Steelers shock Lions with a wild Motor City finish (Repost)

The Steelers stunned the Lions in Detroit with a wild finish that will go down as yet again controversial. Joe flies solo ahead of the holiday week to cover this insane ending, and why it's no fluke the Steelers beat the Lions.

This episode breaks down how Pittsburgh closed the door late, the sequence that swung momentum, and the players who delivered when the game tightened up. We dig into the offensive spark that kept drives alive, the defensive stands that set up the final push, and the overall feel of a team starting to find its rhythm as the playoffs loom large rolls.

Join us for instant, raw reactions, key takeaways from the final minutes, and what this kind of chaotic win tells us about where the Steelers are trending right now.

*** Note ***

Our apologies, for some reason LAST WEEK'S episode was cross posted as the new one. We don't know how it happened, but here is the latest and greatest!


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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Underground, The steel City Underground, the black
and gold standard for Pittsburgh Steelers coverage. Now here's your hoes.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Joe Kuzma, Hello everyone, and welcome to another edition of
the steels City Underground podcast. My name is Joe Kuzma.
I'm here flying solo because we're heading into a holiday weekend,
so a little bit shorter of a show since up
by myself with mister Brian e Roach out doing whatever
he needs to do with the holidays. Happy Holidays to him.

(00:34):
We will actually be back sooner before later with the
next show previewing the Pittsburgh Steelers, the now nine and
six Pittsburgh Steelers going to Cleveland to face the Browns
that will occur before Thursday, Christmas Day and all of
this big slate of NFL games heading into that weekend,

(00:55):
and we don't have to worry about Christmas Day for once,
and you know what else, don't have to worry about
needing help from other teams necessarily for the Steelers' destiny.
I understand they still have two more games, two more
AFC North Division foes that are still on the docket,
but no one expected, including myself and mister Brian that

(01:18):
the Pittsburgh Steelers would walk out of the Motor City
victorious with a twenty nine to twenty four victory over
the Detroit Lions. Keeping pace and what was a slow
pace game to begin with just three nothing to you know,
begin the game right, and as we go on and

(01:38):
on and on, it's tied at ten at halftime, and
then the only score in the third quarter a Kyle
Dugger safety after Darnell Washington fumbles the ball away, the
big turnover in the game. The Steelers, their defense has
been creating turnovers. This defense without TJ. Watt, losing other
guys like Brandon Eckles within the course of the game,

(02:01):
without James Pierre and having to play as Sante Samuel
and losing Ecles was kind of huge too. Now you
have Chuck Clark playing in the secondary with Kyle Dugger,
and you had to move Jalen Ramsey around and what
a dude. He is just all hands on deck for
this game. And no Nick Herbick either. You had the
rookie Jack Sawyer out there, Jeremiah Moon who wasn't even
on this team a week ago. He was on another
practice squad, used to be on the Steelers before, so

(02:24):
he knows some of it. But man, I'll tell you
what I am geeked up. I'm amped up because what
a finish. And that's what everybody's really tuning in here for.
The like, come on, Joe, you're gonna bullshit us. You
know this team has gotten lucky too in the last
three games. They're on a three game win streak. This
is when you need to win. You need to win
in December, and the Steelers did so. I think decisively.
If they lose this game, they shoot themselves in the foot.

(02:45):
They need this momentum. They need to know that they
can hang with teams that could drop thirty points in
a game. And I thought it was a race to
thirty and I thought the Steelers had won that race
up until the bad snap, the low snap. Corlus Weightman
couldn't quite handle it. And Chris Boswell misses a chip
shot field goal Whi's usually a chip shot field goal
for him. Holy smokes, Holy moly, folks. This game was

(03:10):
just you know, they never make it easy, and it's
got to come all the way down to the end.
And everybody wants to know my opinion at the end,
I think my opinion at the end is if Jared
Goff ends up getting this lateral and running it in.
It was fourth and nine, it was a one yard
It was basically a one yard pass and an eight
yard lateral, and then nobody, nobody decides to grab golf.

