The worst Steeler loss you can remember.

[TemporaryDuck]

Since everyone is a freaking Debbie Downer this week, let's purge it out of the system. Last week's loss was bad, but here's some I remember that hurt more:

Of course, the first two AFC Championship games against the Pats. The first one put me in a depression for like 2 weeks. Like internally, I knew something was wrong. That a great evil had been born and like a shadow it would hover over the NFL for years to come. Later, Steeler players confirmed that something was very wrong with that game. But no one was ready to believe "conspiracy theories" right about then.

The second Pats AFCC debacle was more acute, but not as long-lasting. Watching Cowher on the sidelines looking like a deer in the headlights, you knew we were toast in the sub-freezing weather. The Pats had spied us to death once again, and the innocent hard-headed hometown boy had no answers for the increased level of predatory dissection the Pats subjected us to.

The other loss that always sticks with me, is 1980 vs. the Seattle Seahawks. It was the year after we beat the Rams in the Super Bowl, and I was at my friend's house watching the game. He hated the Steelers and cheered as I watched Bradshaw go down in defeat to the lowly expansion Seahawks. It was that day that I felt in my heart it would be a long time before we got "one for the thumb" and definitely not in '81.

[rooneytunes]

[swissvale72]

yup!! THAT one!!

[Texas Black & Gold]

Tebow and the Broncos in overtime.

The Cowboys getting 2 Neil O'Donnell interceptions in SB.

[TemporaryDuck]

Tebow and the Broncos in overtime.

The Cowboys getting 2 Neil O'Donnell interceptions in SB.

The weird thing about that Super Bowl, was that I had stopped watching the Steelers for a few years, and started again with that game. The loss kind of "lit my fire" again and I've watched I think every game since then.

[Texas Black & Gold]

Tebow and the Broncos in overtime.

The Cowboys getting 2 Neil O'Donnell interceptions in SB.

The weird thing about that Super Bowl, was that I had stopped watching the Steelers for a few years, and started again with that game. The loss kind of "lit my fire" again and I've watched I think every game since then.

I was in attendance with 3 of my brothers and we were discussing the new overtime rules when all of a sudden.......

[Rod & Wire Mill]

Tebow and the Broncos in overtime.

The Cowboys getting 2 Neil O'Donnell interceptions in SB.

The weird thing about that Super Bowl, was that I had stopped watching the Steelers for a few years, and started again with that game. The loss kind of "lit my fire" again and I've watched I think every game since then.

Me too, actually I was in “jail” and hadn’t watched in 15 years

[Steelafan77]

[Minkah'n Big Plays]

Hung out at my buddies house, who happened to be a *gulp* Cowboys fan.

But also....Tony Martin....I saw the earlier photo with Figures down on one knee.

Was that him wondering how Martin slipped behind him? Ughhh, Stan Humphries.....

[Minkah'n Big Plays]

Just watched it.

3rd and 14 my goodness...

[Minkah'n Big Plays]

Just watched it.

3rd and 14 my goodness...

EDIT: It was Tim McKyer

[Minkah'n Big Plays]

Just watched it.

3rd and 14 my goodness...

EDIT: It was Tim McKyer AND O' Donnell threw it right to the LB on the route to Green a few plays earlier...should have been picked.

[the-other-burg]

'94 AFC Championship.

[bradshaw2ben]

Jaguars loss with Tommy Maddox as the backup starter. Threw the inevitable pick.
Denver playoff loss where Joe Greene punched Paul Howard.
Every Pats game, but especially FGB not letting his future HOF QB try to cut it to 7 with a whole quarter left in the game and fans going nuts AND
Jessie caught it.
2001 AFCCG
Philly loss in 2008
Jags playoff game 2007
Jags playoff game 2017
SB XXX
GB v PIT SB
Houston with under 100 yards offense
Cleveland TNF 2009
Oakland, TB, Chicago... pretty much every loss of the past few years.

But

off the top of my head, AB stepping out of bounds by a hair vs Miami to end the season

[R_S]

'94 AFC Championship.

Yep. The SB the next year the Steelers were pretty big underdogs. I think I was just so happy they finally made it there. The Chargers loss was devastating, being such big favorites.

