FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — No need to worry about Antonio Brown’s Facebook Live feed th🐽is week.
The Steelers’ season is Facebook Dead after a 36-17 rout at the hands of Tom Brady and the Patriots here Sunday night, and an untimely no-show by two of their three “Killer B’s” — Brown and running back Le’Veon Bell — was a big reason Pittsburgh won’t be headed to Houston for ⛦Super Bowl LI.
Brown and Bell — the Steelers’ leading receiver and leading rusher, resꦫpectively — combined for just 97 yards on 13 touches, and Ben Roethlisberger and the rest of the Pittsburgh offense could not compensate or take the heat off a defense that was thoroughly carved up by Brady.
If you were expecting Brown to explain his virtual no-show, think again. The Steelers star slinked away after the game, apparently too embarrassed to speak to the media in a somber Pittsburgh loc𓂃ker room.
As for Bell, at least he had a legitimate excuse — he injured his groin on the second play of the game. He gutted it out through the first quarter, came out, made a brief return, then gave way completely to backup DeAngelo Williams with a lin📖e that read just 20 yards on six carries.
“It just got progressively worse,” Bell said. “I couldn’t ༒be myself. I had no burst anymore, and I felt like I was holding the team baꦚck. This was a game I wanted to be in, but I had no burst. I had to come out of the game, and it’s real disappointing.”
Bell came into the night averaging 106 rushing yards per game after a 1,268-yard regular season and had more than 100 yards in seven of his previous eight contesꦆts, including a 170-yard outburst in the previous week’s divisional playoff win over the Chiefs.
“I felt like I had d💦one a lot to help us get here,” Bell said. “To not be able to play [most of the final three quarters] and to not be able to go to bat𝕴tle with my teammates … it hurt.”
The bigger goat for the Steelers was Brown, their brash wide receiver who earned coach Mike Tomlin’s wrath and a reported $10,000 fine from Pittsburgh management the week before by broadcasting Tomlin’s profanity-laced postgame talk — including Tomlin referring to the Patriots as “a–holes” — live on his Facebook feed.
Shadowed all afternoon by New England’s one-time Super Bowl hero Malcolm Butler, Brown’s final line🔯 — seven catches on nin𓃲e targets for 77 yards — looked a lot better on paper than it did in context.
Brown had just three catches ♎for 26 yards on five targets in the first half and was barely a factor when the game was in reac♉h for the Steelers. More than half his receptions and yardage came with Pittsburgh trailing by double-digits.
Even with the windy, rainy conditions at Gillette Stad🌞ium, it hardly was the p🦹erformance the Steelers could have been expecting from their All-Pro pass catcher.
Brown came in with 100-yard receiving performances in each of the team’s two playoff victories (over the Chiefs and Dolphins) and was averaging eight catches for 95 yards and a touchdown in four career ga𒆙mes against New England.