| In the moments ahead of what would turn into the Pittsburgh Steelers’ cliff-hanging survival act against the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday, Ben Roethlisberger stood and addressed his teammates. The veteran quarterback, widely assumed to be in the last of his 18 career seasons, spoke for a while, but there was one phrase that stuck with everyone and elicited a palpable response.> “Today, when we play,” Roethlisberger said. “We play with our hearts.” According to JuJu Smith-Schuster, the Steelers star wide receiver currently sidelined with a shoulder injury, the room fell silent. “We just looked at each other,” Smith-Schuster told me in a telephone interview this week. “Everyone felt it. It came right before our team prayer, and afterwards everyone was fired up on a whole new level. It felt like more than football. It got serious, then it got noisy.” Who knows what in-game impact Roethlisberger’s words had on his colleagues, but what is beyond doubt is that the 20-19 triumph was critical in terms of keeping the team in the thick of a cramped AFC playoff race. After the Ravens scored a touchdown then went for a failed two-point conversion with 12 seconds left, Pittsburgh climbed to 6-5-1 and just one game out of an AFC wild-card spot, with the opportunity to make further headway Thursday against the Minnesota Vikings. A road win would keep the Steelers in the hunt to take the AFC North crown, especially with a rematch against the Ravens scheduled to end the regular season. Smith-Schuster believes the wish to provide Roethlisberger one last run at postseason glory will give a powerful motivational edge as the campaign winds down. “It would mean so much to be able to do it for Ben,” Smith-Schuster added. “He could have hung it up. He deserves another go. A lot of the guys know what this means and they want it for him just as bad as he does.” After suffering injury issues throughout the early part of the season, the Steelers are now mostly healthy – with a key exception. Smith-Schuster won’t be back this year and will then hit free agency, but has been channeling his frustration at being ruled out by being a loud and energetic presence from the bench. “I’m just trying to bring all my positive energy to lift up the receiving group,” he said, highlighting the way he has tried to assist players such as Diontae Johnson, Chase Claypool and Ray-Ray McCloud. Johnson is on track to record his first ever 1,000-yard receiving season. “I’m also learning something from being involved in the coaching aspect,” Smith-Schuster noted. “I wish I was out there, but it is rewarding in its own way.” Smith-Schuster’s interview came courtesy of his partnership with Team Milk, and he extolled the virtues of milk as a valuable source of nutrition for both elite and recreational athletes. Pittsburgh won’t have it easy down the stretch, with matchups against the Tennessee Titans and Kansas City Chiefs to follow Thursday’s clash. Minnesota (5-7) has lost ground in the NFC, most notably by handing the Detroit Lions their first victory of the year via a last-gasp touchdown last weekend. Meanwhile, the AFC North presently resembles rush-hour traffic, with the Cleveland Browns rock bottom at 6-6, yet only two games behind the division-leading Ravens. “Each team has a chance to leave their imprint on it,” defensive star Cam Heyward told reporters. “That’s the way we want it. We knew this wasn’t going to be easy.” Even more difficult will be solving the conundrum of who is to become the team’s long-term replacement for Roethlisberger at quarterback, though that is a question for another day, particularly considering how strongly the 39-year-old performed in the fourth quarter against Baltimore. Pittsburgh, for the moment, is thinking only of now. “It’s easy to come up with reasons any of the four can win the division title, and it’s just as easy to come up with reasons all four will miss the playoffs,” wrote the Pittsburgh Press-Gazette’s Ray Fittipaldo. Roethlisberger and company will be a 3.5-point underdog in Minnesota, according to FOXBet, while being priced at +150 on the money line. As the AFC hopefuls jockey for position, there is precious little room for error, but still, everything to play for. “It is getting a little tense there,” said FOX’s Colin Cowherd on “The Herd.” “Steelers fans, put your seatbelts on.” |
