Steelers are forever also-rans to Tom Brady's Patriots

They say one shouldn’t judge too much from Week 1 games; that teams can survive brutal defeat and rally for greatness. Indeed, some have looked lost in the regular-season’s opening week and even have gone on to win the Super Bowl, the 2014 Patriots being the most recent example.

If you’re a Steelers fan, that seemingly benign stat strikes a haunting tone. With the Patriots, all things are possible. Somehow circumstances weave themselves to deliver Antonio Brown to their clutches, even after the Steelers worked assiduously to ensure that wouldn’t happen when they traded him in the spring. To Pittsburgh, New England is the white whale — elusive, frustrating and worthy of obsession. For the Steelers, their three conference championship game losses to the Patriots since 2001 are just the tip of the iceberg. 

Even when the Steelers do get the better of the Patriots — and it’s not often — the Patriots find a way to undo it. Pittsburgh beat New England at Heinz Field in Week 15 last season just to watch the Pats never lose again en route to their sixth Super Bowl ring, matching what was until then the Steelers' exclusive bragging rights for a decade. 

With an offseason to prepare, and months to adjust to life without their top receiver and to solidify their defense, Pittsburgh was still thoroughly outmatched in every phase of the game in the season opener in Foxborough, where Ben Roethlisberger has still not won against Tom Brady. In fact, the only time the Steelers have beaten the Patriots in New England in the Brady/Belichick era was 2008, when Brady was knocked out for the season the opening game of the year.

On Sunday night everything went as poorly as it could have for Pittsburgh. Brady breezed through its defense as he has so many times, a defense that was buzzed about during the offseason as potentially great. It may very well improve over the course of the season, especially with a rookie linebacker Devin Bush playing a critical role. But once again Brady showed it was not up to the task.

Such a poor showing by the defense would have been excusable if Pittsburgh’s offense could have mustered any sign of life, but it looked as limp as a unit playing in the second half of a preseason game. Asking Donte Moncrief to help replace Brown is a lot for a receiver who has never topped 750 yards in a season through five years in the league. Like the rest of the team, he looked timid and uninspiring, posting just three catches for 7 yards, along with a slew of drops that had Roethlisberger visibly irked.

Defenders of the Steelers quarterback spent the offseason assuring doubters that it’s Roethlisberger who has been largely responsible for Brown’s success — that Ben’s ability to extend plays and improvise has allowed Brown to be open for big plays that many other quarterbacks couldn’t produce. There’s some truth to that, but it conveniently ignores the fact that Roethlisberger has benefited from AB’s tremendous athleticism, route-running ability and tendency to draw extra defenders from the defense. 

JuJu Smith-Schuster, elevated to No. 1 receiver with AB’s departure, hardly looked like a star against the Pats. His final stat line — six catches for 78 yards — is respectable enough, except nearly half those yards came in garbage time with the Patriots already leading 33-3 in the fourth quarter. When it mattered, Pittsburgh’s wideouts couldn’t get separation and couldn’t catch the ball when they were open. 

James Connor averaged just 2.1 yards over 10 carries, so even if the Patriots hadn’t jumped to a 20-0 halftime lead, there’s little reason to believe the Steelers could win a grind-it-out affair with this Pats team. The Steelers converted just 25 percent of third downs compared to 50 percent by the Patriots. Failing on a third-and-1 on one drive in the first half and a fourth-and-1 on another had the Steelers coaching staff running scared in the third quarter.

When Pittsburgh came out of the locker room at halftime and put together its first decent drive of the game, Mike Tomlin meekly elected to kick a field goal facing a fourth-and-goal from the Patriots 1, trailing 20-0 on the road. New England needed only four plays on the ensuing possession to add another touchdown. At 27-3, the game was clearly over with a quarter-and-a-half to go, and the Steelers had waved the white flag.

Four years ago, the Steelers lost to the Patriots in Week 1 and managed to pull themselves together sufficiently to finish 10-6, snag a wild-card berth and even win a playoff game before bowing out in the second round to the eventual champion Denver Broncos, who dispatched the Patriots in the conference championship. 

Pittsburgh played Denver close in that game and may very well have won except for a costly fumble in the second half. But does anyone believe the Steelers would have beaten the Pats had they advanced? Not if you’ve been paying attention.

This was a grueling but important lesson for the Steelers and their fans. This loss may end up making them a little better as a team, but it’s also an instructive reminder that, try as they might, the Steelers will always remain also-rans to the Patriots' juggernaut.