With the 2025 season on the horizon, Steelers.com is bringing you Looking Back, where a game against each of our opponents is highlighted. In this edition, it’s the Los Angeles Chargers.<\/p>\n
Steelers 24, Los Angeles Chargers 22
October 10, 2005
Qualcomm Stadium<\/p>\n
There is something about Monday Night Football that brings out something special in the Steelers and that was the case on this night.<\/p>\n
It came down to the wire, but the Steelers pulled out a win in the closing seconds to head back to Pittsburgh happy.<\/p>\n
But the news wasn’t all good. Quarterback Ben Roethlisberger injured his knee at the end of the game, an injury that would sideline him the following week.<\/p>\n
It could have been worse, though.<\/p>\n
“The news on Ben is very good,” said Coach Bill Cowher. “We thought the injury could have been much worse when you look at the hit he took.<\/p>\n
“It’s good that we have Tommy Maddox and Charlie Batch. As of now, Charlie is the starter by default.”<\/p>\n
Before he was hurt, though, he managed to get the Steelers in field goal range. On the final drive of the game, down 22-21 after running back LaDainian Tomlinson put the Chargers on top after a two-yard touchdown run, Roethlisberger set the stage.<\/p>\n
A nine-yard completion to receiver Antwann Randle-El to the Chargers 29-yard line ended with a helmet to the knee for Roethlisberger.<\/p>\n
“He laid it on the line,” said receiver Hines Ward. “He’s lying there hurt on the ground, and he said to me, ‘At least we’re in field goal range.”‘<\/p>\n
Roethlisberger was taken off the field on a cart, replaced by quarterback Charlie Batch. A steady dose of running back Jerome Bettis gave kicker Jeff Reed a little more breathing room and he hit a 40-yard game-winning field goal with six seconds to play.<\/p>\n
“I went to Charlie and said, ‘Give it to me, look it all the way in, follow me as I go through, and I’ll do the rest,'” said Bettis, who missed the previous three games with a calf injury and was hearing critics say he was washed up.<\/p>\n
“The frustrating part for me was listening to everybody talk about, well, should I play,” said Bettis. “I heard it from fans and media. I think I deserve more respect than I was getting.<\/p>\n
“There was a possibility I could have played against New England, but we had a bye week after that, and they wanted to give me another two weeks. It turned out to be the best call.”<\/p>\n
Bettis finished the game with 17 carries for 54 yards and a touchdown.<\/p>\n
“I feel great, I feel fresh,” said Bettis. “And officially, I am back.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With the 2025 season on the horizon, Steelers.com is bringing you Looking Back, where a game against each…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":198155,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2064],"tags":[241,198,7,4463,1014,262,2444,2443,6,914,915],"class_list":{"0":"post-198154","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-chargers","8":"tag-chargers","9":"tag-featured","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-history","12":"tag-los-angeles","13":"tag-los-angeles-chargers","14":"tag-losangeles","15":"tag-losangeleschargers","16":"tag-nfl","17":"tag-non-sponsored","18":"tag-sights-and-sounds"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114833311640870234","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198154\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/198155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}