- [Narrator] It's January 9th, 2016.
We're at Paul Brown Stadium in Cincinnati, Ohio.
The Pittsburgh Steelers are a chip shot field goal away
from advancing to the AFC Divisional Round.
But this kick shouldn't be happening.
At least it shouldn't be a chip shot.
A Steeler win shouldn't be inevitable.
How did Pittsburgh get here?
And why are these guys so angry?
We need to rewind.
(mellow music)
Since drafting this guy, quarterback Ben Roethlisberger
back in 2004, the Pittsburgh Steelers
have dominated the Bengals in AFC North Play,
including the playoffs
where bad things just seem to happen to Cincinnati.
The last time these division rivals met in the postseason
was the 2005 Wild Card.
In that game
Cincinnati lost quarterback Carson Palmer on a low hit.
Without Palmer, Pittsburgh's defense shut out Cincy
in the second half,
and the Steelers marched to an eventual Super Bowl win
over Seattle.
With Roethlisberger, Pittsburgh has sewn a new iron curtain
and renovated the AFC North,
winning a Super Bowl under Bill Cowher,
and another under current head coach Mike Tomlin.
These current Steelers
are in a bit of a post-season slump though.
Well, at least by Pittsburgh standards.
The Steelers haven't won a playoff game
in the last four seasons.
In fact, last year,
the Steelers were a mediocre 5 and 7
before beating Cincinnati twice
and winning out in December to snatch the AFC North
from the Bengals, which as you can tell here
by their mocking of Cincinnati fans
is what the Pittsburgh Steelers organization
is used to doing.
- Who Dey? - [Football Players] We Dey!
- I'm tired of whooping y'all ass.
Y'all make me tired.
- [Narrator] That's former Steelers linebacker Joey Porter,
whose violent, angry style
helped define the modern Pittsburgh Steelers
and turn the AFC North into a perpetual bar fight.
Porter of course became a Pittsburgh legend,
and after retirement, joined the Steelers coaching staff
in 2014.
This year's Steelers
are desperate to end their current playoff drought
and step over the Bengals
to create another one of those magic runs.
But if you're complaining about a playoff drought
in front of the Cincinnati Bengals,
you might wanna lower your voice,
because that 2005 loss to the Steelers
was Cincinnati's first playoff game in 15 years.
And the Bengals coach who broke that streak of futility
was of course a former Steelers assistant.
Marvin Lewis was hired in 2003 as part of a full rebuild,
and after two .500 campaigns,
Lewis guided the Bengals out of the cellar in 2005.
Cincinnati won the AFC North with an 11 and 5 record
including a crucial win over Pittsburgh in early December.
But Pittsburgh rebounded, made the Wild Card,
Palmer blew his knee out
and the Steelers hoisted another Lombardi trophy,
and Who Dey nation was humiliated yet again.
During his off-season rehab,
Palmer, a USC Trojan in college,
captured the zeitgeist of Ohio perfectly
when he told Sports Illustrated,
"I hate the Steelers more than UCLA."
Cincinnati would only have one more winning season
in the next five years,
pushing Palmer to consider retirement
even before considering a new team.
With an improving defense already in place,
Lewis and owner GM Mike Brown rebooted their offense
in the 2011 draft, taking receiver A.J. Green
with the fourth overall pick,
and TCU quarterback Andy Dalton in the second round.
And it worked, kind of.
The Bengals became a perennial playoff team,
but only by the bare minimum standard.
Cincinnati set an NFL record
by losing four consecutive Wild Card games
in which they averaged less than 11 points per contest.
Cincinnati was too talented to be terrible,
but they also weren't successful by any measure,
and that's a dangerous space
for a head coach to occupy in the NFL.
So maybe this roadblock to legitimacy
was why the 2015 Cincinnati defense featured two players
carrying tremendous upside, but obvious risk.
These two guys.
Linebacker Vontaze Burfict's reputation as a dirty player
began all the way back in high school,
where the California State champion developed a reputation
for brutal play.
And then, at Arizona State,
Burfict became a freshman All-American,
but was benched the following season
because of too many personal fouls.
Burfict went pro after his junior season,
but his draft profile was pocked with so many reports
about off-field behavior and on-field discipline issues,
he slid from a projected first rounder
to an undrafted free agent.
He signed with the Bengals,
where under Lewis's leadership he led the team and tackles
as a rookie and the entire league by 2013.
By 2014, Burfict became the exact player
that scouts predicted.
He signed a four year 20 million deal
while still racking up fines for dirty play.
