Steelers Stand Up to Chiefs : Kansas City Gets Turned Away Twice at Finish, 16-10

Chuck Noll knows enough about winning to explain it, but this time he was almost speechless.

Gary Anderson kicked 3 field goals and the Pittsburgh Steelers made two goal-line stands in the fourth quarter of a 16-10 win over the Kansas City Chiefs Sunday.

“It’s tough to know what to say because it’s been so long since we won,” Noll said. “What does this do for us? It gives us the chance to celebrate and we haven’t been able to do that in a while.”

The Steelers (3-10) had lost 4 straight games and 10 of 11.

The Chiefs (3-9-1) had the pressure on until the end, with Steve DeBerg’s passes from the Pittsburgh 14 falling incomplete on the last two plays.

“It might have looked ugly, but we look at it as being pretty,” cornerback Rod Woodson said. “It’s a ‘W’ in our record and we’ll take all the wins we can get.”

DeBerg’s 38-yard completion to Emile Harry gave the Chiefs a first down at the Pittsburgh 10 early in the final quarter, but Woodson intercepted DeBerg’s pass at the 1 on third down from the 7.

DeBerg later hit Jonathan Hayes for 21 yards and a first down at the Steelers’ 4, but the Chiefs settled for Nick Lowery’s 26-yard field goal with 6:34 left after an apparent 3-yard touchdown run by James Saxon was nullified when Hayes was called for illegal motion.

“We had an excellent chance to win,” Chief Coach Frank Gansz said. “We had a few key mistakes, a few turnovers. We didn’t score when we had field position.”

The Steelers took a 13-7 lead when Merrill Hoge scored on a 10-yard run with 1:06 left in the first half. Anderson kicked field goals of 23 and 20 yards in the first quarter and a 22-yarder in the third quarter to run his streak to 30 without a miss inside the 40.

DeBerg teamed with Stephone Paige on a 4-yard touchdown pass play midway through the second period. DeBerg completed 23 of 42 passes for 278 yards.

The Chiefs played without leading rusher, Paul Palmer, who was suspended indefinitely and sent back to Kansas City for an unspecified violation of team rules.