The Steelers luck officially ran out Sunday night. The perfect storm was so close to happening but Ryan Succop was wide right on a potential game-winning 41-yard field goal try with 4 seconds left in regulation that would have sunk the Chargers and sent the Steelers to the playoffs.
Unfortunately for the Steelers, the refs missed that the Chargers clearly had seven men on the line to the left of the Chiefs snapper, which should have resulted in a five yard penalty and a chance for Succop to re-kick, this time from just 36 yards.
The league announced today that a penalty should have been called and it just wasn’t meant to be for the Steelers as an Eric Weddle fumble on a fake punt in overtime that was returned for a touchdown by the Chiefs was called back on another questionable call.
As much things not breaking the Steelers way had to sting for the fan base, the Steelers made their own bed but an 8-4 finish potentially gives this group momentum going into next season with the offense trending upwards, though, there’s a lot of question marks on defense and it’s a unit that could end up holding this team back in 2014.
“A lot of reasons for optimism,” head coach Mike Tomlin said of going into next season, though, Tomlin said you have to look at the body of work and the Steelers were an 8-8 team.
What made the Steelers so good from 2004-2011 is they almost always beat the teams they should. The last two years the Steelers have been plagued by losing to inferior teams and that’s why they have missed the post-season two straight years.
The Steelers will select 15th in the 2014 draft. Despite the holes on defense, the Steelers need to attack their board with the primary focus of nabbing one of the top-2 wide receivers in the draft in Sammy Watkins or Marqise Lee. The defense isn’t one player away from being elite again and If you’re going to commit another massive contract to Ben Roethlisberger, getting elite talent around him should be the priority and the Steelers are one dynamic wide receiver away to teaming with Antonio Brown from being a really good offense.
Looking back at the 2013 draft, there’s no question the Steelers should have took wide receiver Cordarrelle Patterson over Jarvis Jones.