Sports
The Steelers aren’t who they think they are. They must realize it before it’s too late
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.
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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)
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The face of baseball will not be at Tuesday’s All-Star Game.
Shohei Ohtani was scratched from his start on Friday as the Los Angeles Dodgers said he will also miss the Midsummer Classic with what the team called left knee irritation.
Ohtani, for obvious reasons, has become an All-Star Game fixture. He has earned the honor in each of the past five seasons and made his first start in 2021.
Starting pitcher Shohei Ohtani #17 of the Los Angeles Dodgers warms up before the MLB game against the Arizona Diamondbacks at Chase Field on June 03, 2026 in Phoenix, Arizona. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images) (Christian Petersen/Getty Images)
The two-way phenom is on his way to winning his fifth MVP award in his last six seasons as he is hitting .290 with a .939 OPS and pitching to a minuscule 1.79 ERA, the second-lowest in the sport among pitchers with 80-plus innings. His OPS is also the seventh-best mark in the league.
The Dodgers said Ohtani will be the team’s designated hitter up until the break, but he will “have some interventions on his knee to put him in the best position for the second half of the season.”
Ohtani dealt with knee issues earlier in the season.
It is certainly a big hit for the game as the other face of the sport, Aaron Judge, will miss the game due to a fractured rib that has kept him out since late May.
Shohei Ohtani #17 of the Los Angeles Dodgers gets ready in the on deck circle against the Arizona Diamondbacks at Chase Field on June 01, 2026 in Phoenix, Arizona. (Photo by Norm Hall/Getty Images) (Norm Hall/Getty Images)
DODGERS WILL AGAIN VISIT WHITE HOUSE TO CELEBRATE WORLD SERIES CHAMPIONSHIP, OFFICIAL SAYS
Ohtani hit 99 home runs combined in 2024 and 2025, leading the National League with a 1.025 OPS in that span. Ohtani did not pitch in 2024 after elbow surgery but returned to the bump last year and owned a 2.87 ERA and 11.9 K/9, a figure he also put up in 2022 that led the American League.
The “Japanese Babe Ruth” is the only player in MLB history to have 300-plus plate appearances and 40-plus innings in six separate seasons (Ruth only did it twice and never stole 50 bases), and he has more than excelled at both.
Shohei Ohtani pitches for the Los Angeles Dodgers against the San Francisco Giants at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, California, on May 13, 2026. (Gary A. Vasquez/Imagn Images)
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Ohtani is not hitting like he has in the past, but certainly the best pitching performance of his career will make up for it. He “only” has 20 homers and 56 RBI this season.
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If Mikel Merino is sleeping, please don’t wake him. If the last week has been a dream, he’d just as soon keep dreaming.
Because on Friday, for the second time in five days, Merino came off the bench for the final five minutes of a World Cup knockout game and scored the winning goal, the latest lifting Spain to a 2-1 victory over Belgium and into next week’s semifinal against France in Arlington, Texas.
“Not even in my wildest dreams could I have imagined what’s happening right now, right?” Merino said in Spanish. “Honestly, it’s crazy.”
How crazy? Merino has played less than 10 minutes in the last two games and has two goals. He’s taken four shots in the World Cup and put two of them in the back of the net, the first in stoppage time to beat Portugal in the Round of 16 and in the 88th minute Friday to beat Belgium in a quarterfinal and extend Spain’s unbeaten to streak to 36 games.
“I don’t really even know what to say. I still can’t quite believe it,” Merino said.
Yet Spain’s final substitution, which brought on Merino in the 86th minute, wasn’t the only one that figured heavily in the result. Fifteen minutes earlier Belgian coach Rudi Garcia sent backup goalkeeper Senne Lammens on for Thibaut Courtois — not by choice, by necessity.
The dropoff in talent wasn’t great — Lammens started 32 times for Manchester United this season — but the difference in experience was. Courtois was playing in his 21st World Cup game, second-most all-time, and he had been brilliant up to then.
But he tweaked a muscle making a save minutes earlier and dropped to the turf just before the second-half hydration break. After being attended to by the team’s trainers, he tried to continue but couldn’t, eventually hobbling to the sideline and collapsing on the bench in tears.
“We didn’t want his injury to get worse. That’s why I subbed him off,” Garcia said.
“It’s part and parcel of high-level sport. You need to be concentrated, 100% focused, and need to be able to perform. I did not want to put players on the pitch who were not 100%.”
The margin between Belgium and Spain, after all, is a small one, even if the teams took completely different routes to the quarterfinal.
Spain, which hadn’t gone past the Round of 16 in a World Cup since 2010 when it won its only title, had gone a record six games and 609 minutes without allowing a World Cup goal, dating to the group stage of the last tournament four years ago.
Spain midfielder Mikel Merino scores off a rebound in front of Belgium goalkeeper Senne Lammens during the second half of Spain’s 2-1 quarterfinal win in the World Cup quarterfinals Friday at SoFi Stadium.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
You could binge watch two seasons of “Abbott Elementary” in that time.
