Given the circumstances of the weekend in the NFL, where underdogs rose up and knocked off heavy favorites across the slate of games, a win is a win, no matter how it got to that point.
But the Steelers took this one to the breaking point.
Leading by 14 entering the fourth quarter, the Steelers were forced to rally to beat the plucky Bears, 29-27, on Chris Boswell's third field goal of a wild fourth quarter, a 40-yarder with 26 seconds remaining.
"It's a win," said Cam Heyward. "It's better to learn and win than lose and learn. As a captain, I'll stay on my guys. We'll break down where we fell short. We've got a short week. We can't think about this game too long."
No, they can't. But man, was there a lot to digest.
And if playing the second half of last week's 15-10 win over the Browns without him didn't drive home the importance of this particular team having a good placekicker in Boswell, this one had to do so.
Boswell kicked field goals of 54, 52 and 40 yards to keep the Steelers (5-3) ahead of the Bears (3-6). Barely.
"Boz is a serial killer," Heyward said. "He's too calm in some situations. I love his demeanor. The moment's never too big for him. I know everybody talks about the guy in Baltimore (Justin Tucker). He's a great kicker. But Boz is a great kicker, as well. They're 1A and 1B. Boz has yet to prove that he's 1B."
The Steelers needed every one of those kicks, even though it looked like they were cruising entering the fourth quarter, taking that 20-6 lead on a 10-yard touchdown run by Najee Harris and a pair of Ben Roethlisberger touchdown passes to tight end Pat Freiermuth.
The defense to that point, had bottled up rookie quarterback Justin Fields, who was 5 of 11 for 63 yards and an interception -- a leaping grab at the line of scrimmage by Heyward that set up Freiermuth's first touchdown catch, which gave the Steelers a 14-0 lead.
But Fields started heating up in the third quarter, connecting on 5 of 6 passes for 108 yards. Still, the Steelers, who led 14-3 at the half, took a two-touchdown lead into the fourth quarter.
And considering they were 214-0-2 when leading by 14 points or more in fourth quarter in franchise history, a win seemed to be a foregone conclusion.
In the NFL, however, in this season, on this weekend, where there were a number of upsets, no lead was safe, especially when you turn the ball over.
And it wasn't the offense that made the mistake.
The Bears got a 15-yard touchdown run by Darnell Mooney out of the Wildcat formation with running back David Montgomery, who had been activated off the Reserve/Injured List earlier in the day. It was something they hadn't shown before this game, nor were many of the designed runs by Fields, who finished with 45 yards on 8 carries.
The Bears had run that look a couple of times before that and Montgomery kept the ball. But in this instance, he handed off and the defense got caught flat-footed.
"They did some things where they even took Fields out of the Wildcat," Heyward said. "You have a true runner and it's 11-on-11 football. Even on the touchdown run, we've just got to get better with our eyes. You've got to just kind of slow play. You can't just rush up to make a tackle because, there's not a lot of room for error on that."
After Boswell booted 54-yard field goal to push the lead back to 10 points at 23-13, the Steelers seemed poised to put the Bears away on their next possession, forcing a three-and-out, with T.J. Watt recording his third sack of the game on third down. But Ray-Ray McCloud coughed up the ball on the ensuing punt while being taken to the ground.
DeAndre Houston-Carter scooped up the loose ball at the Pittsburgh 25 and jogged untouched into the end zone for a touchdown. Just like that, the Bears were within three points at 23-20 with 6:31 remaining.
"You can't turn the ball over and give up scores in the kicking game," said Mike Tomlin. "You do that, there's a high probability you're going to lose, let alone be in a tight game. We’ve got to hang on to the ball. We can't give up scores in the kicking game. When you do, boy, you’d better knuckle up."
The Steelers did, but they got some help, as well.
Facing third-and-8 from the Chicago 47 on the ensuing possession, Roethlisberger dropped back to pass and was sacked by Cassius Marsh as he stepped up in the pocket. Marsh, who had been released by the Steelers at the end of training camp, jogged toward the Steelers' sideline and stopped, staring at the sideline for several seconds.
As he ran past referee Tony Corrente, Corrente threw a flag for taunting, giving the Steelers a first down.
That led to another field goal by Boswell, this one from 52 yards, to put the Steelers ahead, 26-20 with 2:56 remaining.
But Fields, who finished with a career-high 291 passing yards, and the Bears had a plan -- attack nickel corner Arthur Maulet.