(03:33):
Are they waiting for a whistle?

Speaker 1 (03:34):
Man?

Speaker 2 (03:34):
Would that have been a lesson learned? Is about as
goofy is the Thursday night. We've seen a lot of
goofy finishes this week in the NFL. That two point conversion.
I was just thinking to myself, the penalties, the stupid penalties,
the split second stuff, some of the pass interference calls,
particularly the offensive pass interference calls. I'm sitting here all day,

(03:56):
all game long, and just thinking about how I'm watching
the Bengal wall up the Miami Dolphins earlier, and I'm
watching guys like Jamar Chase and T Higgins just they
just get away with murder. They just get to do
whatever they want to do. And DK Metcalf, he gets
tagged with like these little He's a man amongst men.
He's like a giant, like a goliath against some of

(04:17):
these other smaller dbs as particularly some of the backup
DB's in the Detroit Lions secondary because of all the
injuries that they've had with Kirby, Joseph and Terry and
Arnold and Barnes and all of these guys. So, man,
I'll tell you just it was really all hands on
deck because you're sweating it. I'm biting my fingernails off
and pulling all my hair out, and you're right at

(04:38):
the end and the Steelers are somehow managing to come
up with this stuff. Now Detroit's getting penalized, they're getting
moved back. Now you have an illegal shift. Now they're
getting moved back. You know, Alex high Smith gets tagged
with with the tripping and then they move forward. It's
just like, you know, you're playing one of these board
games where you move up three steps and then you
move back three steps, and you're just like, how is

(05:00):
this going to end? Someone here is going to get screwed.
Every call scrutinized. It's just so close. You have all
of these replays. It just seems like anything, anything could
stop a play. You had it happen early in the
game with a concussion, like I don't know, I believe
concussion protocol. They just stopped the play and put ten
seconds back on there, and you're like, what the heck?
But anyways, I digress. You had Isaac Tesla. Man, he's

(05:25):
a big dude. He's bigger than I thought he was,
and seeing him stand up against Joey Porter Junior, I'm
just like, holy smokes, that's a big dude. But anyways,
he gets tagged with offensive pass interference. This would have
been first in goal from the Steelers one. There would
have been a touchdown to Aman Ross Saint Brown nullified
offensive pass interference pick play, which is pretty much the

(05:48):
same exact play that Jamir Gibbs scores on earlier. I
think it's first er. I don't know if it's the
vertical running or the horizontal running that really dictates if
someone's blocking or if it's a pick. There's really no different.
I got so upset, especially with DK Metcalf on my
fantasy team. By the way, raise your hand if you're
in your fantasy championship everyone in the room. Yeah that's right,

(06:11):
I'm there again defending champ. I would talk a little
bit of smack because man, I'm usually not this lucky.
I'm usually terrible. But this has been a good run
and I'm going to ride with it. I feel good.
I feel good about the Steelers. But dk Metcalf had
that one taken away touchdown taken away that would have
been also good for my reality team, would have been
good for my fantasy team. And Darnel Washington had a
dude run right into his gut and then get hurt.

(06:33):
It's like the helicopters getting swatted by you like a
kid Kong or Godzilla or whatever one of these Kaiju monsters.
And it's just hilarious to me. I wasn't laughing at
the time. Of course I was laughing, but it was
like sarcastically, I'm like, are you kidding me? Are you
kidding me? I guess you know, Darnel Washington can't own

(06:54):
that ground. It seems like the big guys are getting
tagged with stuff. It's like something you see and like
little kids, where you got this bigger kid that hit
its growth spurt. And then I was one of those kids,
by the way, and I'd get called for files in
basketball and everything else, and it was just like, no,
I'm just bigger than everybody else. That guy needs to grow,
he needs to get bigger. But anyways, back to this game.

