Lolley's Kickoff: Two teams fighting for lives

Just win baby!

The Steelers find themselves in a situation where former Raiders owner Al Davis' manta now fits them perfectly.

Losers of three-straight games after their stunning defeat last Monday night in Cincinnati against the Bengals, the Steelers now find themselves in a playoff-type situation each week for the remainder of the year.

They've already clinched a playoff spot, thanks to their 11-straight wins to open the season, but if they want to show they'll have any chance to make any noise in the postseason, it would behoove them to play better than they have over the past month.

The Steelers are just 1-3 in their past four games, having been outscored 90-68 over that period. It's not that they're far away from winning -- as that margin in those four games would suggest -- but they're not doing the things they were doing earlier to win close games as opposed to losing them.

"You have to find ways to win. Good teams do it. We did it even earlier this year," said Ben Roethlisberger. "Right now, we are not doing it. We have to get back to kind of having some sort of continuity, some sort of at the end of those games when you need a play to be made we all have to be there to make it, whoever’s number is called. That starts with me."

It does. And the Steelers will try to get what has been an elusive win for them that would clinch the AFC North championship and at least one home game in the playoffs Sunday when they host the Colts (10-4).

The Steelers clinched a playoff spot two weeks ago when the Dolphins lost to the Chiefs. But if they want to play at Heinz Field in the opening round of the playoffs, they need to win one of their final two games or have the Browns (10-4) lose one of their final two games. Cleveland plays the Jets (1-13) this week before hosting the Steelers next Sunday in what could be a one-game playoff for the AFC North title.

The Colts? They're still fighting for a playoff spot, as well, and need to a win to keep pace with the Titans (10-4), who play the Packers this weekend. Otherwise, they fall into the crowded Wild Card mix in the AFC.

No team has ever started a season 11-0 and then not won its division. And Mike Tomlin doesn't want his team to be the first to do so.

"I’ve played poorly and won. I like to play poorly and win," said Tomlin. "I like to learn lessons while you win. I’ve played extremely well at times over the course of my career and lost. It’s about winning and losing and particularly in December."

Home-field advantage itself is no guarantee of anything. Heading into Week 16, NFL teams are 116-115-1 at home this season, one in which many stadiums sit empty on game days or have severely reduced crowds.

The Steelers will again be limited to just family and friends for this game as Pennsylvania remains on a COVID-19 lockdown through Jan. 4. But if they want a home crowd, however sparse, to see them play, they've got to get things turned around. And perhaps they'll have a bit of a home field advantage in this game against a dome team playing outdoors in freezing temperatures.

"I just think it's small details throughout the game," said Maurkice Pouncey. "The other teams have been getting up on us and we haven't been able to come back. We know we should be playing better. We are focused on this week. The game of football, people get it confused. It's all about the flow of the game. You have to convert third downs. You have to be able to do everything. You can't be one dimensional. Me being here a long time I realize that. We'll get things together. Trust me."

Tomlin trusts his team will get things turned around. And the Steelers will get three players back on the field for this game who could certainly help that happen. Vince Williams, who has missed the past two games while on the Reserve/COVID-19 List, Kevin Dotson and James Conner, who both missed the game against the Bengals with injuries, will be back for this game.

Williams, in particular, will be a big help.

"A voice, definitely. (His) communication is going to help us," said Keith Butler. "The guys who have been in there have done a pretty good job of communicating, but Vince is a little more confident in what he’s doing. The people around him are a little more confident in terms of what we are doing with him in there and stuff like that. It’s going to help us for sure."

Any little bit will help. And as Pouncey said, it's been some of the little things that have dogged the Steelers during their three-game losing streak. A missed block here. A dropped pass there. A missed assignment somewhere that has led to a big gain or touchdown.

"They are controllable, and we’re capable of doing a better job than we have," Tomlin said. "That’s one of the things I’m talking about in terms of us putting together a good plan and working that plan and putting together a formula in stadium. It’s obvious some of our wounds have been self-inflicted. Those things are correctable."

