The Steelers FINALLY beat the Patriots

The Steelers’ 17-10 win on Sunday wasn’t much to brag about, except for the fact that they finally beat the Patriots. Prior to Sunday, the last time the Steelers beat the Patriots was Oct. 30, 2011.

The Steelers’ win came despite missing James Conner for a second consecutive week. Chris Boswell’s 13th missed field goal of the season that would have made for a much less stressful ending for Steeler fans.

However, the Steelers got breaks of their own, like when Tom Brady shockingly threw one of the worst passes of his career.

The lob resulted in a Joe Haden interception, and further proved Rob Gronkowski makes for a better receiver than defensive back:

That stopped the Patriots on what was looking like a promising drive. Beyond that, the game still didn’t feel over until the Patriots’ very last play on offense, a fourth-and-15 incompletion from the Steelers’ 21-yard line with 14 seconds left. In the Belichick-Brady era, no lead is safe.

Since 2011, the Steelers have managed five consecutive losses to the Patriots. It seemed like last year’s game — a year ago today — was going to be the one to break Pittsburgh out of the slump. However, Jesse James’ now infamous non-touchdown didn’t count, and the Patriots won, 27-24. Of course, James’ touchdown would have counted today under the NFL’s revised catch rule.

Regardless of opponent, the Steelers needed the win. After a somewhat rocky start to the season, they were looking good at 7-2-1. Three straight losses to the Broncos, Chargers, and Raiders made for a rough stretch.

More painfully, the Steelers lost those games by a combined 13 points, two of which contained great trick plays that included a JuJu Smith-Schuster hook and ladder, and an Alejandro Villanueva touchdown reception on a fake field goal.

The Steelers could easily be 11-2-1 after their win against the Patriots, but this is how pro football goes. The win keeps the Steelers ahead of the Ravens in the AFC North, who have won four of their last five games. Despite the brutal losing skid, they still remain on top.

Now, with all of that said, Mike Tomlin had this to say after the game:

I don’t know either. That’s another level of coach speak that I am going to blindly agree with.

Let’s get to the rest of what happened in Week 15.

Khalil Mack has made tons of good plays this season. Some of them, like the sack you’re about to see, show up in the box score. Other times, he’s pushing down 300-pound men with a single shove as he gallops towards the quarterback.

On Sunday, he invented a new way to sack quarterbacks by simply leaning back into them:

Mack is incredibly strong and talented, something that this play captured perfectly.

I hope that the Bears send Jon Gruden a nice Christmas card. The Mack trade from the Raiders to Bears has probably single-handedly turned Chicago into an NFC contender. It’s undoubtedly one of the trades of the decade.

Marcus Mariota has shown flashes of excellence as a quarterback in his career, but his most impressive play on Sunday was a block that he threw.

Lined up wide, Mariota laid down a punishing block on Alec Ogeltree as wildcat quarterback Derrick Henry made his way towards the sideline:

Mariota’s going to have many plays over the course of his career that fans are going to remember, but I’d wager that hit is one he’d bring up that sticks out in his eyes. It’s not often quarterbacks lay the lumber like he did.

Sticking to Titans-Giants, we had a punt that went right immediately after going wrong.

Giants punter Riley Dixon lost the handle on the punt, saw green in front of him, and coasted up the field for a first down that looked entirely too easy:

Between Dixon’s run, and everything that Saquon Barkley has done this season, it’s been a good year for the Giants on the ground. That hasn’t been the case for the past six or so years.

Unfortunately for the Giants, they were shut out 17-0 Sunday. It’s the little victories, though.

Back to the Patriots-Steelers game for a moment. Bill Belichick was heralded as a genius on Sunday after punting on fourth-and-nothing at midfield to go into halftime down 14-7. That’s not something to get excited about.

However, this punt coverage by the Patriots was. Look at this masterpiece:

Here’s another look from the pylon cam (or the “pile-on cam” as some people seem to think it’s called):

What a beautiful piece of work. The Patriots lost though.

Sebastian Janikowski is one of the beefier (read: thicc) kickers in the game. However, that doesn’t make him any more inclined to try to stop a speeding returnman as we saw in Santa Clara against the 49ers:

Janikowski probably understands he is probably the only kicker who could just get in the way of somebody, and it would take them down. However the big beefy boy failed in his quest.

Lamar Jackson is now 4-1 as the Ravens’ starter. Reports before Sunday’s game indicate that the starting job is his for the future as well, with the Ravens looking to move on from the once-elite Joe Flacco.

In the third quarter against the Buccaneers, Jackson showed off why the Ravens have been so much more fun to watch with him at quarterback:

The Lamar Ravens have potential to be so much fun in the future. Hopefully they surround him with the appropriate weapons, and we can see something special.

Stadium proposals are bad just about every single time. Asking for the hand of your significant other in marriage should not happen in front of thousands of fans and a TV audience. If you can’t see the reasoning in there, you may have more issues than I can help you with in this post.

But back to the proposal at hand. I would argue that the only kind of acceptable stadium proposals happen when it’s a player AFTER the game. Carlos Correa did it after the Astros won the World Series in 2017, and on Sunday, Charles Leno Jr. did it after the Bears clinched the NFC North against the Packers:

In my personal opinion, it should still be a more intimate setting instead of doing it in front of a bunch of people in a public-as-fuck setting like a stadium that seats tens of thousands of people (that you both aren’t fully acquainted with, unsurprisingly).

But this is much better than some turd in a fake jersey asking during a timeout on the field, or in the 300 section.

Congrats to the happy couple, and to all the fans of other NFC North teams that will think they are soooooo clever for saying “ThAt’S GoNNa bE tHe OnLY rINg A bEAr gEtS tHis YEaR!!!”

See y’all next week.