Just four days after their best win of the season, the Steelers suffered their worst loss yet, falling to the Cincinnati Bengals on the road Thursday night. As always, there are plenty of takeaways to be had:
1. And that’s why the Steelers aren’t contenders yet
If you still had a bone to pick with the Steeler defense after they’ve steadily trended up over the last few weeks, Thursday night’s loss was a great piece of evidence for the case.
It also calls for some hindsight when considering the team’s wins so far: the Dillon Gabriel-led Browns, Carson Wentz-led Vikings, Drake Maye-led Patriots, and Justin Fields-led Jets.
With the exception of Maye, it’s not exactly a group of the NFL’s best passers.
The Pittsburgh defense has capitalized this year, as they have in recent history, on splash plays more than pure fundamentals. And when they faced a veteran quarterback who didn’t fall victim to the Steelers’ usual bag of tricks, they couldn’t find an answer.
I’m far from the first person to point it out, but Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin’s uncharacteristic press conference quotes around his confusion on the Browns’ willingness to trade Joe Flacco to the rival Bengals seemed almost prophetic following Thursday’s loss. The former longtime Raven Flacco knows how to play and beat a Steelers defense, and Tomlin knew it.
While having Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins as his wide receiver duo certainly helped — especially against man coverage — Flacco put on a clinic against the Steelers’ aggressive front and cover-3-heavy secondary, spamming short throws to beat the pressure along with a variety of curls, outs, and slants that exposed gaping holes in the coverage.
The Steelers couldn’t adjust, and the now-veteran journeyman finished the game with 342 passing yards, three touchdowns, and no interceptions. It was a bloodbath when the Bengals had the ball.
Every team is allowed a sloppy, brutal loss from time to time. That’s part of why the NFL is so wide open this year. But the Steelers found a way to make it extra painful. They blew a 10-point lead to a struggling team down two of its best three players in Joe Burrow and Trey Hendrickson. They looked tired and unprepared despite being just two games off the bye week.
But most inexcusable was the defensive collapse. Why? Because they already had their letdown games to open the season. They were back on the right track but instead regressed against an offense that has been nowhere near as good this season as Pittsburgh made them look Thursday night. The Bengals entered the game averaging a mere 56.7 rushing yards, 178.5 passing yards, and 17.2 points per game — they left Thursday’s game with 142, 328, and 33 in each respective category.
Yeah, it was that ugly. When the unit that was supposed to be the Steelers’ greatest strength falls apart that badly yet again, it remains difficult to take the Steelers seriously as the Super Bowl contender they’re trying to be. Right now, it’s hard to have confidence that Pittsburgh’s early season hot start won’t devolve into another uninspiring season by the end. The team just can’t make that next step.
2. But don’t blame the tight ends
The Steelers offense wasn’t blameless in the loss. In the BTSC Bengals preview earlier this week, I wrote that “the Steelers should be able to score enough points to win if they play to their identity and avoid back-breaking mistakes.”
That largely remained true, with two Aaron Rodgers interceptions — one was his fault, the other was more D.K. Metcalf’s — killing promising drives and leading to Bengals points. The Jaylen Warren flea flicker after Rodgers appeared to check out of the play also didn’t help.
But don’t get it wrong: The Steeler defense was by far the biggest culprit in the loss. Despite its faults, Pittsburgh scored 31 points Thursday night, and without any turnover help from the other side of the ball.
Last week, Pittsburgh proved it could score on good defenses. And against Cincinnati, they proved they can pile it on against bad ones. Darnell Washington was once again a major factor in the run game, and he added three receptions, including a short touchdown and a nice hands catch on a third down conversion.
Jonnu Smith had a similar game — a nice hands catch for a first down and a touchdown — and he even had some positive contributions as a blocker.
And Pat Freiermuth added some life to what’s been a quiet season for him otherwise. He finished as the Steelers’ leading receiver with five catches for 111 yards and two touchdowns — including an electric go-ahead 68-yard touchdown in the fourth quarter. It seems like he always goes off against the Bengals, but it was a good sign for his future in a crowded tight end anyway.
The offense still has some work to do, but the Steelers’ unorthodox tight end-heavy scheme is still getting the job done.
