Kevin Gorman: Stunned Steelers have no excuses (or answers) for missing the playoffs

BALTIMORE — A Pittsburgh Steelers season that began with a blowout at the reigning Super Bowl champion ended with another lopsided loss at the hands of the NFL’s top team.

The Baltimore Ravens might have rested seven starters, but their backups were brutal in beating the Steelers, 28-10, amid a dreary downpour Sunday afternoon at M&T Bank Stadium, showing no mercy even as the game got out of hand.

The Steelers’ season ended the way it began — with three consecutive losses — and they offered no excuses for their failure to reach the postseason.

“Knowing our fan base,” Steelers left guard Ramon Foster said, “they don’t want to hear any of it.”

The Steelers won eight of the 10 games in between, a run that pushed them into playoff contention. If fans lost faith when Ben Roethlisberger required season-ending elbow surgery, they got their hopes up after winning with his replacements, feel-good stories Mason Rudolph and Devlin “Duck” Hodges.

But the Ravens weren’t in the mood to allow a storybook ending, and the Steelers could only helplessly watch the scoreboard to see the Tennessee Titans were beating the Houston Texans to clinch the sixth spot in the AFC playoffs.

“Just disappointing,” Steelers coach Mike Tomlin said, “but there’s been a lot of disappointments this season.”

The most disappointing was the ending, as the Steelers bounced back from a 1-4 start to win seven of their next eight games. They needed at least one victory in their final three games to clinch a playoff berth, yet lost at home to the Buffalo Bills on Sunday Night Football and at the New York Jets in Week 16.

That put the Steelers (8-8) in a precarious position, needing not only to win at Baltimore (14-2) in the season finale but also requiring outside help in the form of a Titans loss.

The Steelers got neither.

“This hurts,” Steelers defensive captain Cameron Heyward said. “The hourglass is getting smaller and smaller for a lot of guys. This team won’t be the same.”

Heyward’s voice cracked while sitting at his locker stall, knowing the Steelers won’t be able to keep everyone. After an outstanding season, outside linebacker Bud Dupree is expected to score a prosperous free-agent deal. Foster, an 11th-year veteran, could be a salary-cap casualty.

Major changes could be coming. After missing the playoffs for a second consecutive season, maybe it’s time for a makeover. The Steelers players, especially the veterans, seemed to recognize that reality afterward.

“We fell short,” Heyward said. “We’ve got to own it. You tip your hat to the Baltimore Ravens. They got the job done. They’re the AFC North champions. They move on.”

The Steelers go home, as their defense followed a familiar refrain: Their offense couldn’t put up points — they scored 10 points for the third consecutive game — and their defense couldn’t stop the run. Just as the Bills and Jets controlled the clock on the ground, Baltimore’s backups did the same.

Despite holding out leading MVP candidate Lamar Jackson and four other Pro Bowl performers, the Ravens scored on their first two possessions. They went 101 yards on 20 plays, setting up Justin Tucker for field goals of 45 and 22 yards.

That was the first sign the defense wasn’t up to the task. Perhaps the pressure of needing to win every game by forcing turnovers, creating favorable field position or even scoring its own touchdowns was too much for a Steelers defense that was ranked among the league leaders in sacks.

“When you have players like we do on the defensive side of the ball, that’s what we expect,” cornerback Joe Haden said. “We know what they’ve got going on on the other side. You can’t complain or cry about it. You’ve got to figure it out.

“We could have controlled it. We knew they were running the ball. We’ve got to be able to stop it.”

The Steelers couldn’t stop the Ravens, as they rushed for 223 yards behind backups. Running back Gus Edwards gained a career-best 130 yards on 21 carries, quarterback Robert Griffin III added 50 yards on eight carries and Justice Hill added what amounted to the winning touchdown on an 8-yard run.

The Steelers had no answer for the Ravens. Not when the game was close, and especially not when it got out of hand. The Ravens converted a fake punt from their own 11. They turned a Jordan Berry busted punt into a touchdown. They didn’t pick off any passes from Hodges but forced a fumble and pressured him into an intentional grounding from the end zone for a safety.

“I don’t think the pressure got to us,” Haden said. “We just started losing. I don’t know how.”

The Steelers weren’t about to start making excuses, but they don’t have any answers, either. Just another long offseason to contemplate what went wrong with the playoffs on the line.

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