Steelers happy to ignore noise, back Tomlin in win

BALTIMORE -- Seven days after fans at Acrisure Stadium loudly chanted for him to be fired, Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin blew a kiss to the camera as he walked off the field here with a 27-22 win against the Baltimore Ravens.

Quarterback Aaron Rodgers, who completed 23 of 34 attempts for 284 yards with a passing touchdown and a rushing score, was blunt when asked what the win meant after the week the Steelers and Tomlin had since that loss to the Buffalo Bills.

"Means maybe you guys would shut the hell up for a week," the 42-year-old said with a smirk.

The outside noise reached a fever pitch in the fourth quarter of the Week 13 loss to the Bills, but the players inside the locker room insisted they kept the calls for their head coach to lose his job outside of the building.

"We knew not to pay attention to any outside noise," said wide receiver DK Metcalf, who had a season-high 148 yards on seven receptions (12 targets). "Coach T is a great leader for us, and he's done nothing but take the bullets for us. Even when we're high and when we're low, he's always come in every day, has been steady and stayed the same, always motivated us to always play our best ball and that's what he did last week.

"We knew what was at stake -- first place in this heated rivalry, and yeah, the better team came on top."

The Steelers (7-6) entered the day with a 63.1% chance to make the playoffs if they beat the Ravens (6-7), according to ESPN Analytics. A loss would've dropped them to just 16.8%.

Not only did the win significantly improve the Steelers' playoff odds, which sat at just 32% entering the game, but it also gave Tomlin a 22-17 head-to-head record with Ravens coach John Harbaugh, the most such wins by one coach in the Super Bowl era, according to ESPN Research.

"I'm grateful for how calm he stayed throughout the process, ups and downs," edge rusher Alex Highsmith said of Tomlin's demeanor this week. "He continues to come in and be the same coach that he is day in and day out.

"... I love playing for him. I love playing for this team. We're just going to keep fighting and keep stacking wins."

The Steelers led by as many as 14 points in the first half as Rodgers and his receivers connected on the kind of downfield throws that had eluded them throughout the season. Rodgers hit Metcalf for a 52-yard completion -- on a pass that traveled 44 air yards -- on the first play of the game to set the tone for the afternoon. Prior to that completion, Steelers quarterbacks were 0-for-10 on passes that traveled at least 20 air yards from Weeks 9-13, according to ESPN Research.

Then, as the Ravens cut into that lead with a pair of touchdowns, and the Steelers offense sputtered, the defense stepped up to close out the win. While the offense went three-and-out in their three fourth-quarter possessions, the Steelers defense held the Ravens to two field goals, a turnover on downs and a walk-off sack by Highsmith.

To do that, they blitzed Jackson on nine of his 20 fourth-quarter dropbacks. In the first three quarters, the Steelers brought a blitz on just 5 of 20 dropbacks.

"I just think we were in an aggressive posture all day," Tomlin said. "That's how we got out of bed this morning. That's what's required when you're playing these guys in their venue."

Though the Steelers increased their odds to win the division and make the postseason -- something boosted even more by Cincinnati's 39-34 loss to the Bills -- they acknowledged they now need to show consistency with a strong outing against the Dolphins on "Monday Night Football" next week.

"We just got to stack it," said Patrick Queen, a former Raven who got his first win as a visitor at M&T Bank Stadium on Sunday.

"I don't think we even think [the win] is a confidence booster, I think it's just the fact that we just got to go out there and do it again. I think it's more of us being consistent. It was flashes this game, we still wasn't as consistent as we need to be."

Sunday marked the Steelers' first true road win since they beat the Patriots in New England in Week 3, but they still haven't won back-to-back games since beating the Patriots, Vikings and Browns in consecutive outings from Weeks 3-6. Three of the Steelers' final four games are against AFC opponents, including a road meeting with Cleveland and a regular-season finale hosting the Ravens.

"Everything is about the future," Queen said. "Today we just had to be present and do what we had to do to control our destiny in the future."