Expressing Complaints: “Anemic” offense; A late defense led to the Steelers’ fourth straight loss
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Expressing Complaints: “Anemic” offense; A late defense led to the Steelers’ fourth straight loss

Posted on by Amelia Pressman

The Steelers’ recent losses to the Philadelphia Eagles, Baltimore Ravens and Kansas City Chiefs were one thing. Those losses were easily explained by the club playing a trio of the NFL’s best teams – three division winners with a combined record of 40-9.

The loss to the Cincinnati Bengals on Saturday night was something different.

It was a home loss to a division opponentsomething that hadn’t happened in her six previous attempts. It was a loss to an 8-8 Cincinnati team that had beaten them 44-38 on the road earlier in the season. It was an anemic offensive performance against one of the NFL’s worst defenses.

It was a standalone game in prime time on national television. The kind In a game, the Steelers usually win after suffering consecutive losses.

But her fully screwed up. Cincinnati came in and won 19-17 in front of a frustrated 65,631 fans at Acrisure Stadium.

So forget about putting yourself in a position to get the top wild card and put yourself in a position to play against a beatable Houston Texans team. The Los Angeles Chargers have to decide that now.

If Los Angeles beats the Las Vegas Raiders on Sunday, it would mean a return to Baltimore for the Steelers in the first round of the playoffs. This is a much more difficult task.

Forget entering the postseason with the slightest momentum. That’s not happening now. They return with a four-game losing streak.

All of this gives us plenty of material for our first “Airing of Grievances” in 2025.

Unforgettable first quarter: Cincinnati’s offense dominated the first quarter. The Bengals offense held the ball for 11 minutes and 34 seconds. Quarterback Joe Burrow was 12 of 12 for 94 yards and a touchdown pass to Ja’Marr Chase. He easily beat Cory Trice for his 17th touchdown catch of the year.

The only time the ball touched the ground when the Bengals were on offense was when Burrow lost it on a sack by Patrick Queen, but running back Khalil Herbert recovered the loose ball.

“There were a lot of quick passes. We couldn’t really bring our pressure home a lot early on,” defensive lineman Cameron Heyward said. “But we held our hands up. I thought the coverage was a lot better as the game went on.”

Meanwhile, the Steelers’ first offensive possession resulted in a three-and-out in which Russell Wilson was sacked while holding the ball for nearly five seconds And no one opened.

Trey Hendrickson took Wilson to the ground. It was his 15th win of the season in the NFL. Then he added another 2 1/2. Steelers tackle Dan Moore Jr. and strike out Hendrickson in game one. That was far from the case in this game.

Terrible timing: After that terrible beginning, Heyward was right. The Steelers defense actually found its strengths for a while against the Bengals’ dangerous offense.

After a TD drive by the Steelers cut the deficit to 10-7, the Steelers got the ball back on downs thanks to a batted ball by Heyward on a fourth-and-1 at their own 37.

After the offense, the defense had to punt also forced a punt. Cincy’s Ryan Rehkow threw a 57-yarder. Pittsburgh’s Calvin Austin was stripped after a 7-yard return and the Bengals’ Akeem Davis-Gaither pounced on the fumble at the Steelers’ 33-yard line.

Luckily for Austin, Beanie Bishop saved him with an interception at the 12-yard line.

What did we just see?: At the end of the first half there was a bizarre coincidence of official confusion and coach misconduct. Please allow me to try to summarize it again.

• Not long after Bishop’s interception, Pat Freiermuth appeared to score a first down on a second-down throw at the Steelers’ 27-yard line with 49 seconds left. But the replay booth spoke up loudly that he was out of bounds just before the first down marker.

• After some confusion about what to do with the clock and possible timeout usage, Wilson executed a quarterback sneak on third-and-1. He made it first.

Until he didn’t. Replay came back and said it was too small. That led to a fourth-and-1, and somehow no time ran off the clock in the official scorebook.

• Shortly after more back-and-forth between the officials about which team should call a timeout, whether it should take a TV break and whether there should be a 10-second runoff, Steelers coach Mike Tomlin for some reason called it with 49 seconds left At the end he wanted to try it from his own 37.

However, Jaylen Warren got the garden he needed. Until he didn’t.

The booth corrected a call on a third straight snap and said Warren was close to the line for the win, so the Steelers gave the ball back to Cincy within field goal range.

In the end, the Bengals scored a ball from 27 yards and took a 13-7 lead into halftime.

“We had time off. They had timeouts,” Tomlin said. “We didn’t want to give them the ball back. I like to be aggressive in moments like this. If You can’t get a farmyou don’t deserve to win. Obviously we didn’t win.”

I still believe that was a complete unnecessary and reactionary decision by Tomlin, clearly borne out of frustration and emotion. At this point in the game it wasn’t a risk worth taking. It gave the Bengals three points that the Steelers had prevented just minutes before.

Where did the “O” go?: The Steelers offense was absolutely powerless against the Bengals defense, which was one of the worst units in the NFL all year. His 358 yards allowed per game ranked 27th in the NFL.

When Arthur Smith’s offense took the field for its first possession of the fourth quarter, the team trailed 19-7. After 49 minutes it was just 91 yards.

In the first meeting between the two teams, the Steelers scored 44 points and 520 yards of offense.

The offense was particularly atrocious on first downs. These numbers, tabulated by Warren Sharp of Sharp Football Analysis, were released over three quarters.

“We have to be effective on first down to give ourselves a chance on third down,” Wilson said. “Whatever that is, we have to be able to do it. This is an important part To The game was great, both on first and second down. And then when we get our third defeats, we turn them around.”

Unfortunately, Wilson and Co. were no better on third or fourth down, going 4 for 14 on those occasions. They only held the ball for 22 minutes. He was just 17 of 31 for 148 yards and took four sacks along the way. That’s 4.8 yards per attempt and a passer rating of 78.4. The running game averaged just 3.2 yards per carry.

Again, these numbers refer to the 2024-25 Cincinnati Bengals, not the 1985 Chicago Bears.

George Pickens made matters worse with three drops. His final stat was one catch on six targets with no yards.

Eh, that was probably the media’s fault. At least that’s what some fans on Instagram and X would have you believe.

Well, not those fans behind the Steelers bench.

Freiermuth also had a decisive drop. That happened on the Steelers’ last fourth attempt.

Final failure: The Steelers managed to get within 19-17 with a 54-yard field goal from Chris Boswell. The defense then forced a three-pointer largely to a big sack from Keeanu Benton.

The offense got the ball back at its own 24 with a timeout and 1:51 left and needed a field goal to win.

The drive started with a pass to Najee Harris that lost 2 yards and another to Freiermuth. WHO only gained 3 yards. This inability cost the team 38 seconds.

Luckily, Wilson hit Friermuth for a 17-yard gain that advanced the chains. But the Steelers only had 46 seconds left in their 42nd game.

From there, Wilson had to scramble to gain 3 yards on first down. This shortened the clock to 24 seconds. Tomlin had to take the last timeout when Wilson was fired on the second descent with 20 seconds left.

Wilson then missed on a deep bomb to Pickens, who couldn’t adjust to a ball thrown wide over his head on third down. Freiermuth ended the attempted rally on the next snap by dropping a potential fourth-down pass.

That ended the game and any hopes that the Steelers would move into the playoffs with any significant momentum.

Happy New Year!

Tim Benz is a staff writer at the Tribune-Review. You can contact Tim at [email protected] or via X. All tweets could be reposted. Unless otherwise stated, all emails are subject to publication.

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