Pittsburgh Steelers vs. Cincinnati Bengals 🚨 TNF Instant Reaction 🚨

Pittsburgh Steelers vs. Cincinnati Bengals 🚨 TNF Instant Reaction 🚨

All right, check the mic. Instant reaction. I think we’re live here. Instant reaction time. We just came over from the watch along set, but now live for everybody. What a game. 3331 Cincinnati Bengals get the win over the Pittsburgh Steelers. A shootout between the old men Flacco and Aaron Rogers. What a game from the geriatric bowl. Old man Flaco, old man Rogers. Wow, did they combine for a ball game. You had Flaco out here balling like he’s never ball before. And then Rogers off the back of a couple of throws in the last couple of weeks where we’re like, “Oo, does Rogers still have the juice in that arm?” Uncorch Hail Mary at the death and got it to the goal line for nobody to really challenge for it and it to fall incomplete. But wow, what a game. I mean, I could go on and on about how the uh the Hail Mary is completely luck, but if like somebody caught that, they’d be like Rogers does it again. Like if DK Medaf just randomly went up and caught it. Oh my gosh Rogers. But like you have but I’m saying you have the right answer. You have he did the amazing thing which is throw the ball that far. That’s not the story of the game. But he did his job on that. And I was almost um you know questioning the Bengals kicking it right into the end zone and giving them the opportunity to to set up the Hill Mary. And I remember thinking I can’t remember which one but one of the storied Aaron Rogers Hail Marys in his career. Like the most impressive thing about the play was that he got it to the end zone from wherever the hell he was launching that ball. I would not if you had told me I mean even during the game if you had told me during the game that Rogers still had a 68 yard throw in his arm I would have said you’re crazy and yet he almost replayed the Jeff Janice one or whatever. Like the roll out to his left spin back out hitch up and then boom unccorked it. I didn’t think there was any chance that was making the end zone. Um, what a what an amazing game here. Steelers got up 10 nothing. It felt like, hey, the Bengals aren’t that good this year. The Steelers are 4- one. They’re in control. Then the Bengals went and scored the next 20 points to go up 20 to 10. I love that stat at the end. Both teams were up 10 at some point. Steelers 10 nothing. Bengals 20 to 17. And then it was just going back and forth with scores. And then at the very end, I mean, the story of the game was Joe Flacco also playing just unbelievable football. um going 31 of 47 for 342 and Jamar Chase being uncoverable. 16 catches on 23 targets for 161. And then T. Higgins who had made some big plays. He had a great catch and run for a touchdown early. Yeah. And then he has the 29 yard late where he could have run it into the end zone, but makes a really smart move sliding at about the 5 yardd line. And I’ll talk about why that was so smart again, but like just Flaco to Chase and Higgins was unstoppable tonight. Yeah, it was. I mean, all the skill position players in this game really went off. I mean, Jamar Chase absolutely unstoppable all the way through the game. 23 targets, 16 catches, a buck 61. And late in the game, somehow the Steelers are still not covering him. Like dropping coverage completely on a shallow drag when Patrick Queen running off to cover somebody else who’s already covered. I I there’s a degree of suicidal coverage that the Steelers employed in this game with Jamar Chase given this was quite obviously going to be the game plan. And yeah, they can still go to T. Higgins and T. Higgins will make some plays, but like Jamar Chase not being basically double or bracket covered for the entirety of this game is kind of incre insane to me. Uh but he was insane. He was nuts. Uh Tiggins made a couple of huge plays during the course of the game. Chase Brown was really good. Um Princeton Yoshivas made a couple plays having made a like a big mis like mess of the game last week. And then we have to talk about Joe Flacco. Old man Flacco with 342 yards, three touchdowns, 108.6 passer rating. I cannot believe that this is the player that we saw for the first few weeks, not just the first few weeks in Cleveland, but like the last five years of his career. Yeah, this is a guy who has now played basically two completely clean games without putting the ball in harm’s way. He was third in the NFL in interceptions before being traded to the Bengals. And you’re like, yeah, like if you told me Flaco can put up 342 yards in any game, I would have been okay, sure, that yeah, no problem