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ARTICLE
Monday, April 14, 2008
Play-calling played right into Broncos’ hands
By BOB
LABRIOLA Steelers.com
The 1997 Pittsburgh
Steelers had gone through months of work in the offseason, and then a month of
training camp, and then five weeks of the preseason, and then 17 weeks of the
regular season, and then two weeks of the postseason. They had endured hundreds
of practices and thousands of hours of meetings. They had spent more waking
hours together than they had with their families.
All of it was to get
here – to the AFC Championship Game.
And then they blew it
in a span of four minutes and 27 seconds.
The 1997 Steelers
were hosting the AFC Championship Game at Three Rivers Stadium, the third time
that had happened since Bill Cowher became their coach in 1992, the third time
in the past four seasons they would play at home for a chance to advance to the
Super Bowl.
Their opponent this
time was the Denver Broncos, the very same Denver Broncos the Steelers had
defeated, 35-24, on the very same patch of fake grass just 28 days
before.
These were the
Broncos of John Elway and Terrell Davis and Shannon Sharpe and Rod Smith, the
Broncos that finished the NFL ranked No. 1 in offense and No. 1 in scoring.
These also were the Broncos that allowed an NFL-worst 4.7 yards per rushing
attempt and whose overall run defense allowed more yards (1,803) than Terrell
Davis gained (1,750), and Davis had been voted the NFL’s MVP that
season.
The Steelers had
advanced to this conference championship game – and they had defeated the
Broncos in the regular season – because their offense was the most physically
punishing in football.
Of course, it was led
by Jerome Bettis, who posted what would be the best season of his magnificent
career, and he was complemented by an offensive line that included John Jackson,
Will Wolford, Dermontti Dawson, Brendan Stai and Justin Strzelczyk, plus a
fullback in Tim Lester who was an explosive blocker at the point of attack, plus
a tight end in Mark Bruener who was capable of blocking defensive ends
one-on-one. An underrated part of the Steelers running attack was Kordell
Stewart, who rushed for 474 yards and 11 touchdowns in his first season as the
team’s starting quarterback.
The Steelers led the
NFL with 2,479 rushing yards, and Bettis accounted for 1,665 of those. In 15
starts – Bettis sat out the meaningless regular season finale – he averaged 4.4
yards a carry and had 10 100-yard games plus another in which he finished with
99. Only four times all season did Bettis carry the ball 20 times or fewer, and
the Steelers lost three of those. And beyond the yards, Bettis’ running exacted
a toll on the opposition that was obvious to everyone on the
field.
“You can see it in
their eyes,” said Jerry Olsavsky, a backup linebacker and special teams player
for the Steelers that season. “There comes a time in the second half when they
get tired of trying to tackle the big guy, and it’s in their body language –
their shoulders just slump. When the guys on our sideline see that, we perk up.
Give the ball to the big guy.”
If any more evidence
was needed of the way the Steelers should attack the Broncos in the 1997 AFC
Championship Game, it was available on the tapes of the regular season meeting
between these teams. On Dec. 7, the Steelers defeated Denver, 35-24, thanks to
186 yards rushing – 125 from Bettis and 49 more plus two touchdowns from
Stewart.
Yes, it seemed
obvious that if the Steelers were going to advance to Super Bowl XXXII in San
Diego, they were going to get there by riding the Bus through the Broncos
defense while John Elway watched from the sideline.
The Broncos won the
toss and came out throwing. Elway’s first pass was tipped at the line by
defensive end Nolan Harrison; his second, for Sharpe, was intercepted by Levon
Kirkland. But the Steelers’ chance to grab the momentum was thwarted by a missed
field goal by Norm Johnson, and that served as a catalyst for a six-play,
72-yard touchdown drive by the Broncos that was capped by an 8-yard run by
Davis.
Denver led, 7-0, but
the Steelers tied the game midway through the first period by doing what they
had done so well all season. Their 65-yard drive that tied the score, 7-7,
included 45 yards rushing, including the final 33 and the touchdown by
Stewart.
The Broncos next
offensive possession ended in another turnover – this one a Davis fumble that
was recovered by safety Darren Perry at the Pittsburgh 32-yard line. The
Steelers took over with 2:28 left in the first quarter and after Stewart
converted a third-and-10 with a pass over the middle to Yancey Thigpen, the
offense hopped on the Bus.