At no point did Burfict show he was capable
of switching off his self-destruct mode,
something that weighed less on Cincinnati
than his all-pro potential as a linebacker.
Then, there's cornerback and specialist
Adam Pacman Jones who signed with Cincinnati in 2010.
Jones was drafted by the Tennessee Titans in 2005,
and by his second pro season
had become one of the most exciting players in the NFL,
leading the league in punt return for touchdowns.
He was also so explosive off the field
that after a litany of incidents,
Tennessee started to shop Jones on the trade market.
During a landmark full season suspension
for violating the NFL's player conduct policy in 2007,
Jones said that he would spend his mandatory year off
finishing his degree at West Virginia.
Instead, he launched a music label,
started a rap duo, and became a pro wrestler,
even winning a tag team championship.
In 2008, the Titans traded Pacman to Dallas,
where he continued to cement his reputation.
One week he was leading the team in tackles,
and a month later he was fist fighting his own bodyguard
at a hotel.
Once he was named as a suspect in a shooting
outside of an Atlanta strip club,
the Cowboys released Jones,
who after a brief stint in the CFL, landed in Cincinnati,
just like Burfict.
So why would a franchise with no margin for error
take on multiple and consistent risks,
no matter what the potential upside?
Because that was the Cincinnati Bengals way.
At one point, Brown had referred to himself
as a Redeemer in reference to troubled players.
And throughout Lewis's tenure as head coach,
Cincinnati didn't shy away from signing players
with off-field issues.
At one point, between 2007 and 2008,
10 Bengals were arrested in a 14 month span.
Despite Burfict's still noticeable on-field violence,
and Jones just being Pacman Jones,
the Bengals were confident
in large part because Cincinnati's defense excelled.
So despite the Bengals defense
playing pretty well in this game,
they're really pissed off as you can see here.
But why?
It's not the albatross of 24 years without a playoff win
or even the long history between these two franchises.
It's because these specific rosters hate each other's guts,
going back to their first meeting in the 2015 season.
The surging 6 and 0 Bengals marched right into Pittsburgh
and beat their longtime bully in a cathartic 16 to 10 win.
But in the process,
Steelers Pro Bowl running back Le'Veon Bell
suffered a season-ending MCL tear
on this technically clean tackle from,
you guessed it, Burfict.
After the game, Pittsburgh's Vince Williams
tweeted out a threat to Burfict
because he and other Steelers
felt Burfict was celebrating Bell's injury.
If Burfict was celebrating,
the television feed never caught it.
Other Pittsburgh players told the media
they felt like Cincinnati
was trying to intentionally injure them on tackles.
Meanwhile, Bengals players fired back
that the Steelers celebrated this hit
on Cincinnati wide receiver, Marvin Jones
that knocked him out of the game.
Burfict responded to Williams' Twitter threat with his own,
and told reporters later that he was friends with Bell
and that the hit was clean.
Before the teams met again in Cincinnati that December,
Pacman posted a video to his Instagram before the game,
threatening the Steelers.
- Pittsburgh are all gangstas.
Mike Tomlin need to tell his team to shut the (beep) up
and play football.
- [Narrator] Not surprisingly, a pre-game shoving match
took place at midfield after Burfict and Williams
met in a headbutt that looked like an homage
to coach Joey Porter's playing days.
More importantly, Andy Dalton suffered a thumb injury
in the game after an interception, ending his season.
Bengals backup quarterback, A.J. McCarron floundered,
especially on this easy pick six
when William Gay celebrated enough to earn a personal foul.
Watch as he slow plays his revelry
specifically to taunt the Bengals.
And hey, there's Joey Porter again.
Pittsburgh would win the game and clinch a Wild Card,
but Cincinnati would hang on to win the division,
albeit without Dalton available for the playoffs
just as the Steelers would be without Bell.
After the game, Pittsburgh's Marcus Gilbert tweeted
that the Steelers owned the Bengals.
On talk radio, Roethlisberger claimed
that Burfict was going low on tackles against him
in the pocket and criticized his style of play.
Gilbert tweeted that all he wanted for Christmas
was to face Cincinnati in the playoffs, where they'd choke.
While Foster told the media that the Steelers would quote,
"deal with Burfict whenever it gets to that."
With on-field taunting, online death threats,
and general vitriol seemingly at its limit,
of course these hobbled pissy teams
found each other in the playoffs.
And if anyone needed an idea
of how chippy this third round would be,
Pittsburgh offensive line coach Mike Munchak
was flagged for a 15 yard unsportsmanlike penalty
for pushing the Bengals Reggie Nelson on the sideline
after a play.
