And now it's on to ... the offseason?
A funny thing happened on the way to the Steelers' much-anticipated rematch with the Patriots in the AFC Championship.
Actually, it wasn't all that funny. For the players who stepped onto the frozen turf at Heinz Field Sunday afternoon, it was a painful experience. It was an embarrassing reminder that you don't count your chickens until they're hatched.
Jacksonville's supposedly punchless offense scored five touchdowns and the defense added another as the Jaguars stunned the Steelers, 45-42, here in an AFC Divisional Playoff game, ending Pittsburgh's postseason run and denying the football world the rematch everyone wanted to see.
Everyone, it seems, except the Jaguars.
"They were mad. They were ready," said Steelers All-Pro guard David DeCastro. "It seemed like they were ready."
The Jaguars, who will now travel to New England next Sunday, were apparently upset regarding comments made by Steelers safety Mike Mitchell over three weeks ago to MMQB's Greg Bishop regarding a rematch with the Patriots.
"We're going to play [the Patriots] again. We can play them in hell, we can play them in Haiti, we can play them in New England. ... We're gonna win," Mitchell told the website.
"It's embarrassing," DeCastro said. "It just blows my mind. (Jacksonville) beat us 30-9 (earlier this season). We played like crap. You want to talk about New England? I don't know what to say about that. It's stupid. It's just not what you do. You don't need to give a team like that bulletin-board material."
While DeCastro clearly was blaming Mitchell for the comments, Ramon Foster was a bit more diplomatic. He blamed everyone's favorite target, the media.
"We didn't talk about New England. I know it rubbed them wrong," Foster said of the Jaguars. "They were out there talking about it. Good job by the media for painting that picture. That (stuff) was said weeks ago. We weren't looking forward to (New England). We knew what we had in front of us."
And now they know what they have behind them. That would include a 13-3 season with more ups, downs and plot twists than a daytime soap opera. That would include playing through the loss of owner Dan Rooney and a devastating injury to teammate Ryan Shazier.
It also would include a pair of losses to the Jaguars, who over the course of four quarters -- the second half of their Oct. 8 meeting and the first half of Sunday's game -- outscored the Steelers, 51-14.
This team had put together multiple comebacks this season. It had won four games in a five-game stretch on Chris Boswell field goals in the final minute. But there would be no miracle ending in this game.
The Steelers can downplay what was said about the Patriots. They can say they weren't looking past the Jaguars, and that's true. You don't overlook an opponent who beat you handily in the regular season. You just don't.
But that doesn't mean the Jaguars didn't believe that.
"Any time you call a guy out, you got to expect a fight," said Jacksonville defensive end Calais Campbell. "There's going to be a fight because we feel like we belong here. We worked hard to be here in this moment. We feel like nobody worked harder than us, so we feel we are deserving."
In other words, they played the Hines Ward, nobody-gave-us-a-chance card. And it worked.
Was that because Mitchell made a statement three weeks ago?
Perhaps. But that statement didn't cost the Steelers this game. They didn't overlook the Jaguars. They were beaten by the better team -- again -- on Sunday.
"We weren't who we were supposed to be today," said Foster.
The Jaguars had something to do with that.
TAP FOR BOXSCORE, PLAY-BY-PLAY, HIGHLIGHTSLOLLEY'S 10 THOUGHTS
1. This game was lost with 1:12 remaining in the first quarter.
That's when the Steelers lined up for the first of four fourth-down conversion attempts. The Jaguars rushed players on and off the field and, with the Steelers set to snap the ball on fourth-and-1 from the Jacksonville 21, they had just 10 players on the field. So they called timeout.
I asked what that initial play call was going to be, and nobody wanted to give up the goods. Fullback Roosevelt Nix was out there. But when the Steelers came out of the time out, Nix was no longer on the field. And the Steelers attempted to run a pitch to Le'Veon Bell. Jalen Ramsey and Malik Jackson blew that play up for a 4-yard loss.
That, however, didn't necessarily lose this game. No, the real killer out of that series was that the Jaguars put together an 11-play, 75-yard drive that included Blake Bortles completing just one of his three pass attempts for 12 yards. He also scrambled twice for 20 yards on designed runs and the Jaguars converted both of their third-down attempts on that series.
They ran so much that Leonard Fournette had to go to the sideline at the end, giving way to backup T.J. Yeldon, who finished the possession off with this 4-yard TD run for a 21-0 lead:
There's no problem with Mike Tomlin going for it in that situation. The Steelers needed to gain a foot. But why try to run outside against one of the fastest defenses in the NFL?
"I felt comfortable with that," said Tomlin. "They are packed in the A and B (gaps). Obviously, I wasn't comfortable with the results. We didn't execute well enough and they did, and I guess you've got to acknowledge that."
Blame Todd Haley all you want. But ultimately, that is Tomlin's call. The Steelers were coming out of a timeout. They discussed as a group what play they wanted to run.
And it didn't work.
"I stand by the calls we made," said Tomlin. "We just did not execute them. We wouldn't be having these conversations if we had executed those plays. Such is life. I'm not looking to convince you or change your mind. I'm telling you we were comfortable with the calls that were made, and they stood up in those moments better than we did."
But that's at least a 10-point swing since the Steelers were in field goal range. Again, had they gone for it and made the kick, it's not an issue. After all, 14-3 looks a lot better than 14-0, especially when you lost the game by three points.
And the defense didn't help matters one bit by not coming up with a stop after that. Haley is taking a lot of heat because, well, fans always find it easy to criticize offensive playcalling. Keith Butler's unit, however, was the bigger issue. It gave up 164 rushing yards and 214 passing, failing to record a sack, turnover or anything remotely resembling a big play.
