Sports
The Golden At-Bat rule could give MLB a new shine. But is it worth it?
When the commissioner of baseball speaks, we listen.
So we were listening a few weeks ago when Rob Manfred stopped by the podcast of Puck’s John Ourand and dropped this giant breadcrumb about a rule change that seems like it might be coming someday to a ballpark near you — and a mobile device even closer to you:
“There are a variety of (rule change ideas) that are being talked about out there,” Manfred said. “One of them — there was a little buzz around it at an owners’ meeting — was the idea of a Golden At-Bat.”
The Golden At-Bat? What the heck is that? That’s what you’re thinking, right? I can help with that.
First off, it’s not to be confused with the Golden Goose, the Golden Retriever or even the Golden Arches. It won’t set you up for life, bark at the mail truck or add 1,500 calories to your digestive system in the next seven minutes.
But it is an idea that would change everything about how baseball — the ultimate team sport — has always worked. So what the heck is it? I’ve been asking that question — and others about this rule idea — for months. So let’s try to explain every golden little thing about it … not to mention how it’s likely to be received, by players, front offices and the baseball gods.
OK, what is a Golden At-Bat?
What if a team could choose one at-bat in every game to send its best hitter to the plate even if it wasn’t that guy’s turn to hit? That’s the Golden At-Bat concept in a nutshell.
Say there are two outs in the 10th inning in October. The Yankees and Guardians are tied. Does this ring a bell at all? But in this alternate October universe, it’s not Juan Soto who is due up. It’s, say, Oswaldo Cabrera. Except the Yankees say: No, no, no. We’re going to use our Golden AB here … and send up Soto. Then home run magic happens.
“Wouldn’t that have been the (ultimate) Golden At-Bat homer?” one front-office executive mused, as we were talking about this concept. “Can we send Juan Soto up there to do that? He actually did hit that homer in that moment.”
He did. And that’s the goal. So should baseball change the rules to attempt to create more of those moments? That’s the question.
How would the rule work?
How would this rule be worded? Sorry. That’s a mystery nobody can answer yet. The truth is, baseball hasn’t settled on those details. And MLB officials declined to speak with The Athletic about any possible future rule changes. But lots of variations have been tossed around. Here are some that I’ve heard.
• Each team gets to pick one at-bat — at any point in the game, but only once — to play its Golden AB card. So would it save that card for The Juan Soto Moment? Or would it play it in the second inning, with the bases loaded and a chance to blow up a game? Strategy alert!
• Or there’s this option: Each team gets one Golden AB per game — except only in the seventh inning or later.
• Or there’s the variation I’d vote for — where only a team that is trailing (or tied) in the ninth or later gets to use a Golden AB. I’m a fan of less is more, and two Golden ABs every game (one per team) might be overkill.
• There’s also this potential wrinkle: The Royals use their Golden AB to let Bobby Witt Jr. lead off the ninth. He makes an out. But who’s batting second? Whaddaya know, it’s Witt’s turn in the lineup. So here he comes again. Yes, that could be a thing.
So what variation will actually end up happening (if any of them do)? We have many golden miles to travel before we can answer that.
The Royals could send Bobby Witt Jr. to the plate in a key spot even though it wasn’t his turn. The specifics of the Golden At-Bat rule — and how teams would use it — are unclear. (Jay Biggerstaff / Imagn Images)
Why would MLB want to mess with the baseball gods?
For almost 150 years, the epic late-inning moments in this sport have all happened organically. So you’d be messing with some seriously embedded forces in the universe if you suddenly drop in a rule change that practically scripts them to happen. Why would the powers that be even want to go there?
All right, let’s think this through. How heart-pounding was that Soto at-bat in the ALCS that ended with a homer? How unforgettable was the final at-bat of the 2023 World Baseball Classic, Mike Trout versus Shohei Ohtani?
They made for mesmerizing baseball theater, right? So if you were designing the sport from scratch, would you want more of those moments or fewer? I won’t even answer for you. Just think about it.
But while you’re thinking, let’s go beyond baseball. If it’s the Super Bowl, Patrick Mahomes is going to have the ball in his hands with 47 seconds to play. Is that a problem? Ho, ho, ho. It’s a reason — THE reason — to watch.
Or if it’s the NBA Finals, you think there’s any chance that Steph Curry … or LeBron James … or Nikola Jokić might have a chance to do something special as the clock ticks down? Oh, only every possession. Is that a problem? Let’s say no.
So why would Manfred’s sport want to mess with the baseball gods? That’s why. Why should only those other sports get to have their games decided by their biggest stars?
His sport isn’t there yet. The pros are still duking it out with the cons. The details aren’t even set in pencil, let alone in stone. But if the goal is to create moments and memories, the Golden At-Bat could be a vehicle to create more of those. So who could possibly complain?
Ha. Don’t answer that … yet!
C’mon, could this really happen?
