Aside from his victory over the Arizona Cardinals in Super Bowl XLIII, the most notable accomplishment of Mike Tomlin’s career was never having a losing season.

In his 19 years as a head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers, Tomlin’s team never once more lost games than they won. It was a streak that was consistently lauded by the national media, but grew to be tiresome locally as years without any playoff success continued to pile up.

But, that was not the only distinction that represents how often he kept teams competitive, even if they sometimes underperformed. In the 309 games Tomlin coached in the regular season, only one time was his team mathematically eliminated from the playoff race.

Just to help put that into some perspective, the Kansas City Chiefs, the AFC representatives in the last three Super Bowls and winners of the first two, played three meaningless this season alone.

To me, that accomplishment is more impressive than the non-losing seasons streak. His Steelers tenure ends with several teams who certainly needed to do more in the postseason, but his ability to always keep his teams in the mix is commendable.

However, with a stat like that it’s natural to wonder: what was the one meaningless game?

First, allow me to set the scene. Tomlin’s team had gotten off to a hot start in 2012. After an overtime win at home over Kansas City, the Steelers sat at 6-3 and had their eyes set on a playoff run.

But the Steelers suffered one of their several late-season collapse, going 2-5 the rest of the way to send them tumbling out of the playoff picture.

A 13-10 loss to the surging Cincinnati Bengals in Week 16 officially sealed their fate: third place in the AFC North and out of the playoff picture.

At home, Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger threw a backbreaking interception with 24 seconds left in a tied game. Returning it into Pittsburgh territory, the Bengals only needed a 21-yard pass and a 43-yard field goal to win it.

It all set the stage for December 30th, 2012, a lackluster day at Heinz Field that saw a crowd of only 51,831 come out to watch the action. That was the smallest crowd in the NFL’s final week and in the history of Heinz Field to that point. That undesirable record would be broken a year later, when a similar down-on-their-luck Steelers team closed out their year at home.

But on a windy, 28-degree day at the confluence of the three rivers, Steelers hosted their divisional rivals in the Cleveland Browns, who were playing for a season sweep of their bully next door.

Cleveland won the coin toss, and deferred, giving the Steelers the ball to open the game. But both teams took a while in their attempt to make this game worth it for onlookers.

Roethlisberger and the Steelers failed to achieve a single first down in the first quarter.

The two teams exchanged a trio of three-and-outs to open the game, before it was the Browns who finally started to move the ball. Lewis helped lead Cleveland from their own six-yard line all the way down to Pittsburgh’s 25-yard line, before Troy Polamalu read the play perfectly and picked him off. It was the Hall of Famer’s only interception in an injury-shortened season.

The Steelers thought they had finally got something going when Roethlisberger launched one deep to a young Antonio Brown, but the 43-yard gain was negated by a holding penalty on offense. Two plays later, Brown was tracked down in the backfield on a trick play for a loss of 13 yards and a subsequent punt. Of the 35 rushing attempts Brown recorded in his NFL career, that was the worst one by yardage.

Steelers punter Drew Butler shanked one out of bounds for only 31 yards, giving the Browns decent field position once they got the ball back. But Cleveland couldn’t capitalize, with kicker Phil Dawson missing it wide right.

On their fourth drive, Pittsburgh finally was able to move the sticks. A 12-yard pass to Plaxico Burress (in his last game in the NFL) finally got the Steelers a fresh set of downs, and the team was eventually able to move into field goal range. Shaun Suisham knocked it through from 41 yards to put the Steelers on the board first.

Cleveland would respond on their next drive, with Dawson making up for his miss with a 51-yarder to tie the game.

Late in the half, the Browns had a chance to go for the double dip, but just two plays into their drive with two minutes to go, Pittsburgh’s Cortez Allen forced Josh Gordon to fumble, and it was recovered by Lawrence Timmons deep in Cleveland territory.

After a strong run by Isaac Redman to pick up a first, Emmanuel Sanders was able to draw a pass interference penalty in the endzone, placing the ball at the one. On the next play, Roethlisberger tossed it to Leonard Pope for the touchdown. That was just the third catch of the season for the tight end, who was also playing in his final NFL game. However, it was his second touchdown of the year.

Coming out of the half, the Browns did manage to make up for their mistake at the end of the second quarter. Powered by a 35-yard fake punt run by Raymond Ventrone and a 35-yard pass interference penalty, Cleveland marched down the field and punched one into the endzone to tie the game.

In response, though, the Steelers executed a 13-play drive to re-take the lead. Roethlisberger relied somewhat on the run, but found a few passes along the way, including a nine-yard pass to Brown for the score. Pittsburgh took a 17-10 lead through the rest of the quarter.

The teams traded possessions until midway through the fourth, when Allen was able to force a second fumble. Cleveland’s Travis Benjamin made a sliding catch, and believing he was untouched, got back up to start running. As he did, Allen punched the ball out and picked it up, returning it 21 yards amidst the chaos.

Interestingly enough, all three of Allen’s forced fumbles over his 56-game career came in the 2012 season. After a review, the play was upheld, and the recovery and return had given the Steelers the ball at Cleveland’s 27-yard line. That made for easy work putting one more touchdown on the board, which came when Roethlisberger found Burress in the endzone, giving the Steelers an eventual 24-10 lead.

By that point, it was pretty much over.

On Cleveland’s last drive of the game, Timmons blew up Lewis on a sack with about a minute and a half to go, knocking him out of the game. Backup Josh Johnson, then a sprightly 26-year-old who had only played for two teams, came in to finish the game. In the only snap he took all season, Johnson had the ball ripped free on a strip sack, which was recovered by Evander Hood for the Steelers.

Roethlisberger finished going 15-of-23 for only 134 yards, but three short touchdown passes. Jonathan Dwyer led the team in rushing, picking up 52 yards on 11 carries. No Steelers receiver had more than 30 receiving yards, with Sanders leading the way at 28.

The win, which put the Steelers at 8-8, preserved Tomlin’s streak of never having a losing season, which at that point was just a small novelty, not the (in)famous streak that it is today.

With the streak much less prevalent in those days, Steelers players talked about their desire to end the disappointing season on a high note.

“I said earlier in the week that we wanted to come out and finish the year with a win and have a good feeling going into the offseason,” Roethlisberger said after the game. “That is what we did. I’m proud of the way the guys finish.”

That’s a departure from what Steelers players said in later seasons, particularly in years where Tomlin’s streak was in jeopardy. Ten years later, when the Steelers were 5-8 and needed an improbable four-game winning streak to keep his record alive, players talked about how important it was to them to do it for their coach.

“I take pride in it,” safety Minkah Fitzpatrick said late in the 2022 season. “I know coach Tomlin takes a lot of pride in what he does. I take a lot of pride in what I do. So if I can do anything I can to keep that streak alive, that’s what I am going to do.”

Back in 2012, this game marked the end of Pat Shurmur’s coaching tenure in Cleveland. The 47-year-old was shown the door by the Browns after going 4-12 in 2011 and 5-11 the following year. His departure led to him returning to Philadelphia as an offensive coordinator.

Tomlin, meanwhile, would go on to coach the Steelers until just days ago.