Football
Associated Press 17y

Steelers WOULD have made playoffs with one more victory

PITTSBURGH -- The Pittsburgh Steelers supposedly had no
chance of making the playoffs after they started 2-6, or so they
were told for weeks and weeks.

Actually, they did. A good one, too.

If the Steelers (8-8) hadn't lost to the Baltimore Ravens 31-7
on Christmas Eve, or if they had avoided any one of a series of
close losses in the first half of the season, they would have made
the playoffs for the 11th time in Bill Cowher's 15 seasons as
coach.

"We definitely feel like that if we'd gotten in, we would have
done some damage," linebacker Joey Porter said Monday. "But it's
easy to say this when you could have done it but you didn't do
it."

No NFL team has made the playoffs after starting 2-6 and losing
its eighth game of the season. Yet the Steelers came very close to
doing so when they won six of their last eight games and AFC
opponents Cincinnati (8-8), Jacksonville (8-8) and Denver (9-7) all
faltered down the stretch.

Turns out the Steelers got all the extra help they needed to
reach the postseason, only to trip themselves up when they lost to
the Ravens twice. They lost 27-0 in Baltimore on Nov. 26 in what
wide receiver Hines Ward called the worst-played game of his
nine-season career.

Imagine how surprised the Steelers were when, after they knocked
Cincinnati out of the playoffs with a 23-17 overtime victory
Sunday, the Kansas City Chiefs (9-7) sneaked in as the AFC's
sixth-seeded team. The Chiefs lost in Pittsburgh 45-7 on Oct. 15.

The Steelers won the NFL championship as a sixth-seeded team
last season, beating Cincinnati, Indianapolis and Denver on the
road before defeating Seattle in the Super Bowl.

"Just knowing we're as good a football team as we were last
year, but being in a situation where we can't go fight for another
ring, that's the toughest part," defensive end Brett Keisel said.
"When you see teams that are in that we beat, that's what makes it
tough."

Several Steelers said the difference in this team and the Super
Bowl championship team was the ability to win close games. This is
only the second Steelers team to finish .500 or below since 1999.

The most inexplicable loss was a 20-13 defeat at Oakland, which
won only one other game. The Steelers outgained Oakland 360-98, yet
lost when Ben Roethlisberger threw four interceptions and the
offense couldn't get the ball in from the 1-yard line late in the
Oct. 29 game.

Other defeats proved pivotal, including a 41-38 overtime loss at
Atlanta on Oct. 22 when a motion penalty in the closing seconds
cost the Steelers a chance to kick a potential game-winning field
goal.

"The Raiders game, I felt we had that game," Porter said.
"Atlanta, the first Cincinnati game (a 28-20 loss), I felt we
should have won all three of them. But if you don't win those games
that you're supposed to win, that's when you get into the situation
we're in."

Missing the playoffs mean Ryan Clark, who signed with the
Steelers after playing for the Redskins last season, now has some
explaining to do to wife Yonka.

"I had already spent my playoff check," Clark said. "I told
my wife, `Yeah, babe, I'll get you that new car with the playoff
money, so I don't have to use (his salary).' But it didn't work out
that way."

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