Mueller: Resilient Bengals a tough, must-win test for Steelers
Today’s game is one that the Steelers historically win. It doesn’t matter if Mike Tomlin’s team plays the Cincinnati Bengals in Pittsburgh or in southern Ohio, the outcome is usually the same. Since Tomlin took over in 2007, the Steelers are 22-7 against Cincinnati in the regular season, 23-7 if you’d like to count a memorable, surreal playoff triumph in the 2015-16 season.
Prior to last season’s shocking loss to a Ryan Finley-quarterbacked edition of the team, the Steelers hadn’t lost a regular-season game to the Bengals since November 1, 2015. Dominance on that level tends to suggest something more than just a talent or coaching advantage is at work; you’d get the feeling when the teams played that somehow, some way, the Bengals would do just enough to lose, and the Steelers just enough to win.
The paradigm is shifting, and even if the Steelers win today, it will continue to shift for the long term; that’s the reality when one team has a young top-pick quarterback, and the other an aging icon, his best days in the rearview mirror.
In a more immediate sense, if Tomlin and his team have any serious designs on winning the AFC North, they have to win this game. Why, you ask? Since the division was formed in 2002, no team has won it while being swept in a season series. Forging at least a split with all three opponents is a prerequisite for coming out on top.
Of course, the Steelers have their work cut out for them, at least if you’re of the belief that home-field advantage matters. It should in this game; when the Bengals more resemble the Bungles, Cincinnati tends to be overrun with Terrible Towels, but when the team is good – and this version appears to be just that – Bengals fans are loud, proud, and make Paul Brown Stadium a hostile place to play.
What’s more, Cincinnati doesn’t have to convince themselves that they can beat the Steelers. They already handled them at Heinz Field in Week 3, in a 24-10 victory that was more lopsided than the score would indicate. That game ended the Steelers’ NFL-record sack streak at 75 games, and no doubt gave confidence to Cincinnati’s lightly-regarded offensive line.
That’s the only clean game that group has put up this year; as recently as three weeks ago, the Browns hauled down Joe Burrow five times as part of a 41-16 rout. It bears mentioning that the Steelers were without T.J. Watt and Alex Highsmith in the first meeting. Highsmith is getting better, and you may be familiar with Watt’s bona fides.
Perhaps a healthier Steelers defense means more trouble for Burrow, who has shown a propensity for ill-timed interceptions, none worse than a late pick against the Jets that opened the door for New York to spring a massive upset. Perhaps Ben Roethlisberger continues to play like the antithesis of Burrow, and extends his career-best streak without an interception, which currently stands at five games, and methodically moves the chains just enough to get a win.
Or, and this is where the pessimistic part of my brain is starting to drift, the Bengals, who righted themselves with a key win on the road against Las Vegas last week, are starting to figure out how to close out football games, and win when they’re expected to win.
Cincinnati has plenty of weapons for Burrow – Ja’Marr Chase, Tee Higgins, Tyler Boyd, C.J. Uzomah and Joe Mixon make up one of the best skill groups in the league – and he’s plenty capable of getting them the ball.
Mixon’s physical, relentless running style is the element most useful to a team trying to figure out how to play as the hunted, and not the hunter. He affords the Bengals a reliable option, a steadying force for the offense, and the kind of legitimate home-run threat that opposing teams have to account for.
The defense, sneakily eighth in the league in points allowed, is of the bend-but-don’t-break variety, and in Jessie Bates has its unquestioned leader. These Bengals look like the best version of the team since some of Marvin Lewis’ division winners of several years ago. What they don’t have to contend with, like Lewis’ teams did, is a vintage version of the Steelers with a prime Roethlisberger. Their primary burden now is one of expectations.
It’s entirely possible that the weight of those expectations and history is too much, that the Bengals turn back into the Bungles and hand the Steelers a win. Any team that has lost to the Bears and Jets this year is capable of that sort of performance.
More than likely, however, the Bengals won’t be in a giving mood, and the Steelers will have to earn this one. Given what each team has put on tape this year, I’m not very confident that they’ll be up to the task.
This article originally appeared on Beaver County Times: Mueller: Resilient Bengals a tough, must-win test for Steelers
