When you get a football game as richly entertaining as this was, with a multi-layered plot turning itself inside out again and again, with seven lead changes across 60 electric minutes, five of them in the last 7:51, two of them in the final 42 seconds, you might assume you're watching two iconic franchises fighting for every single inch.
And you'd be wrong about that.
The Dallas Cowboys fought for every single inch; the Steelers fought for every inch except for those where running out of bounds looked more convenient.
Or am I wrong about that, Antonio Brown?
"When you look back on a football game, you always think you could have done more," Brown said when I asked about letting himself get run across the sideline by Dallas punter Chris Jones in the fourth quarter of a perfectly avoidable 35-30 loss to an awfully good team. "The outcome is not what we desired to be, but you know, I think I got all I could get. The guys made some good blocks to get me to the outside. I think the punter did a good job with keeping his leverage and not letting me get up field."
The fact is, the Steelers scored anyway on the possession that started with Jones escorting Brown out of bounds at the Dallas 46 early in the fourth, taking a 24-23 lead that might not have happened without three of Brown's game-high 14 catches.
But that's not the point.
You've heard of setting the tone early? Well, the Steelers decided to set it late, with a strange undercurrent that looked too much like indifference, beginning with a kickoff Fitz Toussaint returned from his own 1. Fitz started smartly to his right, accelerated nicely, and took the arc of his path right into the Dallas bench without so much as token contact. No one was even credited with a tackle on the play. Fitz effectively tackled himself rather than absorb a little punishment in exchange for additional territory.
On a subsequent swing pass hook-up from one sensational Dallas rookie to another _ Dak Prescott to Ezekiel Elliott _ Elliott charged toward the Steelers sideline, slammed on the breaks, and headed upfield for a few more yards, a ton more inches, and when you lose by 5 at home, this very thing and be the difference and often is the difference.
"We are undisciplined and not accountable," said a disgusted Ben Roethlisberger, who threw for a season-high 408 yards. "That's why they are one of the best in the business, and we're not right now."
Let's return to that punt return for a minute, because it was the best illustration of lapsed concentration until the final seconds.
As Brown turned the corner, it was clear at least for the moment that only the Cowboys' punter stood between him and the goal line, and yet he settled for a 22-yard return. A splash play without the splash.
"If I feel like I'm the last line of defense _ and to a degree yes, I did _ then I've got to use the sideline as a friend, try to keep leverage, and at all costs just force him out," said Jones in the winning locker room. "Don't let him cut back and make a play."
Jones was as surprised as anyone at Heinz Field that Brown did not cut back on the play.
"I was preparing myself for him to try and cut back, so I was just stutter-stepping more than anything," Jones said. "I was just trying to close on him to make sure he went out."
Jones was credited with a tackle, but it was too easy. Irresponsibly easy on Brown's part.
But after Dallas flipped the Pittsburgh lead again on its next possession, Brown and Roethlisberger still put Pittsburgh back on top with a 15-yard endzone connection after Ben faked a spike on the play. That 5-play, 75-yard drive to a 30-29 lead with 42 seconds left was instantly matched in its exact dimensions by the Cowboys, who scored with nine seconds left to make it 35-30.
The Steelers got the ball at their own 25 with only one timeout. Ben got it to Brown on an 11-yard play that ended with two seconds on the clock, so there was only one option from the 36 with the Dallas defense sitting 50 yards deep in coverage.
Roethlisberger turned to his right and whipped it to Brown, who started across the middle with all kinds of room, but as he swept inside the Dallas 35, he veered left, toward the sideline, instead of back toward the middle where the customary one-in-a-hundred-shot lateral sequence could commence.
As the clock expired, Brown simply ran out of bounds.
"In that situation," Brown said, "we were just trying to make the most of it."
You know, that's not what it looked like.
The last four-game losing streak around here, the one that started the 2013 season, was by a flawed Steelers team on the way to a second consecutive 8-8 season. This one is way different; this one is by a team that's starting to look like it just can't be bothered to fight for every inch.
