JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- In an interview with GQ magazine during the summer, Jaguars cornerback Jalen Ramsey -- while ripping most of the quarterbacks in the league -- called Ben Roethlisberger "decent, at best."
And for nearly three quarters Sunday at TIAA Bank Field, Ramsey had to be feeling like he was warranted in that description. In fact, he might have thought even worse of Roethlisberger, who threw three interceptions, two of them by Ramsey, including this beauty:
Ramsey and the rest of the Jaguars defense did a lot of talking in this game, which was strange considering they said after beating the Steelers, 45-42, in the playoffs they were motivated by some of the talk coming out of Pittsburgh about a rematch with the Patriots.
Thing is, it's easy to say things like that after you win. The Jaguars did a lot of that. Linebacker Telvin Smith made sure he reminded Roethlisberger every time the Jaguars intercepted him.
But the only talk coming out of the Jaguars' locker room after this game was how they'll hold things together the rest of the way now that they have fallen to 3-7 after their sixth consecutive loss.
"I’ve been pretty (ticked) off, I’m not going to lie to you," Ramsey told reporters after the Steelers beat the Jaguars, 20-16. "I have. I’ve been battling with my emotions, trying to hold them in."
Losing streaks will do that to you. But it shows just how difficult it is in the NFL to do what the Steelers have done pretty consistently -- win.
The Jaguars now look like the latest flash in the pan in the league. You can add them to a group of recent teams to go from worst to first and back again.
Roethlisberger and the Steelers, meanwhile, are now 7-2-1 and look to be headed back to the playoffs for fifth-consecutive season and the 11th time with Roethlisberger as their quarterback.
"It’s huge," Roethlisberger said of this win. "This is a good defense, a really good football team. We just never quit. That’s what’s special about this group. We’re going to fight to the end. We literally fought until the end."
It's pretty obvious this team draws on its "decent, at best" quarterback to make that happen, even when he's having a bad day at the office. He nearly pulled it off in the playoffs last season, leading the Steelers back from a 21-point deficit against the Jaguars.
This time around, he brought them back from a 16-point second-half deficit, leading them to 14 points in the final 2:28.
"We always have a chance when he's on the field," James Conner told me of Roethlisberger.
The Steelers showed the one-shot Jaguars just how difficult it can be to stay on top.
• It was the defense that won this game for the Steelers, something that seems strange to say considering they allowed 179 yards rushing.
That's usually a recipe for disaster. But the Jaguars were completely one-dimensional on offense. And after giving up 141 yards rushing on 26 carries in the first half, the Steelers allowed just 38 yards on 17 carries in the second half. Jacksonville had minus-3 yards in the fourth quarter.
The Steelers also sacked Jacksonville quarterback Blake Bortles six times -- which is a lot. It's even more when you consider Bortles only dropped back to pass 24 times in this game. That means he was sacked one out of every four times he thought about throwing.
That pressure kept the Jaguars from attempting a pass when facing a third-and-five from their 30 with 1:54 remaining. A first down there would have essentially ended the game. Instead, they gave the ball to Leonard Fournette, who was stopped for a 1-yard gain.
"I said, ‘Hey, what are we going to throw?’" Jacksonville coach Doug Marrone said. "And we were worried about the protection, and said, ‘Hey, we’re going to run it,’ and we gave it to Leonard.”
They were living in their fears of what might happen instead of going for the win.
"When you’re absorbing the types of snaps they were absorbing, usually, you erode as the game goes on," Mike Tomlin said of his defense. "They didn’t, so that’s a sign of the makeup of the group. We’ll see.”
• With a loss by the Chargers Sunday, the Steelers (7-2-1) are now one of just two teams with two or fewer losses in the AFC. The other, Kansas City, has a tough game Monday night in Los Angeles against the once-beaten Rams.
The Steelers still have that pesky tie against the Browns in Week 1, but it wasn't a loss.
And we're now at the point of the season where playoff positioning is starting to matter -- especially since the Steelers now own a commanding 2 1/2-game lead in the AFC North.
