NFL Final Four

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Agreed. Despite two of the TD's off turnovers came off of Big Ben's interceptions, I think the turnover that really killed them was the Mendenhall fumble. They had all the momentum going their way when that happened.

 

They can be proud. They played for it. No shame.

 

As a disclaimer, I just read a story by Peter King from SI that basically said what I did - that the fumble was the biggest turnover - I just want to say I didn't pirate this from King - I came up with that statement prior to reading his article.

And I agree Merlanni - the Packers were simply the better team that day, and deserved the win.

 

Polamalu did get beat on that one TD pass, but the thing I was most confused by was not how he played, but the formations the Steelers used. Because the Packers used a lot of three and four receiver sets, the Steelers typically played two players deep, and one of them was always Polamalu, which doesn't make a heck of a lot of sense to me. Of course you're not going to have as much of an impact on the game when you start each play 15 yards past the line of scrimmage.

I understand that using such a strategy is designed to take away the deep play, and that the Steelers run defense is so good that they can stop that without bringing a safety into the box, but you also lose some flexibility in doing that. For example, the Packers ran 55 plays in the Super Bowl (not counting the two kneel-downs to end the game), and I saw one Polamalu blitz all game (because you cannot blitz when you're playing 15 yards off the line). That's one of the big parts of Polamalu's game - you move him around, and you never know where he's going to line up from one play to the next. But during the Super Bowl, he was lined up in the same place 90% of the time.

That's not why the Steelers lost the game though. The defense gave up 24 points (the interception returned for a TD isn't against the defense). Given how the Packers have been scoring in bunches this year, that's not that bad. The three turnovers absolutely killed them - especially the fumble when they were driving for what could have been a go-ahead score. When you look at the box score, that's the only stat that really stands out.

Plays: 64-55, in favor of Steelers
Yardage: 387-338 in favor of Steelers
First Downs: 19-15 in favor of Steelers
Time of Possession: 33:25 - 26:25 in favor of Steelers
Penalties: Steelers 6-55, Packers 7-67

Each team had 11 possessions (if you don't count the Packer's kneel-downs to end the game), and when you end three of those possessions with turnovers, it's hard to recover from that if you don't get at least one or two of your own. The only thing for which I will point my finger at the defense was the last Packers drive. The Steelers pulled to within 3 points with a little more than seven minutes to play. They needed a stop, and didn't get it. Not only did they give up a field goal that required the Steelers to respond with a TD, but they took over five minutes off the clock.