Bettis almost ends career with blunder
INDIANAPOLIS – For a moment, Jerome Bettis must have felt exactly like the Oakland Raiders did after the Immaculate Reception in 1972.
With the Steelers looking to close out their 21-18 playoff upset Sunday of Indianapolis Colts, they put the ball in Bettis’ hands at the Colts 2 with 1:20 remaining. There may be no safer hands in football than the Bus’s – he once went 220 consecutive carries without a fumble.
But Gary Brackett’s hit loosened the ball, and Nick Harper scooped it up and took off in a zigzag pattern toward the Steelers’ goal line. Only quarterback Ben Roethlisberger’s ankle tackle at the Colts 42 saved a game-winning score.
Think that Bettis didn’t see his career flash before him right then?
“Of course it crosses your mind,” said Bettis, the fifth-leading rusher in NFL history. “I was on the ground and I just saw people running. I fumbled the football, and that’s a no-no, something I can’t do.
“I was mad.”
Luckily for the Steelers, the Colts’ Mike Vanderjagt missed a potential tying 46-yard field goal and the Steelers held on for their biggest playoff upset since a 1984 second-round win at Denver.
“It was just deflating,” receiver Hines Ward said. “He rarely fumbles the ball and if this had been his last game, you would have hated to see him go out like that. … I truly believe the man up above had something to do with that.”
Afterward, Bettis was thankful for Roethlisberger’s tackle – and so was Ward, who said, “Ben saved the year for us with the tackle.”
He wasn’t being glib, either. The Steelers had their tight end-filled offense on the field, and Roethlisberger was the only player with appreciable speed in their lineup. If he misses Harper …
“I think I turned him enough times that he got close to me and he couldn’t decide which way to go, so now I just saw his leg and grabbed it, and luckily he went down,” Roethlisberger said.
Roethlisberger laughed when it was suggested the tackle might be remembered more than his excellent game: 14 of 24 for 197 yards, two touchdowns and one interception.
“That’s sad when a quarterback is remembered for a tackle,” he said. “It’s one of those things where once in a blue moon, Jerome fumbles, and once in a blue moon, I’m going to make that tackle.”
And the Steelers, for the first time in 21 years, will play an AFC championship game on the road Sunday in Denver. That puts Bettis one more victory away from closing out his career in the Super Bowl in his Detroit hometown, the reason he came back at age 33 to play this season.
After Vanderjagt’s miss, Bettis and Cowher found themselves looking directly at each other. Not surprisingly, the coach gave Bettis a hug.
“He said, ‘It’s not over yet,’ ” Bettis said. “We’ve got another opportunity and it’s up to us to make it right.”