Is the Golden AB really going to happen? Who the heck knows — but let’s still go with this guess, of … yes!
On Ourand’s podcast, Manfred described this idea (and others) as being “in the conversation-only stage right now.” So that makes it sound iffy — except for one thing:
He chose to talk about this out loud, where everyone could hear it.
He also used the word “buzz” to describe the response. Which is interesting, because from what I can discern, it’s not the buzziest buzz in the baseball cosmos at the moment.
It’s clearly not as buzzy as the electronic strike zone anyway. It wasn’t a topic at the owners’ meetings that were held in the past two weeks. And there is no evidence that this concept has even been presented to the players at any meeting of the competition committee.
But despite all that, it wouldn’t be a shock to see the sport test this soon — possibly even as soon as … (drum roll, please) next year!
Where would the test be?
A Golden AB for Shohei Ohtani? MLB could experiment with the rule in the midsummer classic. (Tim Heitman / Imagn Images)
Over on the minor-league side of this sport, folks have heard “buzz” that the league would like to test the Golden AB in some form in the minors sometime in the next couple of years. But would that test be coming as soon as 2025? Can’t answer that, but I’d lean toward no.
So if any variation of the Golden AB does surface next year, here’s where I’d guess you’d see it:
In the MLB All-Star Game.
Manfred also dropped that breadcrumb on Ourand’s podcast. When the conversation veered toward possible tweaks to that game, Manfred tipped his golf cap to his TV partners at Fox Sports, saying: “They’re always thinking. They’re never short of ideas. And they are reasonable.”
So what All-Star Game ideas had gotten his attention? See if this sounds familiar.
“Most of the changes we have discussed,” he said, “involve producing the matchups, in the context of an exhibition game, that the fans want to see the most. You know, more freedom in terms of substitution and whatnot. I am receptive to those ideas, in the context of an exhibition game.”
Does that sound Golden-AB-ish to you? It does to me, except that if baseball goes down that trail in the All-Star Game, it might not stop at just one at-bat.
Several years ago, Fox tossed out a slightly different concept that went nowhere at the time — but since has gotten enough traction that someone asked me what I thought of it a few months back. Since it’s the All-Star Game and the biggest stars aren’t on the field after the fourth or fifth inning, how about this fun idea to keep you tuned in:
Before the game, each team could designate three All-Star starters who could re-enter the game in the seventh inning or later. Then you might see something like this:
Emmanuel Clase enters to nail down another American League win … but wait. Here come Ohtani, Bryce Harper and Mookie Betts back into the game for the National League to face him. I’d watch!
Or maybe each team could throw out five names … and then fans could vote on which three could return.
Or … you could just limit this fun to one Golden AB.
I was so curious about this idea, I asked a bunch of players what they thought of it at this summer’s All-Star Game. We’ll get to those entertaining exchanges shortly. Just know this, for now: If the league wanted to try this next July, I don’t think they would get furious blowback from the players.
But before we roll out that player reaction, you might be wondering …
Who thinks of this stuff?
Would it surprise you to know that this brainstorm goes back well before the 2020s? David Samson, the former Marlins president who now hosts the popular “Nothing Personal” podcast, has said on his show that he brought it up as far back as a decade ago.
Back then, he was a member of a previous version of MLB’s competition committee. Nothing formal was ever proposed. It was more like: What about this idea …
So how’d that go? About how you’d expect.
“The view was, you are basically ruining the sanctity of the game,” Samson told The Athletic. “The brilliance of the history of the game is that, hey, if the right guy’s up, the right guy’s up — and if not, he’s not. And many times, there are heroes that are made by people who otherwise are not heroes, because they had an opportunity, as a big-league player, to have a big at-bat.”
Brett Phillips, Rajai Davis and Bucky Dent second that motion! So that idea went nowhere at the time. Samson laughed as he recalled: “I didn’t take it personally.”
But now rock your time machine forward and think about what’s happened in this sport over the past couple of years. By which we mean … the pitch clock happened. And shockingly, the Baseball Earth did not stop spinning.
So what’s possible after your sport has successfully challenged the sanctity of another age-old baseball adage, The Game Without a Clock?
“It makes people in the game more comfortable talking about change,” Manfred told Ourand.
So suddenly, those ideas from partners like Fox, which used to be met with Ummm, not yet, are now viewed as Not Even Totally Crazy. But now can those ideas make the big leap from the whiteboard to the emerald ballfields of real life? I asked that question to a bunch of people in the game. Let’s hear from them.
Are the players ready for the Golden At-Bat?
As I mentioned earlier, I surveyed players about this five months ago at the All-Star Game. I shrewdly asked them first about trying it in the All-Star Game, then smoothly glided into What About the Real Games mode. Let’s roll the highlights.
Brewers outfielder Christian Yelich — When I asked Yelich about how he felt about three starters re-entering the All-Star Game in the late innings, his face lit up.
