Crazy to believe it’s already Week 7, but things around the league are starting to take shape. Most notably, for me and from a Steelers standpoint at least, is that the AFC seems to be way more open than in years past. There’s still a long way to go and a lot of things will change, but so far it seems like everyone is beatable.

Pittsburgh heads to Cincinnati for their first and only Thursday Night Football matchup of the year where they’ll look to end their 0-8 record in division Thursday night games. They come off one of their more dominant wins in a while vs Cleveland, while the Bengals continue to reel, losing to the Packers 27-18 in Week 6.

Bengals Overview

The Bengals come in sitting at 2-4 and on paper are one of the worst teams in the league. They’re 27th in Total Passing, 30th in Yards Per Play, and 32nd in Total Rushing. The Bengals are the only team in league who have fewer rushing yards (340) than the Steelers (420) through the first six weeks (though the Steelers did have a bye).

They’re second in the league in interceptions thrown, and sit dead last in point differential at -80. To put it lightly, there isn’t much good coming out of Cincinnati at all right now. One recent change though that could be a difference in this game is their newly acquired quarterback.

My 11-year-old self would be furious that I’m still talking about the Steelers playing Joe Flacco in 2025, yet here we are. In terms of production, not much changed vs Green Bay last week is his first start, as they ran for only 55 yards and were exactly at their 4.3 Yards Per Play season average for the game. But an x-factor in this matchup is Flacco’s experience playing against Mike Tomlin, and there’s no doubt that’s an advantage for the Bengals on the offensive side of the ball.

Defensively the Bengals have somehow been just as bad. They’ve allowed the third-most Total Yards, the fourth-most Yards Per Play (5.9), and are 8th in total defensive penalty yards given up. Cincy has had almost no success stopping anything, and to make matters worse they could be without their best defensive player Trey Hendrickson, who’s looking like he’ll be a game time decision with a hip injury.

The one bright spot of course for the Bengals is Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins, who would still be hard to stop if I was throwing them the ball. It’s wild to think about, but as things stand right now getting those two the ball as much as possible is really the Bengals only chance at winning games.

Steelers Overview

It was a breath of fresh air in Pittsburgh last week, as the Steelers finally took care of an inferior opponent without it coming down to the very end. They’ll look to carry over their improved play on both sides of the ball over recent weeks and avoid a letdown spot on a short week.

On offense things seem like they’re starting to gel. Dan Orlovsky said earlier this week the Steelers offense is “cautiously creative”, and I think that’s a really good way to put it. They are dead last – that’s right, 32nd in the entire league – in total yards gained on offense. But if you watch the games it doesn’t feel like that.

That’s partially because of the defense forcing turnovers and short fields, but they’ve done a good job of not getting themselves behind the sticks. They kind of methodically figure things out as the game goes on, lull the defense to sleep and wait to hit their big shot with play action. A massive cause of their success and a big difference from what we’ve seen in years past is their redzone efficiency.

They’ve scored touchdowns on 10 of 14 redzone trips, a 71.4% success rate, the 6th-best in the league. Rodgers has been unreal in the red area – he’s 12/16 passing with 7 of his 10 touchdown passes coming from inside the 20. There’s no reason this should slow against a Bengals team giving up touchdowns in the redzone at the same rate (71.4%) the Steelers are scoring them.

Defensively the Steelers are back to causing havoc – both from a game viewpoint and statistically. Per Ian Hartitz, the Steelers are third in the league in causing havoc, the percentage of plays a defense gets a pressure, tackle-for-loss, forced fumble, INT, or pass breakup at 42.2%. That percentage is up almost ten points since Week 2, when they ranked 20th in the league in this fun stat.

It was wrong as fans to expect this defense to be dominant right away. They’re doing a lot of new things (finally) and it took them some time to get going, but the last few weeks is what everyone expected. 2nd in sacks, 3rd in pressure percentage, and 3rd in takeaways is more than meeting the expectations they had coming into the year.

Key Game Matchups

Slowing Down the Goons

Tomlin hilariously referenced Tee Higgins as a goon last year, and that term applies to both him and Ja’Marr Chase. From my perspective, and probably any team’s persepctive that plays the Bengals, if you can keep these two from having monster games you should win the game.

Personally, I’m much more concerned about Chase. He can beat you with and without the ball in more ways than anyone else in the league, and can break the game open with one play. If I’m the Steelers I’m doubling him every play, or as much as possible, and force Higgins to be the guy to win the one-on-one matchups.

This makes a lot of sense given the Steelers secondary. I feel pretty confident with all three of the corners taking on the task of locking up Higgins. Darius Slay mentioned earlier in the week Ramsey and Porter have been fighting over who gets to guard who, and I love that confidence from the group. But it could make sense to mix the matchups up throughout the game and not let either receiver get comfortable against one guy.

It also wouldn’t surprise me if Pittsburgh changes up their game plan from what we’ve seen in weeks past. And by this I mean slowing down the amount of blitzes they’re bringing. The Bengals offensive line is atrocious – PFF has only one player ranked above a 50 overall grade – and with their full arsenal of pass rushers healthy they should be able to get to Flacco with four and utilize everyone else in coverage.

Timely blitzes will still be important though because you can’t let a vet like Flacco just sit back there and pick you apart. But over-doing it puts you at risk of giving up the big play to one of the two goons. Early on I expect Pittsburgh to sit back in the softer Cover 2 shell, hopefully get out in front, and then cause the havoc late to try and seal the game.

