TNF - Steelers @ Bungles erm..Bengals - Pregame Thoughts
It’s a quick turnaround for the boys as the Steelers take the short trip to Cincinnati for a Thursday Night Football game against the Bengals tonight. We come in boasting a three-game win streak and a comfortable two-game lead over the Bengals for first place in the AFC North. The Bengals, losers of four straight games, are looking to tread water and avoid getting completely buried in the standings following an injury to their star QB, Joe Burrow. In the meantime, they traded for Joe Flacco, much to the chagrin of Mike Tomlin, and he’ll be their starter in tonight’s game.
This has trap game written all over it, and the public discourse over Joe Flacco makes me feel even worse in that regard. No doubt, Flacco makes the Bengals a better team than Jake Browning does, but we’re still talking about a 40-year-old QB who hasn’t been a consistent starter in a while now and was traded in-division in the middle of the season. I say all of that, but then I watch the Bengals’ game from last week (@ GB), and I see him looking off safeties and throwing touchdowns with anticipation, and he’s only been on their team for a few damn days. I’ll bet Coach T. was watching that game too, thinking to himself “What the fuck, man?”
With that being said, we’re still talking about a bottom 5 defense when healthy (which they’re not), and a bottom 5 offensive line when healthy (bumps and bruises). Tonight, they’ll be without two tight ends, Tanner Hudson (Concussion) and Mike Gesicki (Pectoral), and the availability of EDGE Trey Hendrickson is in doubt, though he’s officially listed as questionable. The Steelers come into this game nearly entirely healthy, though Calvin Austin III (Shoulder) will miss another game and Miles Killebrew (Knee) will also be out. The big surprise, though, is DeShon Elliott, who is seemingly dealing with a personal matter, and didn’t travel with the team; he’s officially questionable. As I’m typing this, Brooke Pryor just tweeted/posted: “DeShon Elliott has arrived in Cincinnati and he will play tonight, per the team.” Crisis averted. Hopefully everything’s ok with him.
The Steelers offense needs to put up points in this game, and show the league that we’re capable of blowing teams out, too. The Steelers offense put up 44 points against this team in December of last year before a collapse of epic proportions took place. I’m of the mindset that this Steelers offense is better, and while I like some of the Bengals’ new guys like Demetrius Knight and Shemar Stewart, this Bengals defense is probably worse than last year’s group - certainly worse than last year’s group if Trey Hendrickson doesn’t play. I’m not saying you gotta go up there and hang another 40-burger on ‘em, but 30 points and 300 yards of offense would be great, and enough to secure victory in my opinion. The Bungles are 31st in total defense (394.2 yards per game) and 30th in scoring defense (30.5 ppg). Remove last season’s sack king, Trey Hendrickson, from the equation, and yes I’m absolutely setting the floor at 30 points. We should be able to get that done.
The other side of the ball now offers an intriguing matchup, though, with Flacco now stepping in over Jake Browning. All Tee Higgins and Ja’Marr Chase need is the ball in space and they can make life difficult for anyone, and Flacco has worn a lot of jerseys and seen a lot of coverages. Oh yeah, did I mention he spent 11 years in Baltimore, his rookie season being the year after the Steelers hired Mike Tomlin? And that he won a Super Bowl there? This guy has been around the AFC North, and he has smacked some Mike Tomlin defenses right in the mouth over the years. He is 11-11 as a starter against the Steelers.
Still, he has to complete passes, and the Bungles can’t protect him against this defense…that’s right, I’m not even giving them much of a chance. Of course there’s things they can do to mitigate that - get the run game going (good luck), quick passing, designed rollouts - all that jazz, but their offensive line will not stop our defensive line. If they win this game, it will be because they found a way around it. That means our secondary, which has been described by many as slow, will probably have their hands full trying to limit the amount of space these Bungles receivers are able to get. That’s where the intrigue of this matchup comes in - this group surrendered a lot of coverage busts early on in the year, but they’re gonna need to play a clean game in this one, because these receivers can make you pay in a real way. If there’s a team out there that stresses me out in terms of challenging our secondary, this one’s at the top of that list.
When you put the depth charts side by side, it looks like the Steelers should win this game by a million. With that being said, I’m an unfortunate believer in the trap game, and this just feels like one of them, so I’m withholding my confidence until the win is in tow. It’s just, with Tomlin’s 2-9 road record on TNF, and us with an opportunity to bury the division (a win gives us a 3.5 game lead over second place)....I don’t know, man. Doesn’t this just feel like one of those games where we let the foot off the gas and drop one we shouldn’t? Of course, I’ll be stupidly critical tomorrow morning if that happens, but it really shouldn’t happen. We should really win this game by two scores, and have this division bent over our knee by the end of the night.
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