On November 16, 2008, the Pittsburgh Steelers beat the San Diego Chargers 11-10 at a snowy Heinz Field. No NFL game had ever ended with that score.
It almost ended differently. On the last play, Troy Polamalu picked up a loose ball and ran 12 yards into the end zone. The officials reviewed it, said the touchdown stood, then talked again and took it away. After the game, referee Scott Green said that was the wrong call. The touchdown should have counted.
Snow, a safety and three field goals
A snow squall coated the field before the late-afternoon kickoff, and it was 35 degrees with a 14 mph wind. Jeff Reed missed a 51-yard field goal on Pittsburgh’s first drive, his first miss in 20 attempts. San Diego took over at its own 41, and LaDainian Tomlinson finished the drive with a 3-yard touchdown run for a 7-0 lead.
Pittsburgh reached the San Diego 1 late in the first quarter, but Mewelde Moore was stopped for a 1-yard loss on fourth down. Three plays later, at the start of the second quarter, James Harrison sacked Philip Rivers on third-and-9 from the San Diego 3. Rivers fumbled, and left tackle Marcus McNeill fell on the ball in his own end zone for a safety. It was 7-2.
The Chargers were driving again just before halftime. On first down from the Pittsburgh 17, Rivers threw toward the back corner and Harrison intercepted at the 10. He returned it 33 yards, and Ben Roethlisberger moved the Steelers to the 3. Reed kicked a 21-yard field goal with 3 seconds left in the half. Reed added a 41-yarder in the third quarter for an 8-7 lead.
San Diego’s Nate Kaeding missed a 42-yard try wide right later in the third quarter. Early in the fourth, the Chargers drove from their own 18 to the Pittsburgh 4 in 16 plays, but Rivers threw two incompletions from there. Kaeding’s 22-yard field goal put San Diego ahead 10-8 with 6:41 left.
The winning drive
A holding penalty on the kickoff return started Pittsburgh at its own 13. Roethlisberger completed all six of his passes on the drive for 62 yards, four of them to Hines Ward, and Willie Parker ran the Steelers to the 4.
| Time | Play | Situation |
|---|---|---|
| 4th quarter, 6:31 | Roethlisberger to Ward, 13 yards | San Diego leads 10-8 |
| 4th quarter, 3:14 | 3rd-and-6: Roethlisberger to Ward, 7 yards | 1st-and-10 at the San Diego 34 |
| 4th quarter, 2:31 | Roethlisberger to Santonio Holmes, 13 yards | 1st-and-10 at the San Diego 21 |
| 4th quarter, 0:59 | Parker run, 4 yards (San Diego’s last timeout before the play) | 3rd-and-4 at the San Diego 4 |
| 4th quarter, 0:21 | Parker 4-yard touchdown run wiped out by holding on Sean McHugh | 3rd-and-14 at the San Diego 14 |
| 4th quarter, 0:15 | Reed 32-yard field goal | Pittsburgh leads 11-10 with 11 seconds left |
| 4th quarter, 0:05 | Rivers to Tomlinson, two laterals, Polamalu return for a touchdown | Touchdown reversed on review; final score 11-10 |
The touchdown that wasn’t
After the kickoff, San Diego had one play from its own 21 with 5 seconds left. Rivers threw a short pass to Tomlinson, who flipped the ball to Chris Chambers. Chambers tried to pitch it to another teammate, the ball came loose, and Polamalu scooped it up at the 12 and scored.
Both teams headed for the locker rooms before the officials called them back for an extra point. The replay official stopped the game to review the play. Green first announced that the touchdown stood. Then the crew talked again and changed the call, ruling that an illegal forward pass had ended the play. The extra point was never kicked.
The league explained the next day what went wrong. Tomlinson’s toss to Chambers was an illegal forward pass, but it never hit the ground, so the play should have continued. Chambers’ pitch was a legal backward pass, and Polamalu was allowed to pick it up and run. The crew mixed up the two passes. Pittsburgh would have declined the penalty and kept the touchdown, and the final would have been 17-10, or more likely 18-10 with the extra point.
“We should have let the play go through in the end, yes,” Green said. “It was misinterpreted that instead of killing the play, we should have let the play go through.” He also said, “The rule was misinterpreted.”
Mike Pereira, the league’s vice president of officiating, said the league would look at letting officials go back to replay a second time when a mistake is made. That the Steelers kept their win “doesn’t make us feel any better about the call,” he said. The score stayed 11-10. Pittsburgh had been favored by 4 1/2 points, so the reversal also decided bets on the game.
The rules on what makes a toss backward or forward are explained in our guide: Backward pass and lateral rules explained.
The numbers
Pittsburgh outplayed San Diego almost everywhere except the scoreboard. Roethlisberger completed 31 of 41 passes for 308 yards without a touchdown or an interception, Parker ran 25 times for 115 yards, and Ward caught 11 passes for 124 yards. Rivers completed 15 of 26 with two interceptions, and Tomlinson ran 18 times for 57 yards.
| Chargers | Steelers | |
|---|---|---|
| Points | 10 | 11 |
| First downs | 16 | 24 |
| Third downs | 5 of 10 | 7 of 14 |
| Red zone trips, touchdowns | 3, 1 | 3, 0 |
| Turnovers | 2 | 0 |
| Penalties | 2 for 5 yards | 13 for 115 yards |
| Time of possession | 23:29 | 36:31 |
What they said
Mike Tomlin would not talk about the officiating. “No, I have never seen a game ended with 13-to-1 in penalties, but I am not answering questions about the officiating,” he said. The official count was 13 penalties on Pittsburgh and two on San Diego.
“It was weird,” Ward said. “We definitely have to work on our offense. But this game is about wins and losses, and we won.”
“I like playing on grass, mud, anything that slows down an offense,” Harrison said. Of the interception, he said, “I thought he would throw it a little wider, but he threw it straight to me.”
“Any time a defense gives up nine points, we should win the game,” Rivers said. “We didn’t get it done.” Reed said of the winner, “I hit that one the best, and I knew it right away.”
What came next
The win moved Pittsburgh to 7-3 and back into first place in the AFC North, and San Diego fell to 4-6. On the same day, Cincinnati and Philadelphia played to a 13-13 tie, the league’s first tie in six years. The Steelers played the Bengals four days later.
Pittsburgh finished 12-4, and Harrison was named Defensive Player of the Year. The Chargers recovered to finish 8-8 and win the AFC West, then beat Indianapolis 23-17 in overtime in the wild-card round. That sent them back to Heinz Field, where the Steelers won the divisional game 35-24. Pittsburgh then beat Baltimore 23-14 for the AFC title and Arizona 27-23 in Super Bowl XLIII.
The 11-10 score has come up only once since then. Denver beat San Francisco 11-10 on a Sunday night in September 2022.
Both teams play on Sunday. Mike McCarthy’s 5-2 Steelers, coming off a 16-10 win over the Saints in Paris, host Cleveland. Jim Harbaugh’s Chargers are 0-6 and visit the Rams.
Related WhyNFL reading: October 17, 2010: the Sunday that changed how the NFL punishes helmet contact.
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