BALTIMORE -- T.J. Watt had just galloped up onto M&T Bank Stadium's interview platform when he gripped either edge of the podium, gave out a vocal exhale, then seemed to let out all the rest with a single syllable:
"WOOOO!"
And I'm here to attest that none of the couple dozen reporters in that room, present company included, will do better in describing everything we'd all witnessed on this unforgettable, unbelievable NFL Sunday ... and extending well into the wee hours of Monday.
Because T.J. could've meant most anything, right?
He could've been referencing the Steelers outlasting the archrival Ravens, 16-13, and in overtime, no less.
Or that the Jaguars had, in maybe the league's most stunning upset all season, simultaneously clubbed the Colts in Jacksonville, taking care of the least likely portion of the three-step process the Steelers would need to make the playoffs.
Or that the ongoing storybook close to Ben Roethlisberger's career had added another chapter.
Or that he himself had just matched Michael Strahan's all-time sacks record at 22.5, with a chance that a league review will have him break it.
Or, hey, if he were like Nostradamus, he might even have been forecasting the future and the insanity that ensued hours later in the Raiders breaking a late-in-overtime tie with the Chargers to avoid a tie, the only remaining scenario that could've kept the Steelers out.
Or that the Steelers aren't out. That, against all odds, they're flying right back to Kansas City next Sunday to face the Chiefs, 8:15 p.m. at Arrowhead Stadium, in the wild card round of the AFC playoffs.
My goodness. I'm out of breath just typing it.
“It’s been our story all year," Mike Tomlin would say, speaking over the players' shouts and pulsating music still penetrating the wall behind him. "You guys buried us when we were 1-3. And look, we’ve got a lot of warts. But we’re here. And I’m just appreciative of the mental fortitude being displayed by those men in that locker room.”
I buried them at 1-3. I also buried them after Minneapolis. And Cincinnati. And Kansas City.
And I'm not alone.
But I'll bet I'm the only one doing penance by making this my iPhone's ringtone for the coming week:
____________________
It'd be nuts to declare these Steelers some kind of contender. They're anything but. They've got all those "warts" Tomlin mentioned, and they've got them formed onto fatal flaws. Two in particular, the offensive line and the general run defense, aren't about to fix themselves.
In the same breath, though, it feels fair to praise this collective for the one trait that's now firmly established as by far the most prominent positive: They perform at their peak in the most trying settings.
You know, when the game's on the line.
Yeah, I remember the late heartbreakers in Los Angeles, in Minneapolis. But I also remember that some of their best football of the entire season came in the latter stages of those. Just as I'm aware that, out of this team's 9-7-1 final record on the regular season, seven of those wins followed a fourth-quarter deficit or tie.
Most of that's connected to Ben, as it should be. His seven such rallies are tied for second-most in NFL history for a single season -- Matthew Stafford had that many for the Lions in 2018 -- and his 11 total over the past two seasons are No. 1. Also, there's the not-so-small matter of his having excelled at this for 18 years and having taken that route toward a Super Bowl.
As Tomlin masterfully worded it:
I'm not transcribing that one. Press play. It has to be seen to be believed.
Funny thing is, Ben hasn't been alone in this regard this season. He really hasn't. One can rewind through all those rallies and find that he'd had all kinds of help, from several talented and a couple legit, elite teammates.
Which, of course, is part of what's made this season maddening. We see these players and these plays show up late, and on some occasions too late, and we wonder why they weren't there all along. Until, anyway, we recall that it can take a while to find a workaround for that offensive line and run defense, and that, within that, the coaching staff isn't exactly equipped with egghead coordinators.
This game, to be honest, might have provided the most eye-opening example, as I'll attempt to illustrate by isolating on 10 terrific, game-turning-type plays, all of which came after the third quarter and all listed below in chronological order:
10. SUTTON'S INTERCEPTION
14:58 left, fourth quarter
The quarter break came, and it's as if the Steelers hear a shotgun saying it's OK to start competing.
The Ravens were up by four, and Tyler Huntley had them within 11 yards of moving up by 11. Which any reasonable person would deem as too much of an obstacle to overcome for an offense that'd mustered two whole field goals for the two takeaways the defense had already delivered.
So, why not a third?
It was elementary to see Huntley had locked onto his superlative tight end, Mark Andrews, all afternoon. But on this one, he locked on despite double-coverage from Cam Sutton and Minkah Fitzpatrick, and the Kennywood-bean-bag toss he sent that way was begging to be picked. Sutton obliged.
