The Steelers are in town and they want revenge. Kevin A breaks it down and offers his prediction.
Bengals easily took care of the Browns. What went right?
The game went almost exactly as I thought it would. Cincinnati exploited the Browns secondary and leaned on Jeremy Hill. On the defensive side, Geno Atkins was unstoppable. I had the Bengals covering and they did effortlessly.
It's Steelers week with a lot on the line and tempers are already flaring from Pittsburgh. Are their insinuations the Bengals play dirty accurate?
That's a joke. The tackle on Le'Veon Bell in the first game was a legal one by Vontaze Burfict, and the Steelers have a convenient short memory. It wasn't too long ago when they broke Kevin Huber's jaw (which resulted in a 25k fine) and broke former LB Keith Rivers' jaw (which resulted in the Hines Ward rule). It seems the Steelers are harboring ill will for really no reason. That being said this could spill out onto the field. I fully expect a lot of extra curricular activity on Sunday.
Bengals secondary is banged up and Ben Roethlisberger loves to throw deep. How healthy are the Bengals?
The big loss here is CB Adam Jones. His foot was in a cast earlier in the week and he's now wearing a boot. He's probably out. CB Leon Hall put in a full practice and appears ready to go. S George Iloka looks like he could be a GTD. The Bengals will have to get good minutes particularly from rookie Josh Shaw, but this is about containment. You can't just stop the Steelers offense when Ben is healthy.
The best news on the Bengals front is that Tyler Eifert will be back after missing last week.
This is a big game. The Bengals can win the division, and the Steelers need to stay in the wild card race. How does this one play out?
The Bengals currently sit as 2.5 point favorites and that feels about right. There may be no other away venue the Steelers feel at home at more than PBS, as they are 13-3 there since the building opened. The Bengals were able to muster a 16-10 win at Pittsburgh, but that was Ben's first game back from his knee injury. This game will be nasty, there's no other way to say it. The Bengals can win this game if they can run the football well enough and avoid turning it over, which I see as the key in this game. Both teams capitalize on winning the turnover battle, and whoever does I think is the victor.
I would love to sit here and say the Bengals walk away with the division Sunday, but my gut tells me Pittsburgh plays with more desperation. Big numbers could be put up by Antonio Brown , Big Ben, A.J. Green and Andy Dalton, but in the end I see the Steelers pulling out a 29-27 victory, with the Bengals covering the 2.5*
I will be there to witness it all. Here's to me hopefully being wrong.
*The only thing to watch out for is the weather. There's a chance high winds can move into the area earlier than expected, and if that happens all bets are off