Steelers have real chance vs. Chiefs

The Steelers and Raiders once combined for maybe the most incredible play in football history, and now they have combined for maybe the most incredible day in football history.

Did you survive?

Are you still shaking?

“A lot of people in Pittsburgh have their covers over their heads right now,” Al Michaels said as time ticked away in overtime of the Raiders-Chargers game Sunday night.

Honestly, in nearly half a century of watching football, I had never experienced anything like this. I’m guessing you hadn’t, either, even if you were alive for the Immaculate Reception.

And again, that was a play. This was an entire day.

It began with the Steelers needing to win at Baltimore — never an easy task — and needing the 151/2 -point underdog Jacksonville Jaguars to upset the Indianapolis Colts. If both events transpired, only a Raiders-Chargers tie could keep the Steelers out of the playoffs.

A tie? Don’t be silly. Only 14 NFL games since 1989 had ended it a tie. This season, as the Steelers and Ravens kicked off, just one of the NFL’s first 257 games (you might remember which one) ended in a tie.

So of course the Steelers came perilously close to tying the Ravens, and some eight hours later, the Raiders and Chargers came even closer to finishing deadlocked. Either occurrence would have ended the Steelers’ season.

All it took to beat the Ravens was a one-armed running back making incredible plays, a 39-year-old quarterback hopping into the wayback machine, Ray-Ray McCloud plucking a ball off his shoestrings on 4th-and-8 and a field goal sailing through the freezing rain late in overtime.

“You guys had us buried at 1-3,” coach Mike Tomlin said.

Pretty much, yeah. And to be fair, the Steelers were buried even at 9-7-1 until the Jaguars exhumed them by beating the Colts — a result very few people foresaw.

Chase Claypool spoke for Steeler fans everywhere when he tweeted, “Thank you, Jaguars.”

The Jags carried a 2-14 record into their game. They were coming off a 50-10 loss to the Patriots, and many of their fans arrived Sunday dressed as clowns.

It didn’t look promising.

But even if few predicted a Jaguars win, let alone by a large margin, it wasn’t exactly the Miracle On Ice. This is the NFL, after all. Jacksonville beat Buffalo as a heavier underdog earlier this season and played the Colts to a standstill at Indianapolis in Week 10. The Chargers lost to 11-point underdog Houston just a few weeks ago, or the Steelers would be sitting home today.

The Miracle on Ice stuff came later, or at least it would have if Raiders kicker Daniel Carlson hadn’t split the uprights from 47 yards out as time expired in overtime.

Just before that, as the clock ticked down — each second striking Steelers fans like a dagger — the entire football world wondered if the Raiders would capitulate and play for a tie that would have sent them and the Chargers to the playoffs.

“Nonononono not like this,” Claypool tweeted.

When Raiders coach Rich Bisaccia took the risk of kicking with two seconds left, perhaps to avoid a trip to Kansas City, and Carlson came through, all of Steelers Nation rejoiced.

This was, according to StatsByStats, the first time in NFL history that the final playoff berth was not determined until time expired in overtime in the last game of the regular season. That’s all.

So please don’t tell me, after witnessing what we witnessed, that the Steelers have no chance at Arrowhead Stadium, where the Chiefs have been installed as 131/2 -point favorites.

I’ll tell you one aspect of this game I like. Tony Romo pointed it out early in the Chiefs’ 36-10 romp over the Steelers a few weeks ago: Kansas City was going to play tight man-to-man against the Steelers receivers and challenge them to make plays.

On that day, they didn’t. Diontae Johnson had his worst game of the season. Claypool missed some big opportunities. Pat Freiermuth didn’t even play.

That could change this time around. Roethlisberger will need to make a few more of the big-time throws we’ve seen him make late in games (make them earlier, maybe?), and the Steelers will need to score around 30 points to have any chance. They have scored 30 points one time this season, so that seems incredibly unlikely.

In other words, bet on it.