The Pittsburgh Steelers have won the 2014 AFC North Division title by sweeping the Cincinnati Bengals 27-17. It wasn’t pretty. In fact, at times it was pretty darn ugly but a win is a win in the NFL.
Ben Roethlisberger played well considering the stomach virus he was dealing with. So bad it was he couldn’t go through pregame warm-ups. I say he played “well” but there were moments where he clearly didn’t look right.
He was awful throwing the deep ball all evening and had a couple of poor choices but he also had balls dropped especially early in the game.
All that said, Roethlisberger went 24 of 38 for 317 yards two touchdowns and one interception. One of those touchdowns went to Antonio Brown to seal the game and what more can we say about him?
Brown also had a 71-yard punt return for touchdown to open the scoring.
The story no doubt is about Le’Veon Bell though. His knee hyper-extended on a legal hit by Bengals’ safety Reggie Nelson. While the hit was legal, it was the type of hit we are seeing more and more as defenders go low in an effort to avoid fines for hitting to high.
Mike Tomlin and Nelson had words after the game but Tomlin refused to go into any depth on the topic in his postgame comments. (Note: I don’t have any knowledge of the person commenting as the video rolls).
With the Steelers scheduled to play Saturday night against Baltimore, that’s one less day for Bell to get better and I’ll be honest; I don’t see him being 100% next week.
What that means I don’t know but we’ll need to see some other guys step up their games that’s for sure.
It was fitting on many levels that Roethlisberger struggled with the flu because the offense just never seemed to click the way we’ve seen this season. It wasn’t horrible, but it has to be better next week.
Two more times the Steelers entered the red zone and came away with field goals which was eerily similar to what we saw last week against the Chiefs. Todd Haley will need to go to work to find better ways of getting the ball in the end zone.
The defense continues to follow the ‘bend don’t break’ mantra it has followed in recent weeks but what more can we say about this make-shift secondary?
Brice McCain had two interceptions while Antwon Blake had several jarring tackles to go along with a forced fumble and recovery. The ageless Will Allen played well again in place of Troy Polamalu and Mike Mitchell seems to be getting the hang of the Lebeau defense.
So the stage is set for the Ravens and Steelers take three. Pittsburgh has never lost to Baltimore in the playoffs and I see no reason why that can’t continue this coming weekend.
Marc Uhlmann writes for and co-owns www.steelcityblitz.com. Follow him on Twitter @SteelDad and the website @SCBlitz. Check us out on Facebook at facebook.com/steelcityblitz and on Fancred.com. You can hear him weekly during the season on game day on the Trib-Live Radio Steelers Pre-Game
photo courtesy espn.go.com
2 comments
The red zone offense has me worried going into the playoffs. Need to find ways to score touchdowns and not kick field goals. Loved the pass protection last night and if Ben gets that next week against the Ravens he should be able to score enough points to win the game regardless if Bell plays or not
Yes it’s a problem but I don’t see how you fix it. They have tried short passes into the endzone but they end up incomplete or knocked away. They try run but the D stacks up against the goal line to prevent a rushing TD. So put yourself in Haley’s shoes and call the play you think would work to get a TD within the 10yrd line.