THE ESSENTIALS

• Who: Steelers (11-3) vs. Colts (10-4)
• When: 1:02 p.m.
• Where: Heinz Field
• Forecast: 34°, 5% chance rain
• TV: KDKA, CBS (national)
• Radio: 102.5 WDVE, ESPN Pittsburgh
• Streaming: Steelers Nation Radio
• Satellite: Sirius XM 226, online 81
• Boxscore: NFL Game Center
• Media notes: Steelers | Colts

THE INJURY REPORT

Steelers: LB Marcus Allen (shoulder, out), LB Ola Adeniyi (shoulder, out), K Chris Boswell (groin, out), RB Anthony McFarland (illness, questionable)

Colts: LT Anthony Castonzo (ankle, out), WR Marcus Johnson (quad, out)

THE KEY VARIABLE

The Steelers have faced Philip Rivers eight times in his career and have beaten him in five of those games, including once in the postseason. But those games all came with Rivers playing for the Chargers.

The 39-year-old Rivers joined the Colts on a one-year contract worth $25 million this season after the Chargers decided to go in a different direction from the 16-year veteran who had been the face of the franchise for more than a decade, allowing him to enter free agency.

Thus far, the returns have been good. After throwing 23 touchdown passes against 20 interceptions last season with the Chargers, Rivers has 22 touchdowns and just nine interceptions this season.

An improved offensive line helps. Rivers has never been a mobile quarterback, and at his age, he's even less mobile now than ever before. But behind one of the league's top offensive lines, Rivers has been sacked just 14 times this season compared to 34 last season with the Chargers.

The Colts' offensive line includes Pro Bowl players in guard Quenton Nelson and center Ryan Kelly, but left tackle Anthony Castonzo also is a standout. Castonzo, however, did not practice at all this week and was declared out for this game on Saturday. That would be a problem as starting right tackle Braden Smith was placed on the Reserve/COVID-19 List on Friday, meaning the Colts will be without both starting offensive tackles.

"We get to play against one of the best o-lines in the league. We just came off a loss. There’s a lot to look forward to in this game," said Steelers defensive tackle Cam Heyward. "I love to be able to play against great talent. We’ll get to it this weekend."

The Steelers will provide stiff competition for the Colts with their defensive front led by Heyward, outside linebacker T.J. Watt and linemen Stephon Tuitt and Tyson Alualu. The Steelers lead the NFL with 47 sacks and are vying to lead the league in that stat for an unprecedented fourth consecutive season.

"I think they can see it for themselves," Butler said of his defensive front against the Colts. "They can watch film, and we can watch film and tell them what we think about their offensive line and see who are the better players, how they play, what they are trying to get done and stuff like that.

"Our guys know the type of guys we are playing against. They accept the challenge."

Butler also is quite familiar with Rivers. He's known him since he was a college coach recruiting in Alabama, where Rivers' father, Jack, was a high school coach.

Rivers is crafty and hard to fool, but the Steelers are allowing opposing quarterbacks to complete a league-low 56 percent of their passes. Rivers is seventh in the league in completion percentage at 68.7 percent.

In his seven career starts against the Steelers, Rivers has completed 62.4 percent of his passes with 17 touchdown passes and 7 interceptions.

"Philip Rivers is the field general," Tomlin said. "He’s very good not only in terms of what he is able to do for them but what he is able to do for them intellectually getting them in and out of plays as appropriate based on what he sees. He just does a great job of managing a football game."

THE HISTORY LESSON

Randy Fuller is a name that is near and dear to older Steelers fans. And it was a game against the Colts that assured him his place in Steelers lore.

The Steelers had been upset by the Chargers in the AFC Championship in 1994 and looked to be on their way to that happening again in 1995, only this time around it was the Colts who were looking to pull off the shocker.

Indianapolis had snuck into the playoffs at 9-7, but won their first two games to reach the AFC Championship. The Steelers had gone 11-5 and vanquished their boogeyman, the Bills, in the Divisional Round to reach their second consecutive title game.

A low-scoring defensive contest, saw the Steelers take a 10-6 halftime lead and a 13-9 advantage into the fourth quarter when Jim Harbaugh gave the Colts the lead at 16-13 with a 47-yard bomb to Floyd Turner midway through the final quarter.

The two teams traded punts before the Steelers got the ball back with 3:03 remaining and their season on the line.

Neil O'Donnell started things off with a 13-yard pass to rookie Kordell Stewart, a second-round pick at quarterback who had given the Steelers some options by playing some wide receiver that year. Then he connected on passes of 7 and 9 yards, the last one being a completion to Andre Hastings on fourth-and-3.

On first-and-10 from the Indianapolis 38, O'Donnell connected with Ernie Mills down the sideline and his diving catch put the ball at the 1.

Bam Morris was stopped for no gain on the Steelers' first attempt from there, forcing an Indianapolis timeout, then scored on second down to put the Steelers ahead, 20-16.

