Unless Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin had much more of a point about Joe Flacco being traded to the Cincinnati Bengals than anyone gave him enough credit for, their Week 7 showing on Thursday Night Football was an unmitigated disaster. Sure, they clawed their way back to take a late lead, but they immediately gave it up to inexplicably fall to the rival Bengals, 33-31.
After Tomlin's team jumped out to a 10-0 lead, the Bengals quite literally took over the game. They answered in the late second quarter with a pair of Flacco touchdown passes, the second of which came on an ugly Aaron Rodgers interception. Then, after Rodgers threw his second pick of the quarter in the waning minutes, Cincinnati was able to push the halftime lead to 17-10 with a field goal.
From that point, it was blow-for-blow between the AFC North rivals, with the Steelers finally landing what appeared to be the final haymaker on a 68-yard touchdown pass (albeit on a busted coverage) from Rodgers to Pat Freiermuth. It wasn't, though. Cincy cut through the defense like a hot knife through butter and, with a heady play from Tee Higgins to go down on what would've been an easy touchdown, set up the game-winning field goal from Zach McPherson.
Make no mistake, what could've been a Thursday night blowout — and perhaps should've been — ultimately turned into an entertaining divisional clash. But the fact that was the case is entirely damning of the Steelers, whether they won or lost the game, and is something that we shouldn't soon forget about this team.
Steelers just proved they can't be trusted in Thursday night slopfest
For starters, while facing one of the worst defenses in the league that also happened to be taking the field without star pass rusher Trey Hendrickson, the Steelers offense was out-gained 470 to 391 yards on the night. That, in itself, is just baffling to consider given the situation for this game, but it was all self-inflicted on Pittsburgh's part.
Rodgers not only had the two turnovers in the second quarter that started things snowballing over the Steelers and effectively coughed up their early lead, but offensive coordinator Arthur Smith was the opposite of in his bag. Pittsburgh passed 32 times on the night while rushing only 20 times. That balance already feels like poor strategy for the Steelers (and out of character for Smith's stylings), but it was even more maddening given that the Steelers averaged 7.4 yards per carry in the game, just 0.2 yards less than they average per pass on the night.
Beyond that, though, the Steelers were also lifeless defensively in this matchup as well. The side of the ball that was supposed to be bankable, especially with the Jalen Ramsey addition, was anything but. And that performance came from an offense that managed only 18 points last week against the Packers and while the Pittsburgh defense had the full two weeks to prepare for Zac Taylor in this matchup.
There's no justification for how Tomlin and Smith allowed this game to be coached and how they strategized and schemed in this game. They were shooting themselves in the foot routinely with play-calling. And even worse, their star defensive front couldn't take advantage of a much-maligned Bengals offensive line, giving Flacco time all night long and only bringing the 41-year-old down for two sacks on the night.
How can you possibly trust a team that's capable of looking so sub-mediocre? How can you trust this Steelers team when, despite the big names and talent, can get into a shootout with the corpse of the Bengals? The simple truth of it is that you can't.
Even if the Steelers still win the AFC North, that says more about the division than them
Even while dropping to only 4-2 after the loss to the Bengals, the Steelers still have a commanding lead in the AFC North, sitting 1.5 games ahead of Cincinnati, and three games ahead of both the Browns and Ravens. Though there's still a lot of football left to be played, when you look at the situations of these divisional foes, the likeliest outcome is still that Pittsburgh comes out on top.
What does that even mean, though? They won a bad division? Congratulations, you won this year's iteration of the AFC South. Your prize is almost definitely going to be losing in the Wild Card Round of the playoffs at home.
This team and season feel entirely indicative of the malaise that many Steelers fans feel when it comes to Tomlin, and certainly why you shouldn't trust them. There are recognizable names and faces abound on the roster, but none of the pieces quite fit just right. It wouldn't be shocking if there was a power struggle between Smith and Rodgers with the offense, especially after what we witnessed on Thursday night, and this all feels like a team that's built to keep Tomlin's streak of not finishing below .500 alive, but with nothing close to a Super Bowl ceiling.
For a proud franchise such as the Steelers, that should never be the goal — but it unfortunately has been the reality for years now. Rodgers is a new face at quarterback, DK Metcalf and Ramsey are shiny new toys, but the results aren't changing. Any given week, Pittsburgh can win a game just as easily as they could lose it, regardless of the level of competition.
Believing in the Steelers after what we saw on Thursday is a fool's errand at best. They've proven that nothing's changed, especially the ceiling and probably not the floor either. That's not a winning recipe, which we know because it's the same familiar story. And if you got sucked into believing in them with Rodgers and the flashes we've seen, just go ahead and stop. The ending is going to be the same, and it's going to be nowhere close to a Lombardi Trophy.