Following each game in the 2025 Pittsburgh Steelers season I will once again be giving you my 10 takes. These aren’t going to be hot takes meant to shock the world. These will be instant reactions written just following the game when the emotions are high, and the ideas are fresh. Included will be thoughts, observations, queries, and reasons that caused me to yell at the television. Here are 10 thoughts from today’s game between the Steelers and Cincinnati Bengals.
Regular Season Week 7 vs. Cincinnati Bengals
1. Offensive Defensive Performance – Now we see why Mike Tomlin was bothered by the Browns trading Joe Flacco to the Bengals? Joe is good at math. If the Steelers stacked the box, he knew it would be man coverage, and he hit slant after slant after slant. If the box was light, he ran the ball. The Bengals were managing just 57 yards per game rushing. That’s it! The Cincinnati running backs ran 19 times for 139 yards. Just an awful defensive performance.
2. Speaking of Awful – One of the main reasons for bringing in veteran defensive backs was to counter, or at least slow, down the good receivers. Jalen Ramsey looked slow and was beaten repeatedly, gave up a touchdown, had two pass interference penalties, and gave up the deciding catch to Tee Higgins. Darius Slay got beat vertically by Andrei Iosivas. Joey Porter Jr was beaten repeatedly and had two pass interference penalties of his own. Jamar Chase had 23 targets! That was half of Flacco’s throws. Everyone knew the ball was going to him and he still got 23 targets.
Embarrassing.
3. More Dumb Decisions – Let’s go the Steelers’ offensive side of the ball. Coming into this game, the Bengals were giving up over 150 rushing yards per game over their last five contests. In the first half, the Steelers generated 5.4 yards per carry. Why did they only run the ball 11 times out of 31 plays? Jaylen Warren finished with 7.9 yards per carry. I don’t think Kaleb Johnson even got on the field. They should have run the ball twice as much as they did.
4. Two-Minute Ugh-ffense – Does Arthur Smith understand the concept of the two-minute offense? The idea is to move the ball down the field quickly to score points. He continues to run out multiple tight ends even when trying to score at the end of the first half. This isn’t the first time either. I first noticed it during Week 2 against Seattle at the end of the game.
Can they try three wide receivers? Or even four wide receivers which I’m fairly sure he has never done while with Pittsburgh? Historically, wide receivers are faster than tight ends. Just something to try.
5. “What Are You Doing?” – This was an early signal something was amiss. An early first-half play where Aaron Rodgers handed it off to Warren. Warren tossed it back to Rodgers, in a flea flicker style. After throwing it away, Rodgers turned and said, “What are you doing?” And then it looked like he said it wasn’t a flea flicker. Obviously, that play didn’t work. Additionally, you’ve now taken the flea flicker opportunity off the table for the rest of the game. Looking forward to seeing the details on this one.
6. Hot Potato Passing – The majority of the Steelers’ passing game was just taking the snap and firing it outside to somebody. And honestly, I don’t like it, but it was working. This is part of bigger problem. Nobody gets open versus man coverage. Rodgers was forced to try to thread the needle to DK Metcalf, leading to one interception on a nice play by DJ Turner. There have been rumors about the Steelers trading for wide receiver. If they do, please let him be able to create space.
7. Tee Right, Muth Wrong? – It was nice to see Pat Freiermuth finally get into the action. Kudos for him for not uttering a peep about his lack of usage through the Steelers’ five games. His two scores were huge. But the second one, the 68-yard score, came with 2:21 left on the clock.
My thought during the play was to go out of bounds at the 1-yard line. They could have run some more time off the clock. It’s a risk because you might not score but maybe he should have slid like Higgins did on the Bengals’ game-winning drive. It may not have mattered because the Steelers couldn’t stop them anyway.
Did anyone else have that thought?
8. More Hot Than Icy – Prior to the game, this matchup was referred to as the Icy Hot Bowl. Having two quarterbacks over 40 led to the moniker. Maybe that lit a fire under them. Who would have thought that Rodgers and Flacco would combine for 591 passing yards and seven touchdowns? It helps that neither quarterback had to deal with a lot of pressure from the pass rush. Tomorrow they will probably need to ice the throwing arm. The older guys can still sling it.
9. Cowardly Lyin’ – Your offense has moved the ball well pretty much the entire game. Your defense hasn’t been able to stop the opponent. You have one of the greatest quarterbacks in history at the helm. What in the name of all that is mighty are you doing punting the ball with five-and-half minutes left? I honestly cannot think of a reason. Pin them deep? It doesn’t matter. You can’t cover anybody.
Remember the Mike Tomlin who used to go for two on touchdowns when they scored first? There is no gambler in him and it’s so frustrating.
10. Didn’t Pack It? – Road trips can be tough. There’s always that thought in your head, “Did I forget something?” I think the Steelers forgot to pack their pass rush. Other than an early sack by Keeanu Benton and a late one by T.J Watt and Cam Heyward, it was not there. Alex Highsmith and Nick Herbig were barely mentioned in the game. Derrick Harmon. The same goes for him. Chalk it up to the short week, I guess.
Without that pressure, the defensive backs are in a whole lot of trouble.
