L.A. Wins Shootout

Quarterback Ben Roethlisberger’s return to the lineup and a fourth-quarter rally about as furious as they come were not quite enough for the Pittsburgh Steelers.

They used a 27-point fourth quarter to take a late lead Sunday night at SoFi Stadium. But the Steelers could not hold on. The final touchdown belonged to quarterback Justin Herbert and the Los Angeles Chargers as they outlasted the Steelers, 41-37, in a wild and captivating offensive duel in Inglewood, Calif.

“What a crazy game. … Just a bizarre sequence of events,” Roethlisberger said. “And obviously we’d like to finish the game off.”

The two teams combined for 41 points in the fourth quarter alone. The Steelers outscored the Chargers in that final quarter, 27-14. They scored touchdowns after a blocked punt and following a tipped-ball interception thrown by Herbert. They moved ahead 37-34 with a little more than three minutes remaining on a field goal by kicker Chris Boswell after the Chargers failed on a bold fourth-and-one attempt from their 34-yard line.

The Chargers, at that point, were staring at the distinct possibility of losing a game — in so very Chargers-like fashion — in which they’d led 27-10 in the third quarter and 34-20 with less than nine minutes to play. The Chargers simply can’t help themselves. They play games like this.

This time, they regrouped, as Herbert found wide receiver Mike Williams for a 53-yard touchdown. The Steelers left Williams alone along the left sideline. He made them pay with a catch and a sprint to the end zone.

“We made it a little too close there at the end,” Herbert told NBC afterward. “But Mike, that’s one of those routes that we trust him the entire way. The corner sat on it. We’d been seeing it all game. So we just took advantage of it late in the fourth quarter.”

The Steelers still had 2:09 on the clock to respond. But Roethlisberger was sacked twice and ended up throwing incomplete on fourth and 32.

“I appreciated the way they stayed in and stayed together and fought,” Steelers Coach Mike Tomlin said of his players. “But it was obvious that we didn’t have a good enough plan tonight with our current makeup and state. We couldn’t get enough stops defensively. We couldn’t apply pressure with our four-man rush or keep [Herbert] in the pocket. We weren’t good enough in coverage. … And so we’ve got to get back to the drawing board and do a better job of putting them in position to be successful with the people that we have at our disposal.”

The stadium was filled with Steelers fans waving their “Terrible Towels.” Roethlisberger was back after missing one game following his positive test for the coronavirus eight days earlier.

“You’re literally just taking tests and then hoping every day that it’s negative,” Roethlisberger said in his postgame news conference. “So that’s kind of what it is. It’s a very interesting process. … I think the MVP of the week is my wife because it was not easy for all the kids to be home, me to be home, a grumpy husband that probably wants to be at football.”

Roethlisberger said “the worst night — fever, not feeling well” came on the evening of his positive test. He “started to feel better” by last Sunday, he said, and then “felt fine physically” by Monday. He participated in the Steelers’ preparations remotely throughout the week. He worked out for three days in his home gym, he said, and then did some throwing Friday after his first negative test result.

He was cleared Saturday under the protocols for vaccinated players, exiting his isolation in fewer than 10 days after two negative test results. He traveled to Los Angeles separately from the rest of the team. The Steelers, according to NBC, had two walk-throughs at their team hotel to get Roethlisberger up to speed on the game plan.

That part worked well. Roethlisberger completed 28 of 44 passes for 273 yards and three touchdowns. But the issues for the Steelers came on a defense that was missing star pass rusher T.J. Watt and cornerback Joe Haden. They failed to rebound from their disappointing tie against the winless Detroit Lions a week earlier and they fell to 5-4-1.

“It was us today,” Tomlin said in his postgame news conference. “It was about what we did or did not do. No disrespect to him or those guys. They played and played well and won the football game. But that’s always our general approach and attitude. We didn’t rush well enough. We didn’t keep him in the pocket. And we weren’t tight enough in coverages.”

Herbert connected on 30 of 41 throws for 382 yards and three touchdowns. The second-year quarterback is not particularly known for his mobility but added 90 rushing yards.

“It was just some open rush lanes,” Herbert said. “On third down, you have to find a way to convert. So whether that’s by the air or by the ground, you have to find a way.”

Chargers tailback Austin Ekeler reached the end zone four times, with two touchdown catches and two touchdown runs. Kicker Dustin Hopkins provided a pair of field goals. The Chargers had three touchdowns and two field goals on their first five possessions before finally punting — resulting in the Steelers’ block — in the fourth quarter.

The Chargers improved to 6-4. They are, at the moment, the No. 6 seed in the AFC playoff field as a wild-card team. The Steelers are on the outside of the playoff picture looking in.