Steelers Insider: Recent trend continues for once vaunted defense

It couldn’t be happening again.

Not for a fifth straight game.

Not this week. Not against Detroit.

The Steelers couldn’t possibly be letting yet another hard earned fourth quarter lead evaporate, right

Well, there they were. The hapless Lions. Winners of one game in their last twenty-one tries. Sitting 1st and 10 on the Steeler 21 yard line trailing 28-20 at the 2:00 warning. They were now within striking distance of tying this game against the defending Super Bowl champions. It was a contest they trailed by 15 points less than six minutes before.

But that once vaunted Steeler defense continued its alarming recent trend of allowing massive fourth quarter comebacks to teams that appeared to be beaten in the first half. Even bad ones. Like the Lions. With a downtrodden QB like Daunte Culpepper at the helm.

Normally, if you said to a football fan that the Steelers were in possession of a 15 point lead against Detroit in the fourth quarter, that fan would tell you: “Put on the 4:15 game. This one is over.”

But on this day at Ford Field even the most ardent Steeler fan was feeling less than comfortable. In the words of Mike Lange, “We’d seen this fish before.”

Actually, so far this year we saw this same fish against the Bears (blew a 14-7 lead in the 4th quarter before losing 17-14), Bengals (lead 20-9 in the fourth before falling 23-20), and Chargers (gave up 21 fourth quarter points but still managed to win 38-28).