2) Flacco adjusted quickly in his first start<\/p>\n
Starting a game for the Bengals less than five days after being traded from the Browns, Joe Flacco predictably struggled in the Bengals’ first four offensive series. But after halftime, he completed 21 of 30 passes for 179 yards and a fourth-and-goal TD pass to scare the daylights out of the Packers in Green Bay. Tee Higgins<\/a> had his best game of the season. Ja\u2019Marr Chase<\/a> came alive, catching a fourth-quarter TD. The whole operation moved as smoothly as it has (even with three Andrei Iosivas<\/a> drops) since before Burrow was injured. With Joey Porter Jr.<\/a> back in the lineup, the Steelers should have their full cast of cornerbacks to defend the Bengals’ talented wideouts. Porter, Darius Slay<\/a> and Jalen Ramsey<\/a> should see plenty of Chase and Higgins, who figure to once again be the main targets with Mike Gesicki<\/a> on IR, Tanner Hudson<\/a> with injury concerns and Iosivas not inspiring trust.<\/p>\n 3) Steelers defense making progress with pass rush<\/p>\n Pittsburgh’s defense started the season slowly but has rounded into form the past three games. The Steelers have 20 sacks in 2025, including six in Week 6. The Bengals have allowed 16 sacks in 2025, but with Flacco in the lineup last week, they gave up a season-low one sack to the Packers. T.J. Watt<\/a> is the Steelers’ best-known sackmaster, but pay attention to their leading sacker, Nick Herbig<\/a>, who has 4.5 sacks — all in the past three weeks. Even with Flacco under center, Cincinnati’s pass protection figures to be a big worry. The Bengals have given up most of their pressure from the edges, with OTs Orlando Brown<\/a> and Amarius Mims<\/a> the most guilty parties. Brown allowed the Bengals’ only sack last week on a quick pressure in the red zone, but Mims has played better the past two games after a tough outing vs. Denver. The Bengals haven’t run the ball for more than 85 yards in a game this season, so this would be an ideal spot for Chase Brown<\/a> and the run game to help balance things out a bit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"2) Flacco adjusted quickly in his first start Starting a game for the Bengals less than five days…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3630,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[3269,3287,3265,3277,3288,3268,3271,3282,3276,3264,3280,3283,3272,3270,3281,3274,3273,139,3285,3266,3286,3275,73,75,74,1833,3267,3284,3279,3278],"class_list":{"0":"post-3629","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh","8":"tag-aaron-rodgers","9":"tag-amarius-mims","10":"tag-around-the-nfl","11":"tag-calvin-austin-iii","12":"tag-chase-brown","13":"tag-cincinnati-bengals","14":"tag-d-k-metcalf","15":"tag-darius-slay","16":"tag-darnell-washington","17":"tag-game-preview","18":"tag-jamarr-chase","19":"tag-jalen-ramsey","20":"tag-jaylen-warren","21":"tag-joe-flacco","22":"tag-joey-porter-jr","23":"tag-jonnu-smith","24":"tag-kenneth-gainwell","25":"tag-news","26":"tag-nick-herbig","27":"tag-no-minute","28":"tag-orlando-brown","29":"tag-pat-freiermuth","30":"tag-pittsburgh","31":"tag-pittsburgh-headlines","32":"tag-pittsburgh-news","33":"tag-pittsburgh-steelers","34":"tag-regular-season","35":"tag-t-j-watt","36":"tag-tee-higgins","37":"tag-trey-hendrickson"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3629\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}