Cincinnati Bengals: 3 Reasons for loss vs. Steelers in Week 13

2. The Penalties

Oh boy, were these a massive problem.

Cincinnati entered the game coming off pretty bad in the penalty department. They had been a top-ten unit in penalties assessed as things stood. Across the year, they’ve given up more yardage in penalties than they’ve been gifted by the opposition, and it’s been a huge factor in their inability to find any consistent rhythm. This game was the worst possible example of that at the most inopportune time.

Not only did Cincinnati commit a season-high in penalties, but it was a franchise record in penalty yardage (173 yards). Even with Pittsburgh handing back 66 yards on their own penalties, that’s still more than a field’s length of yardage just handed over to a team that clearly didn’t need any help to beat the Bengals.

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The timing of many of these penalties was pretty damaging. An unsportsmanlike conduct penalty by William Jackson and holding by russell Bodine caused Cincinnati’s third drive to start at their own 5-yard line before ending as an eventual punt. Pass interference by Dre Kirkpatrick essentially handed Pittsburgh a field goal before halftime, and the same thing would happen later in the game on another field goal drive as well.

One must leave an especially rotten aftertaste, however. On their second drive of the third quarter, Andy Dalton managed to find A.J. Green for what should’ve been their third touchdown of the evening, this one a 61 yard catch and run to potentially put Cincinnati up 24-10. Unfortunately, a very questionable (scratch that, it was flat-out wrong) penalty was called on Bernard’s efforts to make a block, and it was called back.

That one play cannot be blamed on Cincinnati, but even without it the Bengals did themselves no favors with all those other instances. This one may have been their only one on an actual scoring play, but they committed plenty which ended up being key components to drives for both teams either managing to score or not.

Making the litany of errors Cincinnati had here tends to leave a team vulnerable to being beaten even if their efforts elsewhere are enough to win. Doing so against a team they seemingly never beat? No wonder they couldn’t pull off the upset.