The Bengals couldn’t get anything going on the ground and the Steelers constantly had them in third-and-long situations.
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Two games in, Cincinnati (1-1) trails both the Steelers (2-0) and the Ravens (2-0) with the defending Super Bowl champion Denver Broncos – also 2-0 – coming to town for the Bengals’ home opener on Sunday. The teams played in a preseason game last month, though most of Pittsburgh’s regulars sat out. They held Andy Dalton to less than a 50 percent completion rate after last week when he was well over 70 percent. “At the end of the day, we’ll take this one on the chin and keep working and we’ll get better from it”.
“We threw the bus at them”. “We put all of that out there to try to limit his touches”. Boom. The climate of the game changed in an instant, and that was Darrelle Revis across the line of scrimmage from him. “That’s all we tried to do”.
“We built a lot on what we did a year ago”, Cockrell said. But the Steelers’ defense held and forced a punt.
“I’ve got to break more tackles”, Bernard said on Monday. “We realized that potentially opened up for some other things”.
And on a rainy day, getting the ball to the wide receivers wasn’t necessarily easy to do, either. Whatever it was, the expected duel between superstar wide receivers Antonio Brown and A.J. Green never materialized.
Roethlisberger shook off a so-so first half.
“The weather was a defensive heaven”, said Roethlisberger. It was tough sledding for us on offense. “We’ll just make a little more emphasis in our blocks and get our job done and create holes”. A week after dominating Darrelle Revis for 12 catches and 180 yards and a touchdown against the Jets, Green was a nonfactor and one of the reasons Cincinnati went just 4 of 16 on third down.
Olsen gave the Panthers the lead for good in the second quarter when he hauled in a career-long 78-yard touchdown pass after the 49ers bit hard on play-action. Cincinnati, which got three field goals by Mike Nugent, fell to 1-1.
All videos are from the Every Steelers TD Facebook Page.
After all that Steelers running back DeAngelo Williams has done for Pittsburgh in the absence of the Steelers talented, often injured and beleaguered running back LeVeon Bell, Williams still felt good about his effort in Bells absence, even though he rushed for less than 3 yards per carry.
The Bengals were trying to rally back against the Steelers in the final two minutes of Sunday’s game when their hopes were dashed by a Tyler Boyd fumble. Safety Robert Golden recovered for the Steelers at their 33-yard line to seal the victory.
“I was told it was down, even by the guys on our sideline, the officials”, Bengals head coach Marvin Lewis said, referring to his conversation with officials while the play was under replay review. “They didn’t see it that way overall, so that’s all that matters”.
Pittsburgh Steelers outside linebacker Jarvis Jones (95) reacts following a missed interception against the Cincinnati Bengals during the first half of an NFL football game in Pittsburgh, Friday, September 18, 2016.
“He’s growing in all areas”, Steelers coach Mike Tomlin said.
“We weren’t flawless in either phase, or any phase, in all three phases”, he said. “We’ve got to step up when (the defense) is double- and triple-teaming him”. Martellus Bennett also had five catches 114 and a touchdown. He has 10,044 yards.
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Newton threw two TD passes to Kelvin Benjamin and one each to Greg Olsen and Devin Funchess to pass Jake Delhomme for most TD passes in franchise history with 122.