(07:15):
You had a false start. Then that drives Detroit back
two penalties back to back, fifteen yards worth of penalties
first and sixteen, first and goal from the sixteen, and
you have Jared Goff pick up seven yards short, little
pass in the middle. This is Dan Campbell territory. I
said earlier, the desperate teams on the pregame show, like

(07:37):
the Miami Dolphins, or the aggressive teams, at least the
Colts playing teams that have been playing aggressive. The Steelers
kind of starting to get a feel that, you know,
once they put up their fists for fourth down, and
this isn't over with. There's more to it. And a
team like the Detroit Lions, they're most certainly, most certainly

(07:57):
good to go for it on fourth down. It's going
to be a four down territory. A boy, was it
ever Goff? You know, missus Jamison Williams. Then he has
Tesla right in the back of the end zone. It
comes right out of the bread basket. Chuck Clark with
a huge play. And the reason why I say the Steelers,
you know, they really did deserve to win this game.
They should have probably for Jared Goff, a guy who

(08:18):
hasn't been throwing picks. He has all of these you
know vanity statistics where he hasn't lost the ball. Chuck
Clark should have had three picks by himself. And just
the fact that they didn't get that, it's it's a
shoe string, it's just a hairline. Just how close some
of these games get. I was really wondering if someone
out there was trying to cover. Depending on if you

(08:38):
got your money in minus seven Detroit Lions minus seven
and a half, depends where you were. You're looking at
this score, you're looking at those twenty nine points, You're
looking at that race to seven. When Boswell misses twenty
nine to twenty four, I'm still hitting. I'm biting nails now.
It's that was third and nine with Tesla, and now

(08:59):
you're going to come down to another crazy play on
fourth down. And this was Jared Goff the Aman Ross
Saint Brown for one yard, just one yard and then
the lateral, and I think some folks thought that the
play was over, whistled dead, whatever it might be the case.

(09:19):
And you're just you're watching, and all of a sudden,
there's two flags to come in and it's everything's late
and just the drama and Carl Scheffer's who's certainly been
around the NFL forever, we've certainly criticized our fair share
of referees. I guess we give them a high five
or you know, a little extra on the side, a

(09:41):
little cash bunny tip if it goes our way, and
when it doesn't, man, it'd we're pissed off, you know
what I mean. So not in this case, we're excited.
We're happy the Pittsburgh Steelers walk away with this victory
on what was very very clearly if this were DK
metcalf would our Darnell watching in the case earlier, this

(10:03):
would have been called George Pickens last year. Let's not
forget George Pickens. He's a wiry guy who you know,
he's got length. He's like, yeah, I used to be
there before I put on some weight. It's not quite
DK metcalf man amongst men, but he's definitely somebody that
you know, you give him a little eggy, a little elbow,
a little little bump, and the flags come flying. Amon
Aros Saint Brown comes right out to a spot to
deliberately shove Jalen Ramsey create some space and try to

(10:27):
get the go ahead score on the fourth and nine,
and it didn't work. And it almost worked, but the
flags come flying. They sorted out. I think they were
trying to sort out if it was a touchdown, and
then when they sort out it's a touchdown, they're like, well, wait,
a minute clock is expired, and if this is an

(10:48):
offensive penalty, there is no replay. This is game over,
and it's also going to be a turnover potentially a turnover.
Well could have been a turnover on downs, I should say,
because if it's a touchdown, it's not turnover on downs, right,
and you're going to have the extra point and then
game over. Or actually it would be game over because
they would have enough points right there and they might
not even kick it. Everybody goes out on the field.

