DAVIE, Fla. -- The Steelers took care of their part of the playoff equation and defeated the Miami Dolphins, 30-24, here today and awaited a long-shot parlay of results of later games to see if they will play on.

The victory raised their record to 9-7 but they needed losses by Baltimore, Denver and the New York Jets in order to make the playoffs. If any of those three win, the Steelers season will end. A win by Baltimore knocked the Steelers out of the playoffs. Baltimore is at Oakland, Denver at home to Kansas City and the Jets at home against the Cincinnati Bengals.

That three-team ticket was made necessary when Houston beat New England 34-27. Had the Patriots, who blew a 14-point fourth-quarter lead, won, the Steelers would have needed only a loss by either the Jets or Ravens to get into the playoffs.

Ben Roethlisberger threw three touchdown passes, of 5 yards to Santonio Holmes, 54 yards to Mike Wallace and three yards to Heath Miller.

Jeff Reed kicked field goals of 22, 21 and 33 yards, the last with 40 seconds left in the game.

The Dolphins (7-9) scored on Lex Hilliard's 11-yard pass from Chad Henne and Dan Carpenter's 25-yard field goal, both in the first half. They then narrowed a 17-point fourth-quarter deficit to three with two touchdowns behind their third-string quarterback. The first was a 16-yard run by wide receiver Brian Hartline in the fourth quarter. Tyler Thigpen then ended a three-play, 62-yard drive against the Steelers defense by completing a 34-yard touchdown pass to Davone Bess.

That made a game of it at 27-24 with 8:37 to go. Former Steelers linebacker Joey Porter then recovered a Roethlisberger fumble at the Steelers' 13 with 6:55 left, but safety Ryan Clark ended that threat by intercepting Thigpen at the two.

Miami lost two quarterbacks to injury in the game. Henne did not open the second half because of an injury to his eye. Backup Pat White, a rookie from West Virginia, was carted off the field on a straight board after what was described as a head injury late in the third quarter when he was hit hard by cornerback Ike Taylor.

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