The explanation of the challenge also muddied things, because I think some people took it as saying that there *was* clear recovery, and that Pitt was challenging that the runner was down first, not that they were challenging that the runner was down *and* there was clear recovery.
Yeah, and as many people in the gamethread elaborated, if you saw all the slo-mo replays and had to decide whether there was or was not a fumble, a majority of people would probably agree Brady was down before a fumble. If they call it a fumble on the field, 10-20% chance they overturn it on replay. As-called (no fumble), there is 0% chance you overturn it based on what you see there.
Steelers fans claiming that call was BS are, I have to assume, basing their rage on the fact that their guys came out of the scrum with the football. Which just isn't how any of this works.
I'll allow two tough calls against them - the unnecessary roughness PF, and the non-call on the Chung hold. The 4th-down fade in the endzone was damned good defense, but given that he did make (verrrrry incidental) contact and didn't turn around, I've certainly seen that called before. I can maybe understand a complaint about that play. But those are marginal calls, they let a lot of stuff go, and so bringing it up to whine just seems really small-beer given that they were down by 27 points when garbage time started. It's like complaining about that one call in the 2005 Divisional at Denver - we were owned in that game, start-to-finish, so
at most, a bad call is adding insult to injury.
But that's the fans on a message board. How about
Mike Tomlin's postgame remarks?
"I tip my cap to those guys, they're the champions of the AFC and rightfully so. You know, not a lot went our way tonight, not only in terms of the final score but in how the game was played. They're to be complimented for that, we didn't get the things done that we wanted to get done, on offense or defense or special teams, in a consistent enough manner for it to be competitive and close. Some of the splash plays that you look for in those competitive and close games, in the stretch run that we've had in the second half of the season, just not enough positive things in terms of the style of play for those things to unfold, so the result is the result."
...
(Q: You've been so aggressive defensively during this entire win streak. It didn't seem like you brought as much pressure, blitz, any particular reason for that?)
"You know, it wasn't effective. We did, at times, when we did it wasn't as effective as we'd like it to be. They made some quick throws. You know, like I said at the beginning, the style of play of the game was probably what was most disappointing. It leaned more toward their style of play as opposed to their style of play, that's not what we wanted."
(Q: <on chris hogan>)
"We just didn't make enough plays. Weren't tight enough in coverage, didn't apply enough consistent pressure to the quarterback. Largely, over the course of the game, and the same could be said about those scores."
(Q: "Mike, do you have a philosophical opposition to quarterback sneaks?")
"I do not."
(Q: "Mike in terms of the style you were looking for, more running, ball control, that kind of thing --")
"You know, not necessarily specifically that, but you know, they played the type of ball that they normally play, and we didn't play the type of ball that we normally play. And in order for us to be successful, we felt like we had to play our style of ball, and it didn't get to that.
(Q - why do you think that is?)
You know, you have to compliment them of course. It starts there. But we didn't make enough plays, didn't execute enough. We didn't put our guys in good enough position consistently. We failed collectively."
The rest of the Q&A was similarly classy. From the jokes over this past week, you might have expected lots of "I'm not saying - I'm just saying" excuse-making, and he really didn't do that at all.