Pitt Perfect

With one final throw, Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson threatened to knock off the NFL’s last remaining undefeated team on Sunday.

But Minkah Fitzpatrick swatted the ball away from Willie Snead IV in the end zone as time expired to give the visiting Pittsburgh Steelers a 28-24 victory, allowing them to stay perfect for yet another week.

After the game, Ravens coach John Harbaugh wanted the officials to flag Fitzpatrick for hitting the head of Snead on the final play. Fitzpatrick’s head and right forearm appeared to make contact with Snead’s helmet on what would’ve been the winning touchdown.

“I feel for him a little bit because I feel like that play would have been made in the end zone to win the game, and it would’ve been historic, and it would’ve been that kind of a play,” Harbaugh said. “You just want to see your players protected and see them protected just like the rules say they should be.”

With the win, the Steelers matched another milestone set by the 1978 team, reaching 7-0 for only the second time in franchise history.

“We lacked details in some areas, so we have to work to get better, to fortify ourselves for the next opportunity,” coach Mike Tomlin said. “Like I always say, it is good to do that with a win. But, just much respect to Baltimore, they bring the best out in us. This rivalry is what it is. Hopefully, it was entertaining to football fans worldwide.”

Tomlin earned his 140th regular-season victory, breaking a tie with Tony Dungy for the most wins by a Black head coach in NFL history, per ESPN Stats & Information research. Tomlin was hired as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ defensive backs coach in 2001 during what would be Dungy’s last season in Tampa Bay.

After an all-around uninspiring first half in which the Steelers, with one of the league’s best run-stopping defenses, gave up 179 rushing yards, and their veteran signal-caller completed just 4 of 10 passes for 24 yards, quarterback Ben Roethlisberger and the defense worked in sync to overcome a 17-7 halftime deficit.

“You’re going to be up against it if you don’t play good,” Tomlin said. “We can’t allow the emotions of the moment for us to miss that fact. I am proud of these guys. I am proud of the fight. I am proud of how they supported one another. It’s important that we don’t lie to ourselves. Boy, we did not function well in a lot of ways today.”

Roethlisberger’s first drive of the third quarter looked like the stagnant offense of the first half, but he shook off his slow start after that. He completed 9 of 13 passes for 107 yards and a touchdown in the third quarter. Then, in the fourth, he orchestrated a scoring drive in which the Steelers didn’t run the ball once, and he completed 7 of 9 passes for 80 yards. He finished it off with his second touchdown throw of the day, this one to Chase Claypool, to go ahead 28-24.

“This is a really, really good football team,” Roethlisberger said of the Ravens (5-2). “They’re ranked really high on defense for a reason. They got after us, and it wasn’t pretty. I don’t think at any point in this game, offensively, was it a pretty game. The first half wasn’t pretty, second half wasn’t pretty. Nothing about this game was pretty from our perspective until the game was over and we looked at the scoreboard and saw that we had won. At the end of the day, that’s all that matters.”