[Jobu]

Houston with under 100 yards offense

Wasn’t it actually under 50 yards of offense(47 iirc)?

[Baltostiller]

I'd have to go with a tie between the '94 AFCCG loss and Super Bowl 45.

I was at the beatdown of the Browns the previous week and it felt like there was no way in hell that team would lose to the Freakin' Chargers.

As for SB 45, when the Steelers got the ball back down 6 with what should have been just over 2 minutes left, I'm thinking "time to do it again Ben" then the receivers shit the bed and didn't know what the fuck to do and...well you all know what happened.

[gojira5150]

'94 AFC Championship.

Same here. I was so PO'd that i ripped the Steelers shirt I was wearing in half and threw in trash. At that time I was living in a house with my friends and was playing Queen's We Will Rock You since 8am. There's No Way we should have lost that game. Really wanted to see our D against the 49ers O.

[Stillerz Bar]

I have a few that just killed me inside and most were already referenced. One f those not mentioned was the 2002 playoff loss to the Titans. The week before we came back from a huge deficit to beat the Browns and we had a furious comeback and even got ahead in Tennessee only to lose on a controversial running-into-the-kicker penalty on Dewayne Washington when Joe Nedney missed his try at a game winning FG.

What made it worse was the feeling that we could have beaten the Raiders in the AFCC to face the Bucs in the SB (we were in fact the last team to beat the SB winning Bucs that year in their house Christmas week ... a game I attended).

I try to get less invested as I get older because some of the losses over the years had me in a funk for weeks. That said, I can't even imaging how crappy it must be to be a Browns or Bungles fan and get your heart broken year after year.

[Orangesteel]

Super Bowl loss to the Pack was bad.

But honestly, losing like that at home to the Jaguars and Blake Bortles? I mean holy fuck that was bad. That actually felt like the only season where we could have beaten the Pats, and we totally overlooked the Jaguars and now Bortles is basically riding the pine into quarterback obscurity.

It’s really something else. Between the Jags loss and losing to Tebow, often I wonder how much worse it could be considering we had the Magnificent Number 7 at the helm. This is why I’ve said that between 2010 and 2020 (or when Ben hangs up the helmet) will be known as The Wasted Years. Even with the built in rebuild between 2010 and 2013; we still have so little to show for Ben’s prime. And those years where Tomlin actually was doing a decent job managing the egomaniacs on the roster, plenty of game day blunders, shitty losses and boneheaded decisions.

It’s been a lot of fun watching the Steelers during the last decade, but it’s also been quite miserable.

[PennyBacker]

97 AFCCG was rather brutal. Steelers had held Terrell Davis to something like 75 yards on 20+ carries in the regular season match up. He ran for well over 100, like 130+ in the AFCCG. That was soul crushing.

The fog bowl in New England in the 96 playoffs. That was the year after Pittsburgh lost to Dallas in the Super Bowl. Hopes that the team would return to finish business were destroyed by an image of Terry Glenn streaking past Woodson. I think that was the last game he ever played for Pittsburgh too.

[El Kabong]

Each of Cowher's four AFCCG losses at home hurt. I'm a believer that you should WIN your home playoff games. Those games hurt more than losing Super Bowl XXX for me.

Losing XXX did piss me off because I hate losing games by making the same mistake more than once. O'Donnell throwing to a wide open Larry Brown once I could handle--somewhat--but a second time had me pretty livid.

Along those lines, I've ranted about the Eric Metcalf game before. The Steelers at Cleveland to play the Browns (and Bill Belichick...a sign of things to come?) The Steelers work and work and take the lead only for Eric Metcalf to return a punt for a TD and give the Browns the lead again. The Steelers work and work and retake the lead only for Eric Metcalf to return a SECOND punt return for a TD. The Steelers outgained the Browns that game but lost due to TWO punt returns for TD's. I was livid.

I will say that the Steelers winning XL and then XLIII really mellowed me about this stuff. We've seen the Steelers win two super bowls recently*, I'm pretty good with things for now.

*Recently???? It's been 11 years! Yes, it's still recent compared to how long it's been for most teams.

[swissvale72]

'93 WC loss to Chefs...we had that fuckin' game If only Jeff Graham holds onto that 3rd down pass!!

