PITTSBURGH — On the same weekend the new "Star Wars" movie debuted, Bill Belichick and his Patriots were once again using a Jedi mind trick that remains their greatest collective gift:
Making the opponent lose common sense when it's needed most.
It happened in Super Bowl XLIX on Seattle’s infamous Second-and-Dumb play call at the goal line.
It happened when Falcons offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan forgot how to run clock late in the fourth quarter of Super Bowl LI.
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And it happened once again Sunday in a 27-24 victory over the Steelers that could prove the difference in New England reaching Super Bowl LII.
Somehow, the prolific pairing of Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger and offensive coordinator Todd Haley — a tandem that has spent so much time together plotting strategy over the past six years that they could be legally married — displayed the same chemistry as a mismatched blind-date couple at the most critical time of Pittsburgh’s season.
Roethlisberger was set to do one thing. Haley ordered something else — perhaps at the insistence of head coach Mike Tomlin. And the ensuing chaos led to an end-zone interception that puts New England (11-3) in the driver’s seat for home-field advantage throughout the playoffs.
It’s an NFL version of "Star Wars: Attack of the Clones" with Belichick as Obi-Wan dispatching of someone trying to sell him “death sticks” at a bar.
Dealer: You wanna buy some death sticks?
Obi-wan: You don't want to sell me death sticks.
Dealer: Eh, I don’t wanna sell you death sticks.
Obi-wan: You want to go home and rethink your life.
Dealer: I wanna go home and rethink my life.
Every member of the Steelers and their fans are feeling the same way.
The Steelers let that chance to clinch the No. 1 seed outright slip through their fingers in a fashion far too relatable by the Seahawks and Falcons.
While there is no guarantee Pittsburgh would have won — especially since the Steelers once again had no answer for Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski (nine catches for 168 yards and a two-point conversion) — there was a strong likelihood that Chris Boswell would have sent the game into overtime if given the chance to kick a chip-shot field goal in the final seconds of the fourth quarter.
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Boswell never got that opportunity because of ineptitude by Roethlisberger and Haley.
One play after experiencing the heartbreak of having a 10-yard touchdown throw to tight end Jesse James overturned on replay, Roethlisberger rebounded by hitting Darrius Heyward-Bey on a short pass to the Patriots' 7-yard line. As the clock ran inside 20 seconds with no timeouts remaining, Steelers players got back on the line of scrimmage to run what they thought would be a Roethlisberger spike.
It didn’t unfold that way.
“It wasn’t a fake spike,” Roethlisberger admitted in front of his Heinz Field locker. “I was yelling, ‘Clock it!’ I felt like that was the thing to do — clock it and get yourself one play.”
So what happened?
“It came from the sideline: ‘Don’t clock it! Don’t clock it!’” said Roethlisberger, who later allowed that it was Haley using the communication device inside his helmet to change the play. “Well, at that time, everyone thinks it’s a clock (play) so you don’t have time to get everyone lined up.”
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Roethlisberger said Steelers wide receiver Eli Rogers recognized that an actual play would be run so he bolted ahead on an inside slant route at the snap. Roethlisberger tried forcing the football into coverage, allowing Eric Rowe to deflect the pass that fellow Patriots defensive back Duron Harmon intercepted for a touchback.
“I didn’t really think (Roethlisberger) was going to throw it because I was right on (Rogers’) hip,” Rowe said. “We came down with it and I was ecstatic.”
As well he should be as another Patriots foe experienced brain lock.
Roethlisberger — whose comments about the situation were left off the team’s official postgame quote sheets distributed to the media seemingly in an effort to defuse any more controversy — was still at a loss to explain exactly what happed roughly 30 minutes after the game had ended.
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“That’s coming from the head guy [Tomlin],” Roethlisberger said of the final play-call decision. “Someone is telling (Haley). Maybe they wanted the field goal. Maybe they wanted to tie it. I don’t know. Maybe it’s on me. Maybe I should have just clocked it. Whatever it is, I don’t know.”
With the Patriots likely heavy favorites to win their final two games at home against the Bills (8-6) and Jets (5-9), the Steelers (11-3) now know that the road to the Super Bowl will likely wind up running through Foxborough once again. Pittsburgh has lost its past three games at Gillette Stadium by a 119-69 margin dating to 2013.
The Steelers finally had the black-and-golden opportunity the franchise sought to force New England back to Heinz Field in the postseason — provided the Patriots even got that far in the playoffs. A New England loss to Pittsburgh would have put the Jaguars (10-4) in command of the No. 2 seed and greatly increased the chances that the Patriots wouldn’t be defending their Lombardi Trophy. New England also was on the ropes from having lost Monday night at Miami.
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It’s the Steelers who now have to regain their swagger the next two weeks against the Texans and Browns or risk getting usurped by Jacksonville and falling to the AFC’s No. 3 playoff seed with a first-round playoff game attached. Pittsburgh also must rally the short term without star wide receiver Antonio Brown, who reportedly suffered a partially torn calf muscle in the second quarter.
Unlike some of his teammates — Heyward-Bey was reduced to rolling his tongue in exasperation rather than using words to describe what happened on the final play — Roethlisberger didn’t have an end-of-the-world air about him when concluding his interview.
“We’re not going to look back and second-guess anything or anybody,” Roethlisberer said. “We lost the game and I threw a pick in the end zone at the end of the game to lose it.”
On that, there is no confusion.
