The Pittsburgh Steelers usually have a home crowd wherever they play. Their fan base travels extremely well, and is frankly all over the country to begin with. However, divisional games can be a little different. It certainly was during their Thursday night game against the Bengals. The Steelers faced a crowd that woke up for the first time in about a month. According to Mike Florio, that’s may have gotten into Pittsburgh’s heads.
“They walked out, and there weren’t many Steelers fans there,” Florio said Friday on Pro Football Talk. “It was all those white jerseys, in that environment, it was loud, it was full. Like these people didn’t stay home, this team sucks. I don’t know, maybe they were rattled by that. And kudos to the Bengals fans for showing up on a Thursday night and filling that place and making it loud.”
There were a couple of factors that had the Bengals’ crowd a bit rowdy on Thursday. One, the team hadn’t done anything for a month. The Bengals were in the midst of a four-game losing streak featuring terrible quarterback play from Jake Browning. Trading in Joe Flacco provided a jolt. He started throwing the ball all over the place. Finally having something to cheer for, the stadium came alive.
However, the crowd wasn’t anything all these veterans on the Steelers’ roster haven’t dealt with before. Playing on the road is hard, but it’s not like that Bengals’ crowd is something Aaron Rodgers or Jalen Ramsey haven’t seen.
Florio thinks it was just one of those days for Rodgers and the Steelers.
“Something was off for him, in his demeanor,” Florio said of Rodgers. “In his overall vibe, he was irritated the whole night…It was clear that Rodgers was dealing with being pissed off the whole night. He was pissed off the entire night.”
There certainly were valid reasons for Rodgers to be upset. For one, he threw four touchdowns and led his offense to 31 points just for his defense to give the lead back every single time. There were several moments in which Rodgers was letting his teammates hear it when they weren’t in the right spots. There was also an instance in which he rightfully was angry with left tackle Broderick Jones, who accidently pushed him down during a touchdown celebration.
However, these are things that happen during every NFL game. Rodgers is going to let his teammates hear it when he needs to. And the Steelers are going to face crowds much more intense than in Cincinnati. Things just weren’t going the Steelers’ way on Thursday in just about any aspect.
