{"id":1014884,"date":"2026-09-30T14:57:22","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T14:57:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/1014884\/"},"modified":"2026-09-30T14:57:22","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T14:57:22","slug":"good-bad-and-ugly-from-steelers-week-3-win-over-bengals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/1014884\/","title":{"rendered":"Good, Bad and Ugly from Steelers Week 3 Win over Bengals"},"content":{"rendered":"

Steelers Analysis<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Steelers\"\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

PITTSBURGH \u2014 The Pittsburgh Steelers got a huge, season-altering win on Sunday, beating the Cincinnati Bengals<\/a> to move into the early lead in the AFC North, and also doing so while scoring 30 points to erase the talk about the team\u2019s moribund early season offense.<\/p>\n

But it was\u2019t all purely positive, and the narrow home victory of the Bengals contained several issues that, it not rectified, could continue to hurt the Steelers throughout the 2026 season.<\/p>\n

GOOD: THE STRENGTH OF THE PACK IS THE STRENGTH<\/p>\n

\"PittsburghPittsburgh Steelers tight end Darnell Washington in a game against the Cincinnati Bengals on Sept. 27, 2026. \u2014 Ed Thompson \/ Steelers Now<\/p>\n

Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin<\/a> used to say that the \u201cstrength of the pack was the pack,\u201d meaning that team\u2019s depth and willingness to lean on one another was the key, not the strength of the individuals involved.<\/p>\n

When it comes to the 2026 Steelers offensive skill positions, the strength of the pack might be strength. <\/p>\n

Darnell Washington<\/a> is and always has been a beast of a human being, but the Steelers have quietly assembled a large group of hard-to-handle offensive weapons. DK Metcalf<\/a> and Michael Pittman Jr.<\/a> are probably the biggest, strongest and toughest 1-2 punch at wide receiver in the league. Jaylen Warren<\/a> is extremely hard to bring down when he gets out of the backfield.<\/p>\n

Through three weeks, Steelers receivers have broken 35 tackles, the second-most of any team in the league. Only the Arizona Cardinals (39) have more. Ten teams have less than half Pittsburgh\u2019s total.<\/p>\n

Not only are they hard to tackle, all of them are excellent downfield blockers. Pat Freiermuth<\/a> cleared the way for Warren on his game-opening 30-yard reception. Metcalf, Ben Skowronek<\/a> and Germie Bernard<\/a> all secured downfield blocks on Washington\u2019s sideline scamper.<\/p>\n

Bernard is fifth in wide receiver run-blocking grade (minimum 15 snaps), according to Pro Football Focus.<\/a> Freiermuth is sixth among tight ends.<\/p>\n

The Steelers established their downfield passing game first against the Bengals, and then got things moving on the ground with Warren. The third part of their offensive trifecta is going to have to be what we saw in the fourth quarter against Cincinnati: the Steelers\u2019 offensive playmakers exerting their physical will on their opponents.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s about finish,\u201d Aaron Rodgers<\/a> said. \u201cThere\u2019s a few guys on the team that really practice the right way, and I think we highlight those guys and then those are the guys who are showing up. Throw a little dump o\ufb00 to Jaylen [Warren], and Pat [Freiermuth] pancakes a guy, and you get 30 yards to get the o\ufb00ense going. It\u2019s all about finish. DK [Metcalf] was blocking on that play, and you come back and you hit Darnell [Washington] on two-yard pass and DK has a good block and Ben [Skowronek] has good block and Germie [Bernard] has a good block and next thing you know you get a damn near 50-yard play by guys just finishing and kind of playing the right way and you\u2019ve got to practice that stu\ufb00 and highlight it and set that as a standard.\u201d<\/p>\n

GOOD: BROCK HOFFMAN BAILS OUT O-LINE<\/p>\n

\"PittsburghPittsburgh Steelers right guard Brock Hoffman in a game against the Cincinnati Bengals on Sept. 27, 2026. \u2014 Ed Thompson \/ Steelers Now<\/p>\n

