On Tuesday, a fellow Steelers fan wrote me seeking analysis of Sunday's game in general and, in particular, the role that Bill Cowher's coaching played in the defeat. I didn't respond immediately because I was still nursing an emotional hangover from the loss. Now that I have recovered somewhat from the initial trauma, I feel the need to vent to someone outside the welcoming, but sometimes incestuous confines of Steeler Nation.
The first and most relevant point that needs to be made in light of Sunday’s four-turnover fiasco is that the Steelers fell to a superior team. Losing to the team of the, what should we call it - the aughts? – is no disgrace. (Sidenote: when I finished my junior year of college, the Class of 2000 was scheduled to enter in the fall, sparking a debate about how the school would refer to the incoming classes for the next decade. The college, being a hoary, private northeastern institution decided on “The Class of Aught”, as in “Aught One, Aught Two”, “or back in the Aughts low-rise jeans and Maroon 5 were all the rage.” Picture that on the introduction to the Sports Illustrated commemorative video, - “SI presents the New England Patriots, the National Football League’s Team of the Aughts.”
In any event, while Sunday’s result was not surprising, it continued a disturbing pattern that has tainted the legacy of Bill “Big Game” Cowher. It’s not merely the losses in the AFC Championship Game that have besmirched his reputation; it’s the manner of the losses and the play-not-to-lose ethos that has characterized them. All this goes to underscore my primary gripe about Cowher's playoff philosophy: namely that he has none. He approaches the playoffs exactly the same way he approaches a regular season game, at least from a strategic standpoint. This is despite the fact that everyone recognizes that game planning is more thorough and the intensity level higher in the postseason. If you're a conservative team like the Steelers that plays with little margin for error and often ekes out victories over non-playoff teams throughout the season, doesn't it stand to reason that during the playoffs, against better competition, with stronger gameplans and greater intensity, that your margin for error will shrink to nothing unless you do something unexpected?
Cowher has really only diverged from his buttoned-down postseason strategy in one game: the 1995/96 Super Bowl, his best coaching job in my opinion. Recognizing that the Cowboys had a more talented team, Cowher made a number of aggressive calls, including, but not limited to, an onside kick in the first half. That type of inspiration is rarely evident in his playoff performances. Perhaps the only other time he didn't play it safe was when he unleashed Tommy “Gun” Maddox on the Browns and Titans in 2002. That move was made more out of necessity than anything, but it allowed them to rally from about a million points down against Cleveland and half-a-million down before falling just short against a superior Tennessee squad. You would think he would take some cues from that. But no, it's more of the same turtle mentality that produced an AFC championship game loss to the worst Super Bowl team of all time (the '94 Chargers), a near missagainst what was almost the second-worst Super Bowl team of all time ('95 Colts), still another home field conference championship loss to the Pats in 2001 and innumerable other playoff stumbles.
As for Sunday, I thought Cowher was outcoached, but given the way Roethlisberger was playing, I don't know if it mattered. He admitted yesterday that he hit the wall and lacked arm strength during the latter portion of the season. Good to know. There's no way Cowher would have pulled Roethlisberger (and I might not have either in his position), but once the Steelers dug themselves a deep hole and it was obvious they needed a gunslinger to rally the team with the passing attack, Maddox was the more logical option. He's high risk/high reward, but that's exactly what the situation called for; expecting a rookie quarterback with a dead arm who has thrived on managing the game to suddenly win it by tossing the ball all over the lot is asking a bit much. At the very least, they could have helped the kid by throwing on first down more instead of putting him into obvious pass situations on third down. I know the idea is to rely on the running game to ease the pressure on the rookie. The problem is, when the running game stalls, the pressure is magnified under that philosophy because he's onlythrowing when the defense is prepared, so he struggles, his confidence wanes and the entire offense bogs down. It's not like we haven't seen this play out before.
I also objected to kicking the field goal on fourth-and-two. Leaving four points on the table and the gap at 11 pretty much guarantees you'll need three scoring drives to tie or win the game. That's unless you think you're going to hold the Patriots scoreless for the remainder of the third and the whole of the fourth quarter, and nothing that occurred previously had suggested that would happen. Besides, even if you make the wrongheaded assumption that you'll shut the Patriots out for the final 17 minutes of the ball game, you'll still need a field goal, touchdown and a two-point conversion to tie. So, if you don't think you can pick up fourth and two or three yards - whatever it was - how can you expect to pick up the two point conversion to tie the game with everything on the line? It makes no sense.
Still, what I objected to more than the decision to kick the field goal was the playcalling that forced the decision. Granted, Burress should have caught the touchdown pass on second down, but I can't believe that play is your best option with the season very likely hanging in the balance. Even if you don't get in the end zone there, you need to run a play that's likely to produce positive yards so running the ball on third and fourth down is an option. Cowher/Whisenhunt may have shied away from the run because Bettis was stuffed on that fourth-and-one early in the game, but it's not against the law to involve Hines or Randle El near the goal line. I've hated that jump ball play for a long time because it's an all-or-nothing gamble. Near the goal line I prefer calls that give the athlete a couple opportunities to make a play (witness the wide receiver screen the Patriots scored on when Hope fell down. Call a rollout, a shovel pass, anything that presents multiple options. Even if the defense has the play sniffed out, it can be salvaged with one good individual move.
I like Cowher as a coach overall, but someone has to take him aside and address his timid approach to playoff football. There’s a reason the Steelers thrive in years when little is expected of them. It’s because Cowher knows he has to take chances coming off a 6-10 season and he catches teams by surprise. But then, as the Steelers build momentum during the regular season, the stakes rise and Cowher becomes risk averse. By the AFC Championship Game, he is unwilling to take chances and the other franchises have had 17 games to devise a blueprint on how to stop the Steelers. The result is defeat. Since the Steelers won 16 games this year, expect Cowher to play it close to the vest next season even though other teams will have adapted to a degree and the schedule will be more difficult. Maybe I should consider myself lucky to be venting about another AFC Championship Game loss. Next year, I may not be so fortunate.
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