Mike Tomlin’s final win as head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers came on Sunday, January 4, 2026, when the Steelers defeated the Baltimore Ravens 26-24 at Acrisure Stadium.
- It was a game worthy of story and song.
The win didn’t just clinch the AFC North for the Steelers, giving Tomlin his 8th division title. Mike Tomlin’s final win also created an unspoken yet palpable symmetry with Chuck Noll’s final playoff victory.
And that symmetry resonated across 37 years and brought together the two games through three kicks and one basement….
Mike Tomlin and Cam Heyward embrace at Acrisure. Photo Credit: Steelers.com Taylor Ollason
The Stage: The Basement @ Wendy Lane
I learned the game of football in my parents’ basement on Wendy Lane in Aspen Hill, Maryland. This basement hosted my formative Steelers moments.
I watched the ’78 AFC Championship and Super Bowl XIII there. A year later, by the time sat there and watched John Stallworth run 60 Prevent Slot Hook and Go to clinch Pittsburgh’s 4th Lombardi in Super Bowl XIV, the Steelers had been Super Bowl Champions for 60% of my life – I believed my older siblings when they told me Queen wrote “We Are the Champions” for the Steelers.
So…. Watching Steelers playoff games the Wendy Lane Basement figured to be a staple of growing up. I was wrong.
I’d have to wait until the 1989 Steelers confronted the Houston Oilers in the Astrodome to watch my next playoff win. It wouldn’t be until 2026 that I’d see my next Steelers “playoff game” in the Wendy Lane Basement.
This is the story the latter two games.
Characters: 1989 and 2025 Steelers, the ’89 Oilers and the ’25 Ravens
The 1989 and 2025 Steelers squads were vastly different. Yet during the season Steel City Insider’s Jim Wexell pointed out several similarities:
- No one expected either team to contend for anything
- Both Chuck Noll and Mike Tomlin faced withering criticism from fans and pundits
- Both teams had been left for dead multiple times during their seasons – each time both rallied
The 1989 Oilers and 2025 Ravens followed similar arcs.
In the preceding seasons both the Oilers and Ravens had alternated between suffering upsets by the Steelers and inflicting humiliating defeats upon them. Both team entered their respective seasons as Super Bowl favorites, only to struggle once the games started.
The casts don’t align perfectly.
Mike Tomlin and John Harbaugh share a bond of mutual respect. Jerry Glanville actively disrespected everyone. Noll regarded Glanville with well-deserved contempt.
Finally, both Steelers offenses struggled to find their footing. Too often both needed bail outs by their kickers, Gary Anderson and Chris Boswell.
First Halves: Obstructed View Due to Delay of Game
The Wendy Lane Basement isn’t the only constant tying the two games together for this scribe, the other is delay of game.
…’89 Steelers kicked off at 4:00 pm on Saturday December 31st. St. Elizabeth’s was holding a double-header anticipatory mass taking care of both Sunday and the Solemnity of Mary Holy Day of Obligation. My parents may have been typical Pittsburghers, but no Steelers playoff game was getting in the way of going to mass.
“Tape it” they responded to my protests. Ah, but you couldn’t tape a game on a VCR and then catch up in progress they way you can with a DVR today – yes, you kids are spoiled.
Tim Worley gets the Steelers on the board. Photo Credit: Steelers.com
So I missed most of the first half, only tuning in on the radio in the car on the way home just in time to hear Jerry Olsavsky’s blocked punt that set up Tim Worley’s touchdown….
- The Steelers-Ravens started late also started late for me.
I wanted to watch the game without disrupting dinner, so I set the DVR, shifted my phone to airplane mode and enjoyed the meal. After dinner, I helped my parents set up the upstairs TV to get Netflix – which took some time.
By the time I decended into the Wendy Lane Basement to tune in for the opening kickoff, the first half was ending in real time, but I was blissfully oblivious to anything that had happened – or would be to come.
I watched the first half alone with my wife checking in occasionally, as the ’25 Steelers offense duitfully followed the template it laid for itself during the season – it struggled settling for a lone 57 yard Chris Boswell field goal for its only points.
Nick Herbig sacks Lamar Jackson. Photo Credit: Alyisa Rubin, Steelers.come
Yet sacks by Nick Herbig and Derrick Harmon snuffed out promising Ravens’ drives.
…All good storytellers weave foreshadowing into their tales. Foreshadowing is particularly potent when its wielded by authors of football games. The 1989 Steelers offense sputtered for most of the first half, while the defense held the Oilers in check, limiting them to 2 Tony Zendejas field goals.