Fields completed three passes on a seven-play, 75-yard touchdown drive, with Maulet being in coverage on all three. First came a 9-yard toss to Allen Robinson. Then, after a Fields scrambled to convert a first down and then gained eight yards on a second-down run, on third-and-2 coming out of the two-minute warning, he got Maulet matched on Robinson down the sideline and connected for a 39-yard gain.
One play later, Fields flushed from the pocket to his left and threw against his body into the end zone for Mooney for a 16-yard touchdown against Maulet. The Bears had their first lead at 27-26.
But with 1:46 remaining, Roethlisberger and the Steelers offense didn't blink.
"I just felt like they gave me too much time," said Roethlisberger, who now has 50 career game-winning drives and 38 fourth-quarter comebacks in his career after this one. "I felt like we could go down and we got, in my opinion, one of the best kickers in the league. I wasn't thinking about a touchdown, just thinking about getting us in the field-goal range."
He did that, completing all five of his passes for 55 yards to set Boswell up for what would be the game winner.
The Bears reached the Steelers' 47 with five seconds remaining, but Watt batted down a pass and the Bears elected to attempt a 65-yard field goal attempt with Cairo Santos that fell well short as time expired.
"We tried to steal a few yards there. On the play before, Watt made a good play, tipped the ball down," Nagy said. "Credit to him. It could have gone either way there, realistically. You could try to throw the Hail Mary and have something happen or try to kick the field goal. Obviously, we chose that one. I think both are low, but it would have been nice to get a few extra yards on that previous play."
It was a good news, bad news finish for the Steelers. The good news was that they won. And the defense allowed just six points in the first three quarters. But after allowing a pair of touchdown drives in the fourth quarter -- and a special teams score -- there are things to improve upon.
"It's the NFL. You've got to be able to win those crazy games," Heyward said. "We've got a lot of stuff we've got to clean up as a defense, as an offense, on special teams. It's just nice to come out with a win in one of these games."
• Fields is going to be special. I had him as my second-ranked quarterback in this year's draft, but he had struggled in his first few starts as the Bears didn't do much to emphasize his skillset. They did in this game, running more designed runs that kept the Steelers from going after him too aggressively with their pass rush.
Fields also fit some passes into some very tight spaces. The Steelers were really high on Fields in the pre-draft process and it's not hard to see why.
"He didn't surprise me, I've watched every damn game he played in college," said Heyward, an Ohio State product like Fields. "I told him the NFL world is in front of him. He's going to keep getting better. They got a special one."
• The Steelers got a "special one" in the draft this year, as well. Actually, they got two in Harris and Freiermuth.
Freiermuth's adjustment on his first touchdown was very good, as he recognized Roethlisberger scrambling to his side of the field to buy time, broke off his route to the inside and bolted toward the sideline for an easy pitch-and-catch.
His second touchdown, on third-and-goal, was yet another combat catch by a player who did that on a regular basis in training camp. Freiermuth finished this game with five catches for 43 yards and two scores.
• The win was the 150th for the Steelers under Tomlin, who is now 150-81-1 in his career. This win moved Tomlin past Bill Cowher for the second most wins in team history behind Chuck Noll (209-156-1).
"I'm just appreciative of the standards that have been set by those that have come before me. All of us here," Tomlin said. "That standard, it's inspirational for us. It inspires us, it challenges us. I'm just thankful to be a part of this thing that is the Pittsburgh Steelers, and I work to do my job to uphold the standard."
Obviously having Roethlisberger for many of those wins has helped. But you still have to win the games.
"Congratulations to him. I didn't know that," Roethlisberger said. "This team is full of tradition and history. And so, I'm sure that he's proud of it, and he should be. There's a lot of -- I guess there's not a lot of great coaches, but the coaches that have been here have been pretty historic. And so, a pretty cool thing."
• After that go-ahead touchdown drive by the Bears, we didn't see Maulet out there for Chicago's final possession -- albeit a short one.
The Steelers went to their dime instead of their nickel on the final possession, with Tre Norwood and Cam Sutton manning the slot spots.
It's nice to have Sutton be able to stay outside in the nickel, and Maulet has been a solid role player to this point, but at some point opponents will find what Antonio Brown once described to me as the candy bar -- the sweet matchup.
