The Steelers are one of the AFC's best teams. They've been one all season long.
Now, the question is will they get an opportunity to prove it in the playoffs?
With everything that occurred Sunday, that became an even bigger question. Yes, I know the Steelers beat the Patriots, 17-10. They did what they needed to do.
But they didn't get any help. Baltimore won. Indianapolis won. Tennessee won.
Here's the issue. The Steelers travel to New Orleans next Sunday, then host the Bengals in Week 17.
Baltimore travels to Los Angeles to play the Chargers, then hosts the Browns in the final week.
The Colts? They host the Giants next week, then travel to Tennessee. The Titans host the Redskins and the Colts.
So there's a chance that either Indianapolis or Tennessee win two more games to get to 10-6. And if the Ravens somehow upset the Chargers -- considering the emotional win Los Angeles had in Kansas City, it could happen -- the Steelers could be counting on the Browns to knock off the Ravens.
The Ravens could lose either of those games. After all, they were beaten by the Browns in Cleveland earlier this season. But if they win out and the Steelers lose to New Orleans, where they are 6.5-point underdogs, a win against Cincinnati only gets them to 9-6-1.
They would then need Indianapolis and Tennessee to both lose a game to get into the playoffs as a wildcard.
The Steelers still control their own destiny, but it's a tenuous hold, at best. And this team certainly understands that.
The Steelers are among the best teams the AFC has to offer this season. Heck, they're among the best teams the NFL has to offer. It just goes to show how little the difference is between good and bad teams in this league.
"Anybody is beatable in any given week," Cam Heyward said. "You just have to make the plays. We hadn’t been making those plays in the past. Today we did. Everybody has to keep executing at a high level because you can get beat any week."
• Some have wondered why the Steelers didn't give the ball to rookie Jaylen Samuels more in this game. After all, he averaged 7.5 yards per carry on 19 rushing attempts with a long run of 25 yards.
But that was more carries than Samuels had any time in his life. He's never been a workhorse back. Heck, North Carolina State barely used him as a running back. Neither did his high school team.
Samuels told me a few weeks ago he was still learning how to be a running back. And he's doing it in the NFL.
"It was a heck of a workload," said Samuels. "But that's what comes with playing running back in the National Football League. It was a good test against a great team."
The Steelers likely will get James Conner back next week in New Orleans. But it was nice to see they can run the ball when they need -- or want -- to. That, however, is what makes what happened in Oakland so frustrating.
• It would be good to see the Steelers continue to run the ball more -- though New Orleans' defense is very good against the run -- if just to take some pressure off Ben Roethlisberger.
Roethlisberger threw two more interceptions Sunday, and while the second one wasn't necessarily his fault, the first most certainly was.
On the second, it looked like Eli Rogers hadn't gotten as deep as Roethlisberger expected, which led to an interception on a pass to Antonio Brown, who looked surprised to find Rogers in that spot.
The first? That was just a straight overthrow of JuJu Smith-Schuster.
A rested and healthy Conner will be a welcome addition.
• The Steelers entered this game with 92 penalties, tied for 16th in the league. The Patriots had 70, which was tied for the second fewest.
So of course, the Patriots were penalized 14 times for 106 yards while the Steelers had four for 40 yards.
Does that mean Bill Belichick's team was undisciplined in this game? Because that's the argument we hear any time the Steelers have a game when they have a bunch of penalties, even if the other team has a bunch, as well, thanks to an overzealous crew.
Not really. A big reason for many of those penalties was the Steelers' pass rush. Six of New England's penalties were for holding or false starts.
Right tackle Marcus Cannon, working primarily against T.J. Watt, had his hands full -- quite literally on many occasions -- most of the game. He was responsible for half of those penalties.
The Steelers only had one sack of Tom Brady, that coming by Watt in the third quarter. But the Steelers hit him seven other times. And forced all of those mistakes by the offensive line.
That was the key to this defensive effort.
"In a game like this, the team that executes better, the team that has less mistakes, wins," said Heyward, who was in Brady's face when it counted at the end. "Pressure and sacks got together. Sometimes if you get pressure, you can force a turnover. But it all has to work in unison. If the offense turns over the ball, the defense has to get a stop. If the defense gives up a score, the offense has to answer. Special teams, I know (Chris Boswell) missed a field goal early, but he rebounded late. Every facet of the game counts."
• Speaking of Boswell ...
Mike Tomlin is either sly like a fox or whistling past the graveyard when it comes to his kicker. And I'm not sure which it is.
I wouldn't have run Boswell out for a 48-yard field goal late in this game, especially not after he had missed from 32 earlier.
But Tomlin did. And nobody on the sideline questioned that move.
"No. You just have to believe," Heyward said. "We’re not going to say everything is going to be perfect. I make mistakes out there. Ben makes mistakes. Our offensive line, our defensive line, everybody makes mistakes. But can you bounce back in those critical moments? I thought he did that.
Heyward immediately went to Boswell after he made the 48-yard attempt to give the Steelers a 17-10 lead with the only points of the second half.
