Kovacevic: 'Lesser team would have crumbled!'

SAN DIEGO -- Ben Roethlisberger was telling me late Monday night, right after his healthy fellow Steelers yanked a rainbow-colored unicorn from a hat in trumping the Chargers, 24-20, on a last-second Le'Veon Bell touchdown, that his knee was feeling "good ... really good, a lot better." He even mustered a small smile and nod to support it.

That, I dare say, is about as meaningful a development as anything that took place inside Qualcomm Stadium. Because if any lesson was learned above all, it's the one we've known all along: This team will go nowhere without No. 7.

Look, not to be the downer here, but let's not pretend that a play like Antwon Blake's 70-yard pick-six will occur with any regularity ...



Or that Michael Vick, after an underwhelming mess of misfired 5-yard tosses, will connect on a 72-yard touchdown to Markus Wheaton with any additional regularity ...



These Steelers minus Roethlisberger are many things, but a big-play armada they most definitely aren't. They'll need far better quarterbacking, far less petrified playcalling, far fewer special teams flags, far more consistent tackling, and at least some remote clue as to how NFL clocks operate, and a ton more beyond that. All concerned will need to ratchet up to compete with the 4-1 Cardinals this Sunday at Heinz Field, and I'm phrasing that kindly.



"Obviously," as Mike Tomlin observed, "we weren't perfect."

Obviously.

That said ... wow, hats off, man. No, really. Rainbow-colored unicorns and all.

As soon as that room was open to media, it was easy to see that this group was -- rightly and fairly -- proud of roaring back not once, not twice but three times from deficits.

"A lesser team would have crumbled!" Ramon Foster loudly beamed my way as he headed for the shower. "Make sure you print that!"

Consider it done, big man. Right up there in the headline, too.

"We had to have this one," Mike Mitchell spoke, almost breathlessly, just after shouting in all directions and no directions at the same time anything positive that crossed his mind. "Coach told us that, sometimes along the road, you run into some games that you've got to have. And this was one of them for us. We let one get away last week against Baltimore. We changed three time zones. I'm so proud of the guys. I really am."

Oh, yeah, since he brought it up: That decade-long West Coast losing streak was deep-sixed once and for all:



And to boot, it took place in what Kelvin Beachum aptly called "sweat-your-brains-out heat," with a kickoff temp of 93 degrees and humidity at approximately 93,000 percent.

It was hard fought and, as Mitchell indicated, wholly necessary. The Steelers swung the pendulum to 3-2 rather than the reverse, keeping at least peripheral contact with the 5-0 Bengals in the division and the rest of the AFC playoff pack. And maybe more important, they found a formula -- unattractive as it was -- for how to win without Roethlisberger:

1. PLAY LIGHTS-OUT DEFENSE

Phillip Rivers and the Chargers put up 406 yards of offense, but they averaged 2.7 yards per carry on 19 rushing plays, they were 4 for 14 on third downs and, in a facet that's always difficult to quantify but easily observed, the Steelers generated quite the push in the trenches.

"We just kept coming at them," Cam Heyward said. "It wasn't always about making plays because there were times you couldn't disengage. It was about just shoving them back, and we felt good about how we did there."