Game Thread: Week 13 - at Cincy

[Maximus Rex]

Five thoughts:

1. They actually seemed to scheme some receivers open today, nice to see finally.
2. Porter is a penalty machine.
3. Harris looks pretty good, glad he wasn't hurt seriously in the first quarter. Patterson even had a few nice plays. Warren doesn't seem to have his burst of yesteryear.
4. Pickens is a penalty machine.
5. Glad they re-signed Heyward, he was wrecking it up at times today, not bad for an old man.

 

[cincygrad]

Five thoughts:

1. They actually seemed to scheme some receivers open today, nice to see finally.
2. Porter is a penalty machine.
3. Harris looks pretty good, glad he wasn't hurt seriously in the first quarter. Patterson even had a few nice plays. Warren doesn't seem to have his burst of yesteryear.
4. Pickens is a penalty machine.
5. Glad they re-signed Heyward, he was wrecking it up at times today, not bad for an old man.

Good game. I thought they had a smart plan. The Bengals D is slow and can't tackle. Russ took all the underneath stuff and let his guys make plays after the catch.

I don't know of another team that has to be as concerned about which officials get assigned the game than the Steelers. If they get one of the flag happy crews like today's crew, they have the deck stacked against them because of Pickens and Porter.

 

[FaCe-LeE-uS]

Some of my thoughts...

• Phenomenal performances by Russ Wilson & Cam Heyward.
• Kills me to see Porter using his damn hands as much as he does when he really doesn't need to. He can keep pace with any receiver and has proven to do so many times. But his reliance on his hands will continue to get him into trouble. We knew this would be a problem after drafting him, and so far he hasn't changed. Those penalties were huge for the Bengals.
• Offense was humming pretty well. Seems like they are finally putting an emphasis on RZ playcalling because they were finally getting some better movement down there. Wasn't seeing the same groupings of 2-3 receivers standing 3yds apart, so that's good. And like Rex said, they seemed to be scheming WRs open in this game vs the typical wanting them to win 1v1s. Been a long time since I've seen that many passes over the middle. Also, credit to Arthur Smith for giving Moore some help on Hendrickson. Didn't want to see another DPOY candidate abuse our QB again.
• Penalties, penalties, penalties... Can't believe how many damn penalties there were in the this game. I think both teams had over 100yds worth of penalties. Oddly enough there were some more obvious fouls that didn't get called, but the little ticky tack stuff got called all game long. And I'm talking about both teams getting away with stuff.
• Nice to see the pass rush wake up. They needed that sort of performance, but still need to keep that momentum going. Don't think I saw too many schemed blitzes, which is still a concern. Relying on 4-man rushes just doesn't cut it consistently enough.
• Legit getting concerned about Minkah Fitzpatrick. Seeing him out of position far too often on the back end. He's been under fire this season due to the lack of splash plays, which I could understand when he's doing his job well as a centerfielder. For the most part that has been true, but now he seems like a liability on some plays where he's taking bad angles or just not in position over the top to actually help the CBs.
• Agree with Tomlin that Pickens needs to grow up. If anyone is ever going to take him seriously as a true WR1 then he needs to act the part. Stop playing the villain or punk.

 

[DJ Fieri]

Russell FUCKING Wilson!!!!

 

[FaCe-LeE-uS]

Russell FUCKING Wilson!!!!

 

[Superbelt]

$85 million dollar dead cap hit in Denver to make Russell Wilson go away.

Playing his ass off here for free.

Fucking amazing.