Week 13: Cincinnati at Pittsburgh

We had such high hopes for the Bengals. Not so much from a football perspective: the team’s defense was a mess even before every linebacker on the roster got hurt, and a roster of players this flagrantly out-of-control wasn’t going to make the Super Bowl unless the NFL started awarding honorary wins to the team with the most DUI arrests. No, we had high hopes for Cincy from the perspective of a person who writes six-to-eight NFL previews a week. Here was a team with interesting players, some fun rivalries, and all kinds of interesting storylines, most notably a wide receiver who celebrates touchdowns with dorky little skits and a supporting cast of incorrigible knuckleheads whose combined criminal records makes the crew from The Usual Suspects look like O-Town. Look, we wouldn’t want to live next to assault-prone CB Jonathon Joseph and wouldn’t even let WR Chris Henry use those safety scissors kids get in kindergarten. But we thought they’d be fun. Instead they’ve been dreary, mistake-prone and, more generally and surprisingly, downright bad.

In Week 12, Cincinnati inexplicably broke out against a decent Tennessee team by not only scoring 35 points, but also bottling up the Titans offense. Carson Palmer looked confident and accurate en route to a four-TD day. Chad Johnson scored his first touchdowns since Week 2 and staged the requisite dorky skits; those, however, were kind of disappointing. After 11 weeks of presumptive brainstorming and storyboarding, why did Ocho Cinco go the “let-me-hold-the-camera” route? Even Brett Ratner thought that was hackneyed, dude. More surprisingly, the defense didn’t miss many tackles and chased Vince Young around all game.

It was tempting to look at that performance and think “we knew it, this isn’t a 3-7 team!” But despite a game in which they finally delivered on their admittedly impressive potential, the Bengals are not good. They’re better now that RB Rudi Johnson is in better health, and factoring more runs into their offense in Week 12 could help them going forward, but this isn’t a very good team. And even if they are indeed hitting their stride, they’re not good enough to beat the Steelers at home.

Of course, the Steelers’ home field advantage could get a bit more complicated if the playing conditions match those of the Steelers’ 100-yards-of-pudding Monday Night match-up against Miami in Week 12. With a 70 percent chance of rain in Pittsburgh as of press time and a recently sodded field that was pretty thoroughly de-landscaped during the Steelers’ mucky 3-0 win last week, this could easily become another sloppy slog of a game. If it does, anything can happen, including Chad Johnson staging a full-dress Titus Andronicus after a 17-yard completion in the third quarter. Mud changes everything.

Assuming the field doesn’t get all My-T-Fine on everyone, though, the Steelers should roll: last week’s bizarre game and a similarly strange capitulation against the Jets in Week 11 aside, Pittsburgh is very good. Cincy’s receivers are talented enough to find what tiny holes exist in Pittsburgh’s NFL-best secondary – and the Bengals’ dinged-up offensive line is good enough in pass protection to give Palmer time to find them – that the Bengals may be able to put up some points. But the Steelers’ knack for taking advantage of offensive miscues dovetails all too nicely with the Bengals’ excellence in the field of mistake-making. This group is pretty formidable even with S Troy Polamalu likely out with a knee injury and several other important players slowed by various injuries.

Which means the offense doesn’t need to do much. While the Steelers offense has indeed not done much more than not-much over the last two weeks, this is still a sturdy group from top to bottom. Feature back Willie Parker may be wearing down some under a very heavy workload – he’s averaging just 3.0 YPC over the last four games – but the Steelers’ offensive line shouldn’t have much of a problem finding him room to run. Similarly, Pittsburgh’s passing game is significantly better than the Bengals’ flubby secondary, which is giving up two passing scores per game on the season. The biggest risk for the Steelers in this game – besides the sort of letdown that cost them a should’ve-been-gimme against the Jets – is more bad weather giving Ben Roethlisberger some debilitating NFL version of that prune-hand thing you get if you stay in the shower too long. The Bengals may have a few surprises left in them yet, but we’d be very surprised indeed if this is one of them.

Steelers by 9