The easiest way to look at the Steelers’ win Sunday night over the Ravens to keep them in the AFC home-field playoff hunt, is: Antonio Brown, serious MVP candidate.
The next easiest way to look at it is to see the score — 39-38 over a Ravens team that, two weeks earlier, had the second-worst offense in the NFL — and say: The Steelers can’t stop anybody, and their defense will be their doom before they get to a Super Bowl, never mind win one.
But the smartest way to look at it all is to understand what the NFL is, including the elite class of teams, and ask: Who’s going to stop Brown, Ben Roethlisberger, Le’Veon Bell and the rest of that offense?
PLAYOFF PICTURE: Steelers jump Pats, move to top of AFC
No, it should not have taken 39 points to beat the Ravens, and they should not have had to come back from nine points behind in the last seven minutes, on their home field. But that’s what they needed, and that’s what they pulled off, and as it was happening, it looked as if no one ever should have questioned that they could.
The Steelers will be questioned about doing it against their primary foe in the AFC, a Patriots team that will try to match their 11-2 record on Monday night in Miami. The Steelers host them in Heinz Field next Sunday, and they’re on pace to meet again somewhere in the AFC title game.
The Steelers will have the emotional motivation of playing for the still-hospitalized Ryan Shazier, as they did against Baltimore … but they'll also be playing without his very crucial presence, which was clearly missed Sunday.
WATCH: Ryan Shazier FaceTimes with Steelers teammates after win
The conventional wisdom seems to say that the Steelers’ defense, especially those linebackers and that secondary, will get lit up like Hanukkah candles next week and, if necessary, in the playoffs by Tom Brady and Co.
Maybe.
And the way Brown, Roethlisberger, Bell and the rest are playing, it won’t matter.
Even against the Patriots, who still have to prove they can stop this group the way they’ve been stopping the rest of their recent opponents. They still give up yards in bunches, but they’ve held the teams in their eight-game winning streak to 17 points or fewer each time.
However … Bucs, Jets, Broncos, Dolphins, Bills, to name a few.
Not this Steelers team, which has won eight straight, too, and averaged 33.3 points a game over the last four after Sunday night.
GAME CENTER: Complete Ravens-Steelers stats
The team that coasted 68 yards in a little over three minutes after the Ravens took their 38-29 fourth-quarter lead, featuring back-to-back connections to Brown for 22 and 11 yards and capped by a classic Bell bounce-outside touchdown run.
And the team that got the ball back and set up the game-winning field goal punctuated by Brown somehow drawing single coverage, Roethlisberger wasting no time, and the two connecting for 34 yards, to put them instantly in range with 62 seconds to go.
It was Brown’s 11th and last catch of the night, for 213 yards. It was Roethlisberger’s 44th and last completion (he finished with 66 attempts), and the last of his 506 yards.
Wrap your head around this. The Steelers have Le’Veon Bell and still attempted 66 passes. Still completed 44. Had a 200-yard receiver. And still got Bell 125 combined yards and three combined touchdowns. Against a defense that has been top-five all season and which always hits an extra gear against its archrival, and also had to win for its playoff survival.
LIVE BLOG: How Ravens-Steelers unfolded
There’s no real reason to think the Steelers' defense can stop the Patriots.
There’s even less reason, though, to believe the Patriots’ offense can outscore Pittsburgh’s.
Think the Steelers — and MVP candidate Antonio Brown — can’t win a shootout with the Patriots? Watch how easily they scored Sunday night, and think again.