believing that whatsoever. If you told me he was able to do that without putting the ball in harm’s way at all, I would say that’s crazy. There’s no evidence that that’s the case in the last few years. And this win makes the trade worthwhile on its own because the Bengals upcoming schedule gets very e very easy for a few weeks and that that buys them the time to still be alive like into December and that that on its own makes this trade well worth it. Yeah. I mean, I thought when they traded for Flaco, it would be better than what they saw from Drake Browning and that they could get some of the high-end games, but maybe not this high-end and what we’ve seen from Flaco here. And as you mentioned, um, their schedule gets easier. The Steelers schedule gets more difficult. They were already, it was a it was a battle of first and second place here, a 4-1 team and a two-4 team coming in. Now, it’s the Bengals at three and four, the Steelers at 4-2. Meanwhile, this result probably puts the one win Ravens back. The Ravens are probably the favorite to win the division. They both have to play the Ravens twice still and who knows how good or bad they’re going to be when that happens with Lamar Jackson back and if they get the defense back. But just a m you explained this on the the watch along really well just how important this game is uh and how yeah it is worth it to give the Bengals a little bit of life and their goal here in what could be an open division now. Their goal is to sneak into the playoffs. And if they can sneak into the playoffs and get Burrow back sometime in January to to make that playoff run, as great as Flaco played tonight, you still probably want Joe Burrow, of course. Um, but what a story for this, you know, to go down. The the stadium sounded like it looked like it was bumping over there down the street here in Cincy. Um, anything else on that? I want to talk to Higgins play. That was so huge. Yeah. No, it was a I mean they the Bengals it was interesting late on because you know Aaron Rogers made a couple of uh big plays the Steelers end up coming back and then what had been very easy for the Bengals to just you know feed the ball to Chase underneath the whole way. they started getting a bit more aggressive and low percentage with some of the plays. Like the first play of one of their drives late, they threw a fade on the outside to Chase and even though the ball was there, I mean, it was a great pass by uh Joe Flaco actually put it exactly where it needed to be. It’s a low percentage play and Chase couldn’t get a second hand on on the ball. It’s incomplete. They went a lot more low percentage and that shot to Higgins was kind of just a heave and hope deal. And Higgins beat Jaylen Ramsey on the play. made the play. Um, and then Higgins, so it’s uh 31 to30 Steelers at that time. Uh, about a little, it was just at the two-minute warning, so a little under two, two minutes left in the game. Higgins makes the catch, he could have run in for a touchdown. Goes down at the 5 yardd line. And I mentioned on our broadcast here, why it was so important. The Steelers only had two timeouts at that time. Had if they had had three timeouts, the play is probably to take the touchdown. Um, I think it was that that close. But because he went down at the five, Steelers could only stop the clock twice, which gave the Bengals opportunities to take three knees and essentially get the clock all the way down to seven as they did, right? It was always going to be, hey, you’re going to give the Steelers 7 to 10 seconds here basically um if you go down at the five. And so I just think credit to either T. Higgins who just knew this the Bengals on the sideline whatever preparation they had and said look if you have a chance to run into the end zone you’re better off going down at the five on this particular play because if the Steelers had three timeouts then they kick a field goal go up two and the Steelers have 50 seconds where you’re just two quick passes away from being in field goal range and so that was just a massive play and really smart there was so many high leverage plays in this game. Aaron Rogers last touchdown to Pat Frimouth. I mean they had I thought a phantom holding call on Broadick Jones made it second and 20. Rogers on the next play avoids quick pressure scrambles out to his left gets the ball to Pat Frymouth for a 68 yard touchdown. I hadn’t seen Rogers move in the pocket like that. Um that was he made a couple plays that were really impressive. Like Rogers had not been great under pressure last year with the Jets. this year early with the Steelers. He sidestepped that pressure