PITTSBURGH — If not for at least two highly questionable calls and a blatant drop near the goal line, we might be writing the Pittsburgh Steelers’ obituary today. But that’s football. So we speak of hope instead.

If the Steelers have a real quarterback, a legitimate passing game and healthy defensive playmakers, they have a chance in the sorry AFC.

That’s just a fact.

But do they actually have all three, or was Sunday a mirage?

That’s a legitimate question.

Let’s start with the quarterback and the pass game. This team hadn’t completed a downfield pass in over a month — how many NFL teams that ever existed can say that? — but connected on a handful Sunday in a 27-22 victory over the Baltimore Ravens.

Those plays are like 3-pointers in basketball. They are great equalizers. They can make up for an ineffective run game, usually lead to points and mean an offense doesn’t have to rely on painstaking, miniature-play drives that can unravel at any time.

By “downfield,” I’m talking about passes that travel 20-plus air yards. You’re forgiven if you’d forgotten that such passes still exist.

The Steelers hadn’t completed one since October, but quarterback Aaron Rodgers began his day with an incredible throw down the right sideline, one that traveled 52 yards in the air and dropped between two Ravens defenders, right into DK Metcalf’s eager hands.

Rodgers peppered his $150 million receiver with a season-high 12 targets. That should be the plan moving forward. The two also connected on a 41-yard burst to open the second half — and those two big plays went a long way toward the win.

There is hope in that, although it also had me thinking of a game in 2020 when Ben Roethlisberger, who’d gone weeks without threatening anybody down the field, suddenly found his touch in a second-half comeback against the Indianapolis Colts. That proved to be a flicker, rather than a flame. The Steelers’ pass game quickly died out.

Will this sudden outburst have more sustenance? That’s an open question, but give Rodgers credit for bouncing back after he looked older than Dick Van Dyke against the Buffalo Bills.

I’m not sure how many quarterbacks in NFL history have thrown for a touchdown, run for a touchdown and a caught a pass in the same game, but Rodgers did all three Sunday — and even though the “reception” went for minus-9 yards on a ball batted back to him, it was as consequential as any play in the game (we’ll get to that).

Rodgers played with unmistakable passion Sunday. He wrestled for that batted ball with his broken left wrist. He also busted out the discount double check, championship belt celebration on his 1-yard scoring run (which Mike Tomlin gloriously mimicked on the sidelines).

In an AFC where Denver, New England and Jacksonville are the top three seeds while Baltimore and Kansas City fade away, anything is possible if you have a quarterback.

And play defense.

The Steelers were hardly great on that side of the ball. But they do have playmakers, and despite spotty production, three of the biggest ones appear to be healthy heading down the stretch — and that is unusual.

T.J. Watt, Cam Heyward and Alex Highsmith all had their moments Sunday. Watt didn’t put up flashy stats, but he was a presence. His early takedowns of Derrick Henry appeared to discourage the Ravens from running the ball until later. Highsmith was a terror, making the game-ending sack of Lamar Jackson, with Heyward providing additional pressure up the middle.

Get those three to a home playoff game healthy, and you might have something. This is no juggernaut, but is there one in the AFC?

Meanwhile …

— It isn’t just the one-game lead that has the Steelers in great shape to win the AFC North. It’s the schedule, too.

The Ravens face Joe Burrow, Drake Maye and Jordan Love before visiting Acrisure Stadium for the season finale. The Steelers have the Miami Dolphins and Cleveland Browns sandwiched around a trip to Detroit.

Baltimore’s horrific, season-opening loss in Buffalo — when they led by 15 with four minutes left — might haunt them right to the bitter end.

— Speaking of the Bills, if the season ended today, they’d be headed to Acrisure Stadium for a rematch.

— Like many NFL rules, “roughing the snapper” is a tough one to define, but it sure looked like the Steelers got a break when Baltimore’s Travis Jones was flagged for a personal foul on long snapper Christian Kuntz. The Steelers turned a field goal into a touchdown, so that’s a four-point play.

CBS officiating analyst Gene Steratore said it was a bad call, with both Baltimore interior rushers “basically in the A gap, with no head contact to the [snapper].”

In other words, they weren’t lined up right over Kuntz and didn’t get him in the head or neck. But what do I know?

— The overturned touchdown catch by Ravens tight end Isaiah Likely seems as straightforward as the Jesse James play against New England all those years ago: good call, bad rule.

Common sense would tell you it was a catch, but because of a stupid rule, it was not. And it was the right call by the letter of that stupid rule. At least I think it was. Do you need to take a third step to make it a touchdown? Is a third step a “football play” or an “act common to the game?”

I guess. And Joey Porter Jr. knocked the ball loose before Likely got a third step down.

NFL vice president of instant replay Mark Butterworth explained in a pool report why he thought the call was correct.

“The control is the first aspect of the catch,” he said. “The second aspect is two feet or a body part in bounds, which he did have. Then, the third step is an act common to the game and before he could get the third foot down, the ball was ripped out. Therefore, it was an incomplete pass.”

— OK, now the disputed catch by Rodgers — and football’s eternal question: What is a catch?

I mean, you practically have to make it back to the bench with the ball to have a touchdown count these days. You also have to maintain control “throughout a catch” on the sidelines or in the end zone, to the point where you could get both feet down, then get blasted and fly 5 yards out of bounds, and if the ball falls out while you’re rolling 5 yards out of bounds, it’s incomplete?

But if you might have possession of a batted ball for a millisecond and your knee is down, it’s definitely a catch?

I guess. That is what officials ruled on the Rodgers play.

“The offensive player had control of the ball, and as he was going to the ground, there was a hand in there, but he never lost control of the ball and then his knees hit the ground in control,” Butterworth said in the pool report. “So therefore, by rule, he is down by contact with control of the ball.”

It looked to me like there was more than “a hand in there,” when Rodgers maybe had possession. Ravens linebacker Teddye Buchanan appeared to have both hands on the ball. If Rodgers had full control when he was down, he surely didn’t maintain possession through the catch — if that’s important in this instance.

Is that important in this instance?

I honestly have no idea. Steratore said “Rodgers had secure possession or control of that football when his left knee is down.”

I never saw Rodgers have full possession or control of the football. Perhaps I have lost my mind. Haven’t we all, on this particular topic?

— Tomlin made a sensible challenge on a deep pass to Zay Flowers on Baltimore’s first possession. The Ravens hurried to the line but Tomlin tossed the flag. It looked as if Flowers bobbled the ball, but the officials ruled it complete.

Does anybody know what a catch is?

— If I had to pick the Steelers MVP 13 games into the season, Kenneth Gainwell is the guy. This man does everything. Sunday, that meant scoring a touchdown, delivering a nice kick return, making something out of nothing on a few of his six receptions and even being the pusher on a tush push.

“How good is this guy?” analyst Tony Romo wondered.

Pretty good, I’d say.

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