Le’Veon Bell scored on a one-yard wildcat run as time expired to give Mike Vick and the Pittsburgh Steelers a stunning 24-20 victory over the San Diego Chargers on Monday night.
With five seconds left, Bell took the direct snap, ran left and was buried in traffic before diving for the end zone and getting the ball across the line as Donald Butler dragged him down.
“I got to get it in,” Bell said when asked what he was thinking. “We still had a timeout left. I was thinking... ‘OK, maybe if I get stopped, maybe run like four seconds off and get a timeout, and we could kick a field goal.’ I wanted to end the game right there.”
Photo: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY
Thousands of Pittsburgh fans waving Terrible Towels went nuts as the Steelers improved to 3-2. San Diego dropped to 2-3.
Vick, having an awful game until the fourth quarter, kept the drive alive with a 24-yard scramble up the middle and then a 16-yard pass to Heath Miller to the one-yard line one play before Bell’s big run. An unnecessary roughness call against San Diego’s Jahleel Addae moved the ball a half-yard closer to the end zone.
“It is not how you start. It is how you finish,” Vick said.
Photo: AFP
San Diego called a timeout before Pittsburgh ran the gutsy play.
Bell ran 21 times for 111 yards.
San Diego rookie Josh Lambo kicked a go-ahead, 54-yard field goal with 2 minutes, 56 seconds left.
Vick, making his second straight start in place of injured Ben Roethlisberger, could not get much going until he and Markus Wheaton hooked up on a 72-yard touchdown on a stop-and-go route to tie the game at 17 with 7 minutes, 42 seconds left.
The Chargers then moved down the field for Lambo’s kick. Eight days earlier, the rookie kicked a 34-yarder as time expired for a 30-27 win against Cleveland. Lambo was also short and left on a 60-yard attempt just before halftime against the Steelers.
Antonio Gates returned from a four-game performance-enhancing drug (PED) suspension and caught a 12-yard scoring pass from Philip Rivers in the first quarter and then had an 11-yard grab with 8 minutes, 2 seconds left to give the Chargers a 17-10 lead.
Gates has 101 career touchdowns, joining Tony Gonzalez (111) as the only tight ends to reach that milestone.
It was the 72nd and 73rd scoring connection between Rivers and Gates, the most between a quarterback and tight end in NFL history.
Gates was suspended without pay for testing positive for a PED in the offseason.
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