1994 AFC Championship Game
vs. San Diego Chargers
January 15, 1995

In 1994, the Steelers had one of their best defenses ever. Behind Dom Capers and the "Blitzburgh" D, the Steelers went 12-4, and earned homefield throughout the playoffs. The offense that year was not stellar by any means, but as long as they had the lead, you could always count on the defense to hold onto it. After defeating the Browns in the first round, the Steelers would have to play the San Diego Chargers for the right to go to Super Bowl XXIX. It was kind of ironic that we were playing the Chargers, since we had played them almost every year up to this point. In the 80's when we were mediocre, so were they. In the 90's when we got good again, so did they. That's why they were always on our schedule. The Steelers were of course heavy favorites. It was a rainy and gloomy afternoon in Pittsburgh, but the Steelers were poised for their fifth AFC title. In the first half, the Steelers totally outplayed the Chargers. O'Donnell led a drive which culminated in a TD pass to John L. Williams. The offense couldn't do much else after that, but did manage a couple of field goals. The Steelers had outgained the Chargers 229 yards to 46 in the first half. Midway through the third quarter, the Steelers led 13-3. Late in the 3rd, the Steelers defense broke down for perhaps the first time all season. Alfred Popunu, the Chargers tight end, ran down the right sideline and was totally uncovered. Stan Humphries hit his wide open TE for a 43 yard TD, and all of a sudden San Diego was back in the game, trailing 13-10. The game remained that way until the final five minutes. Humphries began to drive from his own 20. Faced with 3rd and long on the Steelers 43 yard line, Humphries threw a pass that will linger in the minds of Steelers fans forever. The Steelers blitzed, as was their style. The Chargers picked it up, and that left CB Tim McKyer isolated on man-to-man coverage with WR Tony Martin. Martin burned McKyer, and the Chargers were shockingly in the lead. The Steelers came back and mounted a furious drive. Neil O'Donnell, the subject of a lot of criticism throughout the season, drove the Steelers all the way down to the Chargers ten. However, the drive stalled. O'Donnell hit Eric Green at the three on third down, and it was down to one final play. On 4th and goal from the three, O'Donnell tried to throw a quick pass over the middle to Barry Foster, but the ball was deflected by LB Dennis Gibson, and the game was over. Everyone was in disbelief. Tim McKyer had collapsed on the sidelines under the realization that he had helped cost the Steelers a championship. He had to be carried from the field, and never again played a game in a Steelers uniform. A lot of people blamed McKyer for the loss, but I don't. The defense which had dominated the NFL all season blew a ten point lead by giving up two huge plays. Then they still had a chance to win it at the end but didn't. The Steelers choked as a team. It's a shame that Tim McKyer, who had played well all year, was made the scapegoat, but it was such a shocking loss that the blame was bound to fall on someone.
Final Score: 13-17

The Aftermath: The thing that really bothers me about this game is that Sports Illustrated and other publications had declared the NFC Championship game between Dallas and San Francisco to be "the real Super Bowl". The AFC got no respect whatsoever. True, the Steelers may not have been able to defeat the 49ers in Super Bowl XXIX, but I know for sure that Jerry Rice wouldn't have split our safeties on the first pass of the game! San Diego laid down and died, reinforcing the belief that the AFC was a joke. That damn "three more yards" sign hung in the endzone all during the following season, until the Steelers finally redeemed this loss by beating the Colts and going to the Super Bowl.

Personal Memory: I have never been to a game that was more electric. The atmosphere was incredible. Before the game, a small crowd had gathered in the parking lot at Three Rivers to douse a Stan Humphries doll with gasoline, and then light it and hang it from the Fort Duquesne Bridge! During the game I sat next to two guys from San Diego. They were nice guys, and I talked to them throughout the contest. When the 4th and 3 failed, they shook my hand, said "good game", and wisely fled the scene without celebrating. The attendance at that game is still the largest ever for Three Rivers, but I swear, you will never hear that stadium be more silent than it was in the seconds following that final play. Everyone was in complete and utter shock. I'll never forget seeing the Chargers run out onto the field stomping on Terrible Towels. That's when it hit me that the Steelers had actually lost the game.

