Coach Killers, Week 11: The Steelers

Every week, NFL FanHouse hits the lowlights from Sunday's action, looking at those players who did the most to move their head coaches that much closer to returning to the Bed and Breakfast business.

You're the Pittsburgh Steelers. You won the Super Bowl last year. You're a big-game-ready team that has matched up against the likes of the Patriots and Colts in recent history. The Chiefs are the very definition of a rebuilding project, with 29 players on the active roster having three or less years of experience. Before you stepped on the field with them, they had only beaten two teams -- the Redskins and Raiders. You just lost to the Bengals. You were angry and had something to prove.

So to walk off the field at Arrowhead, 27-24 in overtime to a team far less talented, is not the sign of one player or one coach bringing the team down. It's the sign of an organizational fail.

Here's what it all has come down to: the estimable Steelers site Post Game Heroes says, "Blame Tomlin for this mess." Their rationale being that players on Super Bowl teams are prone to lapses in judgment, discipline, humility, what have you, and that it's the coach's job to keep every man in his place.

Across the course of a season, yes, these issues all compound into one mess that lies at the feet of the head coach. But individual moments with individual faults make up that mess, and in the fourth quarter and overtime against the Chiefs there were a collection of moments that led to the Steelers' downfall.

The Steelers took a 24-17 lead early in the fourth. That should have been enough. Instead, they let the Chiefs march down the field on the ensuing drive. Deshea Townsend let Lance Long get by him for a 30-yard catch on 3rd-and-9. Ike Taylor got smoked on a Chris Chambers' double move on the next play, giving up 47 yards. The Chiefs tied the game four plays later against a defense that had been playing well the entire game up until that point.

Fast forward to overtime. The Steelers win the toss, and Charlie Batch has to step in for Ben Roethlisberger's cloudy head. Perhaps this is what led to the next misstep -- a toss-sweep to Mewelde Moore on 3rd-and-2 from the Kansas City 35. On a day when the Steelers only ran for 3.7 yards per carry, it was a questionable play call by Bruce Arians (who, to be fair, had an otherwise excellent day) not only to run, not only to run with your third-string back (who only had one other carry on the day), but to call a run which requires the time and blocking for the quarterback to toss to the back and the back to get to the line of scrimmage let alone the two yards needed for the first. Unsurprisingly, the Chiefs stopped Moore and the Steelers had to punt.

Still, all could have been well, given a Chiefs offense that currently ranks 30th in the league, if uber-punter Daniel Sepulveda could have pinned the Chiefs inside their own 10. Instead, he punted into the end zone, giving the Chiefs a touchback.

This is where Ike Taylor returns. Matt Cassell went deep down the middle to Chambers, when Taylor got two hands on a sure interception -- perhaps even a game-ending one -- only to drop it. On the very next play, Cassel made Taylor pay for that drop, and for yet another miscue. On 3rd-and-5, Taylor inexplicably played way off of Chambers, who ran a quick slant completely uncovered and took it all the way to the 4-yard-line, where the Chiefs sealed the win.

Give credit to the Chiefs, they stuck with the Steelers while the defending champ's offense was running at full steam all game long. And, yeah, any given Sunday and all that. Still, the Chiefs aren't supposed to beat the Steelers. All things considered, with so much going wrong in the deciding minutes of this game, it's hard to say the Chiefs took the win from the Steelers. Instead, the Steelers -- all of them -- gave the win to Kansas City.

Adam Gretz contributed to this story.