Cincinnati Bengals won’t face a healthy Ben Roethlisberger in Week 3

Since Ben Roethlisberger joined the Pittsburgh Steelers as their first-round draft pick in 2004, the Cincinnati Bengals haven’t had much success against the black and yellow, only winning eight games vs. Pittsburgh when Big Ben has started.

One of those eight wins came last year when Joe Burrow wasn’t the starting quarterback for Cincinnati. Prior to that, the last win came in November of 2015.

Simply put, Roethlisberger has had Cincinnati’s number so the Bengals will take any kind of advantage available when it comes to facing him and his Steelers. This week, the advantage is that Big Ben is banged up entering this game.

Gerry Dulac of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette tweeted that while Roethlisberger can play this weekend, there’s going to be pain when he drops back to pass.

Ben Roethlisberger isn’t 100% this weekend for his matchup with the Bengals.

The Steelers are 1-1 to start the year with a surprising defeat of the Bills in Week 1 and then a surprising loss to the Raiders in Week 2. Maybe if the theme of ‘surprising’ results continues, Cincinnati can come away victorious in this one.

Big Ben isn’t the only one banged up for the Steelers, as Devin Bush, Joe Haden, and T.J. Watt all popped up on the injury report this week. Not having those three players on defense could help Cincy’s offense find its groove, something that took them nearly the entire game to find last week.

Roethlisberger isn’t off to a glowing start, throwing for 483 yards, two touchdowns, and one pick through his first two games. Those numbers aren’t bad by any means but with weapons like Chase Claypool, Diontae Johnson, and JuJu Smith-Schuster, the offense should be putting up more than 17 points (their highest from their first two games).

With Big Ben not at 100%, the Bengals absolutely have a chance to shock some people this weekend in the Steel City.