"I felt like it was enough space, but I just couldn’t drive it how I wanted to," Huntley would tell Baltimore reporters. "Kudos to No. 20. He made a great play falling into it.”
A game-turner. First of many.
9. CLAYPOOL'S TOUCHDOWN
2:54 left, fourth quarter
Ben's first comeback drive was capped with less than three minutes to go, and it came on his second option.
As Claypool would acknowledge with a smile, “It was supposed to go to someone else. They missed the audible. I was fortunate enough to fall into that touchdown."
From Ben's body language, it appears he's looking toward Zach Gentry off the snap. But it could've been anybody missing an audible because they might've needed to shift and didn't.
Regardless, Claypool breaks that huddle thinking the ball's not coming to him, then hears an audible that has him sure the ball's not coming to him, but still runs his route and gets the six. A welcome sign of his maturity.
To boot, he'd end up being the team's most dangerous weapon in the second half, winding up with five catches for 37 yards, three rushes for an additional 33 and another play I'll highlight in a bit.
8. MINKAH'S PASS BREAKUP
:25 left, fourth quarter
That would've been a 21-yard completion from Huntley to Marquise Brown. I'll bet some in Baltimore feel it should've been a completion. And that, if it had been, the Ravens would take those 25 seconds still on the clock, plus two timeouts still in John Harbaugh's pocket, and find a way for kicking deity Justin Tucker to win it in regulation.
But Minkah Fitzpatrick, one of those aforementioned legit elite guys, closed like a famished shark to punch the ball loose before full control could be established.
"You win some, you lose some,” Brown would say.
Minkah won that one. And gave the Steelers a chance.
See where I'm headed here?
7. CAM'S RUN STUFF
7:16 left, overtime
Latavius Murray already had a 46-yard touchdown and multiple other gashes of the Steelers' defense, most of them planting figurate treadmarks over Devin Bush and Joe Schobert, neither of whom should be logging a single snap at inside linebacker for any of the NFL's 32 franchises this winter.
So when the Ravens won the coin flip for OT and Murray promptly rattled off three plus runs -- 11, 4 and 3 yards, they were out at midfield with a fresh first down.
Cam Heyward -- who else? -- changed that.
His eyes tracked Murray in the backfield even as he engaged left guard Ben Cleveland and, at precisely the right moment, he shed Cleveland, clamped up on Murray and, for good measure, slammed Murray to the ground.
Forced to finally throw on second-and-9, Huntley badly misfired on back-to-back passes, and Harbaugh had to punt.
"It was a team effort," was all Cam would offer on that, predictably. "Guys kept battling, made some key plays down the stretch."
This was one, and from another of the elite.
6. NAJEE'S ONE-HANDER
6:24 left, overtime
Najee Harris missed two quarters and change after sustaining an elbow injury on the game's opening series. No details were divulged afterward, but I'll assume it wasn't a bump or a bruise to keep this kid out.
What's above is the Steelers' first snap of overtime.
And no, I don't know how he did that, either, though I can at least add that I've seen him do this in camp and practice settings numerous times. It's something of a specialty.
What I hadn't seen him do is make a catch like that because he's got only one healthy arm, and then use his wrapped arm to shove off Baltimore linebacker Patrick Queen as if he'd just been promoted from the Baldwin JV.
"Najee was able to get himself back into the game," Tomlin said, "and make significant plays for us."
That one brought an 11-yard head start.
Not elite yet. Getting there in a raging hurry.
5. FREIERMUTH'S REDEMPTION
5:18 left, overtime
Pat Freiermuth freely admitted being haunted by that fumble in overtime against the Lions. And he did so again after this game, saying that when he made a less-than-ideal loop short of a first-down marker late in the fourth quarter, "I started having flashbacks."
And then, this 14-yarder for another first down.
"Having an opportunity to bounce back on that third down, having the coaches and Ben still trust me after coming up short on the first down, you know ... getting that third-down conversion was big. Just trying to keep going and learn from that.”
That's all well and good, but I'd be remiss if I proceed to the next play without stressing that this might've been Ben's prettiest pass of the day. Under pressure, too.
4. DIONTAE'S CONVERSION
3:29 left, overtime
Another third down, another winner.
This is one of those many sequences between Ben and Diontae Johnson where one wonders how and why Matt Canada doesn't utilize him more, given his ability to find open grass. But I digress.
