Post Steelers-Cincinnati thoughts
September 18, 2016
Pittsburgh Steelers outside linebacker Jarvis Jones (95) reacts following a missed interception against the Cincinnati Bengals during the first half of an NFL football game in Pittsburgh, Friday, September 18, 2016. (AP Photo/Jared Wickerham)
I didn’t think there would be a lot of ugliness when the Steelers and Bengals teed the ball up today.
But I also didn’t expect the game to look like one between, say, the Steelers and Lions.
That, however, is what Sunday’s 24-16 win by the Steelers over the Bengals looked like. There was no pushing. No shoving. No real jawing going on back and forth.
That was largely a good thing. These two teams just played football.
Maybe the reason for that was because Vontaze Burfict was watching the game from home, or a cave or wherever it is he rests his head each night.
Or maybe the Bengals finally learned that talking tough or playing dirty doesn’t get the job done. The Steelers have made some big hits against the Bengals over the years. Ask any Bengals fan, they’ll give you the laundry list.
But when they give you Keith Rivers, Carson Palmer or any of the other list of players injured by the Steelers over the years, they came on hits that were legal at the time they occurred.
The Bengals are a good team. They don’t need to play that way.
All of that said, neither of these teams looked particularly sharp in this game.
The Steelers didn’t consistently control the line of scrimmage as they did a week ago at Washington and left tackle Alejandro Villanueva had some issues, but they generated enough of a rushing attack to win this game.
In contrast, Cincinnati’s run game was non-existent.
That put a lot of pressure on Andy Dalton, who had his best weapon, A.J. Green, taken away by the Steelers defense.
Ross Cockrell will get a lot of credit for that. And he played well shadowing Green. But he also had a lot of help over the top, though there were times when they were locked up one-on-one where Dalton just didn’t look the way of his best option.
It seems the Steelers had Dalton convinced they were going to double Green all the time. And that wasn’t the case.
The Steelers defense allowed three trips into the red zone. All three ended without the Bengals scoring touchdowns.
That included a first-and-goal situation from the Pittsburgh 1 after two very questionable pass interference penalties.
Ryan Shazier, who’s playing like an All-Pro two games into this season, dropped Jeremy Hill for a 2-yard loss on first down and the Bengals threw incomplete into the end zone on the next two plays.
Third down was an interesting call for the Steelers. They rushed three guys and dropped eight into coverage.
Dalton couldn’t find anyone open and couldn’t find any running room, nearly throwing an interception to Cockrell.
Punter Jordan Berry was the unsung hero of this game for the Steelers.
Berry punted eight times for a 47.1 yard average. But five of his punts were downed inside the 20, with four of those being downed inside the 10.
That left the Bengals, with no running game, a very long field to navigate again and again.
Cincinnati had drives start at its own 9, 3, 8 and 9 thanks to good punts by Berry and good coverage by Pittsburgh’s special teams units.
Mike Tomlin said after the game that the Steelers weren’t perfect in any of the three phases. They certainly weren’t so on offense or defense. But the special teams were pretty darn good.
Jarvis Jones draws a lot of teeth gnashing from Steelers fans. But he’s played well the first two games.
Jones hasn’t recorded a sack - the Steelers have just one in two games - but he’s had some pretty good pressures and the sacks will come.
Everything else Jones has done has been pretty solid.
We saw more of him paired with James Harrison in this one, with Harrison on the right side and Jones on the left.
I like that pairing.
Through two games, by the way, I’m not seeing a lot from Anthony Chickillo in that outside linebacker rotation. But again, it’s early.
Robert Golden is playing a very solid strong safety. In fact, the entire secondary is playing pretty darn well, all things considered.
Yes, the Steelers are allowing yards, but many of them are empty yards at the end of games. The secondary as a whole is doing a nice job. When you allow two touchdowns in two games in today’s NFL, you’re doing something right.
The front is completely slamming the door on the run - the Steelers have given up 101 yards on 30 attempts - but opposing QBs have a 79.2 passer rating.
The Steelers will win a lot of games this season if that keeps up.
It says a lot about this defense that the Steelers won Sunday against a good opponent in a game in which quarterback Ben Roethlisberger was nowhere near as sharp as usual.
How about big Javon Hargrave chasing down Hill from behind on a dumpoff pass?
Yes, Hargrave got called for a horse collar tackle at the end of the play - which was iffy - but that’s an athletic big man.
One of these days, he’ll actually get an opportunity to get on the field for more than 20 plays.
DeAngelo Williams runs hard. And his 32 carries in this game were a career high.
He’s been everything you’d want in a running back in these first two games. But you can bet that he’ll be more than happy to welcome Le’Veon Bell back in two weeks.
Williams has carried the ball 58 times in the first two games and has 10 receptions. That’s 34 touches per game, more than the Steelers even give Bell.
Mike Tomlin seems intent on running the wheels off Williams, who moved into 50th place on the NFL’s all-time rushing list in this game.
He’s also just 10 yards short of 8,000 on the ground in his career.
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