Merril Hoge storms through Houston’s defense. Photo Credit: RVR Photos, Imagn Images via Athlon Sports
Yet, late in the 2nd quarter, Tom Moore’s unit stitched together its first long drive, highlighted by Merril Hoge blasting through the middle of Houston’s defense on a 49 yard run and punctuated by a Gary Anderson field goal just after the two-minute warning….
The ’25 Steelers came alive in the 2nd quarter’s final three minutes, marching 89 yards down the field. They came close to tying the game, but Baltimore scuttled a Kenneth Gainwell goal line run as time expired.
The 2025 Steelers had opted to go for it all and closed their first half down by 10-3, their 1989 predecessors elected to kick and took a 10-6 lead into the locker room.
3rd Quarters Then and Now
We got home at half time, allowing me to tune in for the beginning of the third quarter. I sat in the Wendy Lane basement alone, eating Pizza Hut Pizza and drinking a diet Minute Made Orange Soda. In 2026, my wife had been upstairs during the first half, but joined me for the second.
…The third quarter of the 1989 AFC Wild Card game resembled the first two – a tight, defensively dominated battle featuring with Gary Anderson and Tony Zendejas exchanging field goals.
The ’89 Steelers offense looked every bit as the unit that finished 28th in the NFL, the defense, led by stars such as Rod Woodson, Greg Lloyd and Carnell Lake kept a lid on the Oilers high-octane offense.
Gary Anderson closed the third quarter in 1989 with a 30-yard field goal, putting Pittsburgh up 13-9…
My wife got to see a different Steelers offense in the third quarter. Aaron Rodgers led a methodical, workman-like drive featuring tough runs by Jaylen Warren supplemented by a deep pass to Adam Thielen that set up Connor Heyward’s Steel City Shove touchdown.
Connor Heyward ties the game on the Steel City Shove. Photo Credit: Taylor Ollason, Steelers.com
Three plays later, T.J. Watt intercepted Lamar Jackson. The Steelers reached Baltimore’s 2, but had to settle for a Boswell field goal.
The ’89 Steelers closed their third quarter holding a 13-9 lead, the ’25 Steelers closed their third period with a 13-10 lead.
Bubby Brister. Fixing to come unglued…. Photo Credit: Steelers.com
The first 45 minutes of both games had been pretty quiet in the scoring department, but to paraphrase Bubby Brister’s comments made in a different context – both offenses were fixing to come unglued.
4th Quarter Fireworks
…Gary Anderson opened the 4th quarter for the ’89 Steelers with a 48-yard field goal that, quite frankly, split the uprights dead center with at least 10 yards to spare. But that only gave the Steelers 7 point lead, and Warren Moon was cocking Houston’s “Red Gun Offense” preparing to fire.
The Houston Oilers of the late 80’s had a wealth of talent that’s impossible to assemble in the free agency era, featuring 2 if not 3 starter-capable running backs and four or 5 Pro Bowl caliber wide receivers.
Rod Rust’s 1989 Steelers defense had gone toe-to-toe with them for 3 quarters, but Moon and the Oilers found the end zone five minutes into the 4th quarter.
But as ESPN’s Tom Jackson was wont to say, “You can’t hope to stop Houston’s offense, you can only hope to contain it.” Technically, the Steelers defense was still “containing” Houston’s offense, but the Oilers had just tied the game….
Similarly, the ’25 Steelers defense had contained the Ravens offense for the first 45 minutes. This is signfigant: In the 2024 playoffs, the Ravens hadn’t just beaten the Steelers, they’d ridiculed them, calling into question the franchise’s core defensive philosophy.
If Mike Tomlin and his staff learned anything from that debacle it was this: Never let Derrick Henry or Lamar Jackson reach the 2nd level.
Midway through the 4th quarter, the Ravens had a 3rd and 4 – the Steelers defense sold out to stop the run, and Jackson made them pay with his arm, hitting Zay Flowers for a 50-yard touchdown, putting Baltimore up by 4 with 8:42 remaining.
- Coincidentally, or not, my wife had left the basement, missing the entire series.
She returned in time to see Jaylen Warren rip off a 15 yard run, and a deep, 31-yard strike to Pat Freiermuth that set up another Kenneth Gainwell goal line run that this time hit pay dirt, putting the Steelers up by three.
…After the Oilers tied the game, the Steelers offense lost 3 yards on first down and then threw 2 incompletions, going three and out. Worse yet, Harry Newsome shanked his punt, giving Houston the ball at Pittsburgh’s 38. Despite a false start by Mike Munchak, Warren Moon only needed 5 plays to find Ernest Givens in the end zone to give the Oilers a 7-point lead with just six minutes remaining.
