To kick off Super Bowl Week here at Have a Good Sandwich, I share with you the greatest Steelers game I’ve ever seen in person: The Browns / Steelers 2003 playoff game at Heinz Field.
My memories of this game were framed by the seats my brother-in-law was able to score for the game – down low and near the 40/45 yard line. The Steelers were plagued by mistakes and turnovers, and the peanut gallery sitting all around us was calling for Maddox to be pulled and Cowher to be fired. By halftime it was 17-7 in favor of the Browns, and jumped to 24-7 in the 3rd.
Half of the stadium seemed to leave at that point, unaccustomed to seeing the Steelers comeback in such circumstances. I sure as hell wasn’t leaving where we were in the 3rd quarter.
By the 4th, the situation was still bleak – down two scores but it became more of a back and forth game.
What we ended up witnessing was the greatest Steelers playoff comeback of all-time – 15 points in the remaining 5:30. For your viewing pleasure – the final Steelers drive of the game:
Some interesting factoids from the game:
- The Steelers did not lead until the final 54 seconds.
- Tommy Maddox set the postseason single game passing record for the Steelers going 30-of-48 for 367 yards.
- The biggest comeback in Steelers playoff history before this game (amazingly) was only 7 points against Denver in 1984.
Makes me miss Greg Gumbel as the lead play-by-play guy on CBS.
I sacrificed this game in favor of seeing Ohio State beat Miami to win the national championship in person. We were flying back from Phoenix on the day this one was scheduled, and it started while we were waiting for a connection from Minneapolis to Pittsburgh. I know the Browns fans were pretty happy when that flight left, as we had a healthy lead. And the pilot — obviously a Pittsburgh guy — didn’t tell his plane full of Ohio football fans about the final score until we landed back here. It was bad, yes, but I had just witnessed my football dream come true about 48 hours before — and that helped. A bunch.
I was at that game as well, in the endzone upper-deck. By some strange confluence of events we were surrounded by Browns fans, Browns fans who were very loud and obnoxious when things were going their way. To the point where there was a real possibility that the crowd was gonna rise up and toss them out of the stadium.
But when fortunes reversed and the Browns lost they took it with class. They seemed resigned to defeat, and when it inevitably came they just shrugged, wished us luck next week, and left. It was almost sad to see.
Still wanna buy Dennis Northcutt a beer someday for dropping that perfect pass that would’ve sealed the Steelers’ fate. One of the all-time drops in NFL history.
Ooh, I was at this game too and it was glorious. There was no way that my mom or I were leaving. We were in awe of the number of people walking out on our team. As the comeback began, we wondered what all of the fans outside of the stadium were thinking as we shouted and cheer with joy.
I was there, too, with my sister and best friend. We scored three tickets behind the Browns bench about ten rows up. The Browns running back (whose name I cannot recall at this point in time) started taunting Steelers’ fans from the get go. Well, let me tell you how quickly he avoided the bench area during the last five minutes of that game. We let him know loud and clear what we thought of the Browns.
Also, I never leave the game until it’s over. A few years back some friends kept insisting we leave the play-off game versus the Jets because they didn’t think there way any way we could win. I met them in the parking lot after the game and they were totally annoyed with themselves for leaving.
I remember swearing more during this game than possibly any football game in my life, until the end.
[...] homes, Woy, shares his first person account of one of the greatest comebacks in Steelers playoff history…the 2003 divisional round game [...]
I was also at the cleveland browns playoff game. If I remember correctly, it was the first game after Mike Webster (my favorite player growing up) died. I got there extra early so I wouldn’t miss any tribute done to him.
Also, I got tickets and asked my then-girlfriend if she wanted to go, not expecting her to say yes. I didn’t figure in that she was from Ohio and her whole family was browns fans and she wanted to rub it in to them that she was going to the browns playoff game. I met her whole browns-loving family just days before that Steelers-browns playoff game.
So even without the comeback, that game would have been a memorable one for me. And that now-exgirlfriend is now a big Steelers fan.