But if Spain, the reigning European champion, and goalkeeper Unai Simón were the immovable objects, Belgium, playing in the quarterfinals for the third time in four World Cups, was an unstoppable force. With 12 goals in the last three games, it entered the quarterfinals with the third-most goals in the tournament. And no team had taken more shots.
Spain struck first, with Fabián Ruiz giving La Roja a 1-0 lead with his first goal of the tournament in the 30th minute. The sequence started with Pedro Porro sending a cross into the box for Dani Olmo, whose shot was parried away by Courtois. But Ruiz pounced on the rebound and deflected a shot off defender Timothy Castagne and into the back of the net.
In any other game of this tournament, that would have been enough for Simón. But not against Belgium, which ended Spain’s shutout streak in the 41st minute on a brilliant header from Charles De Keterlaere, who shielded Pau Cubarsí with his body and one-hopped a Castagne cross past a flat-footed Simón for his third goal in two games.
“The record and the milestones are there,” Spanish coach Luis de la Fuente said of his goalkeeper’s record streak. “It’s been decades since the last record was set. And perhaps somebody will break the clean-sheet record.
“But it’s going to be many, many years before that happens.”
Belgium opened the game up a bit when Garcia brought Romelu Lukaku, the country’s all-time leading scorer, on at the hour mark. But Courtois was called to make two saves in the next three minutes and came up lame after the second.
Shorty after he came off, De la Fuente summoned Merino over.
“He didn’t say much to me,” Merino said. “He told me I was coming in as the No. 10. And then, as the game was coming to an end, he told me I was incredible.
“Those are the only two things he said to me.”
The first shot Lammens faced came moments later, when Cubarsí put a one-hop shot on goal from distance. The keeper dove to his right to stop it with both hands, but the ball skipped just before it reached he and Lammens had trouble with the rebound, pushing it toward the edge of the six-yard box for Merino, who tapped it in.
“Unfortunately, to beat a team of this caliber, you need luck on your side,” Garcia, the Belgian coach, said. And the stars didn’t align for us.”
So while Belgium goes home, Spain goes to Texas for Tuesday’s semifinal with France, the only team in the world ranked ahead of it.
“Ever since the World Cup started, everyone has been waiting for this match,” Spanish wunderkind Lamine Yamal said. “I’ve been really looking forward to it. To me, they’re the two best teams in the World Cup.
“If anyone can take on France with confidence, it’s us.”
Especially if Merino keeps dreaming.
Sports editor Iliana Limón Romero contributed to this story.
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Oba Femi and Brock Lesnar’s feud will come to a head at SummerSlam in August, and the showdown has the potential to be WWE’s match of the year.
Femi beat Lesnar at WrestleMania 42 and led to “The Beast Incarnate” deciding to retire – at least for a moment – at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas. Lesnar made a dramatic return a few weeks later, challenging and beating Femi at Clash in Italy.
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Oba Femi looks on during Monday Night RAW at Allstate Arena on July 6, 2026, in Chicago, Illinois. (Melina Pizano/WWE via Getty Images)
At SummerSlam, Femi and Lesnar will do battle inside a Hell in a Cell.
WWE Hall of Famer John Bradshaw Layfield called the next meeting between Femi and Lesnar a “generational matchup.”
“I’ve never seen anything like Oba – well, I have. I’ve seen Brock,” he told Fox News Digital. “It’s very much the carbon copy of Brock coming in. Brock coming in was like, oh my God, who is this guy? The guy can even talk, and he’s gonna be one of the biggest stars in wrestling. Not only could he talk, he’s a really smart guy. Brock became one of the biggest draws in professional wrestling. He came one of the biggest draws in UFC. It’s an unbelievable story, and now you got somebody who can rival that character.
Brock Lesnar in action against Oba Femi during “Monday Night Raw” at TD Garden on March 23, 2026, in Boston, Massachusetts. (Michael Owens/WWE via Getty Images)
“This Oba Femi comes out with the silly little walk he does. Everyone kinda does it, it’s like The Bushwackers. But the whole arena does it. I was in Vegas and I didn’t want to go to the matches and deal with the traffic and deal with the backstage area, and so I kinda just watched it in a sports bar. I stood in the back where nobody could recognize me, and as soon as Oba came out, the entire sports bar was sitting there doing that Oba Femi dance. The guy is just unbelievably over.
“I really think that somewhere in the NFL this year, you’re going to see an entire NFL arena doing this dance. You’re gonna have somebody like Saquon Barkley or ‘King’ (Derrick Henry) or some of these guys do this dance, and it’s infectious. Once one of them does, one of these great running backs or wide receivers, or somebody scores a touchdown, that’s when I think you’re gonna see entire arenas doing it. I just think Oba Femi is lightning in a bottle and Brock has always been that way. This is, to me, a generational matchup.”
Brock Lesnar and Oba Femi face off during WrestleMania 42: Night 2 at Allegiant Stadium on April 19, 2026, in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Georgiana Dallas/WWE via Getty Images)
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SummerSlam will take place on Aug. 1 and 2 at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis.
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