Pittsburgh Steelers vs. Cincinnati Bengals Review | PFF Grade Release Show

Last game. Let’s take you back to Thursday Night Football. What a shootout this one was. 33-31. Cincinnati Bengals uh defend home turf and win this one. Top five graded players that we had for the Bengals in this game. Wide receiver Jamar Chase with an elite 90.5. Quarterback DJ Turner with an 84.3. Running back Chase Brown a 781. Wide receiver T. Higgins a 75.1. Safety Jordan Battle a 75.1 as well. And then quarterback Joe Flacco, that’s right, your eyes did not deceive you. And 84.2. too for the old man. Pittsburgh edge rusher Nick Herbig at the very top of the list with an elite 90.4 defense at tackle Cam Hayward in 89.6. Running back Jaylen Warren at 876. Linebacker Cole Hulkcom in 83.0. Quarterback Brandon Eckles in 788. And then Aaron Rogers not quite as good as the passing grade that we had for Joe Flacco, but still quite the game from Aaron Rodgers. This looked like a throwback game from Aaron Rogers. Both of them. I don’t know what year it was. Aaron Rogers 76.8 overall grade. By the way, Aaron Rodgers was like, I’ve seen all the criticism. I still got some juice in this arm, baby. He was letting it fly in this game. So, what was your stat that told the story here in this one? All right, Trevor. What’s What’s my saying about going against a good pass rush? Have you gotten this down by now? I know Max Max just heard it on the college so yesterday. What’s What’s my saying about pass protection and quarterbacks and whatnot? What is it? If your offensive line can’t protect you, protect yourself. Okay, so my stat, Joe Flacco, I did this with Miller Moss against Miami, Louisville, Miami yesterday. Shout out Shout out Quinn. Joe Flacco average time to throw 2.27 seconds. Yep. Was this my point, too? Was the Bengals offensive line necessarily great in this game? No, because it’s hard to be against Pittsburgh and we know what the Bengals offensive line is. But Joe Flacco, the veteran leadership, the calm to protect himself and just understand pre- snap what he’s looking at. And it’s not like the Steelers throughout the entire game gave him the simplest looks. You go back and look at those, there was some disguises and some mixing up of the coverages that, you know, could have thrown a younger quarterback off or somebody, you know, that’s not Joe Flacco who hasn’t been around for almost 20 years, right? But as always, they look there’s two Joe Cools in Cincinnati now, right? They’re waiting for the other one to get back, but they found one to replace him. 34 of his 47 attempts come ball out of his hands. Two two and a half seconds or less, right? 85.3 passing grade on those drop backs. Two and a half seconds or less. 22 of 34, 259 yards, three touchdowns, two big time throws. The ability for Joe Flacco to just very calmly in a quick manner process what he’s seeing, get to the top of his drop. And what’s the quote he had himself? Something around something to the effect of look, if you have Jamar Chase and T. Higgins and you can’t figure out what to do with them, something wrong with you. It’s kind of something in the in that I’m paraphrasing a bit because I’m sure Joe’s not as loose with the language as I am, but either way, that’s what it is. It’s that if I just get back here and read pre- snap correctly, throw it to Jamar or throw it to T and they’re going to make the rest happen. That’s exactly how this went. Joe Flacco protecting himself, getting rid of the ball quickly, reading defenses like a veteran does. And he just um man, he might this is what he’s doing at 40. He might play till he’s 50. Dude, it’s by the way, uh who said this in the chat? Why K said in the chat this was the Icy Hot Bowl. Icy Hot. I heard somebody else say the UNK bowl. Yeah, but I like Icy Hot better because it’s an actual product because that’s what Cam Hayward, I think, came up with that, right? Oh, did he say that? I think there was a thing where Cam Cam Hayward came up. But that that is that is a good But you know what? I love that one. Joe Flacco didn’t get hit much. He might not even need any. No. And it, ironically enough, this was the same exact game plan that we talked about that we praised the Steelers for the week prior against the Browns. That’s what the Bengals did against the Steelers because the Steelers have one of the best pass rushes in the NFL collectively. I mean, those guys are those guys can get after you at so many different