Steelers vs. Ravens: Why I Love Football
The Pittsburgh Steelers defeated their division rival Baltimore Ravens by one point in a hard hitting, nail biting fourth quarter comeback last Sunday. I was fortunate to be in attendance with my father, watching another chapter unfold in an incredible rivalry that has no close runner up in contemporary professional football.
The rivalry that began in 1996, in many ways, seem preordained. Pittsburgh and Baltimore are two of the most important cities in professional football’s history, having brought forth teams, players and memories to the NFL’s everlasting legacy as a distinct American success story that grows more powerful each season. Baltimore once had Johnny Unitas and the Colts that ushered in the age of modern quarterbacking and demonstrated just how television could turn pro football into a must see spectacle. Over a decade later, Pittsburgh, a city once defined by the steel industry and its horrible sports teams, became the city of champions led by the Steelers, who after winning four Super Bowls in six season, arguably became the first team with a nationwide fanbase.
The most recent contest between the two had all the necessary ingredients to make it memorable. The Steelers had to salvage their season with a win against the AFC’s top team. Reports circulated that Roethlisberger expects this to be his last year with the team. Defensive Player of the Year candidate T.J. Watt would be nearly a game time decision, a player Pittsburgh could not win without. It all seemed destined to end in climactic fashion.
Unsurprisingly, in a series that often comes down to three points or less, an aggressive yet failed two point conversation for the win decided the game.
Pandemonium struck Heinz Field as Mark Andrews failed to make a one handed catch. The collection of nearly 70,000 jubilated voices roared as post season hopes were kept alive for one more week and Ben’s supposed final home against his longtime foe ends in the glory. I hugged, high fived and lost my mind with my dad, along with the surrounding strangers whom I’ll never see again as if we were long lost relatives.
This wasn’t my first time seeing a Steelers game. I’d seen two in Florida, and four in Pittsburgh. I saw a rare victory against the New England Patriots in 2011 in our first trip to the Steel City. I witnessed a 2012 Steelers-Ravens matchup end in 13-10 loss on Sunday Night Football. I had the pleasure of returning to Pitt in 2019 to see the juggernaut quarterback duel between Mason Rudolph and Jared Goff of the L.A. Rams to cap off a four game win streak for the Steelers when it looked like they would not win more than five games after Ben’s season ending injury.
These trips to Pittsburgh were memorable in their own way. This trip and this victory, however, stands alone.
My father and I drove up from Florida to see the game, thanks to my mother’s willingness to watch over the house for our trip. We had the chance to experience the great scenery of the Virginia Mountains before becoming more contemplative as we went deeper into the terrain of West Virginia and Pennsylvania, as overcast skies, naked trees and isolated pockets of farm communities on the hilly countryside set the mood for the game.
Once we arrived in Pittsburgh, the priority was to revisit many of the spots we grew accustomed to; Cherries Diner on Forbes Ave, Amazing Bookstore on Liberty Ave, Hyde Park Steakhouse on the North Shore, etc. I wondered if any of these places went out of business due to the pandemic, but luckily, we weren’t disappointed. Adding to the merriment was returning to a bar near Heinz Field we discovered in 2019 called Tequila Cowboy. We reacquainted ourselves with a hyper active, gym rat bartender that’s never short on great stories or conversation, and closed off that Saturday night with a successful trip to the Rivers Casino at the blackjack table, where a man in his early 50s tried hitting on the dealer who was fourth months pregnant. I guess his charm had worn off with age.
By game-day, the mood was one of nervous anticipation, as everyone knew this wasn’t the same Ben Roethlisberger and the same vaunted Steelers D everyone had been accustomed to cheering for. But beers, beers and more beers eased everyone’s tension, both at Tequila Cowboy and inside the stadium, and as a sea of Black and Gold jerseys blended together to join in the chants of HERE WE GO STEELERS HERE WE GO, one got the feeling as they walked into the stadium full of golden seats that today may turn out differently than expected.
The game itself was captivating to watch in person. Television makes the discrepancy between two players or two teams look great than they really are. The amount of space seems so less vast than on a widescreen Samsung that it’s a wonder how any team could truly dominate another team of grown men who are in the top echelon of their sport. And watching Lamar Jackson scramble for first downs only to get sacked on subsequent plays made me appreciate the notion that football is a game of inches.
The intensity of the game played on the field only matched by the Heinz Field crowd. Behind us were two middle aged friends from Boise, Idaho on their first ever trip to Pittsburgh, while in front of me were four Baltimore fans, two fathers and their respective sons, each around 10 years old, cheering for the road favorites. One of the boys had a Lamar Jackson screensaver on his iPhone, while the other had a Jackson hoodie. I originally was trepidations when my father and I took our seats behind them, but great father son conversations plus the sharing of concession stand pizza brought the fanbases together in a ritual of admiral football competition.
Throughout the ups and downs of the game, be it the Raven’s 99 yard scoring drive, Diontae Johnson’s first half TD drop or the Boswell’s failed extra point to tie the game, no one of it felt discouraging as TJ Watt, Cam Heyward and Chris Wormley played as if it was already playoff football, only for the offense to come alive late in the second half. And in a game in which it seemed as if no one took a seat for the entire match, I looked around at the stadium early in the fourth quarter as the Steelers blasted “Renegade” on the loudspeaker and saw the amount of emotion that people pour into athletes whom the closest contact they will ever come into with them is liking their tweet.
It was revealing moment when look at how a game like football brought enough people from all walks of life into a stadium that my entire hometown could fit into. And as the final fifteen minutes continued to dwindle with Ben leading a comeback with two touchdowns to Diontae Johnson to take the lead, I felt in the moment, with my father, with my mother texting me as she watched from home, with my relatives and friends also replying to my videos of the madness and euphoria at the stadium, that the sense of unity the game brings is why I love football.
I’ve often asked guests on my podcast what it is about football that drew them to the game in the first place. Some athletes I’ve interviewed have said it’s the game they were best at. Writers give a more romantic notion about the history and the symbolism of the game. Others simply say it’s what they grew up on. I had always loved it for different reasons; the strategy, the history, the early days of my youth making friends by playing pick up games. But this past weekend gave me understanding of what it means to emotionally invest yourself into something that so many other people share in common with you.
It seems self evident, but the camaraderie, I’ve now acknowledged, is the most important element that drives me to the sport, and the yells, middle fingers, boos and cheers I expressed and witnessed in the stadium still stand fresh in my mind almost a week later. And to share it with my dad, a guy who used to ask me if I wanted to watch football when I was eight or nine years old and wanted no part of it, makes me smile in irony.
At the end of the game, as Jackson drove his team for a touchdown that gave me the same sinking gut feeling I get when I feel that I’ve crushed a job interview only to be told that I’ve been rejected for the position, I stood tall for one final stand, shouting my lungs out with 65,000 other people with the hopes that all of our voices will disrupt the play. T.J. Watt probably didn’t need our support, but the irrational superstitious part of me feel like we chipped in.
In the end, handshakes here given, “nice to meet you guys “and “great game” gestures were given as if we had just played sixty minutes of football ourselves. Realizing at the game’s end that the curtains are closing on an era as Ben is the last piece of the puzzle to the many great Steelers and Ravens teams of the past made this experience, at least for those like me who watched these bouts religiously, all the more satisfying.
Not every game will be like this. Not all the one’s I’ve attended have been like this, in fact. But in that game in that rivalry, experiencing the adrenaline and emotion over a sport that binds thousands of people in the stands and million more at home together, I believed in that moment that this is what the odyssey was all about.