bengals in the 2015 postseason. That game was a whirlwind of emotions. The Steelers pulled off an improbable comeback, thanks in part to Bengals running back Jeremy Hill fumbling. Hue Jackson, the Bengals offensive coordinator that year, recently reflected on that play.
“For whatever reason, we just couldn’t get over that hump,” Jackson said on the Bengals and Brews YouTube channel. “I go back to that Pittsburgh where Jeremy fumbled. I mean, are you kidding me? I called that play.
“I remember the instructions I gave him. ‘Hey, we’re not worried about running for a touchdown. I need you to do a great job and just run and get down.’ He saw daylight, thought he was going to go score, and the ball gets ripped out.”
Hill’s fumble, forced by Ryan Shazier, was a gift for the Steelers. Before that, the game looked like it was over. The Bengals were leading 16-15, Ben Roethlisberger had been out of the game with an injury since the end of the third quarter, and they had just picked off backup quarterback Landry Jones. With a little less than two minutes remaining in the game, things seemed hopeless for the Steelers.
However, as fast as hope left, it returned. On the Bengals’ first play after the interception, Hill coughed the ball up. Based on what Jackson is saying, he wasn’t even supposed to be in that position. Jackson told him to be safe and just get down. Hill, it seems, had other plans.
From there, things only got better for the Steelers. Roethlisberger returned, led his team down the field, and thanks to some boneheaded Bengals penalties, the Steelers got into field goal range and Chris Boswell converted to deliver the improbable win. For the Bengals, it had to feel like their souls were just sucked out of them.
Jackson still seems to be hurting over that loss.
“That’s really hard for me to even talk about that,” he said. “It just seems like it wasn’t meant to be.”
That loss has to sting even more because of how good the Bengals were that year. They went 12-4, winning the AFC North. Even after losing Andy Dalton, their starting quarterback, they still looked formidable. However, they couldn’t get past the Steelers.
Hill’s fumble wasn’t the only reason the Bengals lost, but it began the chain reaction that led to their defeat. That play is a good lesson in situational awareness. Had Hill just gone down, the Bengals likely would’ve won. Instead, the Steelers pulled out an improbable playoff win over one of their most bitter rivals.