2. Which, brings us to our next crucial decision, an onside kick.
Why go for an onside kick down 42-35 with 2:18 remaining in the game?
Ben Roethlisberger and Bell had just pulled off this play, to cut it to a one-score game with the Steelers still holding two timeouts:
The Steelers had fought and clawed their way back into the game to draw within a touchdown. And with two timeouts remaining and the two-minute warning coming, the clock could be stopped three times. Instead of calling for a deep kick, however, Tomlin went for the onside try.
"We wanted to get the ball back," he said. "We hadn't stopped them convincingly enough to take any other approach, in my opinion, and it was my decision."
OK. But the onside kick wasn't even close to working. It hit Tyler Matakevich well short of the 10 yards it needed to travel. And the Jaguars took over possession at the Pittsburgh 36. Four plays later, they kicked a 45-yard field goal to go ahead, 45-35, without even gaining a first down.
3. Jacksonville's run game was still a problem.
The Steelers loaded up to stop the rush, and they didn't. Fournette finished with 109 yards on 25 carries despite barely playing in the second quarter after aggravating an ankle injury. Worse, the Steelers were so intent on stopping Fournette that they allowed three consecutive pass completions on the opening possession of the game off play-action.
Guys were running so free even Bortles couldn't miss them.
"We were really loaded up to stop the running game," said safety Sean Davis. "They hit us with some play-action. We were expecting it. We had seen it. But it just worked."
The Jaguars had 116 yards on 19 first-half carries, including 82 on Fournette's first 12 rushes.
4. So where does this team go?
Roethlisberger has told teammates he'll be back. He said as much to the media, as well. That's a good place to start.
Replacing Shazier at linebacker and Mitchell at safety will be a must for the defense, as tough a call as that is to make. The Steelers have to go into the offseason assuming Shazier never plays football again. The bigger concern is if he ever walks again.
But they need more playmakers on the back end. That was made even more apparent without Shazier, who tied for the team lead in interceptions with three.
As for the rest of it?
"The potential is still there," said Foster. "We're always in it. We just came up short. I don't know how to feel. I didn't expect this."
5. So they didn't expect it, but were they overconfident?
In a word, no.
You have to play confident in the NFL or you won't be in the NFL for long. And the Steelers had won 23 of their past 27 games going into Sunday. So they had reason to be confident. But they weren't looking past the Jaguars.
"We knew who Jacksonville was," Foster said. "We knew they were a damn good team and a damn good offense. They were efficient enough on offense and their defense was out of this world. That's a good balance."
6. Falling behind, 21-0, was, again, the key.
You can't play catch-up all day against a defense such as this. And even with that, the Steelers very nearly pulled it off. They scored to make it 21-7 and had the ball back again, just before the half, when this happened:
Again, another killer of a play. Instead of being down 21-10 or 21-14, the Steelers were suddenly down 28-7.
They scored on this fabulous throw-and-catch from Roethlisberger to Martavis Bryant on fourth-and-11 from the Jacksonville 36 to make it a two-score game again:
"I felt terrible," said DeCastro. "It's a terrible feeling. But you have to keep playing for your guys. You have to keep Ben upright. That's the last thing we wanted to do was to be down 21 points to that defense."
But the Steelers showed a lot of character and kept fighting.
7. Where were the big plays on defense?
They were nowhere to be seen. While a lot of people like to get on Bud Dupree, T.J. Watt was invisible in this game. So were a lot of guys.
And that's a shame. It's hard to believe Shazier meant that much to this defense, but he was the player I felt they could least afford to lose when they broke training camp in the summer. That proved to be the case.
8. The Steelers were just beaten by the better team.
You might not want to hear that. They might not want to hear that. Heck, I didn't think that was the case before this game.
But the Jaguars proved it on the field. They became one of only two teams to beat the Steelers twice in the past year -- New England is the other.
The Jaguars spent a lot of money on their defense. And it paid off for them.
9. Did coaching cost the Steelers this game?
Perhaps. You could certainly make that argument, and it would be a valid one. But there wasn't a player in that locker room that pointed the finger at any of the decisions that were made, including Roethlisberger, who is prone to do such things because he has no fear of the repercussions.
In fact, the players were quick to point to their own shortcomings and praise the Jaguars.
"Tip your hat to them," said defensive end Cameron Heyward. "They did more things right than we did."
10. Finally, would there have been a point to all this?
After watching the Steelers give up 45 points, which matched the Dolphins in 1985 for the most points allowed by the Steelers in a postseason game, does anyone believe they could have gone to Gillette Stadium and beaten the Patriots?
OK. The Patriots are a different matchup than the Jaguars. But after watching what Jacksonville did to the Steelers on Sunday with Bortles at quarterback, Tom Brady would have been licking his chops for a shot at this defense.
I know, the Steelers played the Patriots just a few weeks ago in a much-disputed game and lost 27-24. They could have, should have, won that game. And it might have changed the entire outcome of this season. But that didn't happen. And now the Steelers head into the offseason with plenty of questions.
We'll continue to try to answer them. But it was a long, hard season with plenty of ups and downs.
"Traumatic," said DeCastro when describing it. "It was a weird year. It's been one of those things where I'm kind of tired. You get so locked in on football that you don't talk to anybody. We don't call anybody. We don't leave the house. It's just football, football, football. Now, it's kind of like, 'What do I do now?' You move on with life and work for next year."
MATT SUNDAY GALLERY
Steelers vs. Jaguars, Heinz Field, Jan. 14, 2018. - MATT SUNDAY / DKPS