Monday, 26 September 2011

Shaun Suisham kicks Pittsburgh Steelers to 23-20 victory

During the final moments of a tight game Sunday night, Pittsburgh relied on its old standbys.Troy Polamalu and Ben Roethlisberger.Polamalu returned a fumble 16 yards to give Pittsburgh the lead, and Roethlisberger drove the Steelers 60 yards to set up Shaun Suisham for a 38-yard field goal with 4 seconds left that sent the Steelers to a 23-20 victory at Indianapolis."Our defense, they're fun to watch," Roethlisberger said. "They make exciting plays when they need to, and they're on my side."One strong final burst was enough after the Steelers looked out of sorts for the first 54 minutes.Roethlisberger lost two fumbles and threw an interception during an 11-minute first-half stretch. Pittsburgh (2-1) managed just 67 yards rushing all night, and the vaunted Steelers defense produced just one sack.
Polamalu, Roethlisberger and James Harrison bailed them out. Again.
Harrison's crunching sack of Curtis Painter with 5:13 left knocked the ball out and the opportunistic Polamalu scooped it up and jogged into the end zone to make it 20-13. After the Colts tied it with 2:09 left, Roethlisberger delivered another one of his patented late drives, setting up Suisham for the winning kick.
Roethlisberger was 25 of 37 for 364 yards with one touchdown. Mike Wallace caught five passes for 144 yards and an 81-yard score, the longest of his career.
And they won ugly.
"We don't care how it looks," coach Mike Tomlin said. "We just want to get out of stadiums with wins, particularly road stadiums and AFC ones."
Sunday's game wasn't supposed to be so difficult for the defending AFC champs.
But Indianapolis (0-3), which has won 16 Sunday night games since 2000 — more than any other team, used the national stage to send a message. They're not going away quickly or quietly, even with Peyton Manning out.The Colts defense had three sacks, forced three turnovers, delivered a plethora of big hits and even scored Indy's first first-half touchdown of the season.It just wasn't enough.

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