Ben Roethlisberger often lamented never winning a ring with Maurkice Pouncey, but the Pittsburgh Steelers’ best chance to add to their trophy case since going to the Super Bowl in 2010 but losing to the Green Bay Packers came during the Killer B’s era. From 2013-17, with Roethlisberger, Antonio Brown, and Le’Veon Bell in their prime, the window was wide open.
So what went wrong, leading to just three playoff wins in that era? Pouncey was candid in his post-mortem.
“If you just seen us on paper, we should have won what, two, three Super Bowls?” Pouncey said via Cam Heyward’s Not Just Football podcast. “Sometimes I think with social media, [it] was such a big pop at that point, right? Especially with all our guys. And I think it more like, it bled into—I’m very honest about it. I just felt like we wasn’t playing as a team.
“I love all my guys to death, but I just felt like we played so well as a team and on the offense side of things during the regular season, but then when it started to count towards the very, very end, we was falling apart a little bit because maybe one guy went this way or another guy went that way.”
The way things ended with some of the key players in that group is a great microcosm of what Pouncey is talking about. Le’Veon Bell held out an entire season over contract demands and never played another snap with the team. Antonio Brown’s attitude became untenable before he ultimately requested a trade out of Pittsburgh. There was no shortage of drama during that era, and that may have taken away from the dynamic of the team as a collective.
The obvious example that comes to mind when Pouncey talks about social media is Antonio Brown going live from the locker room after the Steelers beat the Kansas City Chiefs in the divisional round of the 2016 playoffs. He streamed part of Mike Tomlin’s private address to the team and caused a rift in the locker room as the team was making a push toward the Super Bowl. They ended up getting steamrolled by the New England Patriots, 36-17, in the AFC Championship Game.
Injury misfortune and playing in the Tom Brady era were two major factors in the Steelers failing to win a Super Bowl after 2008, but they also didn’t maximize the immense talent they had when it mattered most.
“When you sit back and really analyze it, you was just like ‘Damn we coulda just did that part,'” Pouncey said. “Just took that extra step of making sure everyone felt like it was all about everyone. I think that was our biggest thing of that era that kind of hurt us. I think it more got about who could be bigger than who at that point.”
He does go on to say the brotherhood on those teams was “unbreakable.” It’s not as if the Steelers were completely missing that key component of what makes a good team great. But I think we all know which individuals he was referring to with that statement.
What made the 2005 and 2008 Steelers teams so great? They played for each other and had a shared brotherhood that extended beyond the field. Aaron Rodgers said it this offseason—teams that drink together win together. There is an immeasurable benefit that comes for teams that play unselfish football for the collective.
The Killer B’s were unfortunately missing that at times.
