The contributions came from all over on Sunday night, including a bunch of would-be backups, late round picks and/or undrafted players.

While the result was acceptable, it was a complete and total team effort which saw the Steelers overcome their true division rival, the Baltimore Ravens, to secure a 10-win season, a playoff berth, and another division title.

Like opening Legos on Christmas morning, let’s examine how Pittsburgh assembled their victory.

Offense

The Steelers offense ran 58 plays, which saw the entire offensive line, as well as Ben Roethlisberger, play the entire game.

For a change, Le’Veon Bell and Antonio Brown actually came off the field, though not much. Bell came off the field once, spelled for the now-active DeAngelo Williams‘ only rep. Brown would leave the field only four times.

Demarcus Ayers, appearing in his first game, played 16 snaps (28%) while having one key catch on the game-winning drive, as well as drawing a huge pass interference call on another scoring drive.

Jesse James actually played the next-most plays aside from the Killer B’s and the offensive line, with a 49/84% share. Xavier Grimble, stepping in for Ladarius Green, and catching the game’s first TD following a seam route run to perfection, only played 9 snaps.

Cobi Hamilton, who’s only catch came on the final drive as well, played exactly half of the offensive series.

It’s crazy to think about, because the above names all had a major impact in the game, with Ayers, James, and Hamilton all catching passes in the final minute. Eli Rogers was also in on the 8-completion drive by Ben; the undrafted second-year WR would play 44/76% of the game.

Other notables on offense include the jumbo package players such as Roosevelt Nix (11/19%) along with David Johnson and Chris Hubbard, who both had 10 snaps (17%).

To think the Steelers basically rode Jesse James and Eli Rogers to victory is incredible, considering the lack of big-play threats with Green in the concussion protocol. Both stepped up with 4 catches each, and helped in the team victory.

Defense

On defense, the usual suspects of Artie Burns, Sean Davis, Ross Cockrell, Ryan Shazier and Bud Dupree played every single snap.

James Harrison played all but one, while Lawrence Timmons played all but two, of the team’s 75 defensive reps.

Mike Mitchell also saw his usual 90% or better share with 71/95% of the snaps, but it was L.T. Walton who rose to the occasion, subbing in for the injured Stephon Tuitt.

Walton would play a career-high 67 snaps, or 89% of the game; a tad more than Javon Hargrave who saw 84% of the defensive action with 63 snaps.

That was pretty much the base defense for the evening, aside from William Gay‘s inclusion on 60% of the plays (45 snaps) as the other defensive linemen (Johnny Maxey and Ricardo Mathews) both saw a 20 snap/27% playing time split.

Big Dan McCullers came in for 10 plays, while Robert Golden was in for 4, Jordan Dangerfield for 2, and Arthur Moats subbed for Harrison for his single defensive snap.

The biggest loser on Sunday was LB Jarvis Jones, who was inactive. The coaching staff gave nods to practice squad call-ups Maxey, and recently reacquired Al-Hajj Shabazz. It appears, as has been the case in recent weeks, that the Steelers have their linebackers and secondary figured out for the long haul.

If Tuitt can return, the defensive line rotation will likely see Walton’s inclusion, as the second-year sixth round pick had a strong game with 3 combined tackles.

While the defense didn’t look impressively strong all evening, they were in fact put in bad positions several times, off of Ben’s interceptions, as well as some Chris Boswell kicks which went out of bounds. Given the field position, the D held strong overall, against a tough division rival, and without their two bookends upfront (Tuitt, and which has been the case, Cameron Heyward).

I would expect this to be the look the Steelers give going into the postseason, which is exciting when seeing the pressure they get on quarterbacks, and how they can now contain receivers.