and I see Nate Ty just putting out there the Hill Mary was 69.8 yards in the air perg stats. That’s could be the furthest an NFL QB has thrown a pass since 2017. Yeah, that’s absolutely nuts. Again, if you had told me that he had that in his arm still, I would have said absolutely no chance. That is a monster of a throw after he randomly um last week he he underthrew one by you’d say five yards or so. an open DK and earlier in this game threw an interception on one that he left inside and looked like he just didn’t get everything into it. But the one thing we said at the time is that both of those throws looked the same uh mechanically and that he was sort of doing that thing that he does where he’s on one leg flicking it with his wrist and it just didn’t get there. And we were speculating that at this age maybe that’s when you need your feet under you. Maybe when that’s when you can’t just flick it all arm. And this was one obviously because of the Hail Mary, you know, he put everything into it. It was the full step through crow hop, you know, legs underneath you. Let’s see if I’ve got 69 70 yards in me. And he did. Um, from a Steelers point of view, this is such a missed opportunity. Yeah. For them because yeah, on paper, you should you’re a 4 inone team for what, you know, for what, however you get there. Four in one team that should be beating the Bengals that has Joe Flacco as the quarterback, right? Um, and it’s, we were talking about this as well on the live stream, Tomlin being like two-9 on road Thursday night games or whatever that stat is. and these weird quirks in the m Mike Mike Mike Tomlin era that are strangely consistent across having Big Ben and Kenny Picket and Mitch Trabiscy and whoever and Justin Fields and Russell Wilson and across all these different quarterbacks and they always seem to win games that they shouldn’t be competitive in some games that they shouldn’t but also lose games that they shouldn’t and it’s almost like they’re calibrated to be to just win nine or 10 when they had a chance to to go to five and one to really put some separation between them and the rest of the vi the division just a missed opportunity here for Pittsburgh I think just um given their records coming into this game it was and like if particularly when you see when you think about how they match up I mean that Steelers defensive front we saw it once or twice in the game you know where it took over and Cameron Hayward makes a play grabs hold of uh of Flaco and brings him down it wasn’t I mean this it felt like that should have been constant throughout this game that pass rush that they can deploy boy should have been absolutely ruining Flaco’s night. It didn’t. Their coverage on the back end again inexcusable to I mean the drop coverage play was ridiculous. the idea that after 16 catches or whatever it was at that point, you are still somehow allowing Jamar Chase to be the the beneficiary of a coverage bust, but also to not like where’s the game plan to like where’s the Bill Bellichian game plan of bracket covering him every play, double teaming him, forcing you to go somewhere else, anywhere else. And even if you know T. Higgins then beats you for a buck 50 or whatever, like you can’t just allow them to do whatever they want at Jamar Chase. I think that’s never really been Tomlin’s thing. It is. I think the talent for the talent that Pittsburgh has on the defensive side, it’s it’s very inconsistent. I think the coverage unit has been hit or miss this year. The pass rush, um, what happened to the pass rush tonight? Well, Joe Flacco’s quick release, getting rid of the ball. He has really morphed his game in his old age here. Morphed his game into, you know, quick decisions, get rid of the ball. That’s definitely how he’s been playing these last two weeks with Cincinnati. He had a Cleveland offensive line that he needed to mitigate early in the year. He has a similarly bad Yeah. Bengals offensive line, but he’s mitigating it with quick decisions and it helps having, hey, a Jamar Chase who gets open quickly, a T. Higgins who might not get open quickly, but you’re going to trust and get him the ball and um, you know, throw him open. But Flaco is just making all the right moves, protecting this bad offensive line. And it does look night and day right now compared to what it was with Jake Browning who was not playing on time at all during his time filling in for Joe Burrow. No, I mean Browning was playing terribly and putting the ball in harm’s way. The most remarkable thing about this Flaco performance is it’s been such a clean brand of football. He’s been getting the ball out