The Pittsburgh Steelers had a chance to kick a field goal in overtime to seal a victory over the Baltimore Ravens on Thursday night.
Instead, the Steelers opted to go for it facing fourth-and-1 at the Ravens’ 33-yard line.
Steelers kicker Josh Scobee, who missed two field-goal attempts in the second half, watched from the sideline as quarterback Michael Vick unsuccessfully stepped back and threw an incomplete pass in wide receiver Antonio Brown’s direction.
Despite having running back Le’Veon Bell, averaging 5.9 yards a carry, offensive coordinator Todd Haley called a short pass. The incompletion gave the Ravens the ball. Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco was able to stage a drive to get kicker Justin Tucker in field-goal range.
Tucker, who finished the night 3 of 3, drilled the 52-yard field goal to seal the Ravens’ divisional road win 23-20.
The Steelers led the Ravens 20-7 in the third quarter, but with Pittsburgh’s woeful special teams, an opportunistic John Harbaugh-led team was able to claw its way back to force overtime.
Scobee, acquired from Jacksonville in August after injuries to Shaun Suisham and Garrett Hartley, had two chances to give the Steelers (2-2) some cushion late in the fourth quarter only to pull both kicks wide left.
“It’s pretty frustrating,” Scobee said. “I feel like I let the team down. It’s not something I ever want to remember doing. It’s just a bad feeling.”
The second miss gave the Ravens (1-3) enough time to put Tucker well within range to force the extra period. It also gave coach Mike Tomlin pause when the Steelers moved into Baltimore territory twice in overtime.
Both times Tomlin opted to go for it with backup quarterback Michael Vick rather than send out Scobee for another long attempt into the unforgiving end of one of the trickiest places to kick in the NFL. Vick, starting in place of injured Ben Roethlisberger, was stopped on fourth-and-2 at the 39 and later overthrew Brown on fourth-and-1 from the 33.
“We lost, so I’m not going to try and justify anything that we did,” Tomlin said. “Anything we did, I take responsibility for.”
Tomlin said the Steelers “have to turn stones over” in an effort to win games. That might not bode well for Scobee.
“The last two I played them down the middle and they both moved,” said Scobee, who is 6 of 10 on the season. “It’s a tough end to kick because it’s a little more open area. It’s something that takes experience.”
There was plenty of reaction on Twitter, and Scobee apparently deleted his account, joshscobee10, to avoid it (WARNING! Strong language):
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
