As expected, the NFL announced Sunday night that the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Cincinnati Bengals will face off for a battle for the AFC North on the nationally televised NBC’s Sunday Night Football. The original game time of 1 pm on Sunday Dec. 28 was moved to 8:30 pm for their final regular season game.
Despite consecutive 8-8 records and no playoff appearances the past two years, the Steelers still attracted the maximum five primetime nightly games in 2014. With this Sunday night game now being flexed, the Steelers become the only team in this season to have six primetime games, three of which falling on NBC’s Sunday Night Football.
Currently the Steelers have a 4-1 primetime record this season, with their one loss coming against the Baltimore Ravens way back in Week 2 on a ESPN’s Thursday Night Football. The Steelers then went on to win their next three primetime games with impressive victories over the Carolina Panthers, Houston Texans and Ravens on Sunday, Monday and Sunday respectively. The final victory on their originally scheduled primetime game was sealed with an impressive final drive in the 4th quarter against a subpar Tennessee Titans team.
Obviously with this game coming on primetime, Steelers fans are excited about how well quarterback Ben Roethlisberger has played lately during previous primetime games and particularly at Heinz Field.
According to Dom Rinelli:
In 5 2014 primetime games, @steelers QB Ben Roethlisberger (@_BigBen7) has avg’d a 104.8 QB rtg: 113-of-169 for 1,225 yards, 11 TDs & 2 INTs
— Dom Rinelli (@drinelli) December 22, 2014
To compare this, according to Fox Sports, Bengals quarterback Andy Dalton is 0-4 in his last four primetime games with a 62.1 QB rating, 4 TDs and 6 INTs.
The #Bengals have two games left. One on Monday Night Football, the other on Sunday Night Football. #PRIMETIME pic.twitter.com/9XJAEnsmWu
— FOX Sports NFL (@NFLonFOX) December 22, 2014
Earlier this season the Steelers defeated the Houston Texans 30-23 and in the process extended their winning streak of 16 straight games on Monday Night Football (longest streak of series since 1991).
Although the Steelers are not quite as dominate on Sunday Night Football since NBC took over from ESPN (1987-2005) back in 2006, they have won their last three Sunday night games dating back to Dec 15, 2013 against these same Bengals, who they beat 30-20 at home.
Another fact to be excited about is that the Bengals have yet to win a Sunday night football game dating back to 2006. In addition, three of those loses came at the hands of the Steelers.