“We called a return route," Ben recalled. "He’d been running that quick shallow route, and I’ve said ‘til I’m blue in the face, Diontae on in-and-out breaks is un-guardable. So, he put his foot in the ground and returned right out of there and got to the sideline. I had tunnel vision on that play. I had a pretty good idea I was going there the whole time.”
That was 11 yards, crossing into Baltimore territory to the 43.
3. MCCLOUD ON FOURTH-AND-8
2:28 left, overtime
It's OK to confess if anyone's greatest fear once the Steelers hit fourth-and-8 at the Baltimore 42 was that Ben would target Ray-Ray McCloud.
He isn't the biggest receiver, he probably shouldn't be a regular in anyone's offense and, worst of all, he and Diontae had just committed consecutive drops, with McCloud's being especially ugly.
But ...
"We went to the sideline, and we actually called a play for Pat to break out," Ben recalled. "He kept telling us, ‘They're playing the out.’ So, I said, ‘Hey listen, on this play, instead of breaking out, break in and we'll see what happens.’ So, they gave us the worst look, and Ray-Ray was coming right behind him. And as I stepped up, big Calais Campbell was right there, and he reminded me how close he came to batting it down, and I just fit it right in to Ray-Ray. I think it's so special because earlier in that drive, he had ... I don't like to call it a drop."
It's all right. It was a drop. This wasn't. McCloud did well to reach down between his legs, squeeze the ball as if the season depended on it, then fall backward to assure the 10-yard gain.
First down at the 31.
Are we having fun yet?
2. MORE FROM NAJEE, CLAYPOOL
2:13 left, overtime
The Steelers' final offensive snap in anger also brought Najee's only meaningful run, a game-high 15-yarder to the 16.
It's deceiving. Upon first view, it appears -- as it did to me from the press box -- that Najee runs up to the line, sees zip, then bounces off John Leglue's posterior and seeks out daylight to the left.
But take another look, notice that Claypool's in motion to that side, then listen to Claypool's description afterward: “It was something in the game plan. Just how they gave us looks last game. I think Coach Canada saw an opportunity.”
This was the other Claypool nod I promised. His NFL blocking hasn't exactly made anyone forget Hines Ward, but he shoved Brandon Stephens into Delaware to clear the tracks for Najee.
Only one item left ...
1. BOSWELL'S GAME-WINNER
2:00 left, overtime
What could conceivably be more boring than Chris Boswell splitting the uprights from 36 yards to win the game?
Well, definitely, it'd be Boswell's response when asked about that.
"I’m just here to do my job and kick it through the pipes," he answered, "and I was fortunate enough to do that."
Ben added vital color, saying, "There was never a doubt he'd make it. No offense to the guy on the other side, but our guy's pretty good, too."
Right up there. He's now 11 of 13 on field goals in the final two minutes of regulation or overtime.
Don't leave him out of the elite, either.
____________________
I wrote from here Sunday morning, in my gameday column, the Steelers' management didn’t deserve a playoff berth. Even used exactly that wording in the headline. Obviously, I stand by that in every way. A functional NFL offensive line would’ve made the same accomplishment academic, and it could’ve offered so much more promise than what still lies ahead. The change in both processes and personnel this coming off-season should be sweeping.
But at field level, this group, these players deserve this.
Watch T.J. and Ben bounce off separate questions I had for each of them once the man of the hour entered the room a minute early:
Better yet, take a peek behind that wall:
— GB (@GBilly5) January 10, 2022
They're having fun. They've had fun all along.
And if they're capable of coming up with countless reasons of their own to stay on the ride, who's anyone else to chase them off?
THE ESSENTIALS
• Boxscore
• Live file
• Scoreboard
• Schedule
• Standings
• Statistics
THE INJURIES, ILLNESSES
• Najee Harris, running back, exited after one series with an elbow injury but returned in the fourth quarter.
• Dan Moore, left tackle, was inactive with an ankle injury.
• Buddy Johnson, inside linebacker, is on the Reserve/Injured list with a foot injury.
• James Washington, wide receiver, is on the Reserve/COVID list.
THE AFC NORTH
• Baltimore
• Cincinnati
• Cleveland
THE SCHEDULE
Right back to Kansas City:
THE MULTIMEDIA
Our game-related video, podcast:
THE CONTENT
Visit our team page for everything.
