The Top 12 Worst Games of 2021: I

Lions at Steelers, Week 10: You PLAY, to WIN, the GAME

If you thought that anything else could steal the sacred top spot of our Top Twelve Worst Games of 2022 rankings, you were sorely mistaken. This game was an opus of oafish play, a grand slam of gridiron grotesquerie, a triumph of terrible football. Every aspect of this game offended the eye and beset the viewer with woeful wonderment. It’s simply The Worst Game of 2021.

“Ray Ray McDonald from inside the five of the Steelers!” was the introductory remark during the morbid exordium of this game’s broadcast. It is of note because Ray Ray McDonald is not a real person. But a fictional football player would probably have been preferable to the catastrophe we witnessed unfolding at Acrisure, née Heinz, Field on the drizzly afternoon of November 14 2021. The person that the booth was referring to is named Ray-Ray McCloud, and his catch on the first drive was one of four passes thrown by Mason Rudolph caught by members of his own team. One of his other two passes on the opening drive was caught by Lions defender Amani Oruwariye on an amazing, Jermaine Kearse against the Patriots-style bobbled catch, but this interception was overturned due to a 29-yard DPI call on Oruwariye that proved to be the biggest play of the first drive. Mason Rudolph eventually hit former Oklahoma State buddy James Washington in the back right corner of the endzone to take a miraculous 7-0 lead on the opening drive, showing that this Steelers offense could at least take advantage of an overturned turnover, a chiasmus which is fun to write but discouraging to see if you’re a Lions fan. More discouraging than that, though, was what Steelers fans were treated to from their team’s offensive gameplan: fifty passes from Mason Rudolph, who gained 242 yards total on 30 completions. Those 4.84 yards-per-attempt against an 0-8 team doesn’t exactly scream “Big Ben’s successor,” but then again, neither does leading a tying effort against an 0-8 team, which makes the recent comment from Matt Canada, the architect of this artless gameplan, saying that Rudolph has “a great shot” at winning the starting QB job in 2022 after the Steelers signed a free agent and drafted a rookie who can both play Rudolph’s position immitigably ridiculous. A quick look at his passing chart for the afternoon will tell the story simply: he missed every pass he threw over 10 yards when he wasn’t throwing to his right. He completed a single pass of over 20 air yards, and only 4 of over 15 air yards (and one of those officially went in the books as a 9-yard touchdown – it just happened that James Washington was in the deepest part of the endzone when he caught the touchdown).

You can only talk about Mason Rudolph for so long before you start to question your sanity, so it’s understandable that there was a prolonged silence in the booth for about 70 seconds of real time following the first Steelers touchdown. The only actual play the commentary team missed was a kickoff return tackle of Lions returner Godwin Igwebuike by Derek Watt. The way this game went, that was one of the highlights, though, so we could have used some incisive analysis from the announcers. And they were positively on their A Game this day. For example: one of the items of note that play-by-play commentator Chris Myers chose to elevate to the attention of his TV audience was his opinion of the game’s two punters, which differed monumentally in their complimentariness. Of Detroit punter Jack Fox, he gushed: “He’s been their MVP the first half of the season.” Yes, really. Of comparatively unimpressive rookie Pressley Harvin, he scolded: “Not exactly lighting the world on fire.” This is why the luminous sages that provide us with in-game commentary make the big bucks while peons like you and I watch the games for free. Of course, whether you agree with the conclusions drawn in those comments is your call: one (Fox) was the punter for a team that was 0-8 and the other was the punter for a team who was 5-3 with 5 wins in 1-score games. Give Harvin his due. And calm down with calling a punter the “team’s MVP.” It’s obviously fullback Jason Cabinda.

Jokes aside, you could hire a consulting firm to figure out who this game’s MVP was (let’s leave the full season MVPs for this game for another time, as watching sixteen more games’ worth of film on these teams is high above the LD50 of Bad Football for most people) and they would probably come back with the two-word statement “IDK, man.” This what football looked like in 1906; that is to say, it was muddy, unhappy-looking, and difficult to discern who was doing a good job and who had absolutely no idea what they were doing. We can put both quarterbacks conclusively in the latter group, though. We’ve discussed the inefficacious aerial exploits of Steeler QB Mason Rudolph, but he played like 1989 Joe Montana in comparison to Jared Goff. We could expend several pages worth of denunciation in describing Jared Goff’s historically boring afternoon, but since we’re on our final, crowning entry on this list of infamy, and since you’ve probably had enough at this point, we will simply put it this way: he had 54 yards passing going into overtime. Fifty. Four. And they didn’t lose! That’s approaching Rex Grossman versus the Cardinals on Monday Night levels of horror. Commentator Chris Myers recognized the fact that he was witnessing something unimaginable as the seconds ticked away in overtime, noting that Goff’s first completion over the middle to Amon-Ra St. Brown in OT nearly equaled his yardage total over the previous four quarters. It’s not a point I’ll waste too much time on, but a debate has been raging for several years over whether “Quarterback Wins” is a valid stat. I won’t argue for or against that statistic’s validity, but I can say with great confidence that both of these quarterbacks deserve to be credited with battling to a tie. Rudolph and Goff played Tying Football on this afternoon, and their names will echo through the centuries when cups are raised to commemorate all of the great ties that have been played in the NFL. We shouldn’t give Goff too much credit or contempt for his role in knotting this contest permanently at 16-16, though: the last overtime game the Lions played ended in a tie as well. Maybe it’s something in the Detroit water. No, it can’t be that – both ties were road games. Maybe it’s something in their water bottles.

This game’s overtime period was a slapstick comedy. Turnovers, missed field goals, botched snaps, coaching cowardice and that eternal hallmark of hilarity, the Desperation Lateral, all made appearances in crunch time on this day. Right before the period started, the Lions punted on 4th and 10 from their own 45 with 31 seconds left (which makes sense), then the Steelers decided to kneel on the football at their own 21 with 19 seconds left and a timeout. Yellow-bellied. Then in overtime, unlikeliness struck. Terrell Edmunds, who has not been a top-flight defensive back in his career, channeled his inner Troy Polamalu by sacking Jared Goff on Detroit’s third (yes, third) possession of overtime. It’s one of only 3 in his career since 2018. Cam Heyward sacked Goff on the first drive to force a punt, but on the second drive, they actually reached the Steelers’ 30 yard line and had a chance to end the game with a successful field goal. But Lions kicker Ryan Santoso, who had missed an extra point earlier to allow the Steelers to kick two field goals to tie the game instead of having to score a touchdown, was singled out with particular viciousness by the Football Gods as the principal instrument of anti-victory on this day, missing a 48-yarder that had absolutely no chance from the outset. It’s hard to explain in writing, but it looked like he kicked the ball underhand. Did the Steelers capitalize? Of course not. Fumbles on their first and third drives by offensive focal points Diontae Johnson and Pat Freiermuth, both on the Lions’ side of the field, doomed any possibility of a Chris Boswell game-winner. “Does anybody really want to win this game?” begged Chris Myers as the football flew futilely from Freiermuth’s fingertips while the last best shot at declaring a winner in this contest slipped away. With 8 seconds left, an emotionless double lateral by Detroit led to no gain (fittingly) and with that, the curtain fell on this pigskin tribulation. 16-16. There are no winners in Lions-Steelers – only (lame) survivors.

What could have been.