quick. He’s been putting it generally extremely accurately. I mean, there were a few absolute dimes in here. Now, there were a couple like that T. Higgins play at the end was kind of a nothing ball location and Higgins just tosses Jaylen Ramsey to the side at which point the location’s kind of like there’s a lot of margin for error by the point that ball actually arrives. So I’m not like that one doesn’t go in the flaco dime bucket even though it looks perfect by the end of it but the throw we talked about before the low percentage fade actually was a perfect ball location. So he had a bunch of extremely good passes. The one to Princeton over the middle of the field was really good. Beautiful pass. So, he’s been incredibly accurate. He’s been getting the ball out quick. He’s been putting it in the right places. And again, has not put it in harm’s way. And that just simply has not been a feature of his game for like five years. It’s amazing. I mean, he’s had good games, too, in the last five years. He’s right. But he’s now had six quarters of really good play and eight quarters of not putting the ball in. No turn of worthy plays or, you know, not many at least if anything. So, yeah. Impressive by Flaco. And it what’s the um so why is this significant? Obviously the win. Bengals are now three and four. Their first win since week two when Joe Burrow started against the Jacksonville Jaguars. They have the Jets coming up here. The Bengals. So Jets coming up to try to get to four and four. Then the Bears a bye and then the Steelers again whereas Pittsburgh has uh was it Green Bay. So, you got the big showdown, Steelers, Aaron Rogers facing his old team, facing the Packers. That’s coming up next week, Sunday Night Football. And then the Colts, who obviously playing a really good football. Then the Chargers, and then the Bengals again. So, the Steelers now at 4-2. That’s four straight pretty tough games. Then the Bears and the Bills and Ravens, like they’ve they have a tough stretch here compared to what they’ve just come out of. Yeah. and and we’ve mentioned them before in terms of they they may well be favorites for the division after this game gets put through the uh the FanDuel odds computers. Um like Baltimore is lurking on the horizon to play both these teams, right? They’ve got each of them twice. So even if they’re behind both of them at that point, the Ravens have four games against these two teams to overhaul them within the division. And then that’s the like the predictability of the Mike Tomlin teams. like maybe like beat have one nice game against the Ravens and then get smoked in the other one. And I mean there Anthony dropped it in the chat. Mike Tomlin falls to 0 and7 on Thursday Night Football in road division games in his career. This is a guy that’s never had a losing season as a head coach and he’s 0 and7 on road Thursday night football games. Those are the things that never that I said I don’t think should make sense. They shouldn’t matter. I mean, that shouldn’t be possible until it becomes such a trend. But it’s like a trend across multiple quarterbacks and for such a long stretch, like it must mean something, right? For a guy who’s never had a losing season, that’s statistically incredibly improbable. Like, that’s really hard to do, man. So, for Steelers fans, they, you know, a lot of them are critical of Mike Tomlin. I’m I’m oversimplifying. I mean, this is a bad loss for them. It’s a real bad loss and it’s a it’s a bad loss. And as much as you know, Flaco was fantastic. Jamar Chase is incredible. T. Higgins made arguably the play of the game late, you know, a lot of people deserve credit for Cincinnati. You have to throw a lot of blame in the direction of Pittsburgh and say this is not a game you should have lost. The other news coming out of tonight, well, the real story of the game in the real story of the game, it’s uh Pony. Yes. Andrew Filipony, our guy. Andrew Filipony. of Tony Mos the PM show the fan in Pittsburgh. I do my weekly hit with those guys and he was just he was on one this week. He’s like man he’s he’s feeling good. We’ve never he is his show does it sound like his Twitter feed? No, I mean I don’t listen to the show other than when they ask me questions. Right. Cuz Pony’s Twitter feed is shouty show like but we’ve said before it needs to be an audio form to make the show. It can’t just be here’s a tweet, but Pony tweets the way you know the shouty show people speak. Oh yeah, he’s um I think he’s way more brain dump on Twitter, right, than he is on the show. So, for example, Pony before the show, he’d already tweeted that there’s no way the