Harris fumble sets up Steelers' loss, but playoffs clinched
The Steelers' gauntlet of three games in 11 days got off to a rough start, falling to the Eagles 27-13 Sunday evening at Lincoln Financial Field.
The loss dropped Pittsburgh to 10-4 on the season. However, the Steelers still clinched a playoff berth because the Dolphins and Colts both lost Sunday. The Steelers also still lead the AFC North, but because the Ravens defeated the Giants Sunday afternoon and improved to 9-5, the division lead has been cut to just one game.
But, don't let the promise of a playoff game fool you. As T.J. Watt succinctly put it after the game, "No consolation."
"We didn't coach as well as we'd like. We didn't play as well as we'd like," Mike Tomlin said after the game. "It's just such a fine line at this level. It is. If you just look at that game, we had a penalty going in that forced us to settle for a field goal. We turned the ball over on the short field and got no points. There were several possession downs on defense where we had opportunities to tackle ball carriers in the flat, and we missed those tackles. And that produced extended drives, and thus points. That's life in our business. It's not anything mystical. It's very fundamental. We have to play disciplined. We have to secure the ball. We have to tackle. And we didn't do some of those fundamental things well enough tonight to secure victory."
The reason why Watt and everyone in the locker room wore this one hard was because they felt like they beat themselves. As they have pretty much all season, the Steelers got off to a terribly slow start, especially on offense. At the end of the first quarter, the Eagles had out-gained the Steelers, 148-2, despite both the defense and special teams forcing fumbles for takeaways, the latter of which put the Steelers' at the Philadelphia 11-yard line. The total number of points off those turnovers: Three. Just one Chris Boswell field goal.
Constant mistakes cost the offense yards and points. Two personal foul penalties forced the Steelers to settle for a field goal after the aforementioned fumble recovery on special teams, forced by Mark Robinson. Various penalties also aided in killing drives before they got started.
"There were drive-killers," Najee Harris said after the game. "I had one myself, too, so there's no point in pointing fingers."
Harris' drive-killer was the turning point in the game. It killed all momentum of 10 unanswered points to come back from a 17-3 deficit in the first half, and also holding the Eagles to a field goal on their opening possession of the second half to keep it a one-score game at 20-13. The offense came out and immediately answered with a 31-yard pass from Russell Wilson to Calvin Austin III on a flea flicker. But three plays later, Harris dropped a pitch from Wilson and Darius Slay recovered for Philadelphia.
“I took my eyes off it," Harris said. "I was looking at the hole instead of securing the football and fumbled it.”
The Eagles capitalized on the turnover, and a missed tackle by Patrick Queen on a critical third down in the red zone, with a 1-yard touchdown run by Jalen Hurts on the infamous "tush push."
"We just shot ourselves in the foot too many times tonight," Pat Freiermuth said. "They didn't do anything special against us. We just didn't execute for some reason, especially early on."
Another key reason for the loss was the Eagles' complete suffocation of the Steelers in time of possession, but especially with their two possessions in the third quarter. Pittsburgh only possessed the ball for 2:02 in the third quarter, with that lone possession ending in Harris' fumble. Meanwhile, the Eagles' first two second-half possessions produced 10 points, giving them a 14-point lead with 14:17 remaining in the game.
After another failed drive in which the Steelers opted to punt on fourth-and-8 from the Philadelphia 46-yard line, the Eagles put the game on ice with a drive that bled the clock for the remaining 10:29 in the game. That gave Philadelphia a whopping 39:52 in time of possession for the game.
To add injury to insult, Watt went down with a left low-ankle injury in the fourth quarter and did not return to the game. Watt wasn't wearing any wrap in the locker room after the game, but said they'll "wait and see" about his availability for their next game. That's a loss the Steelers' simply cannot afford, especially since George Pickens, DeShon Elliott and Larry Ogunjobi were sidelined for Sunday's game, and Donte Jackson also left the game with a back injury.
It's a quick turnaround for the Steelers, as they play in Baltimore on Saturday. Should the Steelers win that game, they would clinch the AFC North.