Super Bowl XXX
vs. Dallas Cowboys at Tempe, AZ
January 28, 1996

After a 16 year absence, the Steelers had finally returned to the big game, and for the third time, they would take on the hated Dallas Cowboys. The talk all week centered around the fact that the Cowboys, who had won two of the previous three Super Bowls, had plenty of Super Bowl experience while the Steelers had none. That was evident in the first half. The Cowboys raced off to a 13-0 lead, but the Steelers hung tough. Yancey Thigpen burnt Deion Sanders right before the half ended, and the score was 13-7. The Steelers came back in the second half and totally dominated the Dallas' high-powered running game. Emmit Smith could do nothing. The Steelers were about to make a comeback, when Neil O'Donnell threw a pass to nobody, and Larry Brown intercepted it. That set up an easy Cowboys TD. The Steelers weren't out of it yet though. After a Norm Johnson FG early in the 4th quarter, Cowher called one of the great plays in Super Bowl history - a surprise onside kick. Deon Figures, who had been missing most of the year, recovered it. The Steelers drove and Bam Morris walked in for a short TD. The Steelers trailed 20-17 late in the game. Levon Kirkland sacked Troy Aikman on third down, and the Cowboys had to punt. Needing only a FG to tie the game, it seemed that the Steelers were destined to win the game and make history. They had 100% momentum. Then it happened again. O'Donnell threw another interception to Larry Brown, who returned it inside the Steelers 10 yard line. The Cowboys scored a TD, and the game was over. The second interception was almost identical to the first. Larry Brown, a little-known safety, became a hero simply by covering grass. O'Donnell suffered a lot of criticism throughout his career, but the one thing you could never say about him was that he made mistakes. He never threw interceptions, until this game of course. It was unbelievable that one team could dominate another so dramatically in one half of football and still manage to lose the game. What would have happened if someone else had intercepted the second pass? Who would they have made MVP? Nobody on Dallas played well enough to win the game! The worst part about it was that we lost a Super Bowl to the Dallas Cowboys! If there was one good thing that came out of this game, it was the coming out of LB Levon Kirkland. He was the main reason that the Steelers stuffed Smith all day. No one on the national level really knew who Kirkland was until this game. This was the passing of the torch - Russell, Ham, Lambert, Merriweather, Little, Lloyd, and now Kirkland. He became to next great Steelers linebacker.
Final Score: 17-27

The Aftermath: Neil O'Donnell ran out of town with his tail between his legs. He signed a huge contract with the Jets, and proceeded to win one game the following year. He's never repeated the success he had in 1995, nor have the Steelers or Cowboys.

at Cleveland Browns
October 24, 1993

The Browns had been to three AFC Championship games in the late 1980's, but as the 90's dawned, they were slowly losing the grip which they had on the division. The Oilers and Steelers were now the dominant teams in the AFC Central, so the Browns made some moves in 1993 to try to compete. One of the biggest and most controversial moves was signing QB Vinny Testaverde and benching long-time Browns QB Bernie Kosar. It was working, because coach Bill Belichick and the Browns entered this game with a 4-2 record. With the Oilers off to a slow 1-4 start, the Browns and Steelers were both looking to take over the lead in the division. There was a lot of scoring in the first half of this game. Cleveland jumped out to 14-0 lead when Eric Metcalf returned a punt 91 yards for a TD. The Steelers came back though, and tied the game at halftime. In the second half, the game went back and forth. The Steelers took a 17-14 lead before Testaverde threw his second TD pass of the game to make it 21-17. After that, the game got a little crazy. Del Speer of Cleveland intercepted O'Donnell and returned it to the Steelers 16 before fumbling it right back to the Steelers. Two plays later on 3rd and long, that big overweight clutz Eric Green went in motion and managed to get between Dermontti Dawson and O'Donnell, who was in the shotgun. The snap hit him on the rear end, but in the mad scramble for the football Merril Hoge picked it up and actually ran for a first down! That drive eventually led to a Gary Anderson field goal, and another Anderson field goal in the 4th quarter gave the Steelers a 23-21 lead. With 2:24 remaining in the game, the Steelers were forced to punt. After already giving up a touchdown to Metcalf earlier, everyone knew that the Steelers special teams had to be careful. Still, what were the chances of Metcalf doing it twice? Shockingly, that's exactly what happened. Metcalf ran right down the sidelines and 75 yards later, he was in the endzone. The Steelers still had a chance to come back but Dwight "Hands Of Stone" fumbled and the game was officially over. Eric Metcalf became the first player in NFL history to return two punts at least 75 yards for touchdowns in the same game. The Browns fans went absolutely nuts when Metcalf returned that kick. For them, it must have been one of their five best games of the decade, but for us, it hurt a lot. To this day it is still unbelievable that this happened. How could the Steelers special teams have let this happen twice? The special teams had struggled all season long. "[Metcalf] didn't beat us, he beat our special teams," Greg Lloyd said after the game. "That's stupid football." Ironically, this game marks the last time that the Browns beat the Steelers.
Final Score: 23-28