“That would be kind of cool,” he said. “I mean, it’s an exhibition game after all, right? So you want to keep it to where it’s a game, but also, if you want to add a wrinkle that makes it more entertaining, or do stuff geared for the fans and keep the entertainment value high, I’m all for it.”
But when I asked if he’d be open to something like the Golden AB in regular-season games — in the vein of Steph Curry having the ball in the last minute of a hoops game — his wheels started spinning.
“I’d have to see it more,” he replied, but didn’t rule anything out.
“Do you think it’s too gimmicky?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “I mean, look, we’re doing stuff to change the game up a little bit and make it exciting. So I’m open to any idea, and you kind of just see how it works out. And if it’s good, it stays. If it’s not, you kind of just keep going.”
I didn’t hear a “no way” in there. On to the next player!
Twins shortstop Carlos Correa — Correa was equally cool with the All-Star Game version.
“You’re onto something right there,” he said. “It’s fun, right? Just put whoever you want in the ninth inning to hit. That would be great. I love it.”
But what about the regular season? He looked directly into my eyeballs, as if he was searching for a window into what kind of trouble I was trying to lure him into.
“My relievers are going to hate me if I say I agree with that one,” he replied, finally. “I can’t agree with that one because the relievers are going to be under really, really high stress all the time, and then the injuries are going to go even higher.”
We went back and forth a couple of times. Then I pointed out that he was down with making the All-Star Game as entertaining as possible. So if we brought this idea to the late innings of real games, wouldn’t that be like LeBron taking the last shot?
“OK, I agree with you,” he said. “But I think you should be able to bring in whatever pitcher you want then.”
“You could do that, too,” I replied, grateful for any meeting of the minds.
“You can’t do that now,” he said.
Actually, you can, I think. But again, that wasn’t a complete shutdown. So since he’d raised a new concern, it was time to ask a relief pitcher about this.
Phillies reliever Matt Strahm — Strahm, like Yelich, is a free thinker who always sees the big picture. Not surprisingly, he agreed instantly that the All-Star Game idea was a good one. That was great to hear, I told him, because a hitter had theorized earlier that relievers would get mad if baseball did that.
“I mean, some of them probably, yeah,” he said. “But as a reliever, you know what the fans are here for. Every time I’m wearing a gray uniform, they all want to see me get taken deep or walked off or whatever. That’s one of the most exciting plays in the game. So I understand it. And I think we can maybe sacrifice that for a game that doesn’t count.”
All right, but what about in a game that does count?
“I wouldn’t like that,” he said, without hesitation. “Nah, that messes with baseball history too much. I don’t like that one. Say you have a guy like Craig Kimbrel, who is going to be chasing 500 saves. Then he’s got to do it at the end of his career against Aaron Judge and Juan Soto for every save? Nah. That’s not right.”
Hey, I told him, if you want to be the best, don’t you have to beat the best? He laughed, but he wasn’t falling for my little trap.
“A hundred percent,” he said. “I agree with that statement, but I don’t agree with that rule.”
Got it. So, relief pitchers: Not all in.
Matt Strahm liked the idea of the Golden At-Bat in the All-Star Game, but not in the regular season. (Kevin Jairaj / Imagn Images)
Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman — Almost every time I see Freeman, he knows I have some inspired idea to run by him. So he was ready to poke holes in this one, in that good-natured Freddie Freeman way of his. We began with the All-Star scenario — three stars coming back out of the cornfield to bat in the ninth.
“Well, they’re all All-Stars, you know,” he said. “So I think we all would be OK with whoever goes up in the ninth inning. You just want Shohei and Aaron Judge to hit every single time? I totally understand. I would, too. I’d rather just watch them hit nine times.
“Look, I like your idea, Jayson. But I’m gonna fight against that, because they’re all All-Stars, and I wouldn’t mind anybody hitting.”
I knew where this was going next, but I went there anyway. How about the regular season, I asked.
“No, no, no,” he said. “I’m old school, you know, even as a young guy. I like baseball. I’m a baseball purist. So I’m gonna go no.”
“Let me play devil’s advocate here,” I told him. “Steph Curry always has the ball at the end of the game in basketball, right? Why doesn’t that work in baseball?”
“I get it,” he said. “I would rather watch Shohei hit 20 times a game. It would be really good for the Dodgers if he did that too.”
“So as long as it’s Shohei, you’re fine with it?” I kidded him.
“No, I’m good with Mookie,” he said. “I’m good with Will Smith. I’m good with pretty much our whole team. Look, as long as it doesn’t mean anything — like the All-Star Game now is just for fun — you can do whatever you want.”
“But what about the actual game?” I asked.
“Let’s just play six innings and do a Home Run Derby for the last three,” he bantered, playfully.
“No, let’s not do that,” I said.
