Steelers vs Bills Official GameDay Thread

I'll grant that I'm old and may not remember things accurately (I did check stats, but might not remember all context). If so, feel free to correct me, but...

Jennings was their only 1000 yard receiver that year IIRC.

You could argue Nelson was emerging. But he wasn't near his peak yet and had less than 600 yards that year.

Jones was a journeyman at best.

Driver was declining rapidly and also had less than 600 yards that year.

Not exactly the 4 horsemen there.

 

Yeah. Odd, that. Considering the Packers were a 10-6 wildcard. Rodgers was good, true. But finished 7th overall in passing. He wasn't "MVP" good... yet. The strength of their team that year was their defense. They were not a juggernaut by any stretch of the imagination. The Steelers were 12-4. The number 2 seed. And had the statistical best defense that year.

What did Vegas know? Hmmmm?

Could it be they saw the cracks forming on our defense that some of us saw? That we could not get off the field on 3rd down unless the other team made a mistake??? (A problem that has followed us ever since) Oh, we were told we were being hypercritical then. We have the best defense!!! There's nothing to worry about.

Bottom line, we should have been favored if we were as good for real as we were on paper. But we weren't. Why? And we played like absolute hot garbage in that game and STILL almost pulled it out in the end. It was the beginning of our torment. That game. Everything we complain about started then and there. But we were so high on 2 Superbowl wins in recent years, we just didn't want to see it. It was smoke and mirrors.

 

I told myself if we had to lose, at least it was to the Packers. I respected that team because they played football similar to us with a hard nosed defense. Great fan base. All of the history in the world.

And we played horribly. The Packers weren't "great" that game. But they played like the better team. Yeah, Rodgers shredded us. Some of that was because he's very good. Some of it was because our "Number 1" defense wasn't up to the task.