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Joe Flacco and the Cincinnati Bengals upset the Pittsburgh Steelers on “Thursday Night Football” with a thrilling 33-31 win.
Flacco passed for 342 yards and three touchdowns, and Evan McPherson made four field goals, including the 36-yard game-winner with seven seconds to play. Bengals star wideout Ja'Marr Chase had 16 catches for 161 yards and one touchdown on a franchise record 23 targets.
Aaron Rodgers passed for 249 yards and four touchdowns for Pittsburgh but threw two interceptions.
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Bengals-Steelers takeaways: Evan McPherson’s game-winner caps a vintage Joe Flacco performance
The Bengals defense will continue be a problem capping the ceiling for this team. They missed 19 tackles last week in Green Bay and the problem continued on Thursday night. Everybody took a turn with linebacker Demetrius Knight Jr., the primary offender with four missed tackles. The lack of pass was a known issue and stayed a problem with Trey Hendrickson sidelined, no instances more clearly on Rodgers’ touchdown pass to Pat Freiermuth late in the game. The missed tackles provided over 100 free yards of offense and busted coverages another 100 plus. Safety Geno Stone found himself at the center of both.
Great play by safety DJ Turner and the offense masked the problem at times, but there’s far too much similarity to last year’s defense to think Flacco can cover it every week.
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A silver lining for the Steelers tonight?
Aaron Rodgers and Pat Freiermuth finally clicked.
The veteran quarterback found the stalwart Pittsburgh tight end for five catches on six targets for 111 yards and two touchdowns, including the one late in the fourth quarter that briefly gave the Steelers the lead before the Bengals’ game-winning drive.
The Steelers signed Aaron Rogers for moments like Thursday night. Trailing by 6 with 2:26, the ball was in Rodgers’ hands. After a holding penalty pushed the Steelers back to their own 32, Rodgers took advantage of some busted coverage. He found Pat Freiermuth in a soft spot in the zone and the tight end took off for a 68-yard, go-ahead touchdown.
But as it turned out, the Steelers scored too quickly, as their defense did too little to take advantage of the offensive late-game surge.
The Bengals run game was nonexistent all season. Chase Brown’s longest rush was just 13 yards coming into the night and he was averaging 2.7 yards per attempt. He popped off a 28 and 37 yarder while racking up 108 yards on 11 carries. The juice in the running game helped open up the intermediate routes, play-action game and provided explosives from where they hadn’t all season.
They didn’t utilize it as Joe Flacco consistently found completions, but that’s an effort worth building on going forward.
On a short week, the Steelers looked like they were going to put away a desperate division rival when they built an early 10-0 lead. However, a handful of self-inflicted wounds helped open a door for the Bengals.
On 4th-and-1 from the Cincinnati 18-yard line, the Steelers looked like they had converted a successful tush push, with tight end Connor Heyward taking the snap. However, right guard Mason McCormick was flagged for a false start and the Steelers had to settle for a field goal. The Bengals responded with a touchdown.
Then, on the very next play, Aaron Rodgers looked to take advantage of a single-high safety look and aired the ball out to DK Metcalf. The ball was intercepted by the Bengals, who drove 37 yards in three plays to take a 14-10 lead. The Bengals would score 20 unanswered points before the Steelers responded.
Per Statmuse, below are the numbers for Joe Flacco against the Pittsburgh Steelers in his career. He is the winningest quarterback versus Pittsburgh since the NFL/AFL merger.
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The Bengals officially found something in Joe Flacco. There was a hope he could enter the fray in Cincinnati, learn to distribute the ball and maybe that can yank the Bengals out of the offensive abyss they were living in under Jake Browning. Even they couldn’t have expected this so soon.
Flacco anticipates the plays in the Bengals offensive astonishingly well considering he just walked in the building nine days ago. His chemistry with Ja’Marr Chase will rightfully be the headliner here, the 16 completions were the most by a receiver in Bengals history. Yet, his ability to take advantage of his second and third reads in critical moments was amongst the most impressive. He hit Andrei Iosivas for a 38-yard floater up the middle on a third down and found Noah Fant for a touchdown on third-and-goal. He even pulled the ball for a 12-yard run. Then there was the final drive and one final deep ball to Tee Higgins to set up the game-winning field goal.
