On Saturday, the Cincinnati Bengals took on the Pittsburgh Steelers, but it doesn’t seem like many of the players showed up. The Steelers took the lead right away with a 92-yard touchdown run, and despite the early score, it seemed like Cincinnati might not have the best night.
At halftime, the Steelers led 24-0, and once more, it didn’t seem like the Bengals were going to win this game. Their chances of making the playoffs are currently 16%, so they really needed to win this one as well. It will be difficult for them to be a genuine playoff contender with a 0-5 division record, but they’ll need to win out if they want to even punch their ticket to the postseason.
It felt like the Bengals maybe forgot there was a game because this was just a laughably bad performance. These five Bengals, however, might have forgotten to even show up to the game.
After three tremendous starts, Browning finally came crashing down to Earth. His final stats don’t look bad necessarily but that’s because he was forced to air it out more due to his team being down 24-0 at the half. Browning was also responsible for the Steelers having extra opportunities to add points to their total, as he threw three interceptions and Pittsburgh scored two touchdowns and a field goal after those turnovers.
Browning had only thrown three picks in his previous four outings so seeing him match that total in one game was concerning. That being said, he is a backup quarterback so we knew that he was going to cool off at some point and that just so happened to be this week.
This hasn’t been the season Bengals fans were hoping for from Awuzie, who was nails during his first year and a half in Cincinnati. To his credit, he suffered an ACL injury midway through last season and he’s been battling back from that injury.
Be that as it may, Awuzie had a bad night in Pittsburgh. The Bengals had finally gotten on the board in the second half but then as soon as the Steelers got the ball back, George Pickens beat Awuzie down the field for a 66-yard touchdown to put any chance of a comeback in the trash.
The offensive line has been up and down this season, performing well against the Colts but then really riding the struggle bus over the past two weeks. In their match-up against the Steelers, the Bengals o-line allowed Browning to get taken to the ground three times and hit eight times in total.
The run defense wasn’t much better. They’ve been bad all season long so it wasn’t surprising to see them giving up over 100 yards on the ground but it was still disappointing.
