The Pittsburgh Steelers closed out their regular season Saturday night by dropping their fourth straight game, losing to the Cincinnati Bengals 19-17 at home. Why they are still playoff bound, the play of Russell Wilson and the team's offense makes it seem like their postseason stay will be another short one.
Speaking of Wilson, the quarterback, who's in his first year with the team, had fans sounding off on social media over his mind-boggling decision in the final minute of Saturday's loss. Pittsburgh had the ball and were trying to get into field goal range for Pro Bowl kicker Chris Boswell. With just over 40 seconds remaining, Wilson scrambled out of the pocket and picked up a few meaningless yards. More shockingly, he stayed in bounds to keep the clock running.
The smart play here would have been to fire the ball out of bounds and stop the clock before second down. Instead, Wilson did this:
dudes brain turned off, he flipped on autopilot and pointlessly kamikazed into a defender pic.twitter.com/dhvjwv1yr4
— Warren Sharp (@SharpFootball) January 5, 2025
The Steelers didn't use their last timeout after that play, which cost them 20 seconds. A few plays later they turned the ball over on downs and lost the game.
Fans ripped Wilson after that move:
For most of the season I was confused on why Pittsburg got a different Russ Experience than Denver did.
— Joel Dill (@_jdill23) January 5, 2025
But last night was pretty cool to watch.
THE EXPERIENCE IS BACK BABAY!! https://t.co/wXrlc8DDjn
This was bad https://t.co/2XqNot1Rxs
— Clarence Hill Jr (@clarencehilljr) January 5, 2025
these guys on espn can talk all they want about bad catches and throws but this was the dumbest thing that happened on the last drive https://t.co/2zb5dAM9p6
— bob trollsby 😈🤠 (@bobtrollsby) January 5, 2025
Russ really tricked this app into thinking he wasn’t cooked earlier in the season. https://t.co/PxQdtZSBv2
— Xavier McKinney Fan Account (@DoAHasekRoll) January 5, 2025
Mike Tomlin and Russell Wilson destroyed the Steelers chances down the stretch… I haven’t seen dual dysfunction like this in a long time https://t.co/JSFjd4QLnC
— John Frascella (Football) (@NFLFrascella) January 5, 2025
This the Russell the broncos wanted to get rid of and I now understand why https://t.co/sTxbtk5BOP
— Hef (@Heftyd_) January 5, 2025
The Steelers will be either the No. 6 or No. 5 seed in the AFC playoffs. Plays like this make it easy to think they won't last long in the postseason.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Russell Wilson Ripped by NFL Fans for Brutal Move in Final Minute of Steelers' Loss.
