The Cincinnati Bengals lost another close game because their defense couldn't stop anything the Pittsburgh Steelers threw at them. It's been the story of the year for the Bengals, who leaned heavily on their defense during their Super Bowl runner-up season in 2021 and AFC Championship finish in the 2022 season.
It doesn't matter that Joe Burrow is having an MVP-caliber season or that Ja'Marr Chase is leading the league in receiving yards. None of the offensive production matters if the defense can't stop anyone because even scoring 38 points wasn't enough for the Bengals to earn their fifth win of the season.
More Bengals news:
The defensive effort has been poor all season but nothing summed up that side of the ball's struggles more than the Steelers' game-sealing play. The Steelers offense had the ball on 3rd-and-4 with 1:54 to go in regulation. A first down would ice the game and hand the Bengals their eighth loss.
The Steelers put backup quarterback Justin Fields into the game and it was obvious to anyone watching what Fields was going to do. He was going to take the ball and run for the first down. Guess what happened next? Fields took off with the football and scrambled for seven yards, more than enough to give Pittsburgh a fresh set of downs and end the game.
Bengals second-year safety Jordan Battle spoke about what happened on the play. "It's about reading our keys. We knew we had the edge, we knew we had to contain the edge, and got outside of us and the game was over."
Bengals knew what Justin Fields was going to do and still couldn't stop him
Battle and the rest of the Bengals defense knew exactly what was going to happen on that play. If they had stopped Fields, the Steelers might have attempted a long field goal but that'd have been risky in that situation because a miss would have given the Bengals the ball back with great field position. Even if the Steelers had punted there, Bengals fans would have liked the offense's chances of scoring and having a chance to win the game.
Instead, it was the same story it's been all season: The defense couldn't stop anyone even when they knew the exact play that was going to happen.
Battle was a third-round pick by Cincinnati in the 2023 draft and had a decent rookie season despite the defense struggling. Battle finally got a chance to start this week after Vonn Bell has proven he's not the same player anymore and it didn't go any better with the young safety out there. The defense still allowed a bad Pittsburgh offense to do whatever it wanted to.
It was another frustrating moment from a frustrating team.