PITTSBURGH –– The 2023 Cincinnati Bengals don’t look like a playoff team. They entered this season with Super Bowl expectations, but for four months the Bengals haven’t consistently played like that caliber of team, even when quarterback Joe Burrow was healthy.
Injuries weren’t an excuse on Saturday as the Bengals lost, 34-11, to the Pittsburgh Steelers at Acrisure Stadium. “Today,” Bengals wide receiver Tee Higgins said, “we didn’t play Bengals football.”
The Bengals were missing three of their best players in Burrow, Ja’Marr Chase and DJ Reader, but the Steelers’ injury situation was worse.
The Steelers were starting their third-string quarterback, missing their All-Pro safety and counting on practice squad call-ups at linebacker and at safety. Bengals quarterback Jake Browning should have carved up the Steelers’ defense over the middle, but he looked like an undrafted free agent quarterback who spent four years on practice squads on Saturday.
In the Bengals’ most devastating regular season loss of Zac Taylor’s head coaching career, all of the Bengals’ biggest season-long flaws reappeared at the worst possible time as the Steelers took a 24-0 lead into halftime and put the game away early.
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“This is a humbling league,” Taylor said. “And this is a humbling day.”
Browning threw careless interceptions, the Bengals couldn’t pick up the blitz and the Bengals pounded their head against the wall whenever they tried to run it. On the other side of the ball, the Bengals got overpowered by the Steelers’ rushing attack, regularly missed tackles and saw their young defensive backs get picked apart in coverage.
With the loss, the Bengals fell out of the playoff picture and became a postseason long shot with two games left to play. According to the New York Times’ playoff machine, the Bengals’ playoff odds fell from 59% to 13% with the loss.
The Bengals look like a last place team in the AFC North, and that’s exactly where they stand.
“It’s been very tough,” Higgins said. “A lot of losses that we didn’t expect. But it’s a tough league. Playing against the best of the best, it happens.”
Before Saturday’s game, Steelers third-string quarterback Mason Rudolph had an 0-1-1 record in his two starts dating back to 2020. The Steelers hadn’t scored more than 24 points in a game since September, and they reached 24 points in the first quarter alone.
Just like C.J. Stroud, Trevor Lawrence and Nick Mullens, the Bengals didn’t have an answer for Rudolph.
“I don’t have an answer for you,” Bengals defensive end Sam Hubbard said. “There’s a lot of reflecting we need to do to figure out what’s been going wrong. It starts with eliminating explosive plays. As a good defense, you can’t have explosive plays.”
Steelers receiver George Pickens, who faced criticism for appearing to quit on his team over the last month, opened the game with an 86-yard touchdown. All year, the Bengals have been counting on the athleticism of their young defensive backs to make up for their lack of experience. That bet hasn’t paid off, and the growing pains from DJ Turner, Dax Hill and Jordan Battle have hurt the Bengals all season.
On Pickens’ touchdown, Turner gave him too much space at the line of scrimmage and whiffed at a diving tackle. Turner might have had a chance to bring Pickens down if Hill hadn’t undercut him with his tackle attempt.
Playing without Reader, the Bengals didn’t stand a chance stopping the run in the first half as the Steelers averaged 5.4 yards per carry. The Bengals’ backup defensive tackles got pushed back on almost every play, and missed tackles continued to gift the Steelers yards and first downs.
The one veteran in the secondary, cornerback Chidobe Awuzie, tore his ACL last October. He played at an All-Pro level in 2022 but hasn’t looked like the same player in 2023. On Saturday, he allowed two deep receptions down the sideline.
The Bengals defense entered Saturday’s game ranking 31st in yards per drive allowed, 23rd in points per drive allowed and 31st in net yards per passing attempt allowed. Then, the defense had its worst performance of the season.
“There’s a lot that’s frustrating in all aspects,” Hubbard said. “In no area was it a winning performance today. We’ve got to take accountability of that.”
Browning spotted the Steelers somewhere between 10 and 17 points in the first half. During his incredible three-game stretch of standout performances, Browning’s Achilles’ heel was giving the ball away. On Saturday, he threw three horrendous picks.
On the first one, Browning tried to throw the ball out of bounds through the end zone, but the throw veered back into the field of play and right to safety Patrick Peterson.
Two drives later, Browning had wide receiver Tyler Boyd open down the field. Facing pressure from the left side, he underthrew the ball. Steelers safety Eric Rowe, a practice squad elevation, jumped the route and recorded his first interception since 2020. In the fourth quarter, defensive end Alex Highsmith picked off the third pass of his four-year career.
“I’ve got to find a way to turn those three picks into incompletions or throwaways or check-downs,” Browning said. “There are a lot of quarterbacks who have had a bad game. I obviously had a bad game. I’ve got to find a way to respond. That’s where I’m at and where we’re at.”
The Bengals had one last chance to get back in the game late in the second quarter. Down by 21 points, they faced second-and-1 from the Steelers’ 5-yard line. After a screen got blown up in the backfield, a run got blown up at the line of scrimmage and a blitz forced an incompletion, the Bengals turned the ball over on downs.
While the turnovers cost the Bengals’ offense the most, Cincinnati didn’t have a plan or play calls to take advantage of an undermanned Steelers’ defense. Higgins wasn’t featured much early on, the Steelers seemed to know when screens were coming from the Bengals and Pittsburgh capitalized on blitzes as well as any team has against the Bengals all year, and the Bengals’ offensive line had its worst game in weeks.
“I don’t think they snuck up on us,” Browning said. “They kicked our (tails). We’ve got to do better.”
The way that this Bengals loss unfolded raises questions about expectations for 2024, even when Burrow returns.
The Bengals never fixed their run game this year. The passing game never sustained a rhythm for more than a few weeks. The offensive line has had a few disappointing games, and right tackle Jonah Williams is set to hit free agency.
On defense, the Bengals’ young defensive backs have never hit their stride. Reader is set to be a free agent, and the Bengals haven’t been able to stop the run without him. Rudolph connected on several deep throws down the sideline. The Bengals have struggled containing those all year, and they’ve also struggled making in-game adjustments to stop an offense from picking on the same weakness over the course of a game.
The season is nearing an end, and the Bengals have a long road ahead of them to get to the level that they expect to reach.
“The 60 minutes that we put out there was very far from our best football,” Bengals center Ted Karras said. “It was a collective effort by everyone who played today. I don’t think anyone is going to get on the plane feeling like they played really good. But we’ve got two weeks to play. And we’ve still got things to play for.”
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