Mike Tomlin’s 19 seasons as head coach might all be winning seasons. But if you look at each one closely, you’ll know there were moments that are lamented even today. One of them was the highly debated non-touchdown from Jesse James, which kicked off a troubling drought for the Steelers.
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“It’s a sick discussion for me,” Tomlin said on the Not Just Football podcast with Cma Heyward, when asked to look back at the incident. “I was on the competition committee, and had been on the competition committee for years at that point, and we screwed it up. We knew that we had a problem with catch, no-catch, and because of lack of time, you know, we didn’t get it fixed in the offseason prior to that.
“… Well, the calendar started to move, and that window shrunk. When I really look back at it, that’s the main reason why we probably didn’t get that problem solved. And so as I watched this play unfold, I’m certainly pissed on a surface level that, okay, that’s a catch, and we won this football game.”
The 11-2 Steelers hosted the 10-3 Patriots in Week 15 of the 2017 season. The game had become a nail-biter, and it was in the final minute of regulation. The Steelers were on New England’s 10, facing a first-and-10. Quarterback Ben Roethlisberger found Jesse James for a 10-yard touchdown. That would have given the Steelers a breather. However, the officials overturned it, ruling the play as an incompletion.
In the footage, James can be seen with both hands on the football as he goes to the ground. But according to the league, that was the important factor.
“That’s the key here. [James] is going to the ground. By rule, to complete the process of the catch, he must survive the ground. And by that, we mean he must maintain control of the football,” NFL SVP of officiating, Al Riveron said. “He does put the ball over the goal line extended. Once he gets there, he loses control of the football and then the ball hits the ground. … Therefore two things occur: He loses control of the football, and the ball touches the ground prior to him regaining control. Therefore, the ruling on the field of a touchdown was changed to an incomplete pass.”
What should have sealed the victory for the Steelers ended with no gains. Two plays later, Roethlisberger was intercepted.
The stakes were huge. Both teams finished 13-3, but the Patriots took the AFC’s top seed. Tomlin says the Steelers should have seen the problem coming, and he was in a position to help.
According to Tomlin, the calendar changed. The Super Bowl moved closer to the combine, which used to leave enough time for the committee to review the rules. That window shrank, and the catch rule never got fixed.
The NFL did fix it, just too late for Pittsburgh. In March 2018, the committee eliminated the surviving-the-ground element of the catch rule, and committee chairman Rich McKay left no doubt about James’ play.
“The Jesse James play would be a touchdown.”
Here is where it gets painful. The loss dropped the Steelers to the No. 2 seed, so they hosted the Jaguars in the divisional round, while New England got the Titans. Jacksonville won 45-42 after jumping out to a 21-0 lead.
From there, the drought took over. Pittsburgh has not won a playoff game since beating the Chiefs 18-16 in the 2016 postseason, a week before losing the AFC title game to the Patriots.
That began seven straight playoff losses. The latest came in the last season, a 30-6 wild-card loss to the Texans, and Tomlin stepped down the next day.
Of course, no one can prove that one catch changed a decade. But a different seed, a different opponent and a different path make you wonder, don’t they?
Now, head coach Mike McCarthy has the Steelers at 6-2 and heading to Cincinnati on Sunday night. Tomlin is an NBC analyst these days, but the Jesse James play clearly never left him.