Week 11 for the Pittsburgh Steelers represents their first rematch of a team already played in the 2025 season. The Cincinnati Bengals come riding into town after two straight losses with their last victory coming against these same Steelers back on October 16.
In that last meeting the Steelers and Bengals had a shootout that ended with Cincinnati coming from behind to kick a winning field goal with just seven seconds left on the game clock giving the big cats a 33-31 win. Since then, the Steelers have lost two of the last three and with the Bengals two straight losses are in third place in the AFC North at 3-6. Pittsburgh now stands at 5-4 with the Baltimore Ravens breathing heavily down on their collective necks.
With two games looming ahead against Baltimore and two meetings with the Cleveland Browns, Pittsburgh still have games to play facing the Bears, Bills, Dolphins, and the Detroit Lions. I had talked about “gauntlets” in past writings that the Steelers have gone down including this season with the Packers, Colts, and Chargers. Last year it was Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Kansas City which they lost all three. This year it was two out those three games mentioned they lost.
Ahead it seems like another gauntlet is in store. Therefore, it makes the winnable games remaining MUST wins. Those would be this Cincinnati game and the two Browns games and perhaps the Miami game. Win all those and Pittsburgh would have nine victories. If all other games, go as a loss the season would end 9-8 and the Steelers just MIGHT miss postseason.
The goal at the start of the season was for Aaron Rodgers to return to form and lead the Steelers into the playoffs and get a least one victory. After watching him in Los Angeles last Sunday night, if he continues to play like that, Pittsburgh won’t even be seeing a playoff game this season.
When the Bengals have the ball
In that October 16th game, the Pittsburgh defense was pathetic. Joe Flacco and the Bengals offense had a field day with the Steelers defense. So why change anything? Flacco threw for a crazy 343 yards and three touchdowns. He did not throw an interception and was sacked just twice.
Worse for Steelers fans was the performance of Chase Brown, Ja’Marr Chase, and Tee Higgins. Brown ran roughshod over the Steelers to the tune of 108 yards rushing including a 37-yard romp. The start of the game was certainly Ja’Marr Chase who caught 16 passes for an unthinkable 161 yards and a touchdown. Tee Higgins complemented him with 96 yards receiving and also a score.
I find it hard to believe that the Pittsburgh Steelers will allow that kind of offense output to happen again. They’ve improved since that last meeting with a solid performance in the victory over Indianapolis. They weren’t quite as good in Los Angeles but still held their own.
When the Steelers have the ball
The main focus for the Pittsburgh offense heading into this game will be solely on Aaron Rodgers. Will he bounce back from one of the worst performances of his career or was his play in Los Angeles a sign of the beginning of the end?
Jaylen Warren is running well, and he ran for 127 yards in that last Bengals game. He also had a 37-yard run. Pat Frierermuth was the big target for Rodgers, but it is due time for DK Metcalf to have a Ja’Marr chase type game. For Aaron Rodgers, he has not chalked up a 300-yard passing game this season. If he fails to do so the rest of the seasons, he will be the first Steelers quarterback to fail to register a 300-yard game since Ben Roethlisberger went through all 16 games in 2018 never going over 300 and the team finished 9-6-1 and missed the post season.
Intangibles
Here is another game that sees the Steelers coming off a bad loss (Green Bay was the last) and a chance to redeem themselves. After the Packers loss the defense put on an amazing performance against the Colts and the offense did enough to win. Now their backs are to the wall again and hopefully they spent the past week looking in the mirror to find out who they truly are. Mike Tomlin teams typically don’t play two bad games in a row and Aaron Rodgers should be angry enough at himself to have a much better game. If he has anything left in the gas tank, he better use the fuel in this game at home in front of thousands of Steelers faithful.
