The Associated Press
SAN DIEGO—Five seconds left, down by three points, and the ball inside the one-yard line.
The Pittsburgh Steelers needed a gutsy play against the San Diego Chargers.
They got it for a stunning victory.
Le’Veon Bell scored on a wildcat run as time expired to give Mike Vick and the Steelers a 24-20 victory last night that had tens of thousands of Pittsburgh fans roaring and waving their “Terrible Towels” at Qualcomm Stadium.
Bell took the direct snap, ran left, and was slowed in traffic before diving for the end zone and getting the ball across the line as Donald Butler dragged him down.
“It was time to go to the mattresses, if you will,” said Steelers’ coach Mike Tomlin.
“We had to do what was required to win,” he noted.
“Le’Veon gave us an opportunity to win, and we were trying to do everything we could to move the football.”
Bell said it was the most meaningful touchdown of his three-year career.
“The game-winner on the last play of the game, that’s what you dream about,” he remarked.
“We still had a time-out left,” noted Bell. “I was thinking we still have a time-out left, so I’m thinking, ‘OK, maybe if I get stopped, maybe run like four seconds off and get a time-out, and we could kick a field goal.’
“[But] I wanted to end the game right there.”
There was no way Tomlin was going to kick a field goal to force overtime.
“We have to run the football,” he stressed. “We have Le’Veon Bell. We had an opportunity to win the game.
“We’re on the road in a hostile environment, we’ve got to play to win and that’s what we did.”
It wasn’t all that hostile—not with all the black-and-gold-clad fans in Qualcomm Stadium, which could be hosting its final season of the NFL because Chargers’ owner Dean Spanos wants to move to the L.A. area.
“First I’d like to thank ‘Steeler Nation,’” Tomlin said. “How about the support that we had in the building tonight?
“We get that type of support just about all of the time we’re on the road, but it doesn’t get old,” he added.
“We appreciate it.”
Chargers’ quarterback Philip Rivers didn’t.
“It was a tough environment tonight,” he conceded. “It was like being on the road.”
“Odd is one word we could use,” Rivers added. “We were in silent count and we had no chance.
“We were checking in and out of plays, and it was about as tough as it gets.
“I’m usually hoarse after road games and I’m going to be today, as well,” he noted.
Vick, having an awful game until the fourth quarter, kept the drive alive with a 24-yard scramble up the middle on third-and-six from the 41 and then a 16-yard pass to Heath Miller a play before Bell’s big run.
An unnecessary roughness call against San Diego’s Jahleel Addae moved the ball a half-yard closer to the end zone and stopped the clock.
“It’s not how you start. It’s how you finish,” Vick reasoned.
San Diego called a time-out before Pittsburgh ran the gutsy play.
Bell ran 21 times for 111 yards.
San Diego rookie Josh Lambo kicked a go-ahead, 54-yard field goal with 2: 56 left.
Vick, making his second-straight start in place of injured Ben Roethlisberger, couldn’t get much going until he and Markus Wheaton hooked up on a 72-yard touchdown on a stop-and-go route to tie it at 17-17 with 7:42 to go.
The Chargers then moved down the field for Lambo’s kick.
Eight days earlier, the rookie kicked a 34-yarder as time expired for a 30-27 win over Cleveland.