Taking over at their own 16 with 1:34 remaining, the Colts quickly went to work, with Harbaugh completing a pair of passes for 25 yards, then scrambling eight yards to put the ball at midfield when Indianapolis used its final timeout.

On fourth-and-2 from the Indianapolis 49, he completed a 13-yard pass to Sean Dawkins to move the ball to the Pittsburgh 38, then scrambled for nine yards, spiking the ball to stop the clock.

With time remaining for just one play, Harbaugh dropped back to pass from the Pittsburgh 29 and lofted a ball into the end zone, where a bevy of Colts and Steelers awaited. Though there was a crowd of 61,062, you could have heard a pin drop as the ball arched through the air.

Aaron Bailey and Fuller, among others leaped into the air and tumbled, along with the ball, to the ground. The ball rolled across the stomach of Bailey, where Fuller knocked it away incomplete.

The Steelers were going to the Super Bowl for the first time since 1980.

Neither team had been an offensive juggernaut in the game. O'Donnell threw for just 205 yards and a touchdown and one interception, while Erric Pegram led the Steelers with 46 rushing yards on 10 carries. Yancey Thigpen had six catches for 65 yards.

Harbaugh had 267 passing yards and a touchdown, while Lamont Warren was held to 53 yards on 15 carries. Dawkins led the Colts with seven catches for 96 yards.

Greg Lloyd had 1.5 sacks, while Chad Brown added a full sack and Kevin Greene, the Pro Football Hall of Famer who died last week, shared a sack with Lloyd.

The loss was the sixth-straight for the Colts against the Steelers in a run that saw them lose nine consecutive times to Pittsburgh and continued their futility against the Steelers. The Steelers hold a 25-6 advantage in the all-time series.

AP

Ben Roethlisberger.

THE MAIN MATCHUP

The Steelers' offense is struggling. That's no secret. 

Their recent slump has seen them gain 224 and 244 total yards the past two weeks, dropping them to 25th in the NFL in total offense.

And with the Colts ranking seventh in the league in total defense, it looks like this could be a mismatch.

But while the Steelers have slumped offensively, the Colts have slumped defensively. In mid-November, they were challenging the Steelers and Rams atop the leaderboard for the top defense in the NFL. Over their past five weeks, the Colts have allowed an average of 412.6 yards and 28.6 points per game.

They had been allowing 261.4 yards and 17.7 points per game before that.

One thing the Colts have continued to do is win the turnover battle. Despite their defensive deficiencies, the Colts are plus-8 in turnover ratio in their past six games, of which they have won five.

The Steelers have failed to force a turnover in two of their past three games, and have turned the ball over themselves six times in those games, with Roethlisberger throwing four interceptions and fumbling once.

The only stat that matters to Roethlisberger is wins. And right now, those aren't coming.

"Did I win the football game? Because that’s all that matters to me. Am I not completing enough passes? Am I missing the right play call? There’s a myriad of issues, in my opinion, that aren’t helping us win the game," Roethlisberger said. "It can be something different all the time. I just have to play well enough to help us win a football game because, at the end of the day, that’s all that really matters."

Over the past four weeks, the Steelers have scored on 22.9 percent (8-of-35) of their possessions, which ranks 31st in the NFL. This after scoring on 47.2 percent of their possessions prior to that, which ranked 13th in the league.

The Steelers have scored fewer than 20 points in four straight games under Roethlisberger for the first time since his rookie season. They had been averaging 30 points per game before this latest streak, so they're capable. They just need to play better.

And that starts with the quarterback.

"It’s not one person. He is the quarterback; he does make the final decision to where the ball goes," offensive coordinator Randy Fichtner said. "I know there are a couple balls he would like to have back, but every quarterback I’ve ever coached will say, “I wish I had that one back. It wasn’t my finest moment.” I think up until just recently he has protected the ball very well."

The Colts play a lot of Cover-2 defense, rushing just four. Roethlisberger is going to have to be on top of his game mentally to move the Steelers down the field.

Tomlin is confident he can do that and in the rest of the offense, as well.

What gives him that confidence?

"The men themselves, the manpower," Tomlin said. "I have confidence in the men that we work with, players and coaches."

THE TEN DATA POINTS

• Since their Week 7 bye, the Colts are allowing 1.3 more yards per play than they gave up before the break.

• The Steelers have forced 25 turnovers. The Colts have forced 24.

• In his past two games against the Colts, Roethlisberger has thrown for 350 or more yards and four or more touchdowns without an interception.