(11:08):
Game over, right, But because of the extraneous circumstances, Now,
if it's a defensive penalty, you're gonna get it on
time down. In this case, it's not, it's game over.
It's an OPI what basically a pretty decent showing by
the Steelers. I still don't like that the defense gives
up some easy points, gets a little what do you
want to say, complacent, gets a little relaxed. I know

(11:31):
they thrive on turnovers, but earlier in this game, I mean,
let's just talk about the overall game, right. The Detroit
Lions run the ball, run the football twelve times. Brian
and I talked about this. Can you make the Detroit
Lions one dimensional and put it all on Jared Goff.
Jared Goff actually had a pretty solid game, complete sixty

(11:52):
three percent of his fifty four attempt threw the ball
fifty four times. But that's what you wanted to do.
They still are able to throw the ball though. This
is still a good passing team. This isn't Tua out
there and then gets benched afterwards, three hundred and sixty
four yards got sacked three times. The pressure still came,
despite not having TJ Watt, despite not having Nick herbig
three touchdowns. No picks could have got picked a few times,

(12:14):
but the Detroit Lions, the combo of Sonica Knuckles, David Mntgoverery,
Jamiir Gibbs and Jared Goff gets one. I guess it's
a semi scramble because he's on here for one carry
minus one yard. Forgive me, in my excitement, I don't
remember where that happens in this game. I don't know
if that was part of the safety. Ah. I'm starting

(12:35):
to do the old Myron Cope stuff and let's get
the guys doing the safety signal. That's my favorite, one
of my favorite celebrations to see when you're on the
winning side of things. But Montgomery was only four carries
for fourteen yards three and a half average. Gibbs seven
carries for two yards a point three average, just a

(12:56):
not even a half yard per carry. They ran the
ball twelve times for fifteen yards total in this game.
My mind is freaking blown now, Gibbs out of the backfield.
They were letting them. Let's do the little dump offs.
The little screens caught tenedies for sixty six yards. My
opponent fantasy had Gibbs. I'm still getting a little nervous
here my reality team. Also, I don't want that Gibbs

(13:17):
to be scoring. He scores off of one of these.
He had a little scamper. What a game, though, man,
what a battle. And I'll tell you what the lions
where everyone's darling, you know what. I watched the Beverly
Hills cop movies. Axel fully played by Eddie Murphy wearing
the Detroit Lions jacket. And you remember those Lions teams
in the past. I have said countless times and times

(13:38):
again that a lot of the times back in the
day when the NFC was on CBS and it was
John Madden and Pat Summer all and Barry Sanders was
like my favorite player because I used to get to
see a lot of Lions games if I didn't watch
the Steelers. And they're kind of like they're kind of
like the Cubs of the NFL. They hadn't played in
the Super Bowl. They're finally getting out of this turmoil

(14:01):
that they had, but so many injuries, they couldn't defend
a lot of stuff. And today it was the Pittsburgh
Steelers rushing game. Jalen Warren. I didn't look, but I'm
going to say that as many times as I said it,
so I'm blue in the face. This year. I don't
think he had one hundred yard game until tonight. Fourteen attempts,
one hundred and forty three yards, two touchdowns, a forty

(14:24):
five yard long. He also, let me see Warren also
had the other one that was the forty five yard Oh,
there are both forty five yarders so nice, he had
to do it twice. You had Kenny Gainwell was also
running the rock. Kenneth Gainwell in this game, he ends
up running the football, carrying it nine times for fifty

(14:45):
yards five point six average Warrens was ten point two.
John new Smith. They decided to put the big guy
in the backfield, use his long legs, get him going
on two carries for twenty eight They're moving the chains.
Rogers even had a few where he scurried out two
carries for nine yards. The Steelers finished this what they
say like, there was some statistic that Tony Romo and

(15:06):
Jim Nance. Oh my goodness, Tony Romo, I'm going to
get the exact quote here in a second. I got
to pull this up off of my text messages because
I made sure I saved this. But anyways, Steelers run
the football twenty seven times for two hundred and thirty yards.
And we know whenever French he played into the late seventies,
was he on any of the eighties teams, early eighties teams.
I'd have to go back and watch that. But yeah,

(15:31):
how many times is Tony Romo going to say that's
a walk in touchdown Tony. You want to see a
walk in touchdown, you need to watch number thirty walk
it into the end zone, not once, but twice. Ding
Dong Aaron Rodgers completing almost sixty six percent of his
passes just a tenth of a point shy of that
twenty seven to forty one, two sixty six with a touchdown.

