Announcer Kirk Herbstreit joined a chorus of critics ripping the Pittsburgh Steelers' lack of effort in their blowout Wild Card playoff loss to the rival Baltimore Ravens.
Announcer Kirk Herbstreit was zeroing in on the Pittsburgh Steelers, but he could have been talking about every road team in the AFC Playoffs when he talked about an embarrassing lack of effort.
While the NFC's three games get cranking Sunday afternoon and into Monday night, the AFC has left fans disappointed, underwhelmed and flat-out bored. The margins were 20, 14 and 24 points, with zero fourth-quarter and little - if any - indelible memories.
One of the lasting images was Buffalo Bills' safety Damar Hamlin intercepting a pass late in the blowout of the Denver Broncos, and shedding his helmet and balaclava on the way to a smiling celebration with fans in the end zone. Oops. Instant replay overturned the pick into an incompletion.
Indicative of the blowout scores, all three AFC road teams barely put up a fight. Each at one stage had a 20-point margin neither the Steelers, Broncos nor Los Angeles Chargers seemed really interested in maxing out their effort or mounting a comeback.
Herbstreit, who called the Steelers' 28-14 loss to the Baltimore Ravens Saturday night, took offense to coach Mike Tomlin's team's effort.
"If I were a Steelers fan the thing that would concern me just watching this first half, you're in the postseason," Herbstreit said of Baltimore's 21-0 halftime lead. "You're getting dominated. I don't see any fight. I don't see any pushback."
The Steelers like to boast that they are molded after their hard-nose, no-nonsense coach. But Tomlin's fire was apparently extinguished early on.
"It's one thing to lose Xs and Os against a really talented offense, but where the hell is the fight?" Herbstreit added. "This is the Pittsburgh Steelers. There's nothing. They're just going through the motions."
Same for the teams of two other iconic AFC coaches. Jim Harbaugh's Chargers made the playoffs with a tough defense, but surrendered 429 yards to the Houston Texans. And Sean Payton's Broncos - clearly unable to stop Josh Allen and the Bills defensively - punted on 4th-and-2 from near midfield late in the third quarter trailing 21-7 as a sign of surrender.
Herbstreit fairly pointed out that the Steelers played harder in the second half. But getting shut out in the first half of playoff game for the first time in Tomlin's 18 years as head proved a bridge too far.
