The receiver shortage the preview worried about turned out to be the story, just not in the way it expected. With Michael Pittman Jr. and Roman Wilson on IR and Ben Skowronek inactive, Rodgers kept throwing to Germie Bernard. The rookie finished with 11 catches for 87 yards and caught the touchdown that won it in overtime. That gave the Steelers a real answer to how they would move the ball without their usual wideouts. Pittsburgh's secondary also got thinner during the game: Brandin Echols left with a hamstring injury and did not return, on a day when Terell Smith and Sean Murphy-Bunting were already inactive.
Tampa's 10 days of rest after a Thursday night game showed up in the first half, when the Bucs scored 13 points to Pittsburgh's 3. It did not hold up after that. The Bucs scored 3 points across the 4th quarter and overtime while the Steelers scored 23. The market had moved toward Pittsburgh once Mayfield was ruled out, and the final score agreed with it, though it took an extra period.
The line score shows how it went. Tampa scored in every quarter of regulation but got only 1 touchdown out of those trips. The rest were field goals, and settling for them is what let Pittsburgh back in. A 16-3 lead with 15 minutes left should be enough with a defense that has kept every game close. Instead the Steelers put up 16 in the 4th, tied it at 19, and then won the overtime coin flip on the scoreboard instead of at midfield. Tampa did not score again after its last field goal of regulation.
Bucky Irving was the centre of Tampa's plan coming in after his 165 yards in Dallas, but the box-score search for this recap did not return his line. What the scoreboard does show is an offense that moved the ball well enough for 4 field goals and only once got into the end zone. The same goes for T.J. Watt and Payton Wilson, the pass rush the preview pitched against a rookie quarterback. Their numbers did not come up either, and Tampa's 16 points through 3 quarters suggest Daniels had time to work for most of the day. DK Metcalf, cleared from his illness on Saturday, was overshadowed by Bernard in the final stat line.
Pittsburgh is now 3-2, has won 2 straight, and has finally followed one win with another after spending the first 5 weeks alternating. They had to survive their own offense to get there. Tampa falls to 1-5, and the argument that its record is closer than it looks still holds: all 5 losses have come by one score. That is cold comfort for a team that led by 13 going into the 4th quarter at home and lost.