(15:54):
He was brought down twice. I have to mention this
because Dylan Cook earlier in the game looked like he
might have his hands full. I don't think it was
Aiden Hutchinson. It might have been Davenport that beat him.
Could be wrong enough to go back and look at
some game film, but that was in the first quarter.
They're like, oh, the Steelers team's in trouble. They got
Spencer Anderson out there to this is such a young
offensive line. Zach Fraser was on the injury report. They
were able to impose their will as they wanted. The

(16:17):
Steelers possession wise ugly at first field goal. Nine plays
thirty yards, seven plays thirty one yards and a punt,
three plays seven yards and a punt, three plays nothing
and a punt. That's all the way through the second
quarter until they get the ball and realized before halftime.
You know what, we need to do something here because
the Detroit Lions. We can't go into this halftime down

(16:39):
against this team. It needs to be at least a
one score game. If we get up two scores, we
could make them one dimensional. It's exactly what they did.
Excellent job by Arthur Smith, Aaron Rodgers and company to
drive eleven plays in this series ninety yards and the
touchdown that was capped off by that pass to Kenny
g also forty five yards unbelievable. And you know they

(17:03):
had a very good, very good possessions throughout. You know,
from the third quarter into the fourth nine play sixty
five yards was the Dartnell Washington fubble. You also had
the seventeen play seventy nine yard drive that finished with
Boswell field goal and gave Detroit the ball back into

(17:27):
the fourth quarter. Detroit, of course, had lost that football
in the third quarter the only time they touched it
three plays after the Washington fubble, three plays fifty one
seconds minus three yards. And the safety Kyle Duggar who
put on the graphic three three weeks in a row.
Three guys that I'm always trying to find people on
the game day graphics that go out you know, on

(17:49):
our Instagram and other social media outlets. Dugger's on it
this week and he gets the safety that was crazy
last week was a nice big stop by Peyton Wilson
on a sack he was on and James Pierre the
week before against the Ravens had an interception. Got you
know our own streak going here when it comes to
picking the right guys and who's going to make an
impact in the game. But you couldn't have guessed it.

(18:09):
You couldn't have drew it up any better. You still
have like guys like a Sante Samuel out there. I
mentioned Jeremiah Moon, just so many like role players. You
know why a Black could have probably had an interception
in this game. He's logging some time. Derek Carmon returns.
The Steelers score on three other four drives that are
into the fourth quarter because of the long one goes
from third and to fourth phild goal. The two touchdowns,

(18:31):
they keep pace with the Detroit Lions. You know what
that shows me? That shows me a team with championship potential.
This could be the team that finally gets the host
a playoff game in Pittsburgh. This is a team that
may finally get you know, the proverbial monkey off their back,
to chip off their shoulder and get that playoff win
for the first time since the twenty sixteen season. They

(18:55):
haven't had a playoff game with fans since twenty seventeen,
when they lost to the Jacksonville Jaguars as the top
one of the top seeds in the AFC back when
you used to have two seeds that got the buys
and you know, everybody's calling for Mike Tomlin to be
out of here. He's just turned this team around with
whatever pieces of the pile he could find, like Spencer
Anderson and Dylan Cook and giving Kenneth Gainwell a larger row,

(19:16):
and Marquez Valdez scantling this ball that's like, you know,
it nearly catches it? Did Kenneth Gainwell the catch that
he did have, it goes in for that forty five yards?
Holy smokes, is he left bell two point zero. I
don't want to say it too soon, but wow, it's
been unbelievable. So good that Caleb Johnson was a healthy
scratch for this game. As far as I'm aware, there

