FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — The Steelers took a long road to get to the AFC championship, winning a league-best nine in a row and their past five games on the road.
But all that work only led them to discover what they had already known — they can’t beat Tom Brady in New England.
And they can’t beat him in an AFC championship game. Especially when he can stand in the pocket and wait for his receivers to flash open.
“When he has time to find receivers, and his receivers find time to scramble, sometimes you got to hang on to those receivers,” linebacker James Harrison said. “Obviously, we didn’t do that when we got in those situations.”
It’s tough enough to beat Brady with a solid defensive effort, which the Houston Texans discovered a week earlier when they sacked him four times and hit the 39-year-old quarterback on eight other occasions. But the task becomes infinitely more difficult when he is under little pressure in the pocket, which the Steelers discovered on a raw, drizzly night in a 36-17 defeat at Gillette Stadium.
“We definitely felt like we could get some pressure on him,” said inside linebacker Ryan Shazier. “But they schemed it up right. Everything we threw at them they blocked it up right.”
The Steelers had 31 sacks in their nine-game winning streak, the most among any team in the league. But that pressure was nowhere to be found after the second series, and the secondary paid the price.
The biggest benefactor was receiver Chris Hogan, who had plenty of time to run free through the defense and catch nine passes for a team-record 180 yards and two touchdowns.
“Hats off to the Patriots,” cornerback William Gay said. “They came to play. They made more plays than we did. I’ve said all year, the team that executes has a chance to win the game. I know it sounds like a cliche, but whoever executes plays the best. We didn’t.”
One of the touchdowns was a 34-yard flea-flicker in which safety Mike Mitchell bit on the handoff to LeGarrette Blount and watched Hogan scoot past him as the ball was lateralled back to Brady. Hogan was wide open in the end zone.
“We had not seen the flea-flicker before,” said cornerback Ross Cockrell. “I wish we had seen it before.”
It went that way for most of the night against Hogan, a former lacrosse player at Penn State who played only one year of college football at Monmouth. On a night when Brady completed six passes of 22 yards or longer, Hogan had four of them for 22, 24, 27 and 34 yards.
That was a big departure for the Steelers defense, which had been doing a good job of limiting the number of long pass plays in their nine-game winning streak. They had allowed just three pass plays of 21 yards or longer in postseason victories against the Dolphins and Kansas City Chiefs, and none longer than 37 yards.
“It was tough all game,” Cockrell said.
“We didn’t make the plays on defense that we made during our winning streak.”
The Steelers had two sacks on Brady, but after the first one by nose tackle Javon Hargrave on the second series the Steelers were lucky if they touched Brady, let alone sack him. Blitz pressure was nonexistent, allowing him to pick out receivers as if he was selecting fruit at the corner market.
Not surprisingly, Brady was 32 of 42 for 384 yards with three touchdowns and a passer rating of 127.5. He did not throw an interception. Sound familiar? It should. Since Mike Tomlin became coach in 2007, Brady has thrown 22 touchdowns and no interceptions against the Steelers.
“It’s always easier for the receivers to catch the ball when the quarterback has plenty of time to throw it,” Patriots coach Bill Belichick said. “The receivers were able to create separation when Tom has that much time to throw.”
It was a disappointing ending for the Steelers, who hadn’t allowed a 300-yard passer since the last game they lost — to the Dallas Cowboys on Nov. 13. It was the most passing yards they allowed since Arizona’s Carson Palmer had 421 in Week 6 of the 2015 season.
Asked what the Steelers were hoping to accomplish but failed to do against Brady, Timmons said, “We were hoping to go to the Super Bowl.”
Once again, Brady stood in their way.
Gerry Dulac: gdulac@post-gazette.com and Twitter @gerrydulac.
By the numbers
Chris Hogan - 9 receptions on 12 targets, 180 receiving yards, 2 touchdowns
The flip side
Overall, the Steelers defense allowed 384 passing yards, 3 touchdown passes while registering just 2 sacks and 0 passes defensed.
First Published: January 23, 2017, 5:35 a.m.
