PITTSBURGH — There’s still a tomorrow for the Pittsburgh Steelers, all they could have asked for only days ago. There’s also a next week for the Baltimore Ravens, or exactly what they didn’t want.
Jeff Reed’s 38-yard field goal put Pittsburgh ahead with 5:25 remaining and the Steelers finally preserved a fourth-quarter lead, beating rival Baltimore 23-20 on Sunday to further jumble the complicated AFC postseason race.
The Steelers (8-7), their season seemingly ended by a five-game losing streak late in the year, followed their last-second, 37-36 victory over Green Bay with another tight victory helped by Reed’s three field goals and Rashard Mendenhall’s touchdown run.
The Steelers could sneak into the playoffs if they win at Miami next Sunday and get some help.
“It’s been do or die for us for a while, fighting to the last minute. We’re like the cardiac kids,” said Ben Roethlisberger, who threw a touchdown pass while becoming the first Steelers quarterback to pass for 4,000 yards in a season.
Joe Flacco threw touchdown passes of 30 and 7 yards to Todd Heap, but the Ravens (8-7) couldn’t overcome two TDs wiped out by penalties, a dropped TD pass by Derrick Mason and 113 yards in penalties. They could have wrapped up a wild-card berth with a win and losses by a couple of other contenders, but now they face a likely win-or-else game at Oakland.
“We can’t wait to go get on that plane,” said Ravens coach John Harbaugh.
The defending Super Bowl champion Steelers have lost six leads in the final quarter in a season marked by victories over contenders San Diego, Baltimore, Minnesota, Green Bay and also Denver, and losses to the Chiefs, Raiders and Browns. This time they closed it out with a scoreless final quarter after giving up a 20-10 lead during the third.
“We know our defense has been struggling to stop teams at the end of the game, and this was big for us,” linebacker James Farrior said. “Hopefully it will carry over and we’ll have teams do what they need to do and we can get into the dance, because that’s the ultimate goal.”
Ray Rice ran for 141 yards to end Pittsburgh’s remarkable 33-game streak of not allowing a 100-yard rusher. Baltimore still lost its fifth game by six points or fewer.