“Why?” he said, laughing. “So you don’t like my ideas, but I’ve got to like all of yours?”
We were having such a good time at this point, it almost didn’t matter how this wound up. But then, in a shocking twist, it turned out I’d worn him down.
“Oh, I don’t care,” he said, finally. “You know me. Whatever the rules are, just tell me, and I’ll abide by them.”
That’s the spirit. So the verdict from the players: Not in, but not 100 percent out. So it’s time to survey another important demographic …
Are front offices ready for the Golden At-Bat?
This was not what you’d call a scientific poll. It was more like a mission to find somebody — anybody — inside an MLB front office who even knew what a Golden At-Bat was. Turns out that was a short list.
But I found one exec who loves this idea and one who hates it. They were each granted anonymity so they could speak freely about prospective rule changes, always a sensitive topic for people at their level.
Not a fan of the Golden AB — The club official who is skeptical wanted to make it clear he’s not one of those old-school execs who hates every new rule. The last wave of rule changes — pitch clock, stolen-base incentives, etc. — were great, he said.
“With the other rule changes … you’re trying to create the best version of baseball,” he said. “But with this rule, the Golden At-Bat, it’s like you’re trying to create a different sport. You’re trying to create something else that’s kind of like baseball, but not really.”
I gave him a rundown of every possible selling point for the Golden AB. He wasn’t budging.
“I understand the value of Mike Trout versus Shohei Ohtani to decide the WBC,” he replied, “and if we can create that every day, you have a reason for people to tune in. Yes, that’s great. It’s just not baseball.
“It is fundamentally changing the character of the sport and the batting order, which is a huge function of how the sport lives. Just to change that, to try to make the eighth or ninth inning more interesting, I don’t know. That one is hard for me, in ways that changing the infield shift rules and other things are not. Those rules are about returning the game to the way it was meant to be played. That is not this. This is like the opposite of that.”
I laid out the potential upside one more time. No dice.
“It’s not for me,” he said. “I feel like it’s (Savannah) Banana Ball-type stuff, as opposed to how baseball should be played.”
Big fan of the Golden AB — So how many people, in front offices across North America, think the way that last exec thinks? I’d guess most of them — and who’s to say they’re wrong? But for the other side of this argument, let’s listen to an official of a different team who has come to recognize that his sport needs to serve its audience — or, even more importantly, its future audience.
“The world is changing,” this official said. “Look at the way entertainment is consumed now. Look who you’re competing with. Today’s fans have grown up on their phones. … They’re used to getting exactly what they want, what they like, what they find engaging and compelling — and they want it now. And they want to watch it for a few minutes and move on. So the Golden At-Bat accomplishes all those things.”
But there’s also an important baseball reason, he went on. At a time when the league batting average and on-base rates have sunk to levels we haven’t seen in half a century, the sport should be thinking outside the box to find ways to create not just more drama but also more runs.
“Hitting is so hard,” he said. “So why would we not want to give more plate appearances to the best hitters? Something like the Golden At-Bat gives one of your highest-leverage appearances in a game to one of your most talented hitters. I like it. I think that’s another small thing you can do to help offense.”
Excellent point — but not one that impressed the next guy we surveyed …
Joe Maddon: Not a fan
Joe Maddon: “Who are we trying to serve with this? And what is the purpose of the whole thing? I don’t quite understand that.” (Darren Yamashita / Imagn Images)
So what would managers think of the Golden AB?
It would be one more pivotal chess move that would get dropped on their game board every night. So would they enjoy the strategic component of it? Or do they already have enough on their plates, their lineup cards and their spreadsheets?
I went looking for the most candid response possible. So I chose a former manager, not a current manager, because he could speak more openly. But I also wanted an innovator and someone not far removed from the dugout. So I called the ex-manager of the Rays, Cubs and Angels, Joe Maddon. Turns out this was one innovation he wanted no part of.
“You’re starting to play this game with a joystick, and not human beings,” he said, pithily.
That sounded like a vote for humans over joysticks. But just so it was clear, Maddon kept laying out his issues with this rule. Let’s sum up three of them.
This isn’t basketball — So LeBron has the ball at the end of every basketball game — and there were 120 Dodgers games this year in which Ohtani didn’t get a swing in the ninth inning? That’s not a good enough reason, Maddon said, to mess with such a fundamental part of baseball.
“That’s just how that game’s built,” he said. “Our game is not built that way. Why do we want to bastardize our game and make it like everybody else?”
I decided again to play devil’s advocate. Wasn’t Trout versus Ohtani awesome baseball theater? Of course, Maddon said. So if the sport, with this rule, could create the ability to have more moments like that, what’s the downside?
“The more we see things, the less impact they have.” Maddon said. “The Trout-Ohtani thing was outstanding because you rarely see it. You don’t see Halley’s Comet every night.”
It’s anti-“team” — As I was outlining the reasoning behind the Golden AB, I could hear Maddon scribbling on a sheet of paper.