What did he say?
"I just said, ‘That’s how you hit it. That’s what I expect out of you. Put the past behind you and keep moving. If you miss one, it can’t affect the next one.'" he said.
That's leadership. And that's what Boswell needs right now. Fact is, there aren't a lot of options out there, certainly not any that have a better overall track record than Boswell.
Even with this awful 2018 season under his belt, Boswell has still made 85 percent of his field goal attempts and 94.6 percent of his PATs in his career.
So he's their kicker, for better or worse, despite his issues this year in a results-driven league.
But Tomlin has said a few times in the past couple of weeks that, "We're not going to hope and wish," when it comes to winning. That, however, seems to be what they're doing at the placekicker position.
• Brady and Rob Gronkowski are done.
I was pretty convinced they had slipped going into this game -- though the way the Steelers were going made it difficult to pick them to win. This game convinced me I am right.
Watch Brady bail out on this final throw of the game. He's obviously gun shy when it comes to getting hit. No quarterback likes to get hit. But Brady throws that ball falling to the ground -- with T.J. Watt two arm-lengths away.
And watch Gronkowski on this play.
It's a bad throw, but it took Gronkowski four full seconds to run 20 yards straight down the field to the end zone.
Nobody in Pittsburgh will shed a tear when these two guys hang up their spikes. And that day could be coming very soon.
• The Patriots really did the Steelers a favor last year. How so?
Well, they signed Donta Hightower to a four-year, $35-million contract, including $19 million guaranteed. The Steelers had kicked the tires on Hightower but came away from that visit with the feeling he was going to re-sign with the Patriots.
The only time Hightower was noticeable Sunday was when he was chasing -- and not catching -- somebody. Or getting washed out on a running play. At 28, he doesn't look like he can run any more.
Hightower will count $10.375 million against the Patriots' salary cap next season ... if he's still on their roster. Vince Williams and Jon Bostic count a combined $9.2 million against the Steelers' cap in 2019.
• One of the biggest defensive plays made in this game was by Bud Dupree. You know, the guy so many of you love to hate.
With the Steelers clinging to a 14-7 lead and just over one minute remaining in the third quarter, the Patriots faced a third-and-4 at the Steelers 13 after methodically driving from their own 22.
It was New England's first sustained drive of the game. And Dupree essentially ended it with a play that didn't earn him anything in the statistics column.
The Patriots had a bunch formation to Dupree's side and set up a quick screen to Julian Edelman. Recognizing the play from earlier in the possession, Dupree quickly jumped out and got his hands up.
He got just enough of the ball on the pass from Brady to slow things down and allow Tyson Alualu and Terrell Edmunds to make the play. Edmunds might have gotten there had the pass not been tipped, despite being held by Chris Hogan. But it's unlikely Alualu gets out there to stop Edelman short if the ball isn't tipped.
"We knew they were going to go with a quick pass and I got my hands up and got the ball," Dupree told me. "I thought I had it. But it went through."
The Steelers got the stop and the Patriots, who had found their running game, settled for a 33-yard field goal to finish off a 13-play drive.
The momentum seemed to shift every so slightly on that possession. The Steelers had just been forced to attempt a field goal of their own after driving to the New England 4. Then Samuels was stopped for no gain. And Roethlisberger was penalized for intentional grounding. Then Boswell missed his 32-yard field goal attempt.
A touchdown there by the Patriots changes the entire game.
• This was a big game by the Steelers' 2018 rookie class. Samuels had 172 total yards of offense. James Washington led the team with 65 receiving yards on three catches, including a combat catch we had been waiting for. And Edmunds had six tackles and was a big part of the effort to take Gronkowski out of the game.
This is typically the time of year when rookies hit the wall. It's a real thing. So that was definitely good to see.
Samuels, who has played very little, has no reason to hit the wall, but Washington and -- especially -- Edmunds have logged a lot of snaps.
• Think the NFL wants this matchup again in the postseason?
Sunday's game drew the highest viewership of any game this season on any network, including the Chiefs-Rams matchup from a few weeks ago that was hyped up for weeks.
That said, I don't think it happens. As things currently stand, a rematch -- which would occur at Foxborough -- would have to be in the AFC Championship.
Sunday's game made it likely the Patriots will have to go on the road at least once in the playoffs. And they're now 3-5 in road games. The Patriots would get Houston in the second round, assuming they make it out of a game against the current No. 6 seed, Baltimore.
Can the Steelers make it that far? Potentially. Even with their stumble in Oakland, the Steelers are 4-2-1 on the road this season. That certainly could be 4-3-1 after next Sunday's game in New Orleans.
But this team has had good success in Kansas City in recent history and also would have the majority of fans in Los Angeles to fill a 27,000 seat soccer stadium if the Chargers earn the top seed. And despite all of their issues playing on the West Coast, the Chargers are one team against which that hasn't seemed to affect them. They're 8-6 all-time on the road against the Chargers.