FOXBOROUGH, Mass. -- Cam Heyward's got a broad enough shoulder to absorb a tidal wave of tears, if needed.
Only it wasn't needed. Not by anyone.
The Steelers' defensive captain, whose injury somehow set off a nine-game surge all the way to this AFC Championship Game on this Sunday night, was making the rounds of the visiting locker at Gillette Stadium. His teammates had just been ... wow, not so much eliminated as they were annihilated, 36-17, by the Patriots, and it was those guys, not his guys, bound for Super Bowl LI. And it had to hurt. It just had to. So, as the big man had done for weeks, he went stall to stall shaking each hand, thanking each man And then, because this was the first loss in all that time, he'd linger a moment to see if anything more might be needed.
Only one player, from what I saw, took him up on it. That was Mike Mitchell, the most visible, vocal defensive leader in Heyward's absence. Mitchell buried his head for more than two minutes in Heyward's left shoulder. The head shook a bit, a few words were exchanged ... and that was it.
He didn't cry, either.
Man, this sure wasn't Denver.
A year ago, the final playoff stop came a mile high on Fitz Toussaint's fumble, and the aftermath was a mile low. There were tears in every corner, shouts from the showers, chins hanging and, of course, poor Fitz left too paralyzed to speak for a half-hour. It was the most devastated locker room I'd covered in two decades of doing this.
This one?
Here's video I shot of the Steelers coming through the tunnel ...
The postgame reaction. — MATT SUNDAY / DKPS____________________
.@Patriots pull off the flea flicker!@LG_Blount tosses it back to TB12.
And Brady's pass is BEAUTIFUL. #BALvsNE https://t.co/RABVO3evZp
— NFL (@NFL) December 13, 2016
____________________
The AFC Championship Game. — MATT SUNDAY / DKPS
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