“As you were explaining that,” he said, “I wrote down the word ‘team.’ What is that anymore?”
As a manager, Maddon said he was constantly concerned about keeping his entire roster connected, not just his stars. So if one of those stars was going to bat every night in place of the same group of non-stars, there’s danger in that.
“There’s no way you can convince me that you’re going to take this (non-star) part of the team and kind of make them moot in tough situations,” he said. “After all, when a team succeeds in those circumstances (and the non-stars come through), it really builds a lot within the group.”
I asked if he would find it more palatable if the league tried it out in the All-Star Game.
“They could do whatever they want,” he said. “I don’t care. To me, it’s not interesting at all, not even a little bit. I find nothing interesting about it. I find it totally counter to the team concept in the game, everything you preach on a daily basis.”
It’s pseudo-strategy — Lots of changes in baseball were good and important, Maddon said. The pitch clock. The wild card. Lowering the mound in the 1960s.
“Those were needs — things the game needed,” he said. “Needs that were implemented to make the game more watchable. But needs should never impact strategy (so significantly).”
“Don’t ever confuse the word ‘change’ with the word ‘progress,’” he said later. “Change does not necessarily equal progress. Change could be regress. And in this situation, it may be totally regressive, because the game no longer becomes the game when you start messing with strategy on that level.”
Then he asked this:
“Who are we trying to serve with this? And what is the purpose of the whole thing? I don’t quite understand that.”
I’m glad he posed those questions. It’s an important aspect of this. So let’s spin off that thought and ask a question of our own:
This is interesting — but are we sure it’s worth it?
“We should not be afraid of doing something that is entertainment-based, but also competitive-based,” David Samson said. “Aaron Judge is not going to hit a home run every at-bat.” (Robert Deutsch / Imagn Images)
Earlier in this discussion, I posed a question I knew the answer to: Who could possibly complain? Ha. We’ve learned exactly who could possibly complain. Managers. Club officials. Players. And, of course, fans. That isn’t the entire population of the planet. But it sure covers every possible voting bloc.
It’s so easy to poke holes in an idea like the Golden AB. Here’s another one: Wouldn’t it throw all of baseball history out of whack?
Depending on which version of the Golden AB you chose, it could get Judge an extra 120 at-bats a year — many of them with lots of runners on base. So if he hit 82 homers and drove in 170 runs some year, are there enough asterisks in the world to slap on the record books? Maybe not.
But is that really going to be how this goes? Baseball could make sure it doesn’t just by limiting the Golden AB to only the ninth inning and only when a team is trailing. Voila! That problem is solved. Then it’s a much more limited number of at-bats. And what’s the problem?
“We should not be afraid of doing something that is entertainment-based, but also competitive-based,” Samson said. “Aaron Judge is not going to hit a home run every at-bat. Could he hit one every three at-bats? I don’t think so, because then he’d hit 200 home runs a year. So just by giving him the Golden At-Bat every ninth inning, the Yankees are not going to win 150 games. And of course, he’s not going to hit a home run every time.”
But what about the box scores? Wouldn’t this wreak havoc with the box scores? How would they deal with this: Bryce Harper batted in the three-hole and the seven-hole in this game? And he hit a home run from both of them? Wouldn’t that break every computer in America?
I asked that question of Tom Thress, the president of Retrosheet, which has a database of box scores dating back more than a century. He didn’t sound worried.
“Back in the day,” he said, “there used to be the occasional ‘courtesy runner’ — usually after a batter was hit by a pitch — where someone pinch-ran for the player but the player was allowed to return to the field in the next inning. … The parallel here is that sometimes the ‘courtesy runner’ was a guy who was already in the game.”
If you click on Retrosheet, you’ll notice that those courtesy runners did not crash their site. It’s still up and running, despite that affront to the rules and norms of baseball. So if the Golden AB becomes one of those rules and norms, everyone will figure that out, too, he predicted.
And how about the unraveling of the team concept that Maddon was highly agitated about? It’s an issue. But even Maddon conceded it could be dealt with by adopting the Golden AB in the minor leagues first.
“You’d just say, ‘Listen, you want to win, right? You’re part of the team, so if this guy gets this at-bat for you, the team has a better chance to win again,’” Maddon said. “That could be so brainwashed in the minor leagues. I could totally see that happening. That would be part of it, where you convince young players of that.”
So for every problem, there’s a possible solution — if you want to seek one. The question everyone has to answer is: Is it worth it?
“That’s the whole thing,” Maddon said. “What is worth it? What are they trying to accomplish? What is the end game right here? How is it going to benefit the game now and in the future? That’s where you have to convince me, because I don’t see it.”
He’s living proof that the Golden AB is not for everyone. But for the people in the sport who are warming to it rapidly, it’s worth fighting for.
