Steelers' comeback falls short on Dalvin Cook's huge night

MINNEAPOLIS – The Pittsburgh Steelers staged a furious second-half rally Thursday night at U.S. Bank Stadium, but it was too little, too late to prevent a loss that put their playoff hopes on life support.

Despite trailing by 29 points in the third quarter, the Steelers cut the deficit to eight and were 12 yards away from the potential tying score in the final seconds but couldn’t catch the Minnesota Vikings, who held on for a 36-28 victory.

The loss was the third in the past four games for the Steelers – all on the road — and dropped them to 6-6-1 with four games remaining. According to the New York Times’ playoff simulator, the Steelers’ odds of making the playoffs dropped from 20 to 11%.

“We’re running out of time,” quarterback Ben Roethlisberger said.

Such was the case against the Vikings. The Steelers trailed 29-0 in the third quarter but scored four touchdowns and had the ball inside the red zone with two seconds left. Roethlisberger’s pass into the end zone was dislodged from tight end Pat Freiermuth’s grasp to end the game.

It was reminiscent of the Steelers’ 41-37 loss at the Los Angeles Chargers when they overcame a 27-10 deficit in the fourth quarter. The only difference was, the Steelers took the lead in that game before blowing it late.

The following week, the Steelers were routed by Cincinnati, 41-10.

In all three of those losses, the Steelers have given up at least 36 points. Another common theme was the inability to grab an early lead. For the fourth game in a row, the Steelers trailed in the second half.

In those four games, including the 20-19 victory Sunday against Baltimore, the Steelers have scored a combined 16 points in the first half. On defense, the Steelers have surrendered 81 first-half points. They had 66 yards in the first half Thursday when Roethlisberger was sacked three of his five times — his highest total since 2014.

“It’s Groundhog Day,” defensive captain Cameron Heyward said. “It’s unacceptable.”

Against the Vikings, the Steelers trailed 23-0 at halftime. The Vikings piled up 300 of their 458 yards and 176 of their 242 rushing yards in the opening 30 minutes.

Dalvin Cook, returning 11 days after dislocating his shoulder and sporting a harness, gained 153 of his 205 yards rushing and scored both of his touchdowns in the first half.

Cook became the second running back in three weeks to hit the century mark in the first half against the Steelers. Until Cincinnati’s Joe Mixon did it in Week 12, the Steelers hadn’t allowed a running back to top 100 yards in the first half of a game since 1998.

“The first half was horrendous,” Heyward said. “Guys weren’t filling. We weren’t getting off blocks. We weren’t tackling. You name it, we did it wrong.”

Cook had five runs of 15 yards or longer in the half, including a 29-yard touchdown and a 30-yard gain.

It was the third time in the past five games that the Steelers allowed at least 198 yards rushing, and the Vikings’ total eclipsed the 229 yards the Steelers surrendered to the Detroit Lions.

To compound matters for the defense, outside linebacker T.J. Watt left with a groin injury in the first half, and fellow starter Alex Highsmith injured his knee in the third quarter.

“Just to be blunt, we’re getting manhandled on both sides of the ball, and that makes it difficult,” coach Mike Tomlin said. “It makes it difficult to desire to do what we do, difficult to maintain balance and difficult to dictate to opponents what happens.

“It’s going to be tough sledding for us until we get better in that area. We were not good in that area. We were JV again tonight.”

The comeback didn’t begin until 2:11 remained in the third quarter when Najee Harris caught a 3-yard touchdown pass from Roethlisberger to complete a 10-play, 75-yard drive.

Ahkello Witherspoon’s interception – his first with the Steelers – set up a 1-yard touchdown run by Harris with 14:49 to play.

After forcing a three-and-out, the Steelers answered with another touchdown, a 30-yard completion from Roethlisberger to James Washington that cut the deficit to 29-20 with 12:11 remaining.

It took all of three plays for the Vikings to answer with a touchdown of their own. K.J. Osborn got behind corner Cam Sutton and scored on a 62-yard completion from Kirk Cousins to make it 36-20.

The Steelers still had a shot with 4:58 left when Witherspoon intercepted his second pass and returned it 41 yards to the Vikings 21. Freiermuth caught a 15-yard touchdown pass with 4:14 to play, and Diontae Johnson’s reception on the two-point conversion pulled the Steelers within 36-28.

The Steelers forced a punt and took possession at their 4 with 2:16 remaining but had no timeouts remaining.

A pass interference call on a deep pass to Chase Claypool gave the Steelers a first down at their 49. The Steelers converted a fourth-and-1, giving them the ball at the Vikings 34.

Claypool punctuated the catch by briefly celebrating the first down, enabling a few precious seconds to run off the clock.

A completion to Ray-Ray McCloud gained 10 yards. A pass into the end zone for Washington was broken up with 11 seconds to play. Johnson caught a pass over the middle and ran out of bounds at the 12 with two seconds left, setting up one final play.

It looked like Freiermuth had his second touchdown catch – and Roethlisberger his fourth TD pass – before several Vikings defenders converged to dislodge the ball.

“He’s taking it pretty hard,” Roethlisberger said. “I talked to him, I’ve got a lot of faith, belief and trust in that guy. He’s got a lot of heart. … He’ll eat this for a while, and he shouldn’t because it’s not on him.”

No, the game was lost much, much earlier.

As Tomlin said, “We stayed in the fight, but they were up 29 damn points at halftime or whenever it was.”