I don't see a let down because we lost to the Bills at home when we should of won the game. Our guys are going to remember that loss and add to that they want to make the playoffs. We usually lose to Buffalo in Buffalo; how could we underestimate this game.
ALL TRUE and it should be suffice to guard against a letdown, unfortunately the type of letdown I fear is an "emotional letdown", and thats a lot harder to guard against because its not something you can intellectualize. You can know the stakes and respect your opponent and still have a letdown if you are emotionally spent.
All you need to do is think back to 2010. We had just beaten the Patriots in the divisional round of the playoffs, at Gillette, in a game where NOBODY was giving us a chance. The Patriots were supposed to make mincemeat of us in that game. Only a month earlier they CRUSHED US (45-3) in that building. But we went in there and shocked the world, and when it was over, Bart Scott famously quipped
"CAN'T WAIT!!" about going to Pittsburgh with an opportunity to go to the Super Bowl.
Who could ever have expected a letdown in the AFC Championship Game?
THE IDEA of a letdown in the AFC Championship Game seems preposterous on its face, and yet, thats EXACTLY what happened the following week because the team was emotionally drained from beating the hated Patriots, and you can't guard against an "emotional letdown" with your head, you can't fill an empty gas tank with knowledge, the great coaches know when the tank is on E and they know how to refill it.
First they know that they MUST refill it, then they know how.
Rex just assumed the stakes would suffice, but he assumed wrong. Even afterwards he admitted that he didn't realize how much that NE game had taken out of his team, but by then it was too late. In fact they woke-up in the second half, when the reality of being down 24-3 slapped them in the face, and they tried to mount a furious comeback, shut the Steelers out in the second half, but alas it was too little too late, 24-19, and I'll go to my grave believing it was that NE game the week prior that beat us in Pittsburgh more than the Steelers.
We just couldn't match their intensity in the first half. They were at DEFCON 1 and we looked like we were sleep-walking thru the first half, no passion, no intensity, no sense of urgency, NOTHING, we had NOTHING to start that game, it was inexplicable considering the stakes, but it literally took us 30 minutes of getting kicked in the face, getting kicked from one end of Heinz field to the other, to finally WAKE UP and play like it mattered to us.
Thats what I'm fearing this week and I hope Todd Bowles is fearing it too, enough to do something about it.