Fired up or not,
Cincinnati's offense was non-existent without Dalton.
But thanks in part to the terrible weather
and an angry defense,
the Bengals limited Pittsburgh's offense for the first half.
Kicker Chris Boswell's all the offense this game can muster.
A former undrafted journeyman signed in week five,
he's been killer since then.
Eventually, the Steelers would bust through
on an 82-yard drive late in the third quarter.
Without Dalton and in the rain,
a 15-0 lead felt like a blowout,
especially after running back Giovanni Bernard
was knocked unconscious by the Steelers Ryan Shazier
on this helmet-to-helmet hit
that prompted Jeremy Hill to try and fist fight
the entire Pittsburgh defense by himself
as Bernard laid unconscious on the field.
The Steelers were winning the game and the fight.
Then, Burfict changed the entire game,
seemingly the only way he knew how to,
driving Roethlisberger's shoulder into the turf
on a sack to end the third quarter.
After Big Ben was carted off,
Cincinnati cut the lead to 15-7.
A field goal on their next possession took it to 15-10.
Then, Pacman set up the Bengals with a 24 yard punt return
and McCarron hit A.J. Green for a 25 yard touchdown
to go ahead, 16-15.
And on the next play from scrimmage,
Pittsburgh backup quarterback Landry Jones
threw a pick to, who else, Burfict
at the Steelers own 26 yard line.
Burfict became the only player in Bengals history
to record a sack and interception in a playoff game,
and probably the first Bengal in history to celebrate
by running to the wrong end zone after the play.
- [Announcer] He better be down
because he's running the wrong way.
- [Narrator] Since Pittsburgh still had three timeouts,
the Bengals were just two first downs away
from sealing their first playoff wins since 1991 at home
and against their hated rivals no less.
And even if Cincinnati couldn't move the ball,
and just kicked a field goal, they'd force Pittsburgh
to try for a touchdown with no timeouts
and no Roethlisberger.
But on their first play from scrimmage,
Hill fumbled and the Steelers recovered on their own nine.
It's okay.
Cincinnati still controlled the game.
The Steelers still needed to get into field goal range
with just a minute and 23 remaining,
and their offense had been awful all day.
Then, like it was booked for pro wrestling,
Roethlisberger made his return to the field,
replacing the struggling Jones.
- [Announcer] Look who's coming out.
Ben Roethlisberger trots onto the field.
- [Narrator] Cincinnati's fumble
had put the Steeler's Super Bowl quarterback
back on the field.
On the next drive,
the Bengals' defense smothered Pittsburgh and the clock,
until a pass from Ben to Antonio Brown
on fourth and three put the Steelers at midfield.
Now, with 22 seconds and no timeouts,
the Steelers needed to cover at least 14 yards
to meet the season long range for Boswell.
Even 10 yards would put Boswell
at a Hail Mary 55 yard attempt.
Cincinnati had a roaring home crowd, a driving reign,
and Roethlisberger's own injured shoulder
working in their favor.
But that's when the tab came due on the Cincinnati way.
On the next play,
Roethlisberger's pass to Brown was incomplete,
but drew a flag.
And as replay conveys,
it is apparent Burfict intentionally targeted Brown
for a pass interference,
obviously lowering his head before contact.
While there are ticky-tack pass interference calls
and debatable interpretations of targeting,
this was the definition of deliberate.
Immediately after yet another brutal hit
caused yet another angry scrum between these two teams,
Pacman was called for an unsportsmanlike conduct
after physically contacting this referee right here
and yelling at, of all people, Coach Joey Porter.
Instead of keeping the Steelers at midfield
with no timeouts, Pittsburgh was already in range at the 17.
Both penalties became the longest plays
for the Steelers on the drive.
And even with a fresh set of downs,
Pittsburgh is risking nothing
with Boswell ready to go for the kick.
He's only kicked one game winner before in his career,
so while most of this game
has been about the hot heads on the field
and the injured offensive players not present,
this result will rest on him.
You can debate the Bengal's personnel philosophy is empathy
or idiocy.
Sure.
The risk of two players losing control
under pressure was always present.
Rolling the dice on a few high-impact players
with character concerns isn't uncommon,
but these two particular players
were the definition of uncommon at the same time.
And yet, it was the Bengals' defense
who'd brought Cincinnati this close
to breaking their playoff curse.
Welcome to a moment in history.
- [Announcer] They're gonna go ahead and go for the kick,
then in all likelihood would win if he makes it.
And the kick is drilled.
And the Steelers are back ahead at 18-16.
- [Narrator] Thanks for watching.
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(pensive music)