Keep Hendrickson at Bay

This point may be completely null and void if Hendrickson doesn’t play tonight, but he really is the only guy on the Bengals defense that could cause problems for the Steelers. He wrecked the game on my birthday this past January with 3.5 sacks and five tackles and you know he’ll be looking to do the same again, especially with his name currently being floated around in potential trade rumors.

As former Steeler Trai Essex mentioned on Twitter, Hendrickson could be a problem for Broderick Jones because his go to move is normally a bull rush, and Jones struggles with that because he plays too high and doesn’t have a firm enough base.

If he does play, I’d expect the Steelers to do a lot of the same we saw last week that Myles Garrett quiet. A lot of chips, help from Darnell Washington, and getting Aaron Rodgers on the move by shifting the pocket to not allow Hendrickson to time the snap and fly off the ball.

One last point – I know this isn’t said out loud in the media a lot but I know it’s something that still goes on in the locker rooms and in game plans. And that’s getting after an injured player. I’m not saying bounty gate, try and hurt someone, but more so smacking him in the mouth early. Heavy double teams and down blocks to wear him down quickly and keep his head on a swivel. It’s natural to want to protect yourself when you’re hurt so it’s smart to make someone who’s not 100% play hesitantly if you can.

Tackling

One thing that neither defense does well coming into this game is tackle well. The Bengals are next-level bad, leading the league with 68 missed tackles, but the Steelers aren’t good either with the ninth-most missed tackles at 43.

This should be a worry for the Steelers defense when Chase has the ball in his hands. Way too many times this year the Steelers defense has tried to force fumbles and not even attempt to make a tackle. It almost cost them last week against the Browns but the play was luckily (and incorrectly, in my opinion) called dead. They need to make sure they’re wrapping up and playing through the whistle.

For the Steelers offensively this should be a massive advantage. As Alex Kozora noted, Cincy leads the league in Yards After Catch allowed, and Pittsburgh is first in the league in Yards After Catch gained. They should continue to utilize the quick game to get guys in space (DK Metcalf) and give their skill guys opportunities to make people miss.

This also screams a big Jaylen Warren day. Warren is so impressive with the ball in his hands, and is currently tied for 6th in the league in broken tackles. With how bad Cincy’s run defense is I expect Warren to take advantage of the Bengal’s poor tackling and have his first 100-yard rushing game of the year.

Injuries, Betting, and Game Prediction

Bengals Injury Report

As mentioned, Trey Hendrickson hasn’t practiced all week with a hip injury and is questionable. That’s the big one, but the Bengals will also be thin a tight end after losing Mike Gesicki to IR.

Steelers Injury Report

The big and only surprise is obviously DeShon Elliott. He’s not hurt but missed practice for personal reasons, and didn’t travel with the team to Cincy yesterday. Hopefully everything is okay with him and his family, but this would be a massive blow to Steelers with how well he’s playing right now.

Betting

Per DraftKings Sportsbook, the Steelers are 5.5 point favorites (-270 ML), with an Over/Under of 44.5. The books clearly aren’t taking into account Tomlin’s abysmal Thursday Night Football history.

Bets I like in this game:

• Jaylen Warren Anytime Touchdown (-120)
• Jaylen Warren Over 47.5 Rush Yards (-112)
• Ja’Marr Chase Over 76.5 Receiving Yards (-110)
• Chase Brown Over 2.5 Receptions (-161)

Game Prediction

Last week I said straight up that beating the Browns was a must-win game if the Steelers want to be taken seriously, and this is the same story. There is no reason a team whose bottom-five on both sides of the ball should beat you under any circumstances, and I don’t care what the Thursday Night Football history says.

Tomlin called out Browns GM Andrew Berry earlier this week about trading Flacco to a team in the division. Now from a team management point it was the right move – the Browns suck and are going nowhere this year, so might as well trade for a higher draft pick when you know you need to see what you have in the two rookies you drafted.

However, I feel the exact same way about Flacco that Tomlin does. He tipped his hand that he doesn’t like playing against him, and I can’t stand it either. I’ve been dealing with this dude for over 15 years and he still won’t go away. Yeah, Flacco’s 11-11 record against the Steelers is nothing crazy, but there’s probably no one in the league who knows this team better, and that scares me.

I don’t know why, but I have a really bad feeling about this game. Flacco now has had a week to learn the system and to get reps with Chase and Higgins. Their timing was already good last week against Green Bay, so it’ll only improve this week. The Steelers need to make sure that under no circumstances they give up any big plays – that’s their path to losing this game.

All in all though, the Steelers are the better team and they need to take care of business. I mentioned it earlier, but this is Jaylen Warren’s coming out party. He surpasses the century mark rushing and scores his first touchdown on the ground, with help from Kenneth Gainwell at controlling the time of possession. Rodgers continues to play mistake free, makes audibles at the line to exploit the Bengals’ poor defense, and throws two touchdowns. One of them will be to Roman Wilson – all season the Steelers have used Wilson as a decoy, only running clear outs. The Bengals aren’t well coached enough and won’t be focused on Wilson, and Rodgers will take advantage.

This will be close, much closer than it should be. But I think the Steelers finally end their Thursday Night woes, get a big division win, and increase their lead in the AFC North. Steelers 27, Bengals 23.

Here We Go.