The Steelers take on the Cincinnati Bengals twice in four weeks of football starting Sunday afternoon. The Steelers (7-5) are desperate to win this one. In fact they must if they want to have any hopes of reaching the playoffs and end a two season long skid of having to spend January on their couches. The team practically needs to go 4-0. They control their destiny in the AFC North. Lose one of those games, especially to Cincy, and they will need lots of help from other teams in the AFC. Not exactly where you want to be while wrapping up the year. Looks like this team may need a repeat of 2005…
The Bengals (8-3-1) are looking to continue their march to the post season and solidify their place at the top of the AFCN. They will be without key defenseman Vonte Burfict, so expect the Steelers to give the already 25th ranked run defense a healthy dose of Le’Veon Bell. Ben Roethlisberger has struggled in Cincy almost his entire career. I’m not sure what kind of voodoo is going on at Paul Brown Stadium, but this doesn’t seem like the appropriate time to exorcise those demons. I would not be surprised if this is a low scoring scrap of a game. Hopefully the Steelers will end up on the right side of the win column for this one.
The game will air on CBS as their single game for Sunday. A large portion of the country will be able to watch the game with the other three early games are scattered across the viewing map. Ian Eagle and Dan Fouts have the call of the game. Looks like I’ll be streaming the call from Billy and the boys this time around – my disdain for Fouts runs deep.