When the Steelers signed Brock Hoffman<\/a>, I assumed that he and Spencer Anderson<\/a> would enter a significant competition at right guard this offseason. Hoffman had experience with Mike McCarthy<\/a>, Anderson had experience with the Steelers. Neither player had been a Week 1 starter at guard for an NFL team to this point in their career, but both looked like young-ish players that could succeed given the right opportunity.<\/p>\n

That competition never happened. I think Hoffman took one day\u2019s worth of reps with the first-team offense. All the rest of the time, it was Anderson at right guard. <\/p>\n

I don\u2019t really understand why or how that happened to the extent that it did, and then two weeks into the season, McCarthy made the switch to bench Anderson and play Hoffman. <\/p>\n

Anderson certainly struggled in Week 2 against the New England Patriots<\/a>, and perhaps trying to play through a broken bone in his leg is part of the problem there. But I can\u2019t quite get my head around the Steelers\u2019 offensive braintrust thinking that Anderson was so much better that they never really gave Hoffman a shot all summer to making the switch after two games.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s hard to argue with the results. Considering the circumstances, Hoffman was absolutely fantastic against the Bengals in Week 3. He limited the impact of All-Pro Cincinnati defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence, a player he had plenty of familiarity with the time he with the Dallas Cowboys and Lawrence was with the New York Giants.<\/p>\n

It went way beyond that, though. Because Hoffman never got much of any playing time with the first-team offense, that meant that he spent an awful lot of time next to second-team right tackle Max Iheanachor<\/a>. When the Steelers decided to promote both of their right-side backups to starting roles for Week 3, Hoffman and Iheanachor went together, and it was clear that the rookie benefitted from veteran presence beside him.<\/p>\n

\u201cTremendous amount of respect for Brock Hoffman,\u201d McCarthy said on Monday. \u201cObviously, we have a history. Brock \u2014 he\u2019s someone I would hire as a coach when he\u2019s done. That\u2019s what I think of him. As far as his level of preparation, his demeanor, what he brings to the table. So, if you have a young player going into the game for the first time, I don\u2019t know if you can pair them with anybody better than Brock Hoffman.\u201d<\/p>\n

BAD: PASS PRO STILL PROBLEMATIC<\/p>\n

\"PittsburghPittsburgh Steelers quarterback Aaron Rodgers escapes a pressure against the Cincinnati Bengals on Sept. 27, 2026. \u2014 Ed Thompson \/ Steelers Now<\/p>\n

Rodgers was sacked twice against the Bengals on Sunday. He was sacked a combined six times over the first two games, so if you want to see some progress in the pass protection after the team made the above changes on the right side of the offensive line, I suppose it\u2019s there.<\/p>\n

But when I watched back, I realized that Rodgers did a very good job of moving around the pocket in this game \u2014 much better than the did against New England \u2014 and that had a lot to do with him not being sacked as much.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought his pocket awareness was excellent,\u201d McCarthy said. \u201cI thought just the way he hit his back step, just when you\u2019re in a drop and you\u2019re working through your progression, the ability to set that hook, I like to refer to it \u2014 with the rushers, and you\u2019ve got to really give the pass protection credit too, because there were A and B gap lanes for him step up. I think that\u2019s part of his greatness, and I thought he did a really good job of coming out of the pocket and looking downfield and running when he needed to. But I thought he played exceptionally in the scramble phase.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to PFF\u2019s<\/a> charting, the Steelers allowed 11 pressures on 40 drop-backs, meaning Rodgers was pressured 27.5% of the time. He\u2019s been pressured 25.2% of the time this season. That\u2019s up from 15.6% last year.<\/p>\n

Rodgers had a good game running the scramble drill, but most of his worst games in 2025 came when he was highly pressured, and the Steelers are going to face much more talented groups of edge rushers than Cincinnati\u2019s, meaning for what appears to be a pass-first offense, they still have a lot of work to do in the pass protection realm.<\/p>\n

