Stay-at-home Steelers beat Bolts, now meet Ravens
Steelers host Ravens in AFC championship game
Monday, January 12, 2009 10:23 AM PST
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| Keith Srakacic | Associated Press
Pittsburgh Steelers running back Willie Parker (39) breaks a tackle by San Diego Chargers defensive back Eric Weddle on a 16-yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter of an NFL divisional playoff football game Sunday, in Pittsburgh. The Steelers won 35-24 and host the Baltimore Ravens next Sunday for the AFC championship. |
PITTSBURGH (AP) — The San Diego Chargers had everything going for them when the first three NFL divisional playoff games ended with the road team winning. They were the AFC’s hottest team with five straight victories, and they had never lost a postseason game in Pittsburgh.
All those positive vibrations for the feel-good team of these AFC playoffs meant nothing. The Steelers play at home like no one else, and they weren’t about to let the hated Baltimore Ravens reach the AFC championship game without them.
Not with yet another chance to win that title in Pittsburgh.
‘‘They are going to fight like we are going to fight,’’ Willie Parker said after running for 146 yards and two touchdowns Sunday in a 35-24 victory over the Chargers that wasn’t that close. ‘‘It’s going to be a tough, brutal matchup.’’
The Ravens and Steelers, AFC North rivals that truly don’t like each other, played two nasty regular season games filled with big hits, name-calling and numerous injuries. The Steelers won 23-20 in overtime at home on Sept. 29 and 13-9 in the last minute in Baltimore on Dec. 14 to secure the division title.
Now they get to do it all again Sunday night for the AFC championship, and it may be the last team standing that wins the matchup of the AFC’s two best defenses.
Let the taunting begin.
Coach Mike Tomlin has been part of only four Baltimore-Pittsburgh games, three of them Steelers victories, but he knows what this game means — to the players, the coaches, the owners, the cities.
After the visiting Ravens, Cardinals and Eagles won during the first NFL playoff weekend since 1971 in which three home teams lost, the Chargers got off to a promising start when Philip Rivers threw a 41-yard touchdown pass to Vincent Jackson with barely two minutes gone.
It didn’t last — much like Darren Sproles’ playmaking, San Diego’s 2-0 playoff record in Pittsburgh or the Chargers’ ability to control a Steelers offense that was the worst of the 12 playoff teams coming in. San Diego didn’t allow a touchdown during the Steelers’ bizarre 11-10 win on Nov. 16, but Pittsburgh came up with its best offensive game since beating Houston 38-17 in its opener.
Parker, finally healthy again after being slowed nearly all season by knee and shoulder injuries, outrushed Sproles by 131 yards (146-15) as the NFL’s top-ranked defense held San Diego to 15 yards rushing on 12 carries.
San Diego’s problem was ball possession: For nearly the entire third quarter, the Steelers held it.
That’s no way to beat the team that owns the NFL’s best home record since the 1970 merger.
‘‘We were standing on the sideline and it was like, ’We were in for one play in the quarter and it was an interception,’’’ Rivers said. ‘‘There was a little bit of disbelief. ... You can’t call it a fluke, those guys made plays, but that was crazy.’’
The first 11-10 game in NFL history eight weeks ago was odd enough, but this one had its moments.
There was Santonio Holmes’ game-tying 67-yard punt return in the first quarter for Pittsburgh, usually one of the NFL’s worst return teams. A Roethlisberger quick kick. A failed Steelers fake punt. The Steelers recovered a punt after it deflected off Eric Weddle’s helmet. The return of a Steelers running game that ranked only 23rd during the season.
Sproles also wasn’t the playmaker he was while piling up 328 yards during a 23-17 wild-card win over Indianapolis. He was so ineffective running the ball that San Diego, playing without the injured LaDainian Tomlinson, effectively gave up on the run.
‘‘I don’t think he ever broke one (run). We contained him pretty good,’’ the Steelers’ LaMarr Woodley said.
Despite their 8-8 regular season record, and the fact no .500 team has won twice in a postseason, the Chargers felt like they squandered a major opportunity. If they had won, Baltimore would be traveling cross-country to play in San Diego, not making a quick flight to Pittsburgh.
‘‘For us to have an opportunity to have the AFC championship next week in San Diego and let it slide, that’s unacceptable,’’ linebacker Stephen Cooper said.
The Steelers must feel the same way about all those AFC championship games they’ve played, and lost, in Pittsburgh.
They are 11-1 in divisional home games, but AFC championship games are a different matter. This is their third AFC title game in five seasons, and seventh in 15 seasons, but they were 1-4 in the previous five at home dating to 1994. They lost there during the 1994, 1997, 2001 and 2004 seasons, the two most recent times to New England.
There’s also this: The Steelers were second-seeded coming into the playoffs, but will stay at home for the conference title game because top-seeded Tennessee lost to Baltimore on Saturday. The Steelers have been first- or second-seeded seven times since 1992, and they failed to win the Super Bowl the previous six times.
‘‘It’s going to be one for the ages, I have that feeling,’’ Roethlisberger said.
The cities of Baltimore and Pittsburgh probably have that feeling, too.
