Cincinnati Bengals: 3 Reasons for loss vs. Steelers in Week 7
By Kenn Korb
Revisiting the Cincinnati Bengals’ Week 7 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers to further understand why they came up short in a deflating 29-14 defeat.
Well, the good vibes were nice while they lasted. The Cincinnati Bengals took a solid win over the Buffalo Bills in Week 5 to get themselves to 2-3, and then had their bye week to give them plenty of time to recover and prepare for their game this past weekend. Unfortunately, that game just happened to be against their long-time rivals, the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Coming into this contest, Pittsburgh held a 10-3 series lead since 2011 with four-straight victories and a 7-1 record against them in their past eight contests. Plus, despite the team not exactly looking like the powerhouse everyone expected through their opening slate of games, Cincinnati was getting them coming in off by far their best effort of the season.
Though the Bengals did manage to keep things close at first, Pittsburgh had enough success on each side of the ball to finish the game with a relatively easy 29-14 victory over them. Here’s why it happened:
3. Big plays, penalties in first half
In the early going, Cincinnati honestly was keeping up with Pittsburgh. They did fall behind early after allowing an opening-drive touchdown to the Steelers. But after three drives for each team, everything was tied up 14-14. From that point on, however, Cincinnati would fail to add even one point onto the scoreboard while their rivals would more than double their own score.
The seeds of Cincinnati’s eventual loss began as soon as they reached the 14-14 tie, and the eventual result were heavily influenced by their normally-excellent defense giving up numerous penalties and big plays on Pittsburgh’s final two drives of the first half of the game.
Related Story: NFL 2017: 5 Coaches on hot seat entering Week 8
On the first Pittsburgh drive following the 14-14 tie, they managed to drive 75 yards in 10 plays before a successful field goal attempt by Chris Boswell. This drive could have ended long before that, however. A neutral zone infraction by Carl Lawson on third-and-3 at Pittsburgh’s own 28 gave the drive life. A 42-yard connection between Ben Roethlisberger and Le’veon Bell moved the ball 42 yards. Another neutral zone infraction (this time by Vontaze Burfict) turned a second-and-7 into a second-and-2. Kudos to the defense for not breaking, but had they been on their game from the drive’s start, they’d have allowed zero there.
The next drive was essentially a hastened version of those events. An early chance to end the drive (Pittsburgh was quickly trapped in a second-and-17) was undone by a Cincinnati error, which resulted in a Pittsburgh first down. Two Cincinnati penalties (12-men penalty on Geno Atkins; 34-yard defensive pass interference on Dre Kirkpatrick) handed gobs of free yardage to Pittsburgh. Another drive which probably shouldn’t have provided points to Cincinnati’s opponent did exactly that.
The defense may have held up to prevent touchdowns on these two drives, but their failure to prevent scores on drives which should have been ended long before ever leaving Pittsburgh territory was the start of the slow accumulation of field goals which would continue building the Steelers’ lead to an unreachable level.