The Pittsburgh Steelers were expected to compete with the Baltimore Ravens for the AFC North’s crown this season. So far, those two teams are getting off to completely different starts. The injury-riddled Ravens are 1-5, while the Steelers have rattled off three straight wins and sit atop the division with a 4-1 record.
Even though the Ravens are 1-5, most expect them to be the only challenge in the division, if the Steelers even have one, towards the end of the year. However, Fox Sports’ Nick Wright thinks people may be counting the Bengals out too quickly.
“If the four-win Steelers lose, then the Bengals have three wins,” Wright said Wednesday on First Things First. “And then they play the Bengals again. And we have seen Joe Flacco in this division, relatively recently, lead a team with way less talent on offense than this one to 11 wins. If the Steelers lose, it’s not that you have to worry about the Ravens coming back from the dead. It’s that the Bengals will be on their heels. That’s why it’s a must-win.”
The Bengals actually led the division for a short time, starting the year 2-0. Then, Joe Burrow went down with an injury and everything fell apart. They’ve now lost four in a row, three of them being with Jake Browning.
However, especially going from Browning to Joe Flacco, it’s hard not to feel a little more confident in them going forward. They lost their first game with Flacco, but it was a challenging environment on the road in Green Bay. Flacco did a decent job, completing 29 of 45 passes for 219 yards and two touchdowns.
Wright brings up Flacco’s Cinderella run from a couple of years ago. And he’s not wrong that this Bengals team has a ton of talent offensively that the Steelers will have to deal with. But the lack of a quarterback isn’t the only reason they’re losing games. The offensive line is bad, and the defense is atrocious. Over the last five games, the Bengals have given up 27, 48, 28, 37 and 27 points in that order. A couple came from offensive mishaps, but the defense doesn’t look much better than last year.
If the Steelers were to lose, they’d be 4-2, with the Bengals at 3-4. From there, things could get a little dicey. The Steelers’ next opponents are the Packers, Colts and Chargers, all of whom are playoff contenders. Meanwhile, the Bengals play the Jets and Bears before their Week 10 bye. That’s much easier than the Steelers have it, and the two teams do have another matchup in Week 11.
The Bengals certainly have the chance to make up some ground on the Steelers. However, this team couldn’t make the playoffs last year, even with a healthy quarterback. It’s still the Steelers’ division to lose, and they’ll hope they don’t start to lose it Thursday night.
