Pittsburgh Steelers: Keys To Victory at Cincinnati (Part 1 of 3)
By Dan Thomas
On Saturday, the Pittsburgh Steelers travel to Cincinnati, Ohio to take on their AFC North rival, the Cincinnati Bengals. These two teams split their regular season series 1-1 and each team will be looking to win this rubber match.
What can the Steelers do to win their first playoff game since 2010? Here’s a look at the first installment of this three-part series.
No. 3. Don’t lose the turnover battle
Notice the specific word choice used above. The Steelers don’t necessarily have to win the turnover battle. They just can’t lose it. If they do that, there is a good chance that they win this game. Just how good you ask? Well, let’s see.
Since Week 5, the Steelers are 8-4. In every single one of their wins, that have either won the turnover battle or broke even. In all four of their loses, they have lost the turnover battle.
In the team’s last four games, A.J. McCarron has been the quarterback for the Bengals (He played 3-plus quarters in Week 14 so although he did not “start” the game, he was the Cincinnati’s QB for majority of the game). In that time, they have gone 2-2. In both of their victories, they have won the turnover battle. In both of their loses, they have either lost the turnover battle or broke even.
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Can the Steelers win this game even if they lose the turnover battle? Yes, but it won’t be easy. Can the Bengals win this game if they lose the turnover battle? No, they can’t.
Why is this? It’s because of A.J. McCarron.
In twelve games with Andy Dalton (excluding his brief appearance against the Steelers), the Bengals averaged 27.8 points a game and scored more than 24 points in nine of those games. In fact, they scored at least 30 points in seven of Dalton’s twelve games.
In four games with McCarron, the Bengals averaged 22 points per game and have never scored more than 24 points in a single game.
In comparison, the eleven games that Ben Roethlisberger has played in this season for at least three quarters, the Steelers averaged 30.45 points a game. They have scored more than 24 points in eight of those games. They have also scored at least 30 points in seven of those 11 contests.
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The Bengals simply want McCarron to manage the game and not turn the ball over. In turn, they will rely on their defense to make a few impact plays during the game. This well then allow them to win the field position throughout the game and this will put the offense in a better spot.
The margin for error with the the Bengals’ offense is smaller than the Steelers because they lack explosive plays with McCarron and are not built to score 30+ points. The Steelers offense is capable of this and have a better opportunity to make up for mistakes made during the game. In order to drastically improve their chances of winning this game, the Steelers need to force McCarron and the Bengals into turning the ball over and hope their offense is careful with the football. That sounds simple enough right?
Not at all. In the past three games, McCarron has attempted a total of 83 passes and has not thrown a single interception. In fact, he has not thrown an interception in 91 straight attempts.
In the past three games, Roethlisberger has attempted a total of 125 passes and has thrown six interceptions. That is about one interception for every 21 pass attempts.
To be more specific, Big Ben has thrown two interceptions in each of the last three games. He has thrown nine total interceptions in the last six games. In the 12 games he has played in this season for any length, he has thrown at least one interception in 10 of those outings.
Although Big Ben is a good bet to throw for 300-plus yards in any game he plays in, he is a big part of the problem when it comes to turnovers for the Steelers. If he throws one or two interceptions and the defense fails to force any turnovers, the Steelers will be attempting to overcome considerable odds to win the game.
However, football is a team sport. Although the quarterbacks get a lot of the attention, there is much more to the game than just them. Turnovers can happen in any one of the three phases of the game. Let’s take a closer look at the turnover battle with these two teams as a whole:
Over the last three games, the Bengals are plus-5 in the turnover battle and the Steelers are minus-2 in the same department.
It could be argued that these three games, although they are the most recent games played, is too small of a sample size. The NFL regular season is a 16-game grind. Three games is less than 20% of the entire season. That is a valid argument so lets take a look at the entire season.
Here a few numbers according to Sporting Charts:
This season, the Bengals are plus-11 in the turnover battle, the third-best mark in the NFL. Their 17 turnovers are tied for the fourth fewest in the league. Conversely, the Steelers are just plus-2 in the takeaway/giveaway department, tied for 15th in the league. Their 28 giveaways rank them closer to the bottom of the NFL than the top.
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It doesn’t take a genius to figure this one out: The Bengals are better at protecting the ball than the Steelers. If this trend of ball security and giveaways from the regular season continues on Saturday, Pittsburgh will be one-and-done in the playoffs just like last year.
This weekend, Mike Tomlin’s club has a 90 percent chance of winning if they win the turnover battle by two, a 65 percent chance of posting a victory if they are winners in the takeaway/giveaway department and even a 55 percent shot of moving on if the break even in the miscue department at Cincinnati. Anything worse and the Steelers are in trouble.