Maulet is a physical player who is a solid blitzer and can help out against the run. But matchup up against a former 1,000-yard receiver such as Robinson or a speedster such as Mooney? That's not a great matchup.
The Steelers adjusted their defense to try to hem Fields in and spy him in the middle of the field. But that left some guys in one-on-one coverage.
"Quarterback mobility challenges you from that standpoint," Tomlin said. "So, yes, there's not only Arthur, but a lot of people are in single coverage when dealing with quarterback mobility. That's just the function of it."
• After watching practice Friday, I was skeptical that Roethlisberger would play in this game after he had a right shoulder injury crop up.
There were some throws in this game in which it appeared Roethlisberger couldn't drive the ball down the field, including a 42-yard completion in the third quarter to James Washington where Washington had to come back about 10 yards to make the catch.
Once again, he wasn't great in this game, but he did enough to guide this team to a win.
• What more can you say about Watt? He just affects almost every game in some form or fashion.
Monday night he recorded the 60th sack of his career in his 69th career game. That made him the fourth-fastest player to 60 sacks in NFL history. The guys ahead of him? Reggie White (50 games), his brother, J.J. Watt (66 games) and Derrick Thomas (67).
That's two Hall-of-Fame players in White and Thomas, and a third in J.J. Watt, who will be in the Hall of Fame someday. T.J Watt isn't there yet, but he's well on his way.
• What to make of the AFC right now?
There are nine AFC teams with five wins. Two teams -- the Titans and Ravens -- have more than that. Just five teams have less.
But the Steelers are sitting at 5-3 having won four-straight games after a 1-3 start. They might not have gotten here the way everyone thought they might. When the schedule came out, if someone had said the Steelers would be 5-3, most probably would have had the losses coming at Buffalo, Green Bay and Cleveland.
As it is, the Steelers beat the Bills and Browns, two of those five-win teams, but lost at Green Bay -- expected -- and then to the Bengals and Raiders, two of the other five-win AFC teams.
At the end of this all, they'll take seven teams to the postseason out of the AFC. And they'll only count wins and losses, not style points.
"I think if you've done this long enough, that you know very few leads are safe," Roethlisberger said of this game. "Games are never over no matter how well you're playing or how bad you're playing. I think tonight was one of those nights. And I hope we can all appreciate that you got to play 60 minutes and sometimes more. And you can't let up."
• I hate the taunting penalty calls just like everyone else. I think it puts officials in a tough spot to have to judge intent.
And any time you have one person guessing what another person is thinking based on their actions, it leads to mistakes.
In this case, I didn't see what Marsh did as taunting. But I have seen instances where players have taunted other players. You know it when you see it.
This wasn't that.
That said, the Bears did enough other things to shoot themselves in the foot. They lined up in the neutral zone a number of times. And there were at least five instances during the game that I noted where their offensive tackles got an early start prior to the snap. None were called.
Does that balance out? Probably not. And that won't make anyone in Chicago feel any better about it. But it also doesn't mean the Bears would have won this game had the penalty on Marsh not been called.
Chicago would have gotten the ball back with a little over three minutes remaining in that case, down 23-20. Even if they went down and scored as they did, Roethlisberger would have had more than two minutes remaining to put together a game-winning touchdown drive.
We can all play the woulda, coulda, shoulda game. But in reality, nobody really knows how the game plays out had the penalty on Marsh not been called.
• That was a mixed bag for the Steelers special teams.
Boswell was excellent on his field goals. But he also missed a PAT, which was nearly catastrophic.
Rookie punter Pressley Harvin put two kicks inside the 20, as the Steelers won the field position battle early to get their 14-0 lead.
But he also had another JV punt that went 32 yards in the second quarter coming out of his own end that gave the Bears the ball at their own 48. The defense got a stop there after allowing the Bears to move to the 25, getting a sack from Watt and then a penalty on the Bears to push them back out of field goal range. But that punt could have easily cost the Steelers points.
He's too talented to keep having those miscues.
McCloud's fumble came at an inopportune time, but the Steelers also forced a fumble on a kickoff return, with James Pierre knocking it loose and Boswell recovering it.
Still, any night where you give up a special teams score isn't a good one -- though it's hard to put the blame on anyone but McCloud for that.
That's his second big punt return fumble in two years. After losing one last season against the Ravens, he got overly cautious on his returns, often calling for fair catches.
That's the safer play. But you'd like the punt return to be a weapon, as well.
