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Diontae Johnson celebrates after scoring against the Cardinals Sunday, Dec. 8, 2018, at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz.
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Steelers hold off Cardinals and hold onto AFC playoff spot

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Steelers hold off Cardinals and hold onto AFC playoff spot

GLENDALE, Ariz. — So the of­fense man­ages just one touch­down for the fifth time in the past six games. Oh well. No­body tells the punter they called off a fake and his fum­ble leads to an op­pos­ing touch­down that cuts the lead to three points. No prob­lem.

Noth­ing seems to bother the Steel­ers. They just go out and get their first punt re­turn for touch­down in four years, add three field goals by kicker Chris Bos­well, then wait for their de­fense to do what they have been do­ing all sea­son.

The Steel­ers sprin­kled in any num­ber of big plays from rookie re­ceiver Dion­tae John­son with three sec­ond-half in­ter­cep­tions by their lar­ce­nous de­fense to beat the Ari­zona Car­di­nals, 23-17, Sun­day be­fore a huge towel-wav­ing crowd at State Farm Sta­dium.

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It was the third vic­tory in a row and sev­enth in the past eight games for the Steel­ers (8-5), who moved within one game of the No. 5 seed in the AFC af­ter the Buf­falo Bills (9-4) lost to the Bal­ti­more Ravens. The Steel­ers and Bills meet Sun­day night at Heinz Field.

Joe Haden intercepts a pass against the Cardinals Sunday, Dec. 8, 2018, at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz.
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'Mighty Joe' Haden does it again for the opportunistic Steelers defense

“We feel we’re on the rise,” said cor­ner­back Joe Haden, who had two in­ter­cep­tions, the fi­nal one with 36 sec­onds re­main­ing to seal the vic­tory. “We def­i­nitely feel like we have some good things go­ing. We’re a hun­gry team, grind­ing, try­ing to win ev­ery game.”

The Steel­ers man­aged only one of­fen­sive touch­down for the fifth time in the past six games, but they got an 85-yard punt re­turn for touch­down by John­son that helped them to a 10-0 lead and three field goals of 30, 37 and 25 yards from Bos­well — the fi­nal one from 25 yards with 1:42 re­main­ing.

The Car­di­nals (3-9-1) had one last chance with 1:42 re­main­ing but quar­ter­back Kyler Mur­ray was sacked on back-to-back plays by Cam Hey­ward and Bud Dupree to start the se­ries and in­ter­cepted by Haden on fourth-and-17 from his 18. It was Haden’s third in­ter­cep­tion in the past two games.

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“It’s good, it’s fun, be­cause ev­ery game is a bat­tle, ev­ery game is a tough one,” safety Minkah Fitz­patrick said. “We keep prov­ing how tight a team we are, how well we fin­ish, how well we fight.”

Early in the sea­son, if the Steel­ers lost two fum­bles that led to 10 points, they would lose the game. Not now. They even over­came a near-di­sas­trous mis­com­mu­ni­ca­tion in the fourth quar­ter when a fake punt was called off on the field and no­body got the sig­nal to punter Jor­dan Berry.

When Berry tried to run with the snap, he was hit so hard by tight end Dar­rell Daniels and line­backer Den­nis Gar­deck that he fum­bled at his 32. Gar­deck re­cov­ered and three plays later Mur­ray threw a 24-yard touch­down to run­ning back David John­son to cut the Steel­ers lead to 20-17 with 6:44 re­main­ing.

Coach Mike Tom­lin took re­spon­si­bil­ity for the play, say­ing “It was a call by me, I make the de­ci­sions.” But Berry said, “The guys up front called it off and no­body told me. I just tried to make a run for it and I ran straight into some guys. I was plan­ning on get­ting ready to run up there and they all shot off to go cover and I was like, Aw [ex­ple­tive].”

Jordan Berry congratulates Chris Boswell on a field goal against the Dolphins in the fourth quarter Monday, Oct. 28, 2019, at Heinz Field.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Jordan Berry on botched fake punt: 'It was just a miscommunication up front'

But none of that seems to bother this Steel­ers team. They in­ter­cepted Mur­ray three times in the sec­ond half — he had thrown only six in­ter­cep­tions in his first 12 games — and sacked him four times. The three take­aways pushed the Steel­ers to­tal this sea­son to 33 (18 in­ter­cep­tions, 15 fum­ble re­cov­er­ies), tops in the league.

“We feel like if we’re in po­si­tion for the de­fense to close it out, we got the guys,” said Haden, who closed out last week’s vic­tory against the Cleve­land Browns with an in­ter­cep­tion. “We’re not ner­vous, we’re not scared. We just feel if they put the ball in our hands and there’s a chance for us to close it out, we feel we can do it.”

Out­side line­backer T.J. Watt had the other in­ter­cep­tion, snuff­ing a Car­di­nals scor­ing threat early in the fourth quar­ter when he dropped into cov­er­age on fourth-and-2 at the Steel­ers 6 and picked off Mur­ray in the end zone. His pick was mind­ful of an­other big in­ter­cep­tion by a Steel­ers out­side line­backer at the goal line against the Car­di­nals — only Watt didn’t try to run out of the end zone like James Har­ri­son on his 100-yard in­ter­cep­tion re­turn for touch­down in Su­per Bowl XLIII.

“He was sup­posed to rush, I was sup­posed to drop,” Watt said of Har­ri­son. “Give him a lit­tle more credit.”

Quar­ter­back Devlin Hodges ran his record to 3-0 as a starter by com­plet­ing 16 of 19 passes for 152 yards and one touch­down with a passer rat­ing of 117.5. He be­came the first un­drafted quar­ter­back in 32 years to win his first three NFL starts.

Like he did last week against the Browns, he led the Steel­ers on an eight-play scor­ing drive at the end of the first half that re­sulted in Bos­well’s sec­ond field goal with no time re­main­ing and a 13-10 half­time lead. Along the way, he calmly com­pleted passes of 12 yards to James Wash­ing­ton and 18 yards to John­son but also scram­bled 22 yards to the Car­di­nals 41.

And he pro­duced the only of­fen­sive touch­down early in the third quar­ter when he threw a 2-yard touch­down to John­son to give the Steel­ers a 20-10 lead.

“What­ever play is called, I’m go­ing to go out there and ex­e­cute it,” Hodges said. “If the coaches didn’t have the con­fi­dence in me, I don’t think I would be play­ing.”

Hodges got a lot of help from John­son, who caught six passes for 60 yards, maybe none more daz­zling than a 14-yarder to the Car­di­nals 2 in which he caught the ball near the right side­line, broke a tackle by cor­ner­back Patrick Peter­son, then re­versed his field and was tack­led out of bounds on the left side­line. That set up his touch­down re­cep­tion three plays later.

But John­son’s big­gest play was his punt re­turn for touch­down that gave the Steel­ers a 10-0 lead — their first punt re­turn for touch­down since An­tonio Brown’s 71-yard re­turn on Dec. 6, 2015, against the In­di­a­nap­o­lis Colts.

“I was able to get the team mo­men­tum just off that play,” John­son said. “That took over the whole game and we con­tin­ued to put points on the board. That play got us a spark.”

Sports@post-ga­zette.com or 412-263-1621.

 

First Published: December 8, 2019, 10:05 p.m.

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