I have long been a fan of the TOX stat as many of you are well aware of by now as its 80% success record is tough to top. However, you might be surprised to know that the stat has a 100% success rate in the last eight regular season meetings between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Cincinnati Bengals.
For those of you that need a refresher, the TOX stat is the differential of explosive plays and turnovers achieved by teams in any one game. An explosive play is any play that goes for 20 or more yards.
Since I started tracking the stat several years ago, teams that finish a game with a plus two TOX stat have won that game right around 80% of the time.
In the last eight regular season games between the Steelers and the Bengals, the team with a plus two TOX stat has won the game 100% of the time and that has happened in six of the games.
The plus one TOX stat, which over time has proven worthless to track over the years, is 1-1 in the other two meeting between the teams.
We will see if this stat holds true Monday night, but there is no reason to think that it won’t. If the Steelers finish plus two they should win the game.
In case you are curious, the Steelers defense only allowed one explosive play in the season opener, but their failure to achieve any turnovers resulted in a plus one TOX stat for the game.
| BENGALS | STEELERS | RESULTS | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| YEAR | FUM | INT | EXP ALLOW | FUM | INT | EXP ALLOW | PITT TOX | SCORE | WINNER |
| 2007 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 24-13 | Steelers |
| 2007 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 1 | -4 | 24-10 | Bengals |
| 2008 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 38-10 | Steelers |
| 2008 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 27-10 | Steelers |
| 2009 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 23-20 | Bengals |
| 2009 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 | -2 | 18-12 | Bengals |
| 2010 | 1 | 1 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 27-21 | Steelers |
| 2010 | 0 | 3 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 7 | 23-7 | Steelers |
| 2011 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 24-17 | Steelers |
| 2011 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 35-7 | Steelers |
| 2012 | 0 | 1 | 8 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 7 | 24-17 | Steelers |
| 2012 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 5 | -2 | 13-10 | Bengals |