Bettis gained 32
yards on five carries, including the touchdown on a plunge into the end zone,
and the Steelers took a 14-7 lead. There was 12:42 left in the first half, and
Bettis already had 46 yards on nine carries; the Steelers were beginning to take
control of the battle of attrition. Inexplicably, however, this was precisely
when the Steelers chose to go to the air.
The Broncos’ ensuing
possession ended in a 43-yard field goal by Jason Elam that cut their deficit to
14-10, and then the Steelers responded with a three-and-out authored by three
straight pass attempts. Denver got the ball back, but a sack by safety Myron
Bell put the Broncos in a fourth-and-22 hole and Tom Rouen had to
punt.
A defensive offside
on first down from the Denver 43-yard line and a 3-yard run by Bettis set up a
second-and-2 from the Broncos 35-yard line. At this point in the game, the
Steelers had more yards rushing than passing (75-69), and while Bettis was
averaging better than 5 yards a carry, Stewart had completed 6-of-13 (46.2
percent).
Despite those
statistics, despite the way Bettis had broken teams’ wills all season, despite
the Denver defense being soft against the run, offensive coordinator Chan
Gailey’s play-call on second-and-2 with 4:45 remaining in the second quarter was
a play-action pass. Ray Crockett intercepted in the end zone, and the Steelers
had set in motion a series of events that would take them out of the game before
halftime.
Elway completed
4-of-4 on the drive after Crockett’s interception and got another 22 yards on a
pass interference call on Steelers rookie cornerback Chad Scott. The Broncos
used 2:53 of the game clock to score the go-ahead touchdown – on a 15-yard pass
to fullback Howard Griffith – and take a 17-14 lead.
The Steelers got the
ball with 1:47 left, and even though Elam’s touchback put the ball at the
20-yard line, Gailey kept calling passes. Two incompletions and an offensive
holding penalty burned less than a minute off the clock before Josh Miller was
called on to punt with 55 seconds left. The Broncos were going to get another
crack at the Steelers defense, and when Miller’s punt netted 32 yards that crack
came from the Denver 46-yard line.
Elway got 34 yards
right away when Carnell Lake was flagged for interfering with Rod Smith, and
from there, it almost seemed easy. A 1-yard pass to Ed McCaffrey accounted for
Denver’s touchdown, and the Broncos had turned a 14-10 deficit into a 24-14 lead
in a 4-minute, 27-second span of the second quarter, and they managed it without
having to use a single timeout in the process and without having to tackle
Jerome Bettis even once.
Still, there were two
quarters of football to be played, and the Steelers bowed their
backs.
During the game’s
final 30 minutes, their defense gave up no points, six first downs and only 120
yards of offense, while forcing the Broncos to punt on each of their first four
possessions of the second half. The Steelers offense rolled up 13 first downs
and drove the ball into Broncos territory three more times, but the unit that
sabotaged itself with two turnovers in the first half added two more in the
second.
And it was the first
of those two second half turnovers that invited more scrutiny of the
play-calling. The Steelers received the second half kickoff and marched from
their own 22-yard line to a first-and-goal at the Denver 5-yard line. During the
drive, Bettis had gained 30 yards on five carries, but after being stopped for
no gain on first-and-goal at the 5-yard line, Gailey again chose to rely on
Stewart’s passing instead of the NFL’s best running attack even though the
Steelers quarterback had thrown two interceptions in the first
half.
Stewart’s pass was
intercepted in the end zone by middle linebacker Allen Aldridge, and another
prime scoring opportunity had been squandered. Instead of giving the ball to a
guy who was one of the best short-yardage/goal-line backs in football, the
Steelers had chosen to put the onus on an inexperienced
quarterback.
“Certainly you sit
back and maybe wish you would have done this or wish maybe you would have done
that. That’s part of the game,” said Cowher. “You can say it all, and we still
had a chance at the end of the game. “You make decisions, you take chances. I said before, if you want to be successful in life, you take chances. Part of taking risks is that there potentially could be hurt if you don’t succeed.”
Broncos 7 17 0 0 24 Steelers 7 7 0 7 21
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