Pittsburgh Steelers yet to soak in wild-card game loss to Denver Broncos – NFL Special
The Pittsburgh Steelers are yet to come to the terms of their overtime loss to the Denver Broncos at Mile High Stadium, on Sunday, January 08, 2012, and apparently have no answer to the questions: what, when and where it went wrong for them that ended yet
another Super Bowl hope so quickly.
It is still a shock for Steelers coach, Mike Tomlin, who went into the game with full strength except for a couple of injury problems. Their centre, Maurkice Pouncey, for example, was out of the game due to an ankle injury.
Commenting on the loss, coach Tomlin realised the factor that there can be only one winner this time around and it just was not their time to win.
“There can be only one this year, and it's not us," Tomlin said.
He, however, ended up short of attributing the loss to their performance at any position.
The Steelers were into the first game of playoff season with obvious ambitions for their ninth Super Bowl entry, but were sent home in the very first game of the post-regular season, won by the Broncos in overtime.
Having managed to tie the score at 23 points each at the end of official game timing, they went into overtime, under the new rules being applied by the National Football League (NFL) office for the first time.
They lost the toss to Broncos for the start of the overtime game, and it was then an impressive performance from Denver’s most-talked-about quarterback, Tim Tebow, that decided the game there and then.
Tebow on the very first play in the overtime threw an 80-yard touchdown pass to Demaryius Thomas, who finished it perfectly in the end zone, after dodging the league’s best defence.
There was no chance for the Steelers then to salvage the game. They were seen stunned not just because of another remarkable performance by Tebow, but demolition of their Super Bowl hopes so fast.
The team is still unable to come over with the loss. Their defence, cornerback, Ike Taylor, and safety, Ryan Mundy, are especially unable to come out of the shock, given that they had been leading by having been rated at the top positions in the league.
"Such is life," Tomlin said. "We've got a great deal of respect for Ike and what he's willing to do for us."
The loss, which at some point of the game looked to be a far cry, has had great impact on the Steelers given that their offence despite of injuries problems had performed well.
Their quarterback, Ben Roethlisberger, had rallied in the second quarter of the game to help them overcome the deficit of almost 17 points to level the score at 23-23 each.
Ben was perfect in his movement due to an ankle injury, but still lived up to his teams’ expectations with his performance, which was as good as those in his previous games.
"We feel like we really have great potential to be a really good offense," Roethlisberger said. "I told a lot of guys that. We can be great, we just have to put in the work in the offseason. A lot of that's going to fall on me. We're young."
However, his efforts, at the end, did not prove enough to prevent his team from the Tebow’s leash in the overtime, which gave no chance and no reason to them to redeem their position from an inevitable loss.
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