Bengals Season All but Over After Beatdown by Steelers

The Bengals season is essentially over following a 34 - 12 beatdown at the hands of the Steelers.

For weeks, the Cincinnati Bengals offense has watched as the defense collapsed time and again, spoiling lead after lead and putting the Bengals season on life-support.  Against the Pittsburgh Steelers in Week 11, though, it was the offense that looked dysfunctional.

Following back-to-back heartbreaking losses to the New York Jets and Chicago Bears, the Bengals finally did their fans a service by making this one a no-doubter.  Two second half defensive touchdowns by the Steelers transformed this game from a competitive divisional matchup to a forgettable 34 - 12 blowout.

The second of the so-called “Unc Bowls” featuring two of the NFL’s oldest passers in Aaron Rodgers and Joe Flacco was quite a different experience from the first rendition.  The first go-round saw big plays galore, and two forty-something QBs turning the clock back at least a decade.  Game two was a completely different story.

Instead of big plays, we got three-and-outs.  Instead of QBs defying their age, both Rodgers and Flacco showed clear signs of the wear, with Rodgers missing the entire second half after suffering a hand injury in the second quarter.  On a particularly windy day in Pittsburgh’s Acrisure Stadium, passes sailed and skipped, wobbled and wavered, and generally missed their mark entirely.  In their previous matchup, Rodgers and Flacco combined to put up 591 passing yards.  The two combined for just 198 in the first half before Rodgers left the game.

Of course, Rodgers leaving the game was anything but a disaster for the Steelers.  If anything, they probably wish they would have made the change to Mason Rudolph sooner.  In classic Bengals fashion, the backup QB looked like a star.  Rudolph played the entire second half and threw just four incomplete passes.  Steelers running back Kenneth Gainwell had acres of open grass in front of him every time Rudolph found him on a check-down, and tight end Darnell Washington (all 270-something pounds of him) proved almost impossible to tackle on several occasions, absolutely dominating the Bengals corners and safeties who looked like children next to him.

And yet, the defense was hardly responsible for this loss.  A Flacco pick-six late in the third quarter made it a two-score game, and it was none other than newly-acquired safety Kyle Dugger who was responsible for the Steelers game-changing play.  After watching the Bengals make a season-saving trade for Flacco that spurred the Bengals to a 33 - 31 win over the Steelers four-weeks ago, the Steelers effectively ended the Bengals season with their own new addition.  Just two drives later, the Steelers returned a Noah Fant fumble for a touchdown and the game was essentially over.

It’s hardly a surprising result.  The Bengals were putting up astonishing numbers offensively over the last few weeks, but as phenomenal as the Joe-Flacco experience had been, the Bengals were due for a regression game like this.  That it came when the Bengals put up their best defensive effort since Week One is perfectly fitting.

Now, the Bengals face a particularly nasty stretch in their schedule.  Their next four games are: at home vs. New England, on the road vs. Baltimore, on the road vs. Buffalo, and at home vs. Baltimore.  The Bengals won’t be favored in any of those games, nor should they.  The defense probably won’t play as well as they did today against the Steelers, but the offense probably won’t keep playing as well as it did against the Bears and Jets.  The harsh reality is the Bengals are a bad football team this year.  They have three wins right now, and they could very realistically finish with three.

After today’s loss, all the talk of an imminent Joe-Burrow return will all but cease.  Burrow might play just because he’s a competitive maniac, but the Bengals would be wise to keep him wrapped in bubble-wrap for the rest of the season.  This team isn’t about to go on a long win-streak to save their season – that ship has sailed.  They simply aren’t good enough.  The Bengals proved last year an elite offense can’t always make up for an useless defense, and this season, their offense is missing its best player and the defense has somehow gotten worse.  Of course the Bengals are in this position.

The rest of the season is all about evaluating the players that will be here moving forward.  Burrow, Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins are just about the only certainties.  The offensive line looked solid in the first half before failing in several critical moments in the second half (as is tradition).  Rookie guards Dylan Fairchild and Jalen Rivers were both solid today, and opened up plenty of holes for running back Chase Brown, who finished with 117 total yards, his fourth consecutive game with over 100 rushing and receiving yards.  He continues to look the part as the Bengals lead running back.

After Chase and Higgins, receiving depth continues to be inconsistent.  Andrei Iosivas caught a couple balls early, but dropped a pass in the third quarter and then was never seen again.  On a day where the Steelers were determined not to allow the Bengals star receivers to beat them, nobody else was able to step up, but given the two back-breaking turnovers, it hardly mattered anyway.

Defensively, Myles Murphy had a great first half generating pressure before disappearing in the second (along with most of the defense, to be fair).  The defensive line in general stepped up in the absence of Trey Hendrickson and Shemarr Stewart, but it wasn’t enough.  The linebackers continue to be out of position on dump-off passes to running backs, and the defensive backs are helpless as tacklers.  Even in one of their best games of the season, the Bengals defense still looked inept in several areas.

Hey, at least the special teams have been solid!  Kicker Evan McPherson knocked in his fourteenth and fifteenth field goals of the season on eighteen tries, while punter Ryan Rekhow booted three punts averaging 57.0 yards, stretching his NFL leading 52.8 yards per punt average heading into today’s game even further.  That’s not really a consolation though.  In an AFC that appears to be more open than it’s been in years, the Bengals are blowing a golden opportunity.  This season has already been an abject failure, and there’s still seven weeks to go. Time to start looking forward to the Draft, I guess...