Jets loss to Payments sends Pittsburgh into AFC playoffs

He might even want to make it two.

He wasn’t slowed Sunday by the Browns in the Steelers’ 28-12 playoff-clincher in Cleveland.

When Buffalo completed its win over the Jets, the Steelers began hugging and high-fiving on the sideline.

“We have an excited locker room and rightfully so”, Tomlin said. “It’s been as tough 16-week fight for us, but we’re where we want to be”. We need somebody that’s smart. We’re one of the teams that has an opportunity to hold up the Lombardi, and that’s the goal. His standing for next weekend’s wild-card game is unknown.

With coach Mike Pettine and general manager Ray Farmer about to be fired and their starting quarterback Johnny Manziel reportedly in Las Vegas despite a concussion, the Browns still had to play a football game Sunday.

“There are several key criteria we’re looking for in our head coach”, Haslam said Sunday night.

“I like the demeanor in which they took the field in some of those instances where we were put on the short field”.

If the Bengals are looking for a weak link on the Steelers offense, they have found it. “We just have to be ready to go there and have a good game”. While they did put 12 points on the board, they could not stop the Steelers from scoring more than double that, winning the game 28-12.

Jan 3, 2016; Cleveland, OH, USA; Pittsburgh Steelers running back DeAngelo Williams (34) is carried off the field during the second quarter at FirstEnergy Stadium. The Seahawks led 30-6 at halftime and won for the sixth time in seven games.

The two combined for all of 64 yards rushing this season and their playoff experience is limited to two nominal carries by Toussaint last winter while playing for the Ravens. We knew this week we wanted to try to answer and keep them shut down. That brings his total on the road this year to five touchdowns thrown to nine interceptions, with three of those games featuring zero passing scores.

Ben Roethlisberger should get into the WWE after football. It felt like a home game for us. Antonio Brown is the NFL’s most unstoppable receiver, and for the ninth time this year on Sunday he surpassed 100 yards receiving.

Roethlisberger, intercepted twice, also threw touchdown passes to Antonio Brown and Heath Miller. He finished the season with 136 receptions to match Atlanta’s Julio Jones for the league lead. “We knew the tempo that we wanted to set as a defense, to get that bad taste out of our mouth from last week”. “We can’t turn it over”. Brown was targered 17 times Sunday, more than triple that of any other receiver. Sure, 1989 and 1993, years when Pittsburgh needed help to make the playoffs and got it, were memories that reassured me, but 2000, 2009 and 2013, seasons in-which the Steelers entered Week 17 under similar scenarios only for those scenarios to end in a negative fashion, were also fresh in my mind. “It’s not always going to be flawless. We’re going to play some quality teams from here on out”. We just kept battling.

Roethlisberger was asked if the fans gave him indication they made the playoffs.

“The turnovers were huge”, outside linebacker Arthur Moats said. “We slipped up last week (in Baltimore) but we were able to bounce back this week and get some help from Buffalo”.