The 1989 Steelers could neither contain nor stop the Oilers offense it seemed….
After Gainwell’s TD, my wife stepped out of the Wendy Lane Basement to check on the laundry. Coincidentally, or not, the Ravens quickly found themselves in a 3rd and 1. Again, the Steelers sold out to stop the run. Again, Lamar Jackson burned them through the air, hitting Zee Flowers for a 64-yard touchdown.
With 2:20 remaining, the Ravens were up by 7. From the laundry room my wife heard and encouraged me not to give up hope.
…With 6:10 remaining, the Bubby Brister and 1989 Steelers offense authored a drive worthy of Bradshaw before him or Roethlisberger after him.
Driven by a belief-in-self that bordered on naiveté and with gritty plays by Louis Lipps, Tim Worley, an amazing reverse by Dwight Stone, Brister moved the team down the field. With 1:03 remaining, he looked to Merri Hoge twice, once for 8 yardrs and another for 1 and the tying touchdown.
Merril Hoge crosses the goal line with the tying touchdown during Pittsburgh’s stunning 1989 playoff upset of Houston in the Astrodome. Photo Credit: Twitter
“Did the Steelers win?” my mom asked from upstairs. “No, mom, but they tied the game.”
The Oilers offense was still dangerous, yet on 3rd and 5 they were only at their 25, when Greg Lloyd appeared to have won the game, with a strip-sack, fumble recovery and touchdown on Warren Moon.
“Did the Steelers win?” my mom asked again.
Alas, they did not.
The Steelers had too many men on the field. Houston had one more chance, but Moon’s next pass to Haywood Jefferies fell incomplete. The 1989 Steelers would have to win this one in overtime….
When my wife returned from the laundry room, she asked if the Steelers had scored. I said, “I don’t know, I’m waiting for you to watch.” Yes, the game had been over for at least an hour, but I wasn’t taking any chances.
There’s a reason why Mike Tomlin wanted and waited for Aaron Rodgers, and the world saw it in the final two minutes of the Steelers-Ravens game at Acrisure. Rodgers moved the team deftly, hitting on 3 of 4 passes getting the Steelers to Baltimore’s 26 with just over a minute to go.
In the huddle, Calvin Austin and Rodgers agreed that they’d seen something from Ravens corner Chiode Awuzie. Austin ran a hitch and go route and sure enough Awuzie slipped when Austin feigned breaking off his route, a few steps later he was in the end zone, putting the Steelers up by 2.
Calvin Austin catches the go ahead touchdown and the last touchdown of Mike Tomlin’s last win with the Steelers . Photo Credit: Karl Roser, Steelers.com
“Did the Steelers win?” my dad inquired from upstairs. “No, but they’re ahead.” They were. But 1:00 minute still remained.
3 Kicks 37 Years Apart Find Each Other in One Basement
…The ’89 Steelers won the toss to start overtime. That gave them a decisive advantage because the NFL had sudden death overtime in those days.
Unfortunately, the Steelers offense only managed a single one-ard run by Merril Hoge and two incomplete passes. Worse yet, Harry Newsome, the team’s rookie of the year just three years earlier and then regarded as one of the NFL’s best, shanked another punt, this one going for just 26 yards….
Chris Boswell is one of the NFL’s best kickers. Time and time again, he’s delivered under pressure to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat for Mike Tomlin and the Steelers. An extra point should be automatic. And for Boswell, it normally is.
Except this time it wasn’t.
A Raven got a hand on it and the kick hooked to the right, falling outside the cross bar. That left the Steelers with a 2 point win; Baltimore now only needed a field goal to win.
And the two time NFL MVP had almost a full minute and 3 timeouts to put his team in position.
…Taking over at Pittsburgh’s 45 meant the Oilers were almost in field goal range. Jerry Glanville opted to play it safe, sending out a split backfield instead of the Red Gun. Running back Lorenzo White got the ball and broke to the weak side.
As he reached the line of scrimmage Tim Johnson and Greg Lloyd made contact – White wasn’t going to turn the corner and the Steelers would “contain” him on this carry. But future Hall of Famer Rod Woodson had other ideas, breaking his coverage and shooting towards White:
As the video courtesy of Steel City Star illustrates, Woodson didn’t contain the Oilers offense, he stopped it. Cold.
Just as he’d done at the end of the 2nd quarter, Merrill Hoge took the next carry and exploded through the Oilers front seven dragging defenders with him.. Hoge “only” gained 11 yards, but he brought bringing the Steelers to Houston’s 35.