To get ahead of the upcoming rumor mill, trading for a new face at wide receiver wouldn’t hurt before the deadline. More firepower is rarely a bad thing. But I think the defense has clearly been the bigger problem through six games. They’ve allowed 30-plus points in half of those matchups.
3. The run game is picking up steam
To piggyback off the earlier point, the Steelers’ run game has worked for the second week in a row as well. Pittsburgh enjoyed an encouraging 147 yards on the ground on Thursday night, with starting running back Jaylen Warren contributing 127 of those with an incredible 7.9 yards per carry.
It’s easy to see the run game as the less innovative part of an NFL offense, but offensive coordinator Arthur Smith continues to add new looks. In the team’s now-signature sixth-O-lineman package, the team experimented with Spencer Anderson as a puller, and even starting the play as an H-back at times.
Remember kids, mass times acceleration equals force, and if one side of your line weighs over 1,000 pounds, as the Amazon broadcast repeatedly told us on Thursday, you can maximize it even more when you get a couple hundred of those pounds moving downfield in a hurry.
That was an aspect of the Steelers’ jumbo toss plays they relied on against Cincinnati, and it sure was a success.
Plus, Jaylen Warren continues to impress. His vision has been a treat to watch this year, and his acceleration and contact balance remain highlights of his game. If anything, the Steelers should’ve given him the ball more against Cincinnati.
If you want a reason to believe this Steelers’ team won’t end up like last year’s, look at the run game. Last season, the Steelers couldn’t establish it — failing to build the foundation of the Arthur Smith offense. This year, it looks like a far more achievable goal.
4. The big-name secondary has some leaks
I spent two the previous two points lauding the Steelers’ offense. But it was also an ugly loss, so we have to return to the pessimistic side of things.
It bears repeating: the defense was a letdown Thursday night.
As the Amazon broadcast mentioned, Mike Tomlin has talked about the team investing heavily in its secondary specifically for matchups against offenses like the Bengals.
It’s fair to say that plan fell on its face.
Tee Higgins continues to be a nightmare matchup for Joey Porter Jr. and his penalty problems. And each of Jalen Ramsey and Darius Slay got burned badly at times by the Bengals receiver corps. Plus, the worrying trend of the Steelers’ top corners struggling to stay healthy across the length of the entire game continued, with both Slay and Porter entering the medical tent against the Bengals.
But most concerning was how slow the veterans Ramsey and Slay could look at times, especially the latter. They remain good contributors on defense — Ramsey has been a star, even — but leaving them on islands against the NFL’s premier receiving duo proved to be an overconfident choice from the Pittsburgh coaching staff.
Miscommunications — the boogeyman from last year’s struggles — also made a reappearance. You simply can’t have the best receiver in the NFL running this uncovered when you’re trying to keep an offense out of field goal range at the end of the game:
Those aren’t the results you want to see from such a high-paid defense. It’s time for the team to have some real discussions about how defensive coordinator Teryl Austin should be doing more with the resources at his disposal.
Once change that might be due could actually involve taking some of the money off the field. PennLive’s Nick Farabaugh mentioned a thought after the game that I’ve had a few times this season: maybe rotational backup Brandin Echols is actually playing at the level of a starter — and even better at times.
It’s hard to figure personnel changes on a defense filled with as many expensive contracts and big names as Pittsburgh’s. But if Darius Slay continues to give up plays and struggle with injuries, Echols should see an increase in playing time.
5. Don’t ride the roller coaster
In the words of Aaron Rodgers following the game:
“I’m not going to ride the rollercoaster, and I know Mike (Tomlin) isn’t. Hopefully you guys follow suit.”
This is a postgame column — of course it’s always going to heavily account for the most recent team performance. But zooming out to the big picture, it’s hardly a death knell for Pittsburgh, a team that still has a strong division lead and has only dropped two games this year.
Plus, while I talked myself out of picking the Bengals as winners last-minute this week, this is a game most who followed the Steelers had circled as a potential loss. The Steelers under Mike Tomlin have historically struggled in road Thursday Night Football games, and against a hungry divisional rival it doesn’t get any easier.
This was always going to be a tough, closer-than-it-should-be matchup. So there’s no reason to fake being surprised by the final result that confirmed exactly that.
