PITTSBURGH — The Pittsburgh Steelers head into their bye week with a 7-4 record, having won four of their past five games, but all is not well in Steelers land.

It took them until the fourth quarter Monday to overtake the 2-8 Tennessee Titans, who entered the final quarter with an 11-point lead, and win 27-24.

So coach Mike Tomlin will not have to try to explain (or ignore) why his teams traditionally play down to much lesser opponents (they have losses to Tampa Bay and the New York Jets this season). But the Steelers remain a shaky 7-4 after squeaking past the Titans.

Still, they have shown incredible abilities at times to both throw the ball and to run it.

Running back Le’Veon Bell rushed for 204 yards on 33 carries against the Titans, the fourth-best running total in club history. That came two games after Ben Roethlisberger became the first quarterback to throw for 12 touchdowns in consecutive games and the first to top 500 yards passing in a game twice in his career.

The Steelers offense has shown it can be diverse, while its defense continues to be rather impotent. They had no sacks against rookie quarterback Zach Mettenberger, although cornerback William Gay did have a pick-six in the first quarter, Mettenberger’s first pass of the night.

“We’ve been very up front that we want to be a balanced group,” Tomlin said of his offense. “We want to be a group that’s capable of stepping in a stadium and throwing with anybody in the NFL. We want to be a group that’s capable of stepping into a stadium and running with anybody in the NFL. I think we are rounding into form in that regard.”

REPORT CARD VS. TITANS

PASSING OFFENSE: C-minus – Ben Roethlisberger completed 21 of 32 passes for 207 yards with one touchdown and a bad interception into the end zone just before the half that prompted a 14-point turnaround in the final minute of the second quarter. Instead of completing a pass to a wide open Antonio Brown, it was picked off and one play later, Tennessee scored on an 80-yard touchdown pass with 32 seconds to go. Roethlisberger also was sacked five times, tying a season high. But he did throw a nice 12-yard touchdown pass to Antonio Brown for the winner in the fourth quarter and completed a third-down pass with six minutes left that allowed them to keep the final, clock-killing drive moving.

RUSHING OFFENSE: A – It doesn’t get any better than what Le’Veon Bell did Monday, rushing 33 times for 204 yards and a touchdown, the fourth-most prolific rushing day in club history. Trailing by four with 13 minutes left, Bell ran 11 times for 69 yards on Pittsburgh’s final two drives that ended with the winning touchdown and then one that consumed the final 6:58 of the game.

PASS DEFENSE: C-minus — The Steelers usually consume rookie quarterbacks, but Zach Mettenberger completed 15 passes for 263 yards, two touchdowns and not one sack for a 110.2 passer rating. However, his first pass was a killer interception that cornerback William Gay returned for a touchdown that staked Pittsburgh to a 10-0 lead. He also was not effective in the fourth quarter when the Titans had two three-and-outs with the lead.

RUSH DEFENSE: B — The Titans were not particularly interested in running the ball even after Bishop Sankey had a 9-yard run up the middle for a touchdown in the first quarter. Sankey had only 10 other carries for only 29 more yards and Tennessee surrendered their interest in the ground game with just 15 tries for 49 yards.

SPECIAL TEAMS: B — Shaun Suisham made both of his field-goal attempts, including a 49-yarder to end the game’s first series. Markus Wheaton appears to have become the new kickoff return man, running back five for a 24.6-yard average. There were no long returns against the Steelers, although they took a strange tactic in having Shuisham squib a few kickoffs that resulted in the Titans getting good field position.

COACHING: C – The plan to establish the run turned out eventually to be a good one even though the Steelers got away from that plan late in the second quarter and early in the third. One thing no one did was panic when they fell behind by 11 points in the second half and it was not any coach’s fault that Roethlisberger had yet another inconsistent outing.