Steelers lose this game, right? He then doubled down on it before the game, 3:12 p.m. today, uh and said, “I I believe we can throw this up on the 18 minutes before I I joined the show, by the way.” Right. There’s no way the Steelers lose tonight. Again, already said that. In fact, I’ll get my nipples pierced with no numbing agents if they lose to the Bungles. It ain’t happening, man. You got to regret that at this point. And look, when it was 10 nothing, looked good. Feeling good about his okay. It’s 20 to 10. I’m thinking feel I’m feeling for this bold take here. Yeah. From Pony. And I can’t imagine he’s already a diehard Steelers fan. I can’t imagine the emotional roller coaster that he just went on on this Thursday night on a crisp fall evening here in Cincinnati or him in Pittsburgh. I mean, people talk about um What a roller coaster. You know, people talk one of the lures of of sports gambling, sports betting is that you want to feel some involvement, some engagement in the game. You want to feel alive, right? Better engaged. I got 20 bucks in this game. I am interested in it in a way I wouldn’t be otherwise. Can you imagine having the safety of your nipples with no numbing agent riding on the geriatric bowl on Thursday Night Football? Just crazy, man. I mean, look, I with the greatest of respect to Pony, I I think there’s a smaller than 2% chance he follows through on this, but still, it’s kind of funny. I mean, it’s not kind of funny, it’s very funny. I mean, he is the author of a previous bold take that Kenny Picket is Joe Burrow 2.0, I don’t know. Which may have which may have come maybe he just meant injury in the middle of an August football game. Maybe he just meant injury prone. Maybe maybe he just meant hand size. Maybe hand size. He’s the next nine-handed quarterback to be in the NFL, which is he’s just another guy with short hand or which is true small hands. Um so a lot of fun. It was a great game tonight. A lot of fun. Um we joked a lot about the older quarterbacks, but I thought uh Flaco and Rogers both played well. They both back and forth. Uh very entertaining game and uh a pivotal game, right? It wasn’t just a Cincinnati team that had four straight losses. They’ve salvaged their season and it’s like game on now in the AFC North. I mean, I feel like Flanco played better than Rogers, but Rogers made a couple of really big plays, had them in it, and then I’m so just captivated by the fact that Rogers still still found a 69 and a half yard throw in his body at this this age. Yeah. when there were signs that maybe, you know, there’s a couple underthrows and there’s a couple that he missed the last couple weeks. I still think he’s got zip. I’ve been saying this the last two years. I think he still has the physicality, the physical ability, but to your point, like if you’re slightly off platform, it might not all be there, but this one, he put everything into it and he got it there. I don’t know how many quarterbacks have a 73 yard throw in them in the NFL. I mean, there’s some obviously, but I don’t know that the number is that large. And then here’s my my quick the quick rant on it is this is how how silly we all are, right? What if DK caught that? If your reaction should be no different, right, to that throw, whether DK Metaf got in position to catch it or not, or it was batted down as it it was easily batted down. It is kind of crazy that nobody was even in a position to challenge for that, particularly because I think two receivers were like five yards into the end zone. I mean, with the greatest of respect, we’re talking about how insane it is that he made it 70 yards to the goal line. What were you doing five yards deep? Like, what did you think he had a 75 yard throw in him? That’s a good point. Get to the front. Get to the front. Get to the goal line and hope it makes it there. All I’m saying is every time Rogers hit I mean, I guess one guy goes behind in case you get the batted ball like Bill Washington, they would say when he completed one of those Hail Marys, other than the one where he had to roll left and was under pressure and he got it, that was super impressive. The other ones it’s like it’s literally luck. He does a good job with the arc. Of course. Yeah. I mean, I don’t Are there many people arguing different? I’m telling you, could you could you imagine the sto The stories would completely change if just one guy caught that, right? It’s the same throw. It’s just the same throw. Just bringing logic. The remarkable thing is that he had that throw in him, which again was the remarkable thing back when he did it to Jeff Janice back in the day. like