angles. And the way that you protect yourself is you get the ball out of your hands pretty quickly. That’s exactly what Aaron Rogers did against the Cleveland Browns when the Steelers were facing off against the Browns. And we praised that as a fantastic game plan. And here the Bengals are doing the exact same thing against the Steelers. And and obviously like they knew a little bit of that was coming. But shout out to Joe Flacco and the rest of this offense for exe because it’s hard to execute in 2.3 seconds. And I the other thing too and not just the timing that Flaco Okay, just getting rid of the football. I’m amazed going back and watching this with the full view just he’s he Thursday he’d been there for a week or eight days or whatever the timing that he already has at least with those two guys with Jason Higgins like when he’s releasing the football he’s he’s built chemistry with at least these two guys in a week one game against the Packers obviously but when you look at when he’s releasing the football on the all 22 Chase isn’t out of the brakes yet he doesn’t even have to see it and throw it he can he’s just throwing to spots and and he knows they’re going to get there Well, those are two guys you can really trust. And the fact that they have that much chemistry as much as they did when I went back and watched the second time a week it Yeah, it was it it was it was a a much better game offensively than I thought was going to be the case. And so it was a lot of fun to watch this one on Aaron Rogers side of things. He was 23 for for 34, 249 passing yards, four passing touchdowns, had those two interceptions. Uh one of them was a turnover worthy play. I believe the other one was not if I remember correctly. But both of these guys, I think, played really well. And you know who else played really well in this game? Most impressive for me, it was the run game of both of these running backs. Chase Brown, a 90.7 rush grade. He had seven missed tackles forced in this game. And then on the other side of things, Jaylen Warren, 80.7 rushing grade, five missed tackles from him in this game. He had 127 rushing yards on 16 carries. Chase Brown had 108 rushing yards on 11 carries. I mean, these dudes were explosive in this game. And that really just added on to what was already a potent passing attack by uh both of these quarterbacks, which is funny to say in a match up in 2025 between Joe Flacco and Aaron Rogers. But this is a fireworks show and it was a lot of fun to watch on a Thursday. Not as fun obviously if you’re a Steelers fan, but uh the offense was really out to play in this one. And then I agree with you. The most disappointing for me was Jaylen Ramsay simply because like again if you’re operating in an offense where the ball is coming out of your hands in 2.3 seconds as a defense you’re hoping that’s advantage corner, right? Because you are hoping you can’t create separation on me in 2.3 seconds. So if that’s when the ball’s getting out of the quarterback’s hands, well, I’m going to be close enough to to these wide receivers to where I’m going to impact the catch point. They’re not going to be able to catch the football. Just didn’t happen a lot. specifically. I think Jaylen Ramsey um got a couple of lumps in this game. Yeah, it was tough. I mean, Chase and Higgins were obviously great. They’re always a tough cover, but Ramsey had a tough night. I’ll tell you a corner who had a great night and actually two weeks in a row he’s been pretty good. How about DJ Turner for the Bengals? You just mentioned the Aaron Rogers interception. That wasn’t a turnover worthy play. The reason it wasn’t because it was actually a darn good throw and Turner just found a way to fight it away from DK Metaf there on the sideline. That was probably the best individual play that I saw all night. DJ Turner 88.8. 8 coverage grade, that interception, another pass break up. He gave up two catches for 43 yards, but those two catches came within the first three plays of the game. He did not allow another catch the rest of the night. I He’s been really good the last couple weeks for Cincinnati. And look, we know with the Bengals, any defensive talent they can find that’s consistently playing well is good news. Right now, that’s DJ Turner out of corner.

PFF’s Trevor Sikkema and Dalton Wasserman review the matchup between The Pittsburgh Steelers and The Cincinnati Bengals.

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