Perhaps next May, when the schedule is released, the Steelers can just tell the NFL to give them a loss on their Thursday night game to save us all the trouble.
Pittsburgh is now 4-2 after a 33-31 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals, and they are staring a second straight loss in the face when they host the Green Bay Packers in Week 8 – if only they had taken advantage of a Bengals team without Joe Burrow and Trey Hendrickson. There’s a lot to get through, though, so let’s get into winners and losers.
Varsity
QB Aaron Rodgers
Rodgers had his second game of the season with four touchdown passes and was in control for four quarters. A poorly-timed deep ball to DK Metcalf that was picked off does deserve acknowledgement, but the second pick was more of a great play by D.J. Turner than it was a bad throw by Rodgers. The four-time MVP had multiple touchdowns off extended plays. The first was to Jonnu Smith when he had north of eight seconds to throw. The second was a 68-yarder to Pat Freiermuth to give the Steelers the lead late in the fourth quarter. Rodgers certainly isn’t what’s wrong with the Steelers; he’s everything right about them.
TE Pat Freiermuth
Good for No. 88. After his playing time went down due to Darnell Washington becoming a focal point of the offense, many were saying the Steelers should find a trade partner for the Penn State product. However, he caught five passes for 111 yards and two second-half touchdowns that should have propelled the Steelers to a win.
RB Jaylen Warren
Warren was tremendous on Thursday. He had 127 yards on the ground and averaged nearly eight yards per carry, and added 31 yards on four receptions. His explosiveness in the run game is what the Steelers’ offense runs through, and this was his best showing of the season.
Jumbo Package
When the Steelers bring Spencer Anderson on the field along with Darnell Washington for their jumbo package, their offense is nearly unstoppable. They utilized Anderson and Washington in motion as blockers multiple times to get a running start against the defense, and it proved to work very well. The more the Steelers use this, the better.
Offensive line
Aside from Broderick Jones nearly killing Rodgers by celebrating a little too hard, the Steelers’ offensive line was great. Rodgers had multiple touchdown passes on plays in which he had more than seven seconds to throw, and he wasn’t sacked for the second straight week. Additionally, the Steelers had 147 yards on the ground. The offensive line is coming into its own.
OC Arthur Smith
Smith is getting himself in head coach conversations with the work he has done with this offense. The Steelers are 10th in points per game and eighth in EPA per play, and he had the offense rolling against the Bengals. Pittsburgh was 7-of-10 on third downs, had just under 400 yards of offense, and still lost because his coaching counterparts couldn’t hold up their end of the bargain. Smith is the best coach on the Steelers’ staff, and that includes the head man.
Junior-Varsity
Defense
Considering just about everyone on the defense played awful, grouping them into one was the easiest route to go.
Let’s start with the defensive line. Aren’t we all glad Cam Heyward complained about money for a month just to be a complete non-factor against the Bengals’ bad offensive line? T.J. Watt was invisible, as well, until late in the game where he and Heyward combined for a sack on Joe Flacco, which led to the second Freiermuth score. Unfortunately, that was all for not because the defense let Flacco, Ja’Marr Chase, and Tee Higgins prance down the field in the final two minutes in what was a very effortless drive to win the game.
What’s equally as frustrating was that the Bengals were averaging less than 60 yards per game on the ground – the worst in the NFL. Chase Brown was averaging less than three yards per carry. Well, the Bengals totaled 142 yards on the ground while Brown averaged 9.8 yards per carry. The Steelers didn’t blitz Flacco, and they allowed the Bengals to do whatever they wanted all evening to the tune of 470 yards.
Jalen Ramsey and Joey Porter Jr. were carved up all night, and both were penalized several times for pass interference. Darius Slay was also dreadful, and Flacco drew a large X on him at several points in this game. The Steelers can spend all the money they want on defense, but if their coaching is sub-par, it doesn’t matter. Speaking of:
DC Teryl Austin
The Steelers blitzed on just 28.6 percent of snaps against a 40-year-old immobile quarterback, opting instead to sit back and play Cover 3 spot while Flacco and Co. ate it up. There’s a reason Austin has been let go from every other team he’s been a part of – he’s not a good defensive coordinator. But he’ll be around as long as Mike Tomlin is.
HC Mike Tomlin
I truly do hate to be a broken record, so forgive me if anything is said that has been said countless times over the last number of years. Whenever you’re a defensive-minded head coach with the highest-paid defense in the NFL, and they are by far the weakness of your team, while the offense led by a 41-year-old quarterback is playing well, maybe you’re the problem.
Ja’Marr Chase said it after the game – the Bengals knew exactly what the Steelers were going to do defensively. The same way Julian Edelman said that the Patriots always knew the Steelers would show the same looks they always showed when they would play Pittsburgh.
The Steelers will always have a hard ceiling as long as Tomlin is the guy in charge. The constant failure and refusal to adapt, the playing down to lesser teams like clockwork – it will hold back Pittsburgh, no matter how good their offense is.
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