Rogers, the fact that he I mean it’s again I am my mind is kind of blown that he has a 70 yard throw in him at 43 years old or whatever he is. That was impressive. Um, and I thought I think I think Rogers played his best football. A couple bad ones in I mean pretty much one bad interception. DJ Turner really bad. That other one a great play. If you want to I mean if you boil it all down it really that’s the difference, right? Rogers the they had two turnovers. One of them was really unlucky. DJ Turner makes a great play. I there was I I’m not 100% sure that was an an interception. I would have called that an incomplete pass given the battling for it and the fact they were falling over the sideline at the time. Whatever. or that one’s not on Rogers if you like. The other one is just a bad throw. I mean, it’s I don’t know that it’s a I don’t know it’s necessarily a misread of coverage, but it’s at best speculative optimistic into bad coverage. They threw it way inside and it was bad location. So, that was a bad interception. And ultimately, when you look at it, you know that how close the game was, what it came down to, you don’t turn that ball over, you probably win the game. Um, last thing, Bengals offense looked I mean, there was the first time they ran the ball. Chase Brown, big game for him. Um, they stepped up when they needed it. Flaco ran the show, but top to bottom, Chase Brown, Jamar Chase, T. Higgins, Princeton, all made contributions as best the Bengals offense has looked all season. Yeah. And, uh, not great for a Steelers defense that has so much talent, should be a great pass rush, should be good up front, should be, they’re a little bit older in the secondary, but it’s all talented players. Jaylen Ramsey, Darius Slay, Joey Porter Jr. and uh Bengals picked him apart. And again, just to reiterate, this win alone means they’re right that it was worth trading for Joe Flacco. Like cuz this buys them the run at the next few weeks, which if they win those games that they could, should could or should win now, right? The easier games quote unquote in on their schedule. The Jets, they should be heavy favorites for the Bears. They should be able to beat whether or not they will or not. and then the Steelers again who they’ve just beaten. If they can beat those three teams, that takes you to November 16, even if you lose the next two or three, you’re into December still alive in the division, right? So, and that’s getting you, you know, within sight of the finish line and to whatever Joe Burrow’s potential return line is. That was the goal. Like, let’s just stay alive into December. And that’s what Joe Flacker was brought in to do. I didn’t think he was able to do that for them. And this win alone potentially gets them there. All right, man. We had a lot of fun with our uh live stream. We had a live stream for it was, you know, free for 30 minutes for members only. Appreciate everybody who joined in with the new membership. Remember, the whole show is free, but there’s extra perks if you join the membership tiers. Three different tiers. So, you get those extra live watch alongs and other fun perks as well. So, go check those out right here on YouTube. Yeah, a lot of bonus content coming out uh here and there. There’s a collab show that I did with Mina, which you can find at the very bottom of our main page on YouTube if you scroll all the way to the bottom. It’s a little bit hidden, the collab stuff. Um, we’ve got a bonus show with Justin Pew where you stop by the the show tomorrow morning. We’ve got a little book club episode going out, our first book club episode. So, if you like those, if you like that one in particular, fire in the comments, let us know. Give us some suggestions for future books. I think that’s a cool series we can do where we have on an author talk about a particular book and uh all you know read together just like back in the day. Yeah. I I hope you find some readers amongst our viewers. It’s got to be somebody. It’s got to be somebody out there still reading a book. I hope so. I got a child in decline because or at least reading AI summaries. Yeah. I got a child in decline because they’re expecting her to like read books in middle school and stuff. Oh yeah. Sad. It’s rough. Yeah. All right. That’s it for us. Appreciate everybody for tuning in. That’s our live reaction. Bengals Steelers. We’ll see you again next live reaction Sunday night in between the fours and the eights.

Steve Palazzolo & Sam Monson react to the Thursday Night Football matchup between the Pittsburgh Steelers & Cincinnati Bengals.

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