The star running back is still suffering from an ankle injury and the team’s offense will be significantly reduced to half without him.
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“I’m going to let this process take care of itself and keep working and try to get back as soon as I can”. “We are just excited about getting to play in the playoffs, especially a game at home, and to make the most of it”. This: No quarterback with so little starting experience as McCarron has won a playoff game since the Houston Oilers’ Gifford Nielsen in 1979.
Although Dalton got the cast removed on Monday, he has to rebuild the strength in his hand. Now that Andy Dalton has his cast off, the possibility of the “Red Rifle” starting in the first round of the NFL Playoffs seems to have some real potential. From the huddle calls to where he’s going to be – and all those kinds of things.
Coach Marvin Lewis indicated on Tuesday that there’s a possibility Dalton could be active as a backup, depending upon how his hand feels.
After the Steelers’ December win, McCarron actually recounted the story with Roethlisberger during their postgame handshake. The Bengals haven’t won a single playoff game since 1990, the longest active playoff win drought in the NFL.
So a defense that has turned it over seven times in McCarron’s three starts would be helpful again. Granted, the huge games came against the Titans and Jags, but the Texans have the talent (i.e. J.J. Watt) to make more big plays against the Chiefs. “We’ve got a chance to handle our business and get on a winning streak”.
The second-year quarterback got his first significant playing time when Dalton broke his thumb during the first quarter of the loss to Pittsburgh. McCarron took over and threw a pair of interceptions that helped the Steelers pull away to a 33-20 win. In his accomplished career at Alabama, McCarron threw just 15 interceptions in 1,026 attempts spanning four years and 49 games.
“If the other quarterback turns the ball over and you don’t, it puts your team in a situation to win the ballgame”, McCarron said. He hasn’t thrown an interception in his three starts, avoiding the game-turning mistake. The only loss was to Denver in overtime on the road.
The trash talking on and off the field on social media was a hot topic surrounding both matchups this season and the history and hatred between the two franchises runs deep. Defensively, the Pittsburgh Steelers yield 271.9 yards in passing and 91.2 yards in rushing.
“He knows who they are”, Hue Jackson said. “Obviously he’s done a really good job of not turning the ball over”. A few things we won’t tolerate: personal attacks, obscenity, vulgarity, profanity (including expletives and letters followed by dashes), commercial promotion, impersonations, incoherence, proselytizing and SHOUTING.
Notes: The Bengals have sold all of their single-game tickets for Saturday…. They’ll have one on Wednesday indicating which players are limited…. Rookie LB Trevor Roach was promoted from the practice squad.
Last season, the Bengals became the first team in National Football League history to be eliminated in the Wild Card round four years in a row.
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In an interview with ESPN’s Coley Harvey, McCarron talked about the first time he met Roethlisberger, when he was 13 years old and Roethlisberger was a junior quarterback for the Miami Redhawks.
