Steelers vs. Bengals

This will be the second week in a row we play a team that played against the Packers the week before. As we all saw, Jay Cutler and the Bears bounced back nicely against us by exposing our defense after a loss against Greenbay. Now we face the Bengals, who actually had a very decent outing against the Cheeseheads.

On the scoreboard it would seem the Bengals allowed 24 points, but at least 14 points came off of Carson Palmer turnovers (one touchdown was a pick-six). So all of a sudden we have a Bengals defense who contained a very potent Green Bay offense. Not only that, but the Bengals are ranked first in sacks and 11th in overall defense.

Of course, this has gotten Cincinnati fans and media in a frenzy and they're already talking playoffs. A little premature, if you ask me. But, nonetheless, I expect this to be a much closer game than it has been in the past.

Our record is now 1-1 and bloggers and yinzers all around have begun their grumblings (much of it has been against Bruce Arians, unfortunately, though I think he's doing a nice job this season). The thing we have to keep in mind is that we really did not look bad against the Bears. A couple of dropped passes here and two missed field goals there resulted in a loss by 3 points. Compare that to last year when we fell 2-1 after we played the Eagles who embarrassed us in all sorts of ways. The score was close but they dominated us the entire game and sacked Big Ben 8 times! All of a sudden people were saying that the Eagles had found the equation for beating the Steelers.

The same could be said now for attacking the Steelers defense. Three-step-drops and short passes to tight ends and curl routes.

But Dick LeBeau is no dummy. We still have a weakness because Polamalu is out, but LeBeau will scramble the defense and prepare for the Bengals who will undoubtedly be ready.

Bruce Arians needs to implement more of those slants to Santonio Holmes and screen passes to the running backs and Hines Ward to avoid pressure against Ben. Usually, I would agree with Tomlin that the most violent team wins, but I think in this game, the quickest team will win the game. These quick passes will keep the opposing defense winded.

Also, no slow-developing running plays. Run right at them.

I think the Steelers running game can finally gain some ground in this one, unless we start falling behind on the score board. From what I've read around blogs, teams abandoned the run way too early against the Bengals, and yet they've still allowed 82 yards rushing per game. That may not seem like that much, but it's even more telling when you see that they allow an average of 4.3 yards per rushing attempt. That's a monstrous amount, and it should get Parker and company pretty excited. The O-line showed some big improvements against the Bears in the run game, and I think that will continue against the Bengals.

The winner will take this game by 7 points or less.