Bengals Good For Steelers

The Steelers have owned the Bengals for a long time so this was the one road game I felt the "team" believed they could win.  I emphasize "team" because this is a "new" group of players; some playing because of injuries to others while others are just "fresh" to the Steeler Nation.   

Mike Wallace had a bad game and must begin to be more reilable in terms of catching the ball(...even on deflections) if he wants anything close to a franchise contract.  Right now Wallace is just "fast" and no one is going to pay a receiver top dollar if can run fast and can't be reliabe - remember Limas Sweed!

Jonathan Dwyer looked like a young Jerome Bettis for a minute in this game.  He ran through arm tackles and generally "pounded" the Bengals second layer defensive players.  The question now is whether the offensive line will "fire out" against the next team as they did against the Bengals and whether Dwyer will run this hard again.  

I think Pittsburgh will always throw the ball earlier in games and then try to "melt" the clock in the fourth quarter with more runs.  I am also glad to see that Haley is a big advocate of the 10 plus play drive which somewhat explains these "dink and donk" short passes that Ben eluded to in a condescending manner.  These short passes are designed to save the QB's health, and also compensate for the lack of a reliable running game thus far this season

Ike Taylor had a much better game but you could also attribute this to deep safety that lined up behind him all night to help shut down the dangerous Greene on the Bengals team.  The strategy worked and to his credit Ike "squatted and jammed" the best offensive threat for the Bengals the entire game.  I'm still just not that confident in Taylor as the teams's "shut down corner"!

It was also nice to see the defense really take control of the game in the middle of the third quarter.  I saw Ziggy Hood finally dominate the middle of the defensive line particularly after the starting center got hurt.  I just feel our defensive line is just not physical enough to be "consistently" successful in the 3-4 front unles Harrison can match the intensity of Woodley on the other side and I just don't see that happening right now.

Overall, this was much needed road victory that showed some improvements in different facets of our team.  I hope to see the special teams improve in reducing their penalties next week so we can keep some of those yards Rainey and Brown can afford us.

GO STEELERS!!!