PITTSBURGH — For Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin, the evidence still hurt.

Tomlin sat through all 13 plays of misery, watched every last second of tape of Baltimore’s game-winning drive in a 23-20 victory on Sunday night.

“To be quite frank with you, it stung as much yesterday as it did on Sunday night, as it should,” Tomlin said. “We lost a very tough, close ballgame, highly contested. ... Hopefully we will grow and learn from it. I know those will be our intentions. I truly believe that it will strengthen us moving forward.”

If the Steelers (6-3) want to stay in the playoff picture in the crowded AFC, they don’t really have a choice. A hangover of any kind could be costly, particularly on Sunday against surprising Cincinnati (6-2).

The Bengals have won five straight and typically play Pittsburgh tough no matter how their season is going.

“Really, when you think about it, the last couple of years, the ball has ended up in their hands inside the 10-yard line or so, to win it at the very end,” Tomlin said. “We were fortunate enough to make a play a year ago. We weren’t the year before that.”

The Steelers have been making very few game-changing plays on defense this year. Their four takeaways are tied with woeful Miami for last in the league.

Tomlin would rather his team play smart than take aggressive risks to get the ball and pointed to a pair of missed opportunities in Baltimore’s last drive as to how thin the difference is between getting a takeaway and getting burned.

“I thought we had them moving very early in the drive, in the pocket,” Tomlin said. “We had a swipe at the ball that we missed. We had a third-and-1. We had our hands on the football. We had a fourth-and-1 that the ball just reached the outstretched fingertips of a defensive lineman in the rush lane, and they completed it to Anquan Boldin. To make a long story short, they made all of the necessary plays and we missed a few of them by a hair.”

The defense played relatively well until the final drive. Linebacker James Harrison showed no ill effects of the fractured right orbital bone that kept him out a month, finishing with three sacks and a forced fumble.