• The Colts blitz just 17.6 percent of the time, the second-lowest in the NFL. The Steelers blitz the second-most at 40.9 percent.

• The Steelers lead the league in pressure rate allowed at 19.9 percent. The Colts are second at 24.0 percent.

• T.J. Watt leads the NFL with 13 sacks.

• Over his past four games, Colts rookie running back Jonathan Taylor has rushed for 115, 135, 165 and 95 yards. But those games have come against teams that rank 23rd, 27th and 32nd (twice) against the run.

• The Steelers allow 3.79 yards per carry to opposing running backs, the Colts 3.82, to rank fifth and seventh in the NFL in that category.

• The Colts have gone three games without a turnover, one short of the team record set in 2017.

• Tuitt needs one sack to reach 10 for the season. He would join Heyward and Keith Willis as the only Steelers defensive linemen to reach double digits in sacks in a season since it became an official statistic in 1982.

THE FANTASY CORNER

A disappointing week, as my lineup scored just 110.28 points last week as Kenyan Drake got injured and the Steelers defense laid a big egg against the Bengals. We'll try to get back in the money this week. As I did last year, I'm going to build a fantasy lineup using Draft Kings and a $50,000 salary cap.

Quarterback: Jared Goff, Rams ($5,900) -- Goff and the Rams laid an egg against the Jets last week, but should bounce back in a game against the Seahawks.

Running back: Le'Veon Bell, Chiefs ($5,800), Melvin Gordon, Broncos ($5,600) -- Bell will get the bulk of the touches out of the Kansas City backfield against the Falcons, which should mean he has a big game. Gordon gets his former team, the Chargers, and Phillip Lindsay is out.

Wide receiver: Cole Beasley, Bills ($5,200), Tee Higgins, Bengals ($4,700), Cooper Kupp, Rams ($6,600) -- Beasley should benefit from the Bills wanting to blow out the Patriots. With Tyler Boyd out, Higgins should get plenty of targets for the Bengals. Kupp stacks with Goff.

Tight end: Travis Kelce, Chiefs ($8,500) -- Kelce has a chance to lead the league in receiving yards and Tyreek Hill is slowed a little by a hamstring injury. It wouldn't surprise me to see Kelce peppered with targets.

Flex: Giovanni Bernard, Bengals ($4,800) -- Two Bengals? The Houston defense is awful. The Bengals should move the ball.

Defense: Seahawks ($2,600) -- The Seattle defense has been putting up points of late. We're not looking for a home run here, just something solid.

Our football staff predicts the game:

Dale Lolley (11-3): The Steelers haven't been held under 20 points in five consecutive games since 1969. So, I don't expect that to happen in this game. And the Colts being banged up on their formidable offensive line doesn't bode well for them in this game. The momentum says take the Colts. But something tells me the Steelers get things righted in this game. Vince Williams is back. James Conner is back. And I'll go with the younger quarterback playing outdoors in the elements. Steelers, 23-20

Ramon Foster (11-3): Conner will be back, but I don’t know if the Steelers can have a complete correction of the offense when there’s so much to fix. Indy defensive tackle DeForest Buckner is a new version of Calais Campbell, and he’s effective in the run game. The defense has to show it’s not tired. Until Alex Highsmith show he’s a nice complement to T.J. Watt, T.J's going to get double-teamed. Oh, and this isn’t the game to let Rivers outduel Ben. Colts, 24-17

Chris Carter (12-2): The Colts are another team with a lot going for them. Eighth in points scored and 11th in points allowed, it’s a rough time for the Steelers to be figuring out so many problems on offense and have to face a balanced team like this. Although the Colts haven’t won at Heinz Field since 2008, this game could be different if the Steelers’ offense doesn’t turn things around. Colts, 23-16

Tom Reed (11-3): After whiffing so badly on the Bengals pick, I'm surprised I was asked back. The Colts are rolling, winners of five of six. Unlike the Steelers, they are not guaranteed a playoff berth, and a loss could put them in bad shape. The Steelers showed some encouraging signs offensively in the second half in Cincinnati. If they can avoid another slow start, the Steelers will wrap up a division title Sunday. Steelers, 24-21 

Dejan Kovacevic (11-3): I can't. Not after Cincinnati. The scope of the turnaround the Steelers would need to make in the span of six days, the singular psychological Red Bull that Ben will require, and this against an opponent that's probably six times better than those Bengals ... I just can't. Colts, 34-10