The AFC North usually has a way of ignoring record and how teams have played outside of that week. The Cincinnati Bengals headed into Pennsylvania to face the Pittsburgh Steelers.
The Bengals were coming off an impressive 20-6 win against the now 0-3 Houston Texans, while the Steelers came off a 20-3 loss to the New England Patriots, where their offense looked horrendous.
But again, what has happened coming into these games never seems to matter, as the Steelers came away with a 30-27 win to deny the Bengals a 3-0 start.
Here’s how it all played out.
The Steelers offense started out on fire. Aaron Rodgers had a 30-yard catch-and-run to Jaylen Warren, who found the edge on the play. A couple of plays after that, Rodgers found Roman Wilson — who had burned Jalen Davis out of a bunch set — for a wide-open 38-yard touchdown to take an early lead.
The Bengals responded with a methodical 11-play, 73-yard touchdown drive. Burrow was seven for seven on the drive before finding Ja’Marr Chase running a flat along the goal line to tie things up.
Pittsburgh answered with their own 11-play drive. This time Rodgers converted two long third downs on the drive. Wide receiver Ben Skowronek caught the touchdown, though he’s usually known for blocking. He faked as a lead blocker on the play-fake, and about everyone on the defense jumped in the fake, leaving him wide open in the end zone.
Burrow and the offense continued to pick apart the soft zone coverage that Pittsburgh was showing. They seemed to be driving really well again, but an ill-timed and questionable penalty on Amarius Mims Jr. called back a third-down conversion to Tee Higgins that would have put them inside the red zone. This led to a 50-yard field goal for Evan McPherson to bring the deficit to seven points.
A 35-yard run by Warren that was only stopped due to Boye Mafe hustling to catch him. That set up a field goal for the Steelers. We had our first punt of the game as the Bengals stalled out at midfield. Cincinnati’s defense did take advantage of a huge mistake. Pittsburgh was just crossing midfield when Rodgers threw a pass that went right of Wilson’s hands and hung up into Jordan Battle’s hands for the interception.
That allowed the offense a chance to double dip. They were set to start the second half, so a score on the drive could set up some momentum. That is exactly what happened. Burrow was able to find Higgins — who is normally known for catching the ball at its highest point — who was pulled down by the Steelers defender, but he caught the ball while on the ground for the tying touchdown.
The theme of this game will likely be Cincinnati shooting themselves in the foot constantly. The Bengals faced a 4th-and-2 and the Pittsburgh 42, and they converted with a back shoulder pass to Chase along the sideline for 21 yards. They then had a 3rd-and-4 at the Steelers ’ 15-yard line, but a false start set them back to 3rd-and-9, which wasn’t converted as Higgins was mauled by the defender along the sideline. McPherson gave the Bengals a 3-point lead with a field goal.
The Steelers offense was finally forced to punt, but Cedric Johnson, attempting to block it, ran into the punter’s planting leg, which extended the drive. It ended up being another easy touchdown as Rodgers found DK Metcalf wide open as DJ Turner and Dax Hill ran into each other. This gave the Steelers the lead again at 24-20 with a little under three minutes in the third quarter.
Burrow answered back in a big way. Higgins and Burrow connected for some decent gains. However, the drive seemed to stall again with a 4th-and-2 at the Pittsburgh 25, but the offense stayed on the field. Burrow found Mike Gesicki on a gutsy fourth down call. Gesicki ran a seam, and the Steeler’s defense all sat down about 10 yards from the line of scrimmage for an easy touchdown to take a three point lead.
The Bengals defense got a huge stop to get the ball back to the offense with close to 11 minutes left. However, the punt coverage unit had another miscue. This time it was Ke’Shawn Wilson muffing the punt, and the Steelers recovering it at Cincinnati’s 14 yard line. Luckily the defense stepped up huge to hold them to a game tying field goal after Dexter Lawrence and Mafe converged on Rodgers for a sack on third down.
The Bengals went 3-and-out on their next drive. That setup a pretty wacky series of events. Warren blasted through the offensive line from near the goal line for an 87-yard run. That got called back due to holding. Then Rodgers found Darnell Washington who rumbled and tumbled for 47 yards after breaking several tackles.
Warren then shot out of a cannon again looking like he had an easy touchdown, but the turf monster caught him at the five yard line. That ended up being a huge turn of events as the defense held with a Lawrence sack on 3rd-and-goal forcing the field goal for the Steelers to take the lead.
The Bengals took the field with a little over two minutes left. A 17-yard pass to Chase started the drive after he was able to slip some tackles. Another pass to Chase for 13 yards converted a third down as well as put the Bengals in field goal range with 53 seconds.
However, Burrow was sacked on the next play. He lost the ball and the Steelers recovered to effectively end the game.
This was a rough game. The defense gave up too many big plays, and if not for some key drops, could have been run off the field. There were also way too many penalties and bone headed plays that derailed Bengals’ drive and kept the Steelers’ drives alive.
If it wasn’t for an amazing game by Burrow and the offense against a pretty stout defense, this would have been a blowout. It is certainly a humbling loss. Everyone was high on the defense after the first two weeks, but they will certainly have plenty to take away from this tape. The punt return/coverage unit needs a real talking to after adding 10 points for the Steelers as well.
It certainly isn’t the outcome the team was looking for, but the Bengals are still 2-1, which is a good place to be as they still haven’t entered the easier part of their schedule.