PITTSBURGH — There were worries aplenty for the Pittsburgh Steelers following two bad games against two bad teams. Ben Roethlisberger was getting sacked too much, the offense wasn't scoring, and, oh yes, there was that terrible field.

They need not have worried going into Sunday night's division game against Cincinnati. December is here, and that usually means the Steelers are peaking as the playoffs approach — and the Bengals are nearly ready to disappear, a stranger again to January football.

The Steelers got off to a rough start — and, this time, their swampy field wasn't to blame — as the Bengals drove 12 plays for Rudi Johnson's 1-yard touchdown run and a 7-0 lead. It was exactly what the Bengals wanted to do in a series that has been controlled of late by the road team, and in a must-win game if they were to stay alive in the AFC North race.

And exactly what they never did the rest of the game.

The Steelers (9-3) seized control with two long first-half drives that ended with Roethlisberger's 6-yard TD scramble and the first of his two scoring passes to Hines Ward, and they withstood two Willie Parker fumbles for a 24-10 victory that moved them much closer to clinching the AFC North.

The Browns (7-5), 27-21 losers at Arizona, fell two games back with four to play but, in reality, are three back because Pittsburgh swept the season series.

"You have to win the ones at home to win the division," defensive end Aaron Smith said, pointing to the Steelers' 7-0 home record. "This was very big for us."

Very familiar for the Bengals, too.

The Bengals (4-8) can't win the division and must finish 4-0 just for a .500 season, and they are assured of a 16th non-winning season in the past 17. They won in Pittsburgh the previous two seasons and three of the past four but, for only the second time in the series' past 11 games, the home team won.

"It's a loss that doesn't sit well with us," coach Marvin Lewis said. "We just didn't get things done. We had some chances. We didn't make some third downs. ... We missed some throws, and that ended up being the difference."

Carson Palmer was 6-for-7 on the opening drive, but only 11-for-37 after that against a Steelers team that was coming off a surprise 19-16 overtime loss to the New York Jets and a 3-0 win over the winless Dolphins. Chad Johnson had a quiet night despite making six catches for 86 yards, and T.J. Houshmandzadeh was held to five catches for 42 yards.

The Bengals had chances, getting the ball three times inside the Steelers 25, but that excellent field position resulted in only a single Shayne Graham field goal.

"The first drive was great," said Palmer, who led a 35-6 rout of Tennessee last week. "We executed, we played well. We just never really got anything going after that. They kept giving us opportunities but we weren't capitalizing."

The Steelers did, playing much better than they did in the muck and mire last Monday, when they couldn't score for 59½ minutes against the NFL's only winless team.

Given a week to dry out, Heinz Field was in much better shape. There was a minimum of slipping and sliding even though it rained again for much of the game.

OK, so maybe Heinz Field didn't resemble Augusta National, but it was a big improvement.

"It wasn't a mire like it was Monday night, or a rice paddy field," Steelers left tackle Max Starks said. "It was a lot more substantial and stable, a little bit better footing."

Coach Mike Tomlin liked how Roethlisberger stood up to the Bengals' opening drive, patiently leading three touchdown drives of 10 plays or longer. Two ended with TD passes to Ward, who owns the team career TD catches record of 64, or one more than Hall of Famer John Stallworth.

Thirteen of those 64 are against the Bengals, the most of any opponent.

"Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd be the leader of some of the statistics here, especially with two greats here in (Lynn) Swann and Stallworth," Ward said.

While 24 points don't constitute a breakout game, the Steelers were much more consistent than they were while being limited to a single touchdown by the Jets and Dolphins, despite having four turnovers to Cincinnati's one. Roethlisberger wasn't sacked once after being dropped 12 times in his previous two games.

Roethlisberger's 6-yard touchdown scramble early in the second quarter tied it at 7 and seemed to pick up an offense that bogged down all night against Miami. Maybe the calendar did, too: The Steelers are 24-7 in December and January home games at Heinz Field.

Whatever the reason, the Steelers needed something like this going into next Sunday's game against New England, which will be 12-0 if it beats Baltimore on Monday night.

"Ben is a tremendous competitor," Tomlin said. "He gets that wild look in his eye. You love that about him. His teammates love that about him. They rally around that."