Cincinnati Bengals: Keys to victory vs. Steelers in Week 6

Players To Watch

Pittsburgh: T.J. Watt

There hasn’t been much going right for Pittsburgh’s defense in 2018, but T.J. Watt has to be right at the top of the positives. The younger Watt is one of three players tied for the league lead in sacks with six.

As with everything for the Steelers’ defense this season though, it isn’t all sunshine and daisies. The total sack numbers are nice, but the production has been as boom-or-bust as it gets. Watt has two separate games with three sacks (Cleveland and Atlanta), but on the flip-side he has zero combined in the other three games he’s played.

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It could be argued that his success is due to who he’s played. Cleveland’s offense is working pretty well under Baker Mayfield, but the team began 2018 with Tyrod Taylor forced into trying to run a system that didn’t align with his strengths. Atlanta’s had an explosive offense overall but exploitable weaknesses along their offensive line.

Meanwhile, Kansas City has an explosive offense and one of the NFL’s best sets of blockers, Tampa Bay was scorching fields for the first three weeks of the season, and just gave a huge extension one of their linemen; Baltimore also has plenty of good blockers up front. Suffice to say, Watt can dominate the easy matchups but also get shut down if there are competent blockers facing him.

Lucky for him, this matchup looks to be the former. The right side of Cincinnati’s offensive line has been better than the 2017 version, but they are nowhere close to being mistaken for good. Alex Redmond was undrafted three years ago and stuck around mainly because he was cheap. Bobby Hart is about as bad as he always was in New York, but that is somehow still a step up from Jake Fisher and Cedric Ogbuehi.

Those two need to play their best games and get tons of help sent their way or Watt will probably bury Dalton.

Cincinnati: William Jackson III

Cincinnati’s breakout star of 2017 hasn’t been the same this year. That’s not a completely lamenting statement: his level was so high in his nearly 700 snaps last year that it would be unfair to expect him to keep at that ridiculous level in a larger role in what is essentially his sophomore year (he missed his entire rookie season with an injury).

While he’s clearly not at the same elite status this year, he hasn’t become a sieve, either. A team with an elite offense like Atlanta could find ways to take advantage of him, sure, but that’s a group with a disgusting amount of receiving talent to throw at Jackson and his defense. Pittsburgh has plenty of talent too, but it still isn’t quite the same level without Le’Veon Bell out there.

The specific thing Cincinnati must hope Jackson can retain from last season though is how he played against Pittsburgh’s superstar wide receiver Antonio Brown. In two games last season, Brown did absolutely nothing when covered by Jackson: eight targets, no catches and four pass knockdowns by Jackson.

Don’t think Brown doesn’t know this, by the way. Aside from the fact that this has been a huge talking point since the teams last played, he would be aware of someone having a decent showing against him. Brown is surely going to use it as extra motivation and look to prove yet again that no one player can truly stop him if he focuses on beating them.

Assuming he not only plays (he’s been questionable this week with a knee injury) but is close to 100 percent, Jackson has a monumentally difficult task ahead of him. If he can make any headway in slowing (let’s not pretend he’s completely stopping him) Brown, that Pittsburgh offense could quickly turn into a mess.