Dalton broke his thumb while making a tackle after his interception Sunday, turning Cincinnati’s season upside-down in an instant.
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It is nearly harder to determine what was the real loss for the Cincinnati Bengals today when they fell to the Pittsburgh Steelers, 33-20 at home.
Quarterback AJ McCarron wasn’t able to rally the Cincinnati Bengals to victory after taking over from injured starter Andy Dalton, but the former Alabama All-American will be under center when the Bengals play the San Francisco 49ers next week – and maybe beyond that.
People in Cincinnati are going to chat now about taking the pressure off McCarron and how everyone else has to do more. Not in Cincinnati, anyway.
The Steelers (8-5) rumbled with the Bengals during pregame warmups and then led the whole way, sending Cincinnati to its first lopsided loss of the season.
Brandon Marshall, Eric Decker and Bilal Powell each caught TD passes for the Jets (8-5), who stayed on track in the AFC playoff race with their first three-game winning streak since 2011. You have to give us the respect that you give these whatever you want to call profile guys.
The biggest development was Dalton’s injury, which occurred when he tackled Stephon Truitt after the end intercepted his shovel pass. Dalton had the hand in a cast and will see a specialist on Monday to get an idea of treatment options.
McCarron missed all of his rookie season a year ago with a sore shoulder.
Steelers cornerback William Gay picked off McCarron’s screen pass and returned it 23 yards for a touchdown making the score 23-7 with just 50 seconds gone in the third quarter. It was the fifth straight game that the Steelers scored 30-plus points in a game, establishing a new team record. Roethlisberger has been impressive during the stretch, getting the Steelers back into the playoff hunt. He went 30 of 39 for 282 yards with an interception as the Steelers protected a big lead in the second half.
“They swapped coverages on me at the last minute”, McCarron said. “I stepped in and I’ve got to play better”. Manning’s physical limitations are so much that even with the great Broncos defense playing behind him it would be a surprise if they won a playoff game. This changed the entire course of the game as Dalton was forced to come out which immediately put the Bengals in a very tough spot as an inexperienced McCarron was forced to come in. “It’s why he’s here”. “We’ve seen him in practice make all the throws. And now he’s got to leas us for however long”. His 90.6 passer rating was higher than Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger (85.6).
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PANTHERS 38, FALCONS 0 (at Charlotte, N.C.) – Cam Newton added to his MVP résumé, completing 15 of 21 passes for 265 yards and three touchdowns, and unbeaten Carolina blanked Atlanta (6-7) to clinch a first-round bye in the NFC playoffs. It was during pre-draft meetings with some of their teams that McCarron had said he believed he was going to be a first- or second-round pick, and that he would eventually take the league by storm. You overcome adversity. We’ve got a new quarterback… Check out five reasons why the Bengals season is over despite their still being three games to play. There was nothing untoward or inflammatory about what Lewis said, because the concept of having to defeat the defending champion to be a true champion has been a part of sports for forever, and it also just so happened that the Bengals officially could have clinched the division title by defeating the Steelers yesterday, which would have given them a season sweep of this series for the first time since 2009.