This performance is straight out of a fairy tale and builds tangible momentum for the state of the offense and organization the rest of this season. That felt impossible just two weeks ago when the Bengals were getting their doors blown off and went four consecutive games without a first-half touchdown.
Above are the updated AFC North standings after tonight’s Bengals victory over the Steelers.
Pittsburgh still maintains its lead in the division at 4-2 but it is narrow. Cincinnati is right there at 3-4, 1.5 games back of Pittsburgh.
The Bengals are 2-0 in the division and hold the tiebreaker over the Steelers. That Nov. 16 matchup is going to be critical.
Cincinnati joined an elite club tonight — it is one of only five teams with a winning record against Aaron Rodgers in the future Hall of Famer’s career, per Opta.
Rodgers is now 2-3 in his career against Cincinnati. The other teams he has losing records against are: the Commanders, Bills, Colts and his current team, the Steelers.
The Steelers got 249 passing yards and four touchdown throws from their 41-year-old quarterback tonight. Normally, that would be good enough to win — especially on a team like Pittsburgh. But Aaron Rodgers’ two interceptions late in the first half, combined with the Steelers’ startling defensive woes continuing, were just too much to overcome.
The Steelers and Bengals came in ranked No. 29 and 32, respectively, in rush yards per game. The Steelers were averaging 84.0 yards per game on the ground, while the Bengals were averaging just 56.7.
Tonight, the teams combined for 289 rushing yards — 147 from Pittsburgh and 142 from Cincinnati.
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Ja’Marr Chase tonight became the third player in NFL history to record over 6,000 receiving yards and 50 touchdown receptions over their first five career seasons.
The others? Some guys named Jerry Rice and Randy Moss.
Elite company for the Bengals superstar!
The Bengals’ offensive game plan wasn’t exactly some huge secret or intricate strategy.
It was simple: Help your new quarterback adjust by having him target your superstar wide receiver. For Joe Flacco, that meant throwing Ja’Marr Chase’s way whenever he could.
Sure enough, Flacco targeted Chase a whopping 23 times — nearly half of all passes he threw. That’s by far the highest number of targets in the NFL this season, and a new Bengals franchise record.
And all Chase did was haul in 16 of those passes for 161 yards and the Bengals’ first touchdown of the game, fighting defensive pass interference from Jalen Ramsey to do so.
Brad P: So march the Steelers towards another 9-8 finish.
Nick F: Turnovers were the difference tonight.
Benjamin A: Heads up play by Tee.
Chris S: Giving up 500 total yds to Flacco and the Bengals should immediately get multiple people fired, disgraceful.
There’s are things you can criticize him for but gotta give Zac Taylor credit for always seeming to find ways to get better in-season.
Joe Flacco is still here.
And if you give him a talented supporting cast, Joe Flacco is still elite.
The 40-year-old, in his first home start since getting traded from the Browns to the Bengals, went 31-for-47 passings with 342 yards and three passing touchdowns. If not for Tee Higgins making the (correct) play to slide before the goal line on Cincinnati’s final drive, those tallies would be even higher.
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Q4 0:00 – Bengals 33, Steelers 31
The Bengals hold on to win a thriller at home against the Steelers. Aaron Rodgers heaves a Hail Mary to the end zone but the Bengals defenders bat the ball down.
An incredible performance from Joe Flacco. The “Icy Hot Bowl” lived up to the hype!
Q4 0:07 – Bengals 33, Steelers 31
Evan McPherson converts the 36-yard field goal. He is 4-for-4 tonight.
Bengals take a two-point lead. Seven seconds left on the clock for a miracle kickoff sequence.
Q4 0:11 – Steelers 31, Bengals 30
Cincinnati calls timeout. Here comes Evan McPherson.
The Bengals kicker will attempt a game-winning field goal.
