12/21/24
January 16, 2011
Steelers Rally to Defeat Ravens 31-24: After being down 21-7 at the half, the Pittsburgh Steelers came back to beat the Baltimore Ravens 31-24 to reach the AFC Championship Game. The Ravens turned the ball over three times in the third quarter in their territory. "They keep asking for us and we keep putting them out of the tournament," gloated Steelers receiver Hines Ward. "They're going to be ticked about this for a long time."
And TJ Houshmandzadeh will be having nightmares after dropping an easy first down & out of bounds catch at the end of the game.
posted by jmd82 at 10:12 AM on January 16, 2011
Yes. No excuse for that drop by TJ.
posted by cjets at 11:03 AM on January 16, 2011
That was their guard that did that late hit, rcade, not Pouncy. And he always does stupid plays like that. About Ike Taylor though, I was annoyed CBS didn't show the whole play, because when i watched it the first time around you saw tj jump up after the catch and started marching down the field to strut and HE initiated contact with a steeler popping him with his shoulder, and I believe ikes headbutt was a retaliation for that (not that it excuses it, but it wasn't as out of the blue as it seemed on the replay). And tj punched Ike in the face as a retaliation to the headbut (also not shown in the replay) which wasn't called either.
I also wondered why no flag on the several low hits on Ben when the steelers would FALL into a qbs legs during regular season they would get a flag.
But that said, there were already too many flags..can't imagine if they would have thrown one for all of the above.
posted by bdaddy at 11:50 AM on January 16, 2011
Anyone else ever seen a defensive holding call on an interior lineman on a running play? Not sure that it changed anything as far as outcome, but I've never seen that call in twenty years of watching football.
posted by tahoemoj at 12:44 PM on January 16, 2011
I've seen it called an handfull of times(rare enough that I have to be reminded what it means each time) but certainly not in that situation. It would have to be blatantly bad to call like that in a playoff game with those stakes and from replay it didn't look blatantly bad.
horribly officiated game all around. Refs should be invisible in games of this magnitude and they were front and center throughout.
posted by bdaddy at 12:56 PM on January 16, 2011
The Ravens gained 126 yards on 53 offensive plays. With that and the turnovers and dropped passes, it's kind of amazing how close they were to pulling it out.
posted by Mookieproof at 05:04 PM on January 16, 2011
MOst of the ravens early points were gimmies. The Steelers turned the ball over teice in their own red zone. It shouldnt have been this close.
posted by Debo270 at 07:43 AM on January 17, 2011
That fumble return TD was the gimmiest gimme in the history of gimmies.
posted by rcade at 09:26 AM on January 17, 2011
True, but if you take away what the Steelers gave them, The Ravens did little with the ball all day. 126 total yards.
If I was a Ravens fan, You have to be pissed. Leading by 14, you come out in the 2nd half and start your first three drives with passes on 1st down. I think that is when you start slowing it down and trying to eat clock. The play calling was consistant with what they have done most of the year, but in that situation, its time to take the air out fof the ball.
posted by Debo270 at 10:21 AM on January 17, 2011
That was an incredibly chippy game. The officials didn't help matters by ignoring the Steelers center jumping into a pile in the first half and letting Ike Taylor head butt T.J. Houshmandzadeh after a play.
I don't understand how the Ravens let that final long pass get completed with eight defenders back. They'll be seeing that play in their nightmares for months.