Tim Worley tacked on two more yards, but then the drive stalled. Chuck Noll had a choice – attempt a 50 yard field goal or punt….
The Steelers special teams did the Ravens another favor – they allowed a long return, giving Baltimore the ball at midfield. The Steelers defense held – for the first 3 plays. Then, on 4th and 7, Jackson found Isaiah Likely for 26 yards, who reached the Pittsburgh’s 24. A kneel down put them back to the 26 – the clock ticked to two seconds; the Steelers with no timeouts could only watch and wait.
…I think it was Tunch Ilkin who said that Noll initially started to send out the punt team but Rod Rust warned him off saying his defense was too winded and to try the field goal.Video doesn’t support that, as the kicking team took the field immedately.
The only thing Jerry Glanville could do, was to try to psych Gary Anderson out. He called a time out. Gary Anderson waited calmly, deciding to dedicate his forthcoming kick to his ailing father…
Tyler Loop came to Baltimore tasked with the role of replacing Justin Tucker, the NFL’s best kicker. He needed to make a 44 yard field goal. He’d been perfect from under 40 during the season and 8 of 9 from between 40 and 49 yards.
…When the timeout expired George Stewart’s special teams got into formation, snapped the ball, Gary Anderson’s foot hit the ball, it sailed straight ahead and split the uprights with 10 yards to spare.
Gary Anderson’s overtime field goal completes the 1989 Steelers’ stunning playoff upset of the Oilers at the Astrodome. Photo credit: Richard Jackson, US PRESSWIRE
“Yes!” “Yes!” “Yes!”
“Did the Steelers win?” my mom asked from upstairs, “YES!” “Gary Anderson made the field goal in overtime!” After starting the seaosn losing thier first two games 92-10, and suffering 3 shutouts, the 1989 Steelers had just gone into the Astrodome and upset the Oilers, fulfilling Bubby Brister’s promise to “Shock the world….”
Sitting in the adjacent couch, my wife assured me, “Its not over sweetheart.” 6000 miles and an hour and a half before, Sarah watching her first Steelers game end-to-end in the town of Maschwitz , in the Province of Buenos Aires, told Gustavo, “El Dr. De Acero” “…Bueno, si lo tyuo puede fallar, esto tambien puede fallar,” [If your kicker missed, so can theirs.]
Loop got a good snap, and his foot made good contact with the ball – it clearly had the length and began with the trajectory, but then hooked wide right — its almost as if the Terrible Towel twirling knocked it off course.
“Yes!” my wife cheered. “Did the Steelers win?” my dad inquired from upstairs.
“Yes they won, Baltimore missed the kick!”
Mike Tomlin celebrates his final win with the Steelers. Photo Credit: Jared Wickerham, Steelers.com
In a year when most experts assured us he was doomed to suffer his first losing season and perhaps even finish last in the AFC North, Mike Tomlin had just won the division.
And that’s the story of how three kicks in one basement spread out over 37 years unite 2 Steelers wins.
Denouement: Chuck Noll’s Last Playoff Win, Mike Tomlin’s Last Win
“This team is headed up” explained Chuck Noll during the playoffs. Although they lost the next week in Denver — coming within a bad snap and a dropped pass of upsetting the eventual AFC Champions — Noll’s logic seemed sound. But the only thing Noll would climb up was Walton’s Mountain – his decision to hire Joe Walton to replace Tom Moore proved to be a critical mistake.
He went 16-16 over the next two seasons and retired. The ’89 Steelers upset at the Astrodome was Noll’s final playoff victory.
Mike Tomlin’s Steelers would host, wait for it, the Houston Texans the next week in Pittsburgh, losing 30-6. The game was actually closer than the lopsided score suggests – the Steelers defense did a tremendous job limiting the Texans who logged 2 defensive scores and their offense added a garbage time touchdown in the 4th quarter.
- The Steelers offense lacked a WR No. 2 and their line needed another year of maturity.
Be that as it may, a day later, Mike Tomlin decided it was time to hang it up.
I didn’t watch either of then ensuring games in the Wendy Lane Basement. I saw the 1989 Steelers playoff loss to the Broncos at my sister’s apartment in White Marsh, Maryland. I watched the ’25 Steelers playoff loss to the Texans at Hibernia Bar in New York City.
- Would the outcomes have changed had I watched either in the Wendy Lane Basement?
We’ll never know. But I do know one thing: IF either game had come down to a final kick, I’d have liked our chances….
