Cincinnati Bengals: Winners and losers from Week 3 win over Steelers
The Cincinnati Bengals finally got the monkey off their back by taking down the Pittsburgh Steelers in the Steel City, winning it 24-10. It wasn’t even a close game, as the Bengals looked like the better team throughout and the final score was evidence of just that.
With the game in the books, let’s take a look at the winners and losers from the double-digit victory over the Steelers.
Winner – Offensive Line
It’s no secret that the biggest weakness on the Bengals’ roster was the offensive line but you’d never have known that while watching this game. This is especially impressive considering the team was without Xavier Su’a-Filo, which paved the way for rookie Jackson Carman to start at right guard.
It was Carman’s first start and he played well. I could have put Carman in the winner category but with the o-line playing well as a whole, I decided to give the credit to the whole group rather than just one guy. They kept Joe Burrow upright and that’s all we can really ask of this unit.
Loser – Trey Hopkins
While the offensive line was one of the highlights and biggest surprises from the 24-10 victory, I’d be remiss if I didn’t discuss Trey Hopkins. The Bengals center has had a rough three games to start the year and one has to wonder if he’s still feeling it coming off of that injury.
Hopkins was flagged multiple times for holding, one of which took away a potential field goal attempt from Evan McPherson. While it didn’t end up mattering, it could have been a game-changing play and that’s why it was a bad penalty.
That's two critical holding penalties by Trey Hopkins. One at end of first half negated a possible long FG attempt by McPherson as Burrow was hustling to the line. Trey simply cannot commit these holding penalties.
— Andre Perrotta (@andreperrotta13) September 26, 2021
Hopkins is a better player than what we’ve seen from him so far but it’s most definitely fair to list him with the losers this week. He has to be better.