They say you should throw the records out when it comes to divisional play, because funny things can happen. Sure, they happen in non-divisional games as well, but perhaps in part because of volume, it seems to happen between rivals at an elevated rate.
Such as being bested by a backup nobody expects to win. We know the Pittsburgh Steelers have had their handful of losses to unusual backups. They’ve also had backups win games. But they risk back-to-back embarrassing losses to inexperienced backups this week if they fall to the Cincinnati Bengals.
While Jake Browning is not a rookie, he had never played in a game before this season. In fact, Sunday’s game against the Steelers will be his first career start. But former Steelers CB Mike Hilton, now with the Bengals, knows, Cincinnati can pull it off—because he’s been on the other side before.
“I saw it, too”, he told reporters on Friday, via the team’s website, about the possibility of a divisional opponent pulling out an upset win under these circumstances. “Hey, anything is possible. We’re confident in Jake and he’s a confident dude. We’re excited to see how he plays”.
The Steelers’ chances of earning a bye were derailed in Week 15 of the 2020 season after they dropped a game to Ryan Finley. A second-year mid-round draft pick, he started three games as a rookie the year before, for questionable reasons, and lost all of them. The 2020 game against the Steelers was the only other start of his career.
He completed seven passes during the game. And he won. He went 7-for-13 overall, throwing for all of 89 yards, with a 14-yard touchdown pass to RB Giovani Bernard. He also rushed for a touchdown on 10 attempts for 47 yards while avoiding turning the ball over.
Truth be told, that was the end of a three-game skid for a Steelers team that got off to an 11-0 start, but with that third loss, it pretty much ended any serious hopes of earning a bye. As you might recall, they ended up losing again to the Cleveland Browns in the season finale, and then…well, you probably also know what happened a week later in the Wildcard Round.
This year, the 6-4 Steelers are trying to remain relevant within the division after losing to the Browns’ rookie reserve, Dorian Thompson-Robinson a week ago. They cannot afford to drop another entirely winnable game, this being one of them.
Of course, that is why they took the drastic move of firing offensive coordinator Matt Canada, whose unit mustered just 10 points against the Browns. That doesn’t mean things will get better, but they were already going in the wrong direction in the first place. How much worse can they get?
Mike Hilton remembers. And he wants to make it even worse.