The Aftermath: The Steelers did manage to hurt Testaverde. He would miss almost the entire rest of the season. Fortunately for the Browns, they still had Kosar, right? Wrong! In one of his usual fits of insanity, Art Modell waived Kosar several days after this game, even though he knew Testaverde was going to be out for quite some time (actually, Belichick got most of the blame for that move). Thanks to the old man and his coach's crazy antics, Todd Philcox became the Browns starting QB and they dropped right out of the race for the division which they had fought so hard to get into. Houston turned their 1-4 start into a 12-4 final record and won the division. The Steelers made the playoffs as a wild card while the Browns, despite taking this game, sat at home for the post-season. Meanwhile, the Steelers continued to struggle on special teams. It caught up with them again in the playoffs. Leading the Chiefs 24-17 with just minutes remaining in the game, Mark Royals had his punt blocked and returned inside the Steelers 10. The Chiefs scored a touchdown, sending the game into overtime where they eventually beat the Steelers. Special teams coach John Guy was fired almost immediately after the season ended.

at Houston Oilers
December 30, 1990

In 1989, the Steelers shocked everyone by not only making the playoffs, but by also defeating the Oilers in the AFC Wild Card game at Houston, where it was pretty much impossible to win. In 1990, the Steelers were expected to build off of that miracle season, but they started off slowly, losing 3 of their first 4 games. However, the lone victory was a 20-9 win over Houston at Three Rivers in week 2. The Steelers eventually picked it up, and were 8-6 heading into the final two games. In the second to last week of the season, the Steelers hammered Cleveland 35-0 in one of my favorite games of all time, a game in which Cleveland fumbled 8 times! Meanwhile, the Oilers had lost to Cincinnati, setting up a showdown for the division the following week in Houston. In that game with the Bengals, Warren Moon was injured, and it was learned later on that night that he would miss the big finale against Pittsburgh. The Steelers were riding high. They had won three straight, shutout their most hated rivals, and they were heading into Houston (where they'd proven in the past that they could win) to take on an Oilers team that was without its best player. This game was a Sunday nighter, so it was widely hyped. The winner would take the division and the loser would go home. The Oilers backup QB was a guy named Cody Carlson. His nickname was "The Commander". Everyone in Pittsburgh thought the Steelers would win, but the Commander wasn't the doormat everyone thought he was. When Tim "Woops" Worley fumbled at his own 38 yard line on the Steelers first play from scrimmage, it was apparent that things were not going to go the Steelers way. Carlson and the Oilers came out flying. They scored touchdowns on three of their first four possessions. The Steelers defense couldn't cover Houston's receivers. When CB D.J. Johnson left the game with a shoulder injury, Carlson had a field day throwing on Johnson's replacement, CB Delton Hall. The Steelers couldn't do anything right. With just over a minute left in the first half the Steelers were down 21-0 but were actually in Oilers territory. However, Chuck Noll, in typical Chuck Noll fashion, opted to try a 52 yard field goal instead of going for it on 4th down! Like a FG would've done any good down by 21! Then Gary Anderson missed the FG, and the Oilers quickly got in FG range and added three more points to their blowout lead. The Oilers run-and-shoot offense did not miss Warren Moon at all. Carlson came out and shredded the Steelers defense, and with Bubby Brister and the offense not producing, this game was over at halftime. The Steelers missed the playoffs despite entering this game in sole possession of first place in the division and finishing the season 9-7.
Final Score: 14-34

The Aftermath: Houston went on to choke in the playoffs, just like they always did. All those years with Warren Moon and that vaunted run-and-shoot offense, and they never once even made it to a championship game! The Steelers returned to the playoffs two years later, mostly because of the Oilers game where Cody Carlson nearly beat us again (see best games #2).

