Chiefs vs. Steelers: Score and Twitter Reaction from 2014 Regular Season

For the Pittsburgh Steelers and Kansas City Chiefs, the playoffs started Sunday. A win and they're primed for January football. A loss and their hopes are on life support. 

Ben Roethlisberger used that knowledge to prove again why he's one of the NFL's best big-game quarterbacks. Roethlisberger threw for 220 yards, Le'Veon Bell and Antonio Brown each scored a touchdown and the Steelers defense thwarted Jamaal Charles en route to a 20-12 victory over Kansas City.

The win clinches a playoff spot for Pittsburgh, which controls its own destiny in the AFC North. With a win over the Cincinnati Bengals next week, the Steelers will earn their first division crown since 2010. Their playoff berth snaps the first two-year drought in more than a decade. Dejan Kovacevic of DKonPittsburghSports.com explained the magnitude of Pittsburgh's victory:

"We've kind of had that mentality for the last couple weeks that it's time to get hot and play our best football," Roethlisberger told reporters this week.

The Chiefs, who dropped to 8-7, are still alive but are hanging on by a thread. They will need to beat the San Diego Chargers next week at Arrowhead and have the Baltimore Ravens to lose to Cleveland. 

For the Chiefs, their defeat largely came down to missed opportunities. All but one of Kansas City's seven drives went deep into Pittsburgh territory but continually resulted in failures. Andy Reid settled for four Cairo Santos field goals, a failed fourth-down conversion wiped points off the board in the first half and Charles fumbled on a promising Chiefs drive in the third quarter. 

Don Wright/Associated Press

All of that opened up too many opportunities for the Pittsburgh offense, which was far from perfect but was effective when needed. Roethlisberger completed 18 of his 25 passes and battled through a leg injury suffered in the second half.

Brown, as per usual, was the recipient of a majority of Roethlisberger's affections. The NFL's leading receiver had seven catches for 72 yards, including a three-yard touchdown in the third quarter that gave Pittsburgh a double-digit lead. Brown has made at least seven receptions in 10 straight games and broke his own franchise record for most receiving yards in a single season.

“You name it, they’ve tried it,” Steelers coach Mike Tomlin told reporters of teams' attempts to stop Brown. “But it’s a testament to him [and] not only just him but the balance that we’ve been able to strike with our offense."

That balance was tilted a little more toward the pass Sunday, as the Chiefs did a nice job of bottling up the Pittsburgh running game. Bell had 63 yards on 20 carries and did not have a run of longer than seven yards.

Tom Puskar/Associated Press

After having more than 200 total yards in three straight games, Bell's production has regressed to the mean the last two weeks. He's rushed for only 110 yards on 40 attempts, and while he was productive in the passing game in Atlanta, Kansas City kept the dump offs to a minimum. His nine receiving yards were a season low.

The battle between two of the NFL's best running backs came and went with a whimper, as Charles was also kept in check. He was limited to 29 yards on the ground and 48 receiving, all but eliminating the Chiefs' only big-play threat.

Alex Smith did most of the offensive heavy lifting but was undone by his continued struggles to put the ball in the end zone. Smith threw for 311 yards and completed 31 of his 45 passes, but he also went down for six sacks and at a couple different points missed receivers for big gains down the field. Kansas City's longest offensive play was a 33-yard pass to Albert Wilson—and that was its only play longer than 20 yards.

Wilson, an undrafted free agent from Georgia State, has at least 50 yards each of the last three weeks. He's become a solid target and makes plays after the catch, something that can't be said about a majority of Kansas City's receiving corps. Dwayne Bowe and De'Anthony Thomas each had six receptions but averaged fewer than 10 yards per pop. Six different Kansas City players had at least four grabs.

“I want them to want the ball, don’t get me wrong,” Chiefs coach Andy Reid told Terez A. Paylor of The Kansas City Star. “You want them all (to demand the ball). I want Jamaal (Charles) to want to carry the football. But you also want them to be team players and understand the big picture of things, so I’ve been fortunate to have those kind of guys.”

While the "team player" mantra is nice, the Chiefs' lack of offensive explosion is undoubtedly high on the list of reasons they're in danger of missing the postseason. Their lack of touchdown passes to wide receivers, which reached a post-merger record of 18 straight games this week, is an issue. But it's one that speaks about the quarterback, the system and talent acquisition as it does anything else. The Chiefs are a mediocre offensive team because nearly every player other than Charles doesn't fall far away from that adjective.

"

The Chiefs offense looking at an 11 point deficit: pic.twitter.com/HwUKk3uIzO

— Cian Fahey (@Cianaf) December 21, 2014"

The Steelers, meanwhile, are built on a three-headed monster of the improved Roethlisberger, perhaps the NFL's best receiver in Brown and one of its best running backs in Bell. None of that trio had their best game Sunday.  It's the process that brought them together, though, that will send the Steelers to the playoffs while Kansas City very likely watches from home.

Follow Tyler Conway (@tylerconway22) on Twitter