Right away Sunday inside Paul Brown Stadium, things turned ugly for the Pittsburgh Steelers’ defense, which could not get off blocks or stop the run whatsoever.
That’s become a trend for a Steelers’ defense that has hemorrhaged 41 points in back-to-back weeks despite seeing the return of T.J. Watt and Minkah Fitzpatrick for the Week 12 matchup against the Bengals.
Throughout Sunday’s performance – if you want to call it that – against the Bengals, Joe Mixon and the Bengals ran all over the Steelers’ front seven to a tune of 198 rushing yards and three touchdowns as a team, controlling the line of scrimmage throughout the game on both sides of the football.
After the shellacking on Sunday in Cincinnati, Steelers’ head coach Mike Tomlin addressed the concerns up front, stating that the struggles can be attributed to whatever anyone wants to attribute it to, but the fact of the matter remains that the inability to win at the line of scrimmage happened time and time again on Sunday.
“The won the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball, and when you win the line of scrimmage, the game has a chance to look like that,” Tomlin said to reporters following the loss, according to video via the Steelers’ official YouTube page. “…You can attribute it to whatever you want to attribute it to, but the bottom line is it was done. They won that mano a mano component of play, much too often.”
The Bengals jumped all over the Steelers early on Sunday as Mixon ripped off a 25-yard run on the second play from scrimmage before Joe Burrow capped off the 10-play drive by breaking contain of Alex Highsmith, juking Fitzpatrick in the open field and diving into the end zone for the game’s opening score.
After that, the floodgates were open. as Mixon ripped off a 32-yard run later in the game and constantly picked up gains of 4, 5, and 6 yards on the ground as the Bengals ran all over Pittsburgh.
The Steelers will have to get the issues correctly quickly as Pittsburgh takes on the NFL’s top rushing attack in the Baltimore Ravens in Week 13.
