Sep 28, 2009 3 min read

CINCINNATI – We should be used to seeing this kind of thing by now, but it’s usually the other way around, isn’t it? Isn’t it the Steelers defense that makes a big stop late in a close game and isn’t it supposed to be Ben Roethlisberger lifting the offense onto his broad shoulders and grabbing another victory from the jaws of defeat?

It didn’t quite work out that way Sunday at Paul Brown Stadium.

This time, it was the defending Super Bowl champs, not the Bengals, coming apart like a cheap suit. It was Roethlisberger and the offense that couldn’t pick up a key first down when it needed one most. It was the Steelers defense giving up not one, but two length-of-the-field touchdown drives with the game on the line.

“We don’t want to make this a habit,” coach Mike Tomlin said after the Bengals had stolen one from his Steelers, 23-20. “We just weren’t able to make significant plays at the end of the game when we needed them.”

Yes, Tomlin’s reference to this becoming a habit was a direct reference to last Sunday’s three-point loss at Chicago. Everyone said then that the loss couldn’t be blamed on kicker Jeff Reed, who had missed two field goal attempts. Maybe this loss adds credence to the argument that there are bigger issues than a few off-center kicks.

“We’ve got work to do,” Tomlin said. “We’ve got to finish ball games. We’ve got to finish when we’re in control of football games.”

In case you can’t remember, the Steelers controlled this game from the outset + until it counted most. Through three quarters, the Steelers led, 20-9, and had outgained Cincinnati, 354-134.

But instead of going for the jugular, the Steelers allowed the Bengals to stick around.

“We should have been up 24-0 at halftime, but we weren’t,” Hines Ward said. “We didn’t have everybody on the same page and the little mistakes started piling up. I made two mistakes and Santonio made a couple. That’s four mistakes right there.”

And so it went for the Steelers.

“It’s a full 60-minute game,” cornerback Deshea Townsend said. “We have to find ways to get off the field and today, we didn’t do that late in the game.”

No, instead, it was the Bengals coming up with play after play. It was the Bengals converting a fake punt late in the third quarter and it was the Bengals breaking off a 23-yard touchdown run against what used to be the league’s best run defense and it was the Bengals converting all three of the fourth-down plays they ran.

And, when the dust had settled, it was the Bengals who are within a game of undefeated Baltimore in the AFC North standings and it is the Steelers staring down only at the Cleveland Browns.

“Anytime we play teams in our division, it will be close,” linebacker James Farrior said. “Give them some credit, they made some plays and we didn’t.”

But that’s what makes it all the more puzzling. It’s usually the Bengals giving up the play, not making them. It’s usually the Steelers stealing victories, not the Bengals.

It seems unfathomable that the Steelers defense, which had limited Cincinnati to 117 yards, to that point, yielded 156 in the final two drives.

Unfathomable, but true.

Sports editor Mike Ciarochi can be reached at mciarochi@heraldstandard.com.