For much of the Week 14 game, Steelers WR Chase Claypool burned the Vikings secondary.
Claypool made several highly contested catches on deep balls to finish with 93 yards receiving. If the Steelers pulled off that miraculous comeback, Pittsburgh would have its second-year wideout to thank.
But the Steelers ultimately fell short of the win on Thursday, so now it’s time to look back at what went wrong for the team.
Here’s a good example. Pittsburgh was driving late in the fourth quarter, down by just eight points, when Claypool made a nice grab to pick up the first down.
Then, this happened:
This would seem to suggest the message to Claypool didn’t get through pic.twitter.com/uVbVv26GzE
— Brooke Pryor (@bepryor) December 10, 2021
Claypool celebrated the fourth-down conversion, which would have been fine had time not been of the essence. But Pittsburgh had less than a minute remaining to try and score, in addition to having no timeouts. Steelers G Trai Turner knew that which led to the awkward sequence above.
Prior to the play where Claypool made that reception, the Steelers had 42 seconds remaining. By the time the Steelers spiked the ball after converting the first down, Pittsburgh had only 24 seconds left in the game.
In true Vikings fashion, Minnesota let Pittsburgh get a great chance to win the game still: Ben Roethlisberger threw a great ball intended for Steelers T Pat Freiermuth, which ultimately fell incomplete. The Vikings were good in the first half. In the second half, they were lucky.
