The Pittsburgh Steelers did a lot of talking entering the Week 7 Thursday Night Football matchup against the Cincinnati Bengals about how they were built to defend Cincinnati’s high-powered attack led by Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins.
In the offseason, the Steelers made every effort to add depth and talent to their secondary, talent that could match up with those two stars.
And yet, in its first matchup against the Bengals, Pittsburgh has no answers for the two receivers as they combined for 22 receptions for 257 yards and two touchdowns in the 33-31 Cincinnati win Thursday night.
Led by Joe Flacco, who was traded to the Bengals last week, drawing the ire of Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin, the Bengals threw all over the Steelers to the tune of 342 yards and three touchdowns. For ESPN’s Peter Schrager, what transpired at Paycor Stadium is “alarming” moving forward for the Steelers.
“Ja’Marr Chase is absolutely unguardable if you don’t have a full plan to do it. And they thought they did this offseason,” Schrager said of the Steelers, according to audio via ESPN Unportsmanlike. “They went out and got [Jalen] Ramsey, they got [Darius] Slay, they got [Juan] Thornhill. They drafted Porter the [second] round couple years back, and then the Bengals did with the Bengals always do to the Steelers. They just threw all over [them]. And that’s alarming. That’s alarming because guess what? Now the book is out there.”
The Bengals did whatever they wanted through the air against the Steelers. It didn’t help that Pittsburgh couldn’t stop the run. Cincinnati came into the matchup with a historically bad rushing attack, and yet it ran for 142 yards on 23 carries, a healthy 6.2 yards per carry.
That had Steelers team captain and standout defensive lineman Cameron Heyward furious after the game. On top of failing to stop the run, Pittsburgh threw multiple looks at the Bengals’ star receivers and veteran quarterback and couldn’t slow them down.
After registering 17 sacks in the previous three weeks and really starting to round into form as a dominant defense that was beginning to live up to its preseason hype, the Steelers came crashing back down to earth on a short week.
And they did so in ugly fashion.
“Flacco threw all over that defense. And that’s what’s concerning, especially going into this game. All anyone talked about was Steelers don’t win on the road on Thursday nights. Steelers struggle on Thursday nights,” Schrager added. “And Tomlin had that comment to Andrew Berry publicly of the Browns, like how could you trade ’em within the division? It wasn’t like this was some surprise trap game. They knew full well that this was coming.
“And then 23 targets later, Ja’Marr Chase just danced all over them.”
There’s a reason Tomlin wasn’t happy that Flacco was traded within the division, and especially to a team with the likes of Chase and Higgins. It showed on Thursday night.
The Steelers had no answers for anything the Bengals did. They tried man coverage, and they couldn’t hold up. They tried zone and were picked apart in the quick game. They tried doubling and bracket coverage, too, to no avail.
It was just one of those nights. And yet, it’s still incredibly alarming.
The Steelers needed that game going into this tough stretch. They dropped it, and now there are more questions than answers in the secondary.