"That’s always been the goal. We want (playoff) ball through Pittsburgh," Cam Heyward said of getting a first-round playoff bye. "We’re not going to shy away from that. There’s a tough road ahead of us. We’ve got to earn it. The goals are out there. It doesn’t just stop there. There’s a lot of football left."
Stealing wins like this one could matter in that.
• The Steelers remain the only team in the AFC unbeaten on the road this season at 4-0-1. And they're 15-1-1 in their past 17 road games.
Sunday's game shows just how difficult that can be. The Jaguars aren't good on offense. But their defense remains one of the best in the league.
The Steelers, however, are a battle-tested group that is showing it can win anywhere. There are a few things that travel well in the NFL.
One is a superior offensive line, which the Steelers have. Another is a star quarterback. They've got one of those, too. The third is a defense. And it's starting to look like this one is pretty good -- not great -- but certainly good enough.
One other thing it has? Confidence to get the job done in tough situations.
"Even last season, we snuck and stole games late," Vance McDonald said. "Even earlier this year against Cincinnati. We don’t ever lose confidence in each other. I think it goes back to having five awesome offensive linemen and the ball’s going back in Ben’s hands. As long as we have that, as long as the game’s winnable, we have confidence."
• Javon Hargrave doesn't get the publicity of some of his other defensive teammates, but he was a star in this game.
Given a chance to stay on the field on passing downs because of an injury to Stephon Tuitt, he responded with two sacks and a key third-down pass breakup in the fourth quarter.
Despite not playing much on regular passing downs this season, Hargrave now has five sacks.
"He’s special," Heyward told me. "The kid from is from South Carolina State and he just continues to grow. I know me and Tuitt get a lot of the notoriety, but that kid balls out. He’s hungry. He doesn’t say a lot. He doesn’t need to. But the kid is something special."
He most certainly was in this game.
• It's understandable the coaching staff would want to limit Hargrave's playing time considering he typically plays 25 or fewer plays per week -- though he did get 37 last week against Carolina.
But it's pretty obvious the Daniel McCullers experiment hit a wall in this one. McCullers was facing a backup center Sunday. And then starting right guard A.J. Cann left with a hamstring injury.
McCullers, however, was pushed wherever the Jaguars wanted him. And not always by double teams.
When the coaching staff finally decided it had seen enough, Hargrave was in the game on a pretty much full-time basis.
"I guess," Hargrave told me when I asked if the coaches had seen enough of him standing on the sideline while the Jaguars continued to gash the defense. "They just told me to go in."
• Don't look now, but the Steelers seem to have figured out some of their penalty issues. They had just three for 15 yards in this game.
The Jaguars? They had 11 for 111 yards, including six that were of the personal foul variety. Penalties themselves aren't a sign of a lack of discipline, as some claim.
But six personal foul penalties? That's a lack of discipline.
• T.J. Watt now has 10 sacks this season after picking up two Sunday. That makes him the first Steelers outside linebacker since 2010 to reach double digits.
Both James Harrison and LaMarr Woodley reached double digits that season.
Watt is playing really well. So is Bud Dupree, for that matter.
Yes, Dupree only has 4.5 sacks, but if those two combine to get in the neighborhood of 20 sacks, this defense can be pretty special.
• Conner has had better games. And he'll have better games than this one, to be sure.
While he's been outstanding this season, he was apparently pretty down on himself for a couple of drops in this game. Those are certainly going to happen from time to time. And it appeared in both cases that Conner took his eye off the ball at the last second.
Conner will learn from this game and be better moving forward. Of that you can bet on.
Besides, he's already bailed the Steelers out enough times to be forgiven for a couple of drops.
• This game reminded me of one the Steelers won in 1995 in Chicago.
The only difference was in that game, it was the offense that had to go in and match a high-powered Bears offense point-for-point on the road to help what was a great defense overcome a rare bad day.
The Steelers won that game, 37-34, showing they could score with a top-level offense, a big deal for a unit that was much maligned early in the Bill Cowher era.
Sunday, the Steelers' defense showed it could match a top-level defense play-for-play on the road when the offense was having a tough day.
That's a big development for an improving unit that has now allowed less than 300 total yards in five consecutive games.