Personal Memory: This game really sucked. The Steelers actually had a decent team that year. It was even a better team than they had in 1989 when they made the second round of the playoffs. Had the Steelers won, there may have been a home playoff game, something that hadn't happened for almost a decade. I still have the tickets to that game - a game which never happened.

at Arizona Cardinals
October 30, 1994

A year before they would return to Tempe for Super Bowl XXX, the Steelers played what should have been a routine Sunday night game against the lowly Arizona Cardinals, but there was nothing normal about this matchup. In 1994, the NFL celebrated it's 75th anniversary, and as part of that celebration the Cardinals and Steelers, being two of the league's oldest franchises, wore throwback uniforms. That was the first sign that this game was going to turn ugly. The Steelers started the game with a drive deep into Cardinals territory, but it ended on an Anneas Williams interception. On the very next play, Cardinals QB Steve Beuerlein went deep, and Ricky Proehl burned Rod Woodson to get all the way down to the Steelers 8 yard line. That set up the first touchdown of the game, making it 7-0 Cardinals. The Steelers tied the game on a Bam Morris touchdown in the 2nd quarter. After a Deon Figures holding penalty gave Arizona a field goal, the Steelers offense showed rare signs of life. Neil O'Donnell hit Yancey Thigpen (right) on a somewhat short pass, but when CB James Williams of the Cardinals slipped and fell, Thigpen was gone for a 60 yard TD. This was an unusually long play for the offense, which struggled most of the 1994 season. In fact, it would be the last touchdown the offense would score until three weeks later against Miami (see best games #8). The Cardinals came right back though, and scored another TD that made it 17-14 at halftime. Beuerlein, the NFL's lowest rated passer coming into this game, was destroying the Steelers #1 ranked "Blitzburgh" defense. He would finish the game with 251 yards, but most of them came in that first half. That's because the defense got their act together in the second half and shutout the Cardinals in the 3rd and 4th quarters. The Steelers were still down by 3 when they lined up for a 38 yard FG attempt halfway through the 4th quarter. The kick would have tied the game, but when Leon Searcy jumped, it turned the play into a 43 yard FG attempt. That's when Bill Cowher got an idea - an idea which by all means should not have left his head, because it ended up being the dumbest looking play of the decade. The Steelers called for a fake FG, with the ball being directly snapped to Gary Anderson. It was a total disaster. Anderson was dragged down from behind before he could get the 7 yards needed for a first down. In the 12 years that Gary Anderson played for the Steelers, I had never once seen him actually carry the football, and I doubt we'll ever see it again. So the Steelers were down but not out. They still had a chance to put together a drive in the final moments. With under two minutes left, the Steelers were faced with a 3rd down at midfield. Neil O'Donnell, who usually caved under any kind of pressure from the defense, made an amazing play. With Eric Swann holding on to his ankles about to drag him down, O'Donnell spun around and flipped a pass to a wide open Eric Green, who took off down the right sideline. Green would have gone in for the game-winning touchdown, but he pulled up lame inside the 20 and was caught from behind at the 5 yard line! If you asked me to sum up Eric Green's entire career in one play, this would be it. Green, who had held out the entire preseason and was even more out of shape than usual, managed to get wide open but did not have the stamina (or the heart) to finish the play. So instead of a TD, the Steelers had to settle for a FG, which sent the game into overtime. For a brief moment, it looked bright for the Steelers, but then it all went straight to hell again. They won the overtime coin toss, but rookie Charles Johnson fumbled the kickoff return and Arizona recovered. The always tough Steelers defense stuffed the Cardinals on three straight plays, even pushing them back a bit. The FG would be from 51 yards out, but kicker Greg Davis, who had missed a 26 yard FG earlier, came in and nailed it. The Steelers had given the Cardinals the game. Never before have I witnessed a game in which the Steelers had so many chances to win. This was the ugliest loss of the decade.
Final Score: 17-20 (OT)

The Aftermath: Despite this horrible loss, the Steelers went on to win 7 in a row and finished the season 12-4, their best record so far in the 90's.

• at Kansas City (1993 Wild Card Playoffs)....L 24-27(OT): blocked punt + Joe Montana = doom for the Steelers.
• at Denver (1991)....L 13-20: Eric Green drops game-tying TD pass in final seconds.
• at Cincinnati (1998)....L 20-25: Neil burns Dewayne Washington twice in final seconds.
• vs. Minnesota (1992)....L 3-6: The most boring game I've ever sat through. Vikings win 6-3 on last-second FG.
• at Detroit (1998)....L 16-19(OT): Coin flip incident. Bus calls tails, Phil Luckett goes deaf.
• at Jacksonville (1997)....L 21-30: Steelers botch snap on game-winning FG.