(19:38):
was no health issues or any kind of other status
surrounding him. Adam Thielen puts his hand in the pile
here too, Mike Tomlin as part of all of this. Wow,
let me see Aaron Rodgers. How many guys he completed past? Two? Won, two, three, four, five, six, seven,
eight nine. Keith Gainwell caught five of them for seventy
eight yards. The forty five yard long he led everyone

(19:59):
feeling get it's four receptions for forty nine yards. A
guy off of waivers just had almost as many yards
in this game then he had all season with two
other teams. DK metcalf four for forty two. DK, keep
your hands to yourself, bro, I don't know what's going
to happen with them. I don't know. I could see
the league taking them at least one game suspension and
taking that game check. It's going to be a very

(20:21):
healthy one. I don't know about just a fye. I
don't feel good about a multi game suspension. I don't
feel good at just a fine just not a good look,
not a good look at all. We'll talk about it
more later when I have Brian here as well. Darn
out Washington Rumblin, gotta kee, keep the keep the baby,
safe hold on to that ball. Four receptions of nine
four reception or three receptions on four targets for thirty

(20:44):
six yards. Pat Friar Muth was also not absent this
one four for twenty, Scotty Miller the Scottie Miller Drive
three for nineteen. Even if you sit some guys against
Cleveland Browns and you know that the next game is
the big one against the Baltimore Ravens, we'll see what
they end up doing. So it's a little ahead of
the game here and didn't hang out till the Sunday
night on the short schedule with the holiday this week, folks,

(21:06):
don't forget the light comment and subscribe to Steelers do
something that they haven't done well, only done it once
another time during this win streak. I think the other
game before that doesn't really count as like a three
second disparity. That's winning the time of possession over thirty
four minutes with the football twenty three first downs matches
the Detroit Lions. They were fifty percent on third down,

(21:27):
held the Lions to forty A large deal of that was,
of course, in the fourth quarter where the Lions finally,
you know, kind of got their head out of their
posterior and started to play some football. They were near equals.
They ran seventy plays to the Lions sixty nine. Nice,
but the Steelers four hundred and eighty one yards of offense.
Holy cowed. What they got to clean up though, is

(21:47):
the eight penalties for eighty nine yards. We'll see if
they get to clean this up a little bit further.
Cleveland Brown's crazy games. Doris Sanders leaves in that game
they played the Buffalo Bills, they got to play at home.
They gave Buffalo a real run for their money. For
the most part, they just didn't have They didn't have
as much offense to get going. Josh Allen not one
of his best games, So it's going to be a

(22:08):
very formidable defense. It's a division rival. It's a fan
base that doesn't like this team. It's a fan base
that still revels in the fact that they eliminated the
Steelers in twenty twenty. That was the last time the
Steelers had a home game, but not with fans. They
weren't there because of COVID protocols. Steelers Nation is hungry
for a postseason game. I think this Pittsburgh Steelers team
has just figured out what it takes to win, and

(22:29):
Mike Tomlins knows. Mike Tomlin is no stranger to winning.
He has just secured another non losing season with his
ninth victory. Even if they dropped the next two, Mike
Tomlin will still have another winning season. All of his
haters can just you know, address to Pittsburgh Steelers and
throw it in the mail. That's where it belongs to.

(22:49):
Nobody wants to see it anyways. They throw the fan
mail away in big large garbage bags. Folks, that'll do
it for me. Told you this one is going to
be short. I hope you enjoyed it. Once again, leave
a rating review Wherever you're watching or listening from. My
name is Joe Kuzba. You've been listening or watching the
steel City Underground podcast available video on YouTube on Facebook. Also,

(23:10):
we have a dedicated Spotify feed, one for audio, in
one for video, or wherever else you may be listening.
Thanks once again for supporting the program until next time.
As we always do, encourage everyone out there to be safe,
be good, and we'll catch you later.

Speaker 1 (23:24):
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