The Pittsburgh Steelers pulverized the Bengals in Week 10, but there are still some things they need to work on moving forward.
The Steelers performance against the Dallas Cowboys last week was gutwrenching. Despite playing a 2-6 football team that was without their star quarterback and both starting offensive tackles, Pittsburgh struggled mightily in all three phases of the game. Luckily, Mike Tomlin’s team was able to take the lead with just 2:14 remaining in the game to keep their impressive win streak alive – giving them the best start to a season in the history of the franchise.
When it came time to host the Bengals this week, we had some reason for doubt after their lackluster performance against the Cowboys. However, after a bit of a sluggish start, Pittsburgh’s offense caught fire and their defense clamped down – eventually resulting in a 36-10 blowout win against Cincinnati. Despite starting the season 9-0, there are some things the Steelers need to work on moving forward. Here are my takeaways from Pittsburgh’s big win over the Bengals:
Ben Roethlisberger showing improvements
To be honest, I thought we were going to see another unimpressive performance from quarterback Ben Roethlisberger after the first quarter. Despite the Steelers recovering two fumbles within scoring distance, Pittsburgh came away with just a pair of field goals. Additionally, Roethlisberger was off the mark on several passes early on. However, he quickly emerged from this slump to put together one of his most impressive performances of the season.
Big Ben did an excellent job spreading the ball around in the second half and three different receivers saw at least 10 targets in this contest. As a result of going through his progressions and finding the open man, Roethlisberger threw for 333 yards (7.2 yards per attempt) and pitched in 4 touchdown passes.
It appears Ben is starting to hit his midseason stride, and he looked impressive for the most part in Week 10 against the Bengals. Let’s hope he continues to improve on this performance.
Steelers might have the deepest group of WRs in the league
Though the Steelers are still waiting for that one player to emerge as the top dog and take over as a legitimate ‘number one’ receiver threat in the league, there’s no question that this group is deep – perhaps even the deepest in the NFL at the moment. On any given Sunday, it could be a different player stepping up to the plate.
Early in the game, it was Diontae Johnson, as he earned double-digit targets by halftime and led all Pittsburgh receivers in yardage. However, the second half featured much more JuJu Smith-Schuster and Chase Claypool. Collectively, these three receivers combined for 249 receiving yards and all four touchdowns in the contest – Claypool earning a pair of scores.
Thanks to the emergence of Claypool and the treat that he has been to the Steelers this season, former second-round pick, James Washington, is rarely used. However, when called upon, he is still efficient. Washington hauled in both o his targets for an impressive 30 yards.
This is a talented, young group of playmakers, and they should only continue to get better with time.
Steelers run defense continues to struggle
I’ve got to be honest with you; I didn’t foresee the Steelers run defense struggling so much this season. After allowing 409 combined rushing yards against the Ravens and Cowboys over the past two weeks, Pittsburgh’s defense allowed 6.6 yards per carry and139 yards on the ground to the Bengals in Week 10. This happened despite the return of Tyson Alualu and owning a home-field advantage.
Perhaps some of their struggles came from the Steelers selling out to stop Joe Burrow and the Bengals passing game, but it doesn’t give us a lot of confidence moving forward. Is it a problem with the defensive line? Are the linebackers not filling their lanes? Or is Keith Butler dialing up the wrong plays? It could be a combination of these things.
Additionally, Cincinnati was missing starting running back, Joe Mixon. No matter what the reasoning, it’s hard to be upset when your team wins by 26 points, but this is very unlike the Steelers. Let’s hope they can tighten up this area of their game against better competition, or they will have some big defensive struggles this year.
Steelers running game is non-existent
I wrote an article earlier this week on why the Steelers running game is non-existent. Unfortunately, they have yet to prove me wrong. Though James Conner made the Pro Bowl for the Steelers in 2018 (albeit with some controversy), he has yet to show why he can be relied on to effectively carry the load.
On 13 carries against one of the worst run defenses in the league, Conner managed 36 yards (2.8 yards per carry), and nearly half of those came on one draw play up the middle. Many of his touches actually lost yardage in this contest and put the Steelers offense in 2nd and long and 3rd and long situations often.
But Conner isn’t the only reason for the struggles. In his defense, there didn’t seem to be a lot of holes on the ground, with the exception of just two or three runs. The offensive line hasn’t been moving bodies as they have at the beginning of the season. In addition, Randy Fichtner dialing up obvious runs during inopportune times certainly plays a factor as well. The Steelers will need to figure this out in order to have a balanced offense moving forward.
Overall, I can’t really complain anytime the Steelers are able to take it to a team as they did to the Bengals on Sunday. However, they still have some things to work on. Let’s hope they continue to build off this impressive performance.