[El Kabong]

'93 WC loss to Chefs...we had that fuckin' game If only Jeff Graham holds onto that 3rd down pass!!

And the blocked punt. Cowher went ballistic on Mark Royals.

[TemporaryDuck]

Super Bowl loss to the Pack was bad.

If it weren't for George Noorey's Coast to Coast AM show the night before this game, I would have been more despondent. But I was primed for the loss because on that show the night before the guest was Brian Tuohy, of thefixisin.net. That night, he said he knew exactly who would win, why and how.
That night he said that the Packers would win because the NFL did not want Ben and James Harrison representing the league that year because of the accusations against Ben and all the controversy surrounding Harrison. He then went on to say how: He said the refs would not call any penalties on the Packers, but call them on the Steelers. So the Packers were allowed to pass interfere, hold, etc.

Now who remembers the end of that game? Well, the Packers pass interfered with the receiver on what would be I think the last play of the game when we could have came back to win. No flag was thrown. I forget the announcer, but I still remember him saying, "That was a great non-call by the referee!"

Thanks NFL. If it would have been fairly officiated, we probably would have clobbered them. We all remember when the Steelers would get more apologies from the NFL than other team for bad calls, but imagine being a Raider fan. I bet they've got screwed more than us over the years via league manipulation.

[Flanker]

Alfred Pupunu... I’ll never forget that name

[drmalba]

I have a few that just killed me inside and most were already referenced. One f those not mentioned was the 2002 playoff loss to the Titans.

+1
This was the first one that came to my mind. It took me years to forgive DeShea.
A few others:
- 1997 AFCC Kordell vs Elway. We looked like we were going to romp all over them for a few quarters until Kordell decided to start throwing to the other team.
- 1984 AFCC. Malone vs Marino, who completely shredded us in a way that not even Tom Brady has equaled. Also the bellweather of the long winter under Coach Noll to come.

[jeemie]

Super Bowl loss to the Pack was bad.

If it weren't for George Noorey's Coast to Coast AM show the night before this game, I would have been more despondent. But I was primed for the loss because on that show the night before the guest was Brian Tuohy, of thefixisin.net. That night, he said he knew exactly who would win, why and how.
That night he said that the Packers would win because the NFL did not want Ben and James Harrison representing the league that year because of the accusations against Ben and all the controversy surrounding Harrison. He then went on to say how: He said the refs would not call any penalties on the Packers, but call them on the Steelers. So the Packers were allowed to pass interfere, hold, etc.

Now who remembers the end of that game? Well, the Packers pass interfered with the receiver on what would be I think the last play of the game when we could have came back to win. No flag was thrown. I forget the announcer, but I still remember him saying, "That was a great non-call by the referee!"

Thanks NFL. If it would have been fairly officiated, we probably would have clobbered them. We all remember when the Steelers would get more apologies from the NFL than other team for bad calls, but imagine being a Raider fan. I bet they've got screwed more than us over the years via league manipulation.

Bullshit we would have clobbered them.

Ben had Heath Miller open for a first down. He was the one who forced the ball to Wallace instead, not the refs.

Legursky makes his block and Mendenhall holds onto the ball...we're driving for the go ahead score and then who knows what would happen (I still say we should have passed on 2nd and 1 coming out of the break but oh well).

Kemo doesn't roller skate backwards into Ben (and Ben doesn't pump fake the DB right into the INT) and the pick six doesn't happen.

Refs had zip to do with any of those plays.

[jeemie]

The first two games in 1989 were epically bad...but then Chuck Noll has them go 9-5 the rest of the way and within a Mark Stock dropped pass of going to the AFCCG. In my mind, 1989 was The Emperor's best season as head coach.

[Stlcrtn1974]

The first two games in 1989 were epically bad...but then Chuck Noll has them go 9-5 the rest of the way and within a Mark Stock dropped pass of going to the AFCCG. In my mind, 1989 was The Emperor's best season as head coach.

I was just thinking how anyone who has watched the Steelers for the last 40 years didn't bring up the 89 opener. That was the absolute worst Steelers beatdown, loss, whatever you want to call it I ever witnessed. I remember Brister taking a brutal hit. If I'm not mistaken, I remember swiss stating he was at that game. Turned out to be one of my favorite seasons though.