Despite scoring over 33 points for the 6th time this season, the Bengals lose to the Steelers
The Bengals came out of the bye week against the Pittsburgh Steelers knowing their season was on life support. They had an extra week to adjust and prepare themselves for the season’s stretch run. At 4-7, Cincinnati had little room for error to make the postseason. With everything on the line, the Bengals defense surrendered 44 points to the Steelers.
Even despite that, the Bengals somehow still found themselves needing one final defensive stop on 3rd and 4 with 1:54 left to get the ball back with an opportunity to win the game.
The Steelers pulled starting quarterback Russell Wilson, who had already torched the Bengals all afternoon for 410 yards passing and 3 touchdowns, and inserted in Wilson’s place their preferred running threat, Justin Fields, at quarterback. Nearly everyone in the stadium could have predicted that Fields would be the Steelers option to run the ball. Nearly everyone except the moribund Bengals defense.
As expected, Fields kept the ball and easily found the open field to convert the first down. Appropriately enough, the 2024 Bengals season essentially ended on their defense not being able to make a stop.
Once again, a good day by the Bengals offense had been wasted. Cincinnati rang up 38 points against Pittsburgh primarily thanks to another gutsy performance by their quarterback, Joe Burrow, who threw for 309 yards and 3 touchdowns despite being pressured consistently throughout the afternoon.
This has been the story of the Bengals once-promising 2024 season: great offensive outputs wasted by awful outings by the Bengals defense. The performance of the Bengals defense in 2024 has been historically bad. The Bengals now hold the NFL record for the most losses in a single season when scoring at least 33 points. They are 2-4 in such games. The rest of the NFL this season has a record of 51-1 under similar circumstances.
Consider that the legendary Tom Brady only had 4 losses in his entire career over the span of 333 career starts when his team has scored 33 points or more. Burrow, unfortunately, has 4 losses in just 12 games this year when scoring 33 points or more. The Bengals have scored 99 points over their last 3 games. They’ve won none of them.
“We need to change a lot of things this year,” Burrow said. “We haven’t been good enough to win games.”
In my previous column, I laid out some of the considerations for the Bengals in the offseason. It clearly starts with the front office identifying better talent and the defensive coaching staff developing that talent while designing a better scheme that puts those players in a position to more consistently succeed.
Bengals wide receiver, Ja’Marr Chase, was asked if they have to score on every possession in a game. His response: “That’s kinda our expectation now.” The offense recognizes that both sides are not living up to their end of the bargain.
It’s time to start over on the defensive side. The Bengals should use their remaining games to give their young defensive players more repetitions and assess their long-term viability to add value to the future of the franchise. Then it’s time to be aggressive this offseason.
With only 6 draft picks this year, the Bengals don’t have their usual draft capital to plug all the glaring holes that exist. If they are serious about winning, the Cincinnati front office must go hard after key defensive free agents along the defensive front and in the secondary.
“We will be remembered by how we handled it,” Burrow said. “It’s still an exciting opportunity to go out and play for this city and this team week in and week out. That’s something I don’t take for granted. I love being out there for the guys, the city, playing for this team.”
Let’s see who else in orange and black feels the same in these remaining weeks—primarily on defense.
Jon Bunch is an avid life-long Bengals fanatic. Raised in the 740. West Pointer, Army and Iraq War veteran. Passionate evangelist of the Who-Dey spirit. @WhoDeyBunch
