Steelers’ last-gasp win highlights crazy day

With defenders in hot pursuit of Ben Roethlisberger and a coroner standing by on the Pittsburgh Steelers’ sideline, the big quarterback rifled a pass to the end zone.

All week I was convinced the Steelers would find a way to grind out a victory over Green Bay. But this certainly was not how I drew it up, with Roethlisberger desperately firing away as the clock expired.

Ironically, at the end of 60 minutes, it was Mike Wallace who scored the tying touchdown with a diving catch and his toes barely inbounds. Add the extra-point kick and the Steelers won, 37-36.

No sweat. Never a doubt about that one. Picking NFL winners is easy.

“The Steelers can very realistically make the playoffs,” Vegas Insider handicapper Mark Franco said, noting six AFC teams are tied at 7-7 in the hunt for the last playoff spot.

Send the coroner back to the office, at least for a week. As Pittsburgh coach Mike Tomlin said, “Not dead yet.”

But if the Steelers’ shower curtain defense does not improve a lot in a hurry — and that means safety Troy Polamalu returning as soon as possible, or hard-nosed wideout Hines Ward also playing in the secondary — the funeral is around the corner.

OK, so I bet Pittsburgh at minus-1 and at minus-140 to win straight up on the money line and used it at minus-2 in one of two picks in the Las Vegas Review-Journal. So the results were a push, a win and loss — and it basically was a miracle that every play was not a loser.

The Packers, who closed as 3-point underdogs, paid off most of their supporters. The line opened pick ’em.

“What a crazy day,” Franco said, summing up the feelings of NFL bettors across the board.

The Steelers took a 24-14 lead into the fourth quarter, when the Packers’ Aaron Rodgers responded by putting up 22 points. Rodgers passed for 383 yards and three touchdowns, ran for a 14-yard score and completed a 2-point conversion pass with 2:06 left to put Green Bay ahead 36-30.

Roethlisberger, scrambling and improvising on the final drive, passed for 503 yards and three TDs. But it will take more to save the Steelers’ season, as they host Baltimore (8-6) next week and finish the regular season at Miami (7-7).

It’s still does not seem realistic that Pittsburgh — which stopped a five-game losing streak that included upsets by Cleveland, Kansas City and Oakland — will be a playoff team.

“If the Steelers win their next two games, they can still make the playoffs,” Franco said. “But a couple of teams that missed a great opportunity were Denver and Miami.”

The Broncos were 14-point home favorites in an inexcusable 20-19 loss to the Raiders. The Dolphins lost 27-24 in overtime at Tennessee, which opened as a 3-point favorite and closed as a 5-point favorite.

After the Indianapolis Colts remained unbeaten and narrowly covered by beating Jacksonville 35-31 on Thursday, underdogs went 11-2-1 in Week 15.

The NFC’s top teams fell flat as Dallas dominated New Orleans and Carolina blew out Minnesota. Drew Brees, Brett Favre and the betting public all took a beating.

It’s a league that defies logic from week to week — try figuring out Tony Romo and the Cowboys, for example — and bookmakers benefit.

“It’s probably the slowest football Sunday of the year, when we’re talking about the Sunday prior to Christmas,” Las Vegas Hilton sports book director Jay Kornegay said. “Not only that, some of the more popular teams — the Colts, Saints and Cowboys — played outside the Sunday schedule. That affected the business levels.

“The public money is what you were missing, so you were dealing with more of the sharper money on a day like today. But it is still a really good day. If these results had taken place the first five weeks, it definitely would have been a monster day for the books. We always need one big ‘dog to win outright, and in this case it was the Raiders.”

Some of the sharpest sports bettors in the world were on the Broncos, so don’t feel bad if you were, too.

It could be said I was wrong about the Steelers, but not quite dead wrong.

Contact sports betting reporter and columnist Matt Youmans at myoumans@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2907.