Pittsburgh’s schedule only gets tougher from here — the Packers, Colts, and Chargers are all up next — and the team showed some real, worrisome problems in Thursday night’s loss. But as is always true, the Steelers tend to be better than you think after a loss and worse than you think after a win.
It’s easy, and necessary, to point out the shortcomings in the disappointing loss to the Bengals. But my perception of the 2025 Steelers still hasn’t changed much. They’re still going to make the playoffs. They’re not going to win the Super Bowl. It just feels worse than usual after watching them drop a game to a worse team late on a work night. It won’t be all that shocking if they rebound against Green Bay at home next Sunday night.
6. Odds and ends
- Here’s a late but much-deserved credit to the Steelers’ offensive line performance against the Bengals. No Trey Hendrickson in the lineup made their job much easier, but they responded by controlling the game as you’d hope. Aaron Rodgers wasn’t sacked once even though his time to throw rose to 2.86 seconds per PFF — far above his season average of 2.57. And as previously mentioned, the run game was wildly efficient all night.
- The referees had some really strange calls in the game, notably a phantom pass interference on Joey Porter Jr. and an even worse phantom holding call on Broderick Jones in the fourth quarter (that was soon fixed by the long Freiermuth touchdown). It was far from the reason the team lost the game, but still frustrating.
- Another game, another awesome Jaylen Warren blitz pickup:
- The Steelers’ kick return game had a good showing, with both Ke’Shawn Williams and Kenneth Gainwell taking returns past the 40-yard line at one point and averaging a collective 30 yards per return. Williams added two punt returns for a combined 27 yards; the Steelers might have something there. He’s looked good.
- Glancing at the Steelers’ snap counts reveals that Nick Herbig played just 29 snaps to T.J. Watt’s 62 and Alex Highsmith’s 53. Not ideal after the three played more evenly and saw more success last week against the Browns.
- The Steelers’ tight ends, on the other hand, nearly saw identical playing time at around 40 snaps each. Jonnu Smith was TE1 this week, with Pat Freiermuth and Darnell Washington as a close second and third, respectively.
- I’m glad the NFL is finally penalizing false starts on the tush push. Hopefully it’s not just on one Pennsylvania team.
- I noticed a trend — I’m not exactly sure how many times — of Aaron Rodgers looking like he was about to trip when moving to pitch the ball to Jaylen Warren. We’ll see if it’s a Chekhov’s gun for a later part of the season.
- The 40-year-old Joe Flacco taking a zone read 13 yards for a first down was the moment I realized the Steeler defense probably didn’t have a chance at rescuing the team from defeat.
- It wasn’t a “breakout game” in the usual sense, but it was good to see Roman Wilson making some plays on offense. If he can develop into a reliable contributor that would be a good boost for the team. He was the WR2 in terms of snaps on Thursday.
- Your ability to be entertained while the Steelers lose might vary, but there was something oddly nostalgic about watching Aaron Rodgers and Joe Flacco slinging the football around like they did in their primes for 60 minutes. They combined for 591 passing yards and seven touchdowns Thursday night.
- I won’t fall into the hyperbolic “Aaron Rodgers is still elite” narrative, but there’s no denying the future Hall of Famer has looked the part this season. I’ll continue to say he’s the best quarterback the Steelers have had since Ben Roethlisberger — and likely by a wide margin. He was flat-out fun to watch on Thursday night, interceptions and all. And while his arm isn’t entirely what it used to be, Rodgers showed he still has some of that Hail Mary magic of old in him. Next Gen Stats has him as throwing the longest pass attempt (in air yards) of not just the season so far, but since at least 2017! Insane stuff.
- I watched some of the game using the “Prime Vision” alternate broadcast and can’t recommend it enough. The pre-snap labels can get excessive at times, but it’s the best camera angle to watch football with even if it takes some getting used to. Now you can actually see what the quarterback is looking at downfield and get a better idea of what the blocking schemes look like in real time.
Pittsburgh has some extra time to prepare for its next game: Sunday Night Football at home on Oct. 26 against the Green Bay Packers.
What are your takeaways from Steelers vs. Bengals? Agree/disagree with the ones above? Join the Behind the Steel Curtain community and let us know in the comments!
