The Pittsburgh Steelers will host the Cincinnati Bengals Sunday at Heinz Field and in case you missed an earlier note of mine, they’ll be playing a team that’s coming off their bye week. As I also previously noted, the Bengals are 5-8-1 coming off their bye week under their head coach Marvin Lewis with one of their wins coming against the Steelers in 2015 in a game that was also played at Heinz Field.
While the Bengals have no recent trends related to wins and losses following their own bye weeks under Lewis, the Steelers unfortunately do have one when it comes to playing teams coming off a bye under head coach Mike Tomlin.
According to my research, the Steelers are 5-4 under Tomlin in games against teams coming off their bye weeks. While that’s not overly concerning, you should probably know that the Steelers are 0-3 in their last three games against teams coming off their bye weeks with their most recent loss coming just last season to the Baltimore Ravens in a game that was played on the road. The two losses before that one were to the Oakland Raiders in 2013 and the Bengals in 2015.
Not only will the Steelers play a rested Bengals team this week, their next game against the Detroit Lions in Week 8 will include them playing another team coming off their bye. That game, however, will be played in Detroit.
Here’s to hoping we’re able to talk about another bye week trend just ahead of the Steelers having their own bye in Week 9. In case you’re curious and ready to look ahead, the Steelers will be looking to break another bye-related trend in Week 10 against the Indianapolis Colts as they’re currently 0-3 in their last three games following their own bye week.
Since Tomlin took over as head coach in 2007, the Steelers are 6-4 in games that followed their own annual bye week.
