The Bengals high-octane offense, held to two field goals all day, broke open late to take a 13-10 lead over the Steelers with 2:57 left when quarterback Andy Dalton hit wide receiver A.J. Green on a nine-yard touchdown pass on the way to a 16-10 victory Sunday at Heinz Field.
And the defense picked off quarterback Ben Roethlisberger on consecutive passes late in the game to move even closer to the AFC North title and make the Bengals 7-0 for the first time in history, leaving the 4-4 Steelers four games back in the loss column. It was Dalton’s 12th fourth-quarter comeback of his career.
After Green caught his 11th pass for 118 yards (slanting inside cornerback Russ Cockrell, on the next snap safety Reggie Nelson continued his three-year torture of Roethlisberger and stepped in front of wide receiver Antonio Brown for his second interception of the day and fifth off Big Ben since 2012 at the Steelers 26.
That led to Mike Nugent’s 41-yard field goal with 1:47 left for the 16-10 lead and the Bengals sealed it with four seconds left from the Bengals 16 when left end Carlos Dunlap hung on Roethlisberger and he threw it of bounds going for Brown.
Roethlisberger returned the favor of two Dalton interceptions when safety Shawn Williams made his first NFL interception, a diving grab as he went out of bounds at the Steelers 45 with six minutes left to set up the winning TD.
Dalton showed tremendous resiliency because it wasn’t very good until he flipped a 23-yard pass on third-and-five to set up the winning TD as running back Giovani Bernard raced away with a check-down pass.
He gutted through his toughest day of the year with two picks, finishing 23 of 38 for 231 yards and a 63.7 rating. It was a bruising game with the Bengals losing right tackle Andre Smith to a hit in the head in the fourth quarter.
With the Bengals starting at first down from the Steelers 5 early in the fourth Bernard’s 12-yard run, Dalton threw two incompletions and then threw his third end-zone interception of the season on third down, extending the Bengals’ third-down misery to 2-for-11.
Dalton tried to hit wide receiver Marvin Jones, but he floated a ball inside to Jones and cornerback Antwon Blake had the angle.
Then with 7:24 left in the game from his own 24 on first down, Dalton inexplicably had a shot-gun snap slide through his hands for a 15-yard loss. On third-and-25, Dalton unleashed what amounted to a 66-yard punt when he threw a bomb that went off wide receiver A.J Green’s shoulder pad.
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