“Those of us who love the game, we all have the same goal,” Samson said. “We’re looking for viral moments. Some people say: ‘Let’s just let it happen — and if it never happens, it never happens.’ But if you could create it, it’s not clickbait, because that is too insulting a word to put to this. If you can, it’s creating a memory — which is what we’re in the business of, is creating memories and entertaining people.
“And if you can do it in a way that is only helpful,” he said, “there is zero downside.”
Well … what about all those people who see all downside and no upside? We should listen to their voices, too. So it might take a while to sort all that out. Which means I don’t know if you’ll ever see the Golden AB come to a big-league game — unless it’s the All-Star Game. I also don’t know who’s right or wrong in this debate.
I just know the commissioner of baseball threw this out there for all of us to ponder. So we’re pondering. And even the people who hate it are already pondering how they’d react if it actually happens someday.
“I can say now I think that’s a terrible idea,” said the skeptical exec quoted earlier. “But then, if they put it in play, I’m like everyone else. I’d say: ‘OK, how do we use it to take the most advantage of it?’”
(Top image: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic. Photo of Vladimir Guerrero Jr.: Mark Blinch / Getty Images)
PITTSBURGH — To understand what unfolded Saturday night in the Pittsburgh Steelers’ regular-season finale at Acrisure Stadium, you have to start nearly 700 miles south and four months ago in Atlanta.
In Week 1 against the Falcons, coach Mike Tomlin set the standard for the season when he passed up a chance to kick a field goal that could have extended Pittsburgh’s lead to eight points midway through the fourth quarter. Instead, he opted to go for it on fourth-and-1 from the 6-yard line. Stuffed for no gain, the Steelers turned the ball over on downs but still escaped with a win thanks to six Chris Boswell field goals.
“We live that life,” Tomlin said at the time, insisting that he’d continue to put his faith in his offensive line and the running game as the season continued.
Now here we are in Week 18. After a season to build their identity, coach up their players and analyze the metrics, the Steelers faced third-and-1 from their 37-yard line with 49 seconds remaining in the first half against the Cincinnati Bengals. On a QB sneak, Russell Wilson’s elbow landed short of the line to gain.
Tomlin faced two choices on fourth down:
- Option A: Punt and give Joe Burrow around 40 seconds to drive the length of the field.
- Option B: Go for it, with no guarantee that converting the first down would lead to points.
Tomlin chose to play the possession down the same way he did in Week 1. The result was the same. The Bengals blew up the play, stopping running back Jaylen Warren short. By turning the ball over, Tomlin essentially handed the Bengals a field goal (Cincinnati nearly turned it into a touchdown, but Ja’Marr Chase couldn’t corral a pass on third-and-goal from the 9).
The @Bengals get a big stop on 4th and 1!
📺: #CINvsPIT on ESPN/ABC
📱: Stream on #NFLPlus and ESPN+ pic.twitter.com/B2bqpXCZzb— NFL (@NFL) January 5, 2025
“I like to be aggressive in those moments,” Tomlin said after the game. “If you can’t get a yard, you don’t deserve to win.”
And they didn’t. In a 19-17 loss to the Bengals, those three points could be viewed as the difference.
GO DEEPER
Bengals fan playoff hopes with 19-17 win over sputtering Steelers: Takeaways
As you zoom out, that moment helps — as much as anything else — to summarize where the Steelers (10-7) stand going into the playoffs with the stench of a four-game losing streak lingering and the early season optimism nothing more than a distant memory. A team that once had a two-game lead over the Baltimore Ravens with the inside track to win the AFC North has now squandered that opportunity. It also likely blew the opportunity to open the playoffs against the suspect No. 4-seeded Houston Texans. If the Los Angeles Chargers take care of business against the Las Vegas Raiders on Sunday, the Steelers will visit No. 3-seeded Baltimore as the No. 6 seed.
They will do so limping into the playoffs with serious questions about who they are and what they actually do well.
When the Steelers lost three games in 11 days to the Philadelphia Eagles, Baltimore Ravens and Kansas City Chiefs, the most optimistic way to view the skid was to consider the caliber of competition. All three teams have a legitimate shot to win the Super Bowl.
Well, it only seems fair to consider the caliber of competition now, right? The Bengals’ defense is one of the worst in the league. It entered the game allowing the fourth-most points (26.1) and sixth-most yards per game (358). The first time he played this defense in Week 13, Wilson posted the second-highest passing output (414 yards) of his entire career, which has spanned 13 years and 199 starts. Pittsburgh averaged 7.9 yards per play, its best in a game since 2016.
For an offense that’s been losing altitude over the last month, Saturday night was a prime chance to turn things around and build momentum entering the postseason. Instead, it was arguably its worst offensive performance of the season, as the Steelers posted their second-fewest total yards (193) and a season-low 3.3 yards per play, tied for 10th-worst by any NFL team in a game all season.
