The Pittsburgh Steelers lost to the Baltimore Ravens 16-14 this past Sunday in a Week 14 battle at Acrisure Stadium. The Steelers' loss was riddled with costly mistakes including multiple red zone interceptions, some terrible punts and dropped balls, just to name a few. But Tuesday on his podcast, Footbahlin' with Ben Roethlisberger, the former Steelers two-time Super Bowl Champion quarterback, said there was one error that stood out to him. He was referring to the blocked field goal.
Baltimore Ravens blocks the field goal attempt by Pittsburgh Steelers place kicker Chris Boswell (9) during the fourth quarter of the 16-14 Ravens win at Acrisure Stadium on Sunday, December 11, 2022, in Pittsburgh / Photo Credit: Archie Carpenter/UPI
The Mistake That Haunts The Steelers
With just over 11 minutes left in the fourth quarter, the Ravens' Defensive End Calais Campbell blocked a kick from one of the best kickers in the league, the Steelers' Chris Boswell.
Photo Credit: Chris Boswell - Eric Hartline USA Today
According to Roethlisberger, this is definitely something they practiced and planned for in game prep. He referred to the credit Head Coach Mike Tomlin gave Campbell earlier in the week. Roethlisberger called him one of the biggest men he's ever seen. That's saying something considering Ben spent 18 years in the NFL. Campbell stands a whopping 6'8" and weighs 300 pounds.
"I promise you and will bet you any amount of money that earlier in the week Mike Tomlin, at the very first meeting they had to go over Baltimore, he said blocking a kick takes a special kind of guy," Roethlisberger started. "Only certain guys can do it he said two a year will make you great so to be called great in football it was like that's a big honor blocking two a year will make you great and I promise he (Tomlin) put him on film and they watched five or six of him of his plays, blocking a field goal or extra point or something. I promise you they did."
Roethlisberger went on to discuss how in-depth the Steelers would have covered watching film and prepping to handle someone like Campbell. For his part, Campbell already has one blocked field goal this season and a whopping nine in his career.
Describing Tomlin's likely film study, Roethlisberger added a few comments.
"Tomlin said this dude is a Hall of Fame block field goal guy. He's a guy we got to put a body on, he's a guy that we can't let be destructive because he will block a field goal I promise you," Roethlisberger said.
He further elaborated on what he thought Tomlin's response to the team would be regarding the allowed block.
Mike Tomlin / Photo Credit: Pittsburgh Steelers
"I promise you what's going to happen when they go into meetings tomorrow to watch this thing. he's gonna say 'do you guys remember on Monday on Wednesday when I told you that Calais was a block guy?' He's going to show the clip and it's going to be like, I just know it I know Mike, I know what he does and that's exactly what's going to happen," Roethlisberger said.
The blocked field goal likely cost the Steelers the game, it certainly prevented them from having any opportunity to get back into it. Tomlin addressed the missed points during his press conference today and added that you just can't win when you turn the ball over four times.
Roethlisberger also said that he felt part of the issue was poor planning from the special teams.
"I don't know what happened there I mean I think Christian (Kuntz) the long snapper, got like no help, you can't ask a long snapper to block Calais Campbell it just doesn't happen. I don't think, maybe he didn't get help from the guard or whatever happened, but that's going to be frustrating. I know for Coach T because I guarantee those are all things that he talked about," the former QB1 said.
He said that Coach Tomlin didn't just acknowledge this great play by a defender, he talked about going against someone who is known to do this. He put more emphasis on it as something they attempted to prepare for versus a one-off play.
Mike Tomlin Press Conference Pittsburgh / Photo Credit: Steelers.com