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Chris Halicke
12:30 am - 12.16.2024PhiladelphiaHarris fumble sets up Steelers' loss, but playoffs clinched
The Steelers' gauntlet of three games in 11 days got off to a rough start, falling to the Eagles 27-13 Sunday evening at Lincoln Financial Field.
The loss dropped Pittsburgh to 10-4 on the season. However, the Steelers still clinched a playoff berth because the Dolphins and Colts both lost Sunday. The Steelers also still lead the AFC North, but because the Ravens defeated the Giants Sunday afternoon and improved to 9-5, the division lead has been cut to just one game.
But, don't let the promise of a playoff game fool you. As T.J. Watt succinctly put it after the game, "No consolation."
"We didn't coach as well as we'd like. We didn't play as well as we'd like," Mike Tomlin said after the game. "It's just such a fine line at this level. It is. If you just look at that game, we had a penalty going in that forced us to settle for a field goal. We turned the ball over on the short field and got no points. There were several possession downs on defense where we had opportunities to tackle ball carriers in the flat, and we missed those tackles. And that produced extended drives, and thus points. That's life in our business. It's not anything mystical. It's very fundamental. We have to play disciplined. We have to secure the ball. We have to tackle. And we didn't do some of those fundamental things well enough tonight to secure victory."
The reason why Watt and everyone in the locker room wore this one hard was because they felt like they beat themselves. As they have pretty much all season, the Steelers got off to a terribly slow start, especially on offense. At the end of the first quarter, the Eagles had out-gained the Steelers, 148-2, despite both the defense and special teams forcing fumbles for takeaways, the latter of which put the Steelers' at the Philadelphia 11-yard line. The total number of points off those turnovers: Three. Just one Chris Boswell field goal.
Constant mistakes cost the offense yards and points. Two personal foul penalties forced the Steelers to settle for a field goal after the aforementioned fumble recovery on special teams, forced by Mark Robinson. Various penalties also aided in killing drives before they got started.
"There were drive-killers," Najee Harris said after the game. "I had one myself, too, so there's no point in pointing fingers."
Harris' drive-killer was the turning point in the game. It killed all momentum of 10 unanswered points to come back from a 17-3 deficit in the first half, and also holding the Eagles to a field goal on their opening possession of the second half to keep it a one-score game at 20-13. The offense came out and immediately answered with a 31-yard pass from Russell Wilson to Calvin Austin III on a flea flicker. But three plays later, Harris dropped a pitch from Wilson and Darius Slay recovered for Philadelphia.
“I took my eyes off it," Harris said. "I was looking at the hole instead of securing the football and fumbled it.”
The Eagles capitalized on the turnover, and a missed tackle by Patrick Queen on a critical third down in the red zone, with a 1-yard touchdown run by Jalen Hurts on the infamous "tush push."
"We just shot ourselves in the foot too many times tonight," Pat Freiermuth said. "They didn't do anything special against us. We just didn't execute for some reason, especially early on."
Another key reason for the loss was the Eagles' complete suffocation of the Steelers in time of possession, but especially with their two possessions in the third quarter. Pittsburgh only possessed the ball for 2:02 in the third quarter, with that lone possession ending in Harris' fumble. Meanwhile, the Eagles' first two second-half possessions produced 10 points, giving them a 14-point lead with 14:17 remaining in the game.
After another failed drive in which the Steelers opted to punt on fourth-and-8 from the Philadelphia 46-yard line, the Eagles put the game on ice with a drive that bled the clock for the remaining 10:29 in the game. That gave Philadelphia a whopping 39:52 in time of possession for the game.
To add injury to insult, Watt went down with a left low-ankle injury in the fourth quarter and did not return to the game. Watt wasn't wearing any wrap in the locker room after the game, but said they'll "wait and see" about his availability for their next game. That's a loss the Steelers' simply cannot afford, especially since George Pickens, DeShon Elliott and Larry Ogunjobi were sidelined for Sunday's game, and Donte Jackson also left the game with a back injury.
It's a quick turnaround for the Steelers, as they play in Baltimore on Saturday. Should the Steelers win that game, they would clinch the AFC North.
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