Game Thread: Week 11 - Cincinnati

[Superbelt]

CBS Late, Sunday November 20th in Pittsburgh.

Last time it took a ridiculous number of takeaways to get the victory, but the Bengals have been kinda meh since then anyway.

Bengals at 5-4, Steelers at the bottom at 3-6. Most expert picks going with Cincy.

The Pigeons have been our home good-luck-charm since their debut. Will the flock fly again, inching Tomlin closer to saving his no losing season record?

 

[cincygrad]

FFS.... There's one 't' in Cincinnati! LOL.

Weird that Baltimore's mascot is your good luck charm. What ever happened to the rivalry?

To me, this game all comes down to Bengal mistakes. If Watt and (maybe) Minkah blow shit up again and cause turnovers, the game will be close and Pittsburgh has the advantage at home. If the Bengals play a clean game, I don't see Pittsburgh scoring enough points to win. The Bengals D has been excellent in preventing touchdowns for the past 20 games or so (with the exception of when we play Cleveland for some reason). The Steelers have 13 touchdowns all season.... And now they have a kicker that is shaky at best. It would be out of character for both teams for the Steelers to generate a lot of points without the benefit of short fields.

But, this in the NFL - Maybe shit gets wild for no reason.

 

[Superbelt]

 

[FaCe-LeE-uS]

 

[Pure Steel]

Great first half, just don't get conservative on offense in the second half.....

 

[Pure Steel]

Pathetic effort by the offense in the second half, left the defense for dead with the 3 & outs……down 27-23 at midfield and they shit themselves with penalties…..had plenty of chances to win this game…..

 

[Ojb81]

Pathetic effort by the offense in the second half, left the defense for dead with the 3 & outs……down 27-23 at midfield and they shit themselves with penalties…..had plenty of chances to win this game…..

don't be fooled, this team was never going to win today's game. they are abject shit, they fucking suck. the bengals, without their best skill player and missing their starting RB for a good portion of the game, gave us a B-/C+ performance and we pissed down our legs in the 2nd half. no adjustments, no awareness whatsoever. this is what the Steelers are now, one of the worst teams in the league. and it just seems to me like ownership is content with everything eventually just sorting itself out on its own. pittsburgh will be one of the dregs of the league for some time to come.

 

[Cincyfan78]

Pathetic effort by the offense in the second half, left the defense for dead with the 3 & outs……down 27-23 at midfield and they shit themselves with penalties…..had plenty of chances to win this game…..

To be fair - the Bengals defense in the second half of nearly every game this year has dominated. Lou's a freaking wizard or warlock. I'm convinced.

The Bengals defense is really good. 2 years in a row. They are showing last year was not a fluke - and Hubbard/Hendrickson can be a real handful when you have a fully healthy Reader at NT. Lou uses a 4 down alignment, but he has guys all over the field, and mixing and matching zone coverages with man. It's a lot like the old 3-4 scheme, but with 4 DL - but again, you'll see a LB blitz and a DL drop, which isn't really a staple of a true 4-3. When Hill is healthy, you also see an alignment with 3 LB's and 3 safeties almost making it like a 4-4 look. He's going to end up getting a HC gig - but for selfish reasons, I hope he doesn't.

Once pressure started getting home in the 2nd half - Picket was flustered. Having unusual guys like Reader and Hendrickson drop into coverage in some of those short area spaces that were open in the 1st half shut him down, and he wasn't able to process fast enough. This allowed the rush to get to him more as the game wore on. If Pitt could run the ball with any kind of threat, there would be more ways to take advantage of these alignments.

Now - do us a favor and win some games against the Browns/Ravens...LOL