After the game, Wilson said the best thing the Steelers can do is forget about the loss.
“We’ve got to have amnesia going into (the playoffs),” he said. “Just win the next play. Just win the next game. We’ve got to have the best week we can possibly have this week.”
It seems the Steelers might already have amnesia, as they must have completely forgotten what worked the first time they played the Bengals this season. Rather than coming out throwing like they did in a 44-point outburst in Week 13, they chose to rely on old-school ground-and-pound. Star receiver George Pickens was targeted six times, committed three drops and recorded just one catch for 0 yards.
Through three quarters, the Steelers ran the ball 20 times for 58 yards (2.9 average) and threw it just 12 times (plus two sacks) for 51 yards, despite trailing from the opening possession. On first and second downs, they ran 17 times against eight passes.
“I think that was our game plan kind of going into it,” Wilson said. “Just trying to establish our physical nature and everything else.”
Therein lies the problem: The Steelers know exactly what brand of football they want to play. Stifle opponents with great defense and churn up yards with a physical rushing attack. That’s the style of football that helps teams win games in the playoffs, or so they’ve been preaching.
Well, now it’s playoff time. If this 17-game sample size has proven anything, it’s this: There’s a serious disconnect between what the Steelers want to be … and what they actually are.
Under first-year offensive coordinator Arthur Smith, Pittsburgh has run the ball 533 times. Only the Philadelphia Eagles (596) and the Ravens (544) have run the ball more. But just because a team runs the ball a lot doesn’t mean it does it well. The Ravens run a lot because they’re great at it, averaging a league-best 5.8 yards per carry. The Eagles are at 5.0 yards per carry, fourth-best. The Steelers? They’re seventh-worst (4.1). The frequency and lack of efficiency leave them ranked third-worst total rushing EPA (-78.5).
Still, after 17 weeks, the Steelers seem to believe they have the kind of offense that can line up, tell you they’re running the ball and do it anyway. In no place is that more apparent than on first down and short-yardage situations — two areas where the Steelers fell short on Saturday.
On first downs this season, Pittsburgh ranks last in yards per play (4.5) while ranking third in run frequency (61.3 percent). A team that wants to “live that life” has converted 38.9 percent of its fourth downs, the fourth-lowest percentage in the league. On fourth-and-1, the Steelers are also fifth-worst with a success rate of 54.5 percent.
“We formulated a plan that we thought was appropriate for this environment and in this game this week,” Tomlin said. “It didn’t work out the way we would like.”
When the Steelers were at their best this season, they were a complementary football team. When one side of the ball struggled, the other bailed them out. To beat the Eagles, Ravens or Chiefs, the Steelers needed both sides to play their best games. Instead, over the past month, both sides have produced their worst games of the season — sometimes simultaneously.
Now, if they’re going to avoid a winless postseason for the eighth consecutive year under Tomlin, the Steelers need to rediscover that formula in a hurry.
“The best thing we can do is get ready for the playoffs,” Wilson said. “It’s a new season. That’s the only thing that really matters anymore at this point. The reality is, winning that game would have helped us in some form or fashion. But at the end of the day, when you go into the playoffs, everybody is 0-0 and you’ve got to beat everybody anyway. That’s got to be our focus right now.”
Maybe it really is a new season, like Wilson says. But unless the Steelers can win a playoff game, it’s going to feel like same old, same old from a team that has too often fizzled down the stretch and fallen flat in the playoffs.
(Photo of Mike Tomlin: Barry Reeger / Imagn Images)
The Dallas Cowboys-Washington Commanders Week 18 matchup was a thriller to the end, but not every play had the best execution.
Just ask the Cowboys cheerleaders.
Brandon Aubrey, Dallas’ trusty placekicker, was setting up for a kickoff, which is about routine as it comes for his position in the league.
The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders perform during the game between the Dallas Cowboys and Detroit Lions on December 30, 2023, at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. (Matthew Pearce/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
But Aubrey’s attempt to kick the ball downfield went awry, as it was kicked immediately out of bounds to the left, and one Cowboys cheerleader was the unfortunate recipient of it.
After an NFL cameraman couldn’t catch the ball with one hand, it smacked a cheerleader in the back of the head, sending her to the ground in the surprise incident.
Social media users suspect that Michelle Siemienowski, a first-year cheerleader with Dallas, was the one hit by the ball.
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Luckily, she got back to her feet and appeared to be laughing about the situation after it happened.
The rest of her cheer team made sure to check on her, as did Commanders punter Tress Way, who was in the area.
Siemienowski made the cheer team in July, writing on Instagram that it was “my dream for as long as I can remember” to be a part of the famous squad.
“This has been the most life changing experience, but this is only the beginning. I am so grateful to say that I achieved my dreams and earned my boots!”
