4 takeaways from Steelers ugly loss to the Bengals in Week 3

4. Ben Roethlisberger isn’t playing good enough to give this team a chance

It’s time to address the elephant in the room: Ben Roethlisberger simply isn’t playing well enough to get the job done. This Steelers team had Super Bowl aspirations to begin the year. Now it seems like a hope and a prayer to even make the playoffs with how bad this offense has been.

Though we would like to point the finger at the offensive line (which is admittedly a big part of the problem), Ben Roethlisberger just doesn’t look like he has much of anything left in the tank at this point. In fact, it’s hard to point to a single aspect of his game that is above-average at this stage in his career.

Against the Bengals, Roethlisberger had very spotty accuracy as his balls were often high, low, or behind his receivers and there weren’t many times he seemed to hit his receivers in stride. Additionally, Ben really struggled down the field despite having James Washington and Chase Claypool wide open on a few deep balls that should have gone for touchdowns.

The fact of the matter is that this just doesn’t look like the same Ben Roethlisberger we saw a few years back before his elbow surgery. He hasn’t given us any reason to believe that he could play well enough to give this team a legitimate chance at a Super Bowl run this year.

There wasn’t much else that could have gone wrong for Pittsburgh in Week 3 against the Bengals. Now they just need to forget about this ugly loss and find a way to start putting points on the board moving forward.