The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders perform during the game between the Dallas Cowboys and Cincinnati Bengals on December 9, 2024, at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. (Matthew Pearce/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Once the game resumed after the incident, the Cowboys found themselves looking to finish the season on a high note, but the Commanders had something else in mind.
Marcus Mariota, who took over for Jayden Daniels at quarterback given the team’s playoff berth, knew that potential seeding was on the line when he got the ball with just over three minutes to play in the fourth quarter.
Washington, down by three points, didn’t just think about a game-tying field goal as Mariota found himself with 2nd-and-goal from the Dallas 5-yard line, and he tossed a fade to Terry McLaurin on the outside.
McLaurin leaped in the air and snagged the ball, keeping both feet in bounds to win the game on the final play from scrimmage.
The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders perform during the NFC Wild Card game between the Dallas Cowboys and Green Bay Packers on January 14, 2024, at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. (Matthew Pearce/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
As a result, the Commanders finished the season 12-5, though the Philadelphia Eagles won the division with a 14-3 record. But the win earned them the No. 6 seed instead of the No. 7 seed, which would have to travel to Philadelphia to face those Eagles in the wild-card round.
Meanwhile, Dallas finishes the season 7-10.
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HOUSTON — The curse of the NBA regular season is that it’s a monthslong slog from city to city, from hotel rooms and hostile arenas, with opposing scouting reports bleeding into one another in what can create an unrecognizable blur.
The gift of that 82-game schedule are the tests, the moments of competition when a team can take an honest look at what it is and what it isn’t against worthy opposition.
Sunday, the Lakers were given a gift.
Playing a Houston team that split the series and showed size, speed and athleticism in doing so last season, the Lakers got a chance to fight a team just above them in the standings. And it was a fight that they nearly won.
Despite being badly beaten for almost the whole first half, the Lakers played one of their best second halves of the season only to come up just short 119-115.
“I want [us] to be a great team but it takes some things that maybe get uncomfortable out there,” LeBron James said. “We got to do a little bit more, be a little bit more gritty, make more plays, not have so many breakdowns.”
The Lakers trailed by as many as 22 late in the first half and by as many as 20 early in the third before Anthony Davis and James led a wild comeback that ended with the Lakers having a chance to tie the score with 7.2 seconds left.
James, who was called for an offensive foul earlier in the final minute, scored on a quick layup and grabbed Alperen Sengun’s missed free throw to give the Lakers a chance to tie it for the first time since the score was 10-10.
Lakers guard Austin Reaves, left, drives past Houston Rockets guard Aaron Holiday during the first half Sunday.
(Ashley Landis / Associated Press)
But Max Christie couldn’t get the ball inbounded, with James signaling for a timeout the Lakers didn’t receive. Christie‘s pass was intercepted by Fred VanVleet, who sealed the game by making one of two free throws. The Lakers nearly cut it to one on the next possession, but a James three-pointer was wiped out by a Davis offensive foul that he and coach JJ Redick said was a flop.
Christie said after the game he should’ve called timeout. James said he believed he should’ve been granted one.
Davis led the Lakers with 30 points and 13 rebounds, James and Austin Reaves each had 21 and Christie scored 14. James also had 13 rebounds and Reaves 10 assists.
Jalen Green, who torched the Lakers early, closed them out in the fourth quarter, scoring a game-high 33 points.
“The fight was there, which was good, but we got to stop digging ourselves in holes like that,” Christie said. “We got to play that way, like we did the second half, for 48 minutes instead of just one half. So for us as a team, that’s the next step for us.”
The standards have been set, both by the Lakers’ recent run of play and by the demands that Redick has publicly and privately put on them. They didn’t meet those standards Sunday on the glass, where Houston scored 28 second-chance points.
“We gave up too many second-chance points. Offensive rebounds killed us. We know they’re a big team,” James said. “We know they crash everybody.”
One of those crashes late — a two-handed putback dunk of an airball from Green by Amen Thompson — was a jaw-dropping display of athleticism.
“It was huge. It was huge. It was huge. It was huge,” James repeated. “But I mean… that’s what happens sometimes. We had bodies on bodies. We maybe could have gotten a body on him. But it was a broken play and me and Doe Doe [Dorian Finney-Smith] got a great trap on Jalen Green across from our bench and he threw one up and it literally looked like a lob. And the kid went up there and used his athleticism to put it home.”
Good is maybe what the Lakers are here in the first week of January; great is where they want to be. And if things aren’t being done correctly, well, Redick has insisted that he’ll find someone who will.
Less than a minute into the third quarter, Redick pulled starter Rui Hachimura for recently acquired Finney-Smith. And after just 93 seconds of playing time in the fourth, he yanked Jaxson Hayes for Finney-Smith.
The mistakes in those stretches, such as the ones late in the game, were the difference between a great win and hard-fought loss, with little room for moral victories with the Lakers’ goals being bigger.
They play again Tuesday in Dallas against the Mavericks.
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