BAD: T.J. WATT RESURGENCE ON HOLD?<\/p>\n

\"PittsburghPittsburgh Steelers outside linebacker T.J. Watt in a game against the Cincinnati Bengals on Sept. 27, 2026. \u2014 Ed Thompson \/ Steelers Now<\/p>\n

In the first two weeks of the 2026 season, T.J. Watt<\/a> looked once again like a candidate to be the NFL Defensive Player of the Year. He took over the season opener against the Atlanta Falcons, with two sacks and a game-sealing pick six. He had 1.5 sacks against the New England Patriots in Week 2.<\/p>\n

That hot streak did not continue in Week 3. Watt was nearly silent against Cincinnati, accounting for one tackle and one quarterback hit. PFF didn\u2019t even record one pressure for him.<\/p>\n

Now, the Bengals were getting rid of the ball very quickly. And Amarius Mims played very well. That certainly played a part. But if Watt is going to be a DPOY candidate, he needs to be able to overcomes those kinds of things and still make an impact on the game.<\/p>\n

The good news? The Steelers probably don\u2019t need Watt to be playing at a DPOY caliber to have a great defense in 2026. But Sunday\u2019s game should certainly slow some talk about him being all the way back to his peak.<\/p>\n

UGLY: NO JPJ MAKES SECONDARY A STRUGGLE<\/p>\n

\"PittsburghCincinnati Bengals wide receiver Ja\u2019Marr Chase makes a catch over Pittsburgh Steelers cornerback Asante Samuel Jr. on Sept. 27, 2026. \u2014 Ed Thompson \/ Steelers Now<\/p>\n

It\u2019s definitely not all the Steelers\u2019 fault that Joey Porter Jr.<\/a> didn\u2019t play against the Bengals on Sunday. I don\u2019t even think they could have reasonably done much more than they did to prepare themselves for the possibility that he might not play than what they did by singing Asante Samuel Jr.<\/a> and drafting Daylen Everette<\/a>. They assembled what looked on paper to be one of the deepest cornerback rooms I have ever seen the Steelers possess.<\/p>\n

But without Porter, the room just doesn\u2019t rate. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s not the fault of the individuals, but when a top wide receiver group comes to town, Patrick Graham<\/a> just doesn\u2019t have the horses to roll out against them.<\/p>\n

Now, Graham did a fantastic job of masking that weakness as much as possible on Sunday, but the effort that it took to work around the lack of man-to-man coverage ability showed that there are certainly going to be times this season, if the Steelers don\u2019t get Porter back, that his absence is really going to wreak havoc for the defense.<\/p>\n

The Steelers\u2019 inability to come to terms with their best homegrown defensive back in a generation is almost certainly going to come back to bite them this season, and it might in the future, as well. <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMentioned In This Article:Aaron Rodgers<\/a> Brock Hoffman<\/a> Cincinnati Bengals<\/a> Darnell Washington<\/a> Jaylen Warren<\/a> Joey Porter Jr.<\/a> Mike McCarthy<\/a> Patrick Graham<\/a> Pittsburgh Steelers<\/a> Steelers<\/a> T.J. Watt<\/a> top<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Steelers Analysis PITTSBURGH \u2014 The Pittsburgh Steelers got a huge, season-altering win on Sunday, beating the Cincinnati Bengals…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1014885,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2055],"tags":[1586,9171,256,457,7,1736,7582,7866,6,14269,520,57,2360,426,5226,3444],"class_list":["post-1014884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh-steelers","tag-aaron-rodgers","tag-brock-hoffman","tag-cincinnati-bengals","tag-darnell-washington","tag-football","tag-jaylen-warren","tag-joey-porter-jr","tag-mike-mccarthy","tag-nfl","tag-patrick-graham","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-steelers","tag-pittsburghsteelers","tag-steelers","tag-t-j-watt","tag-top"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/117360581216839635","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1014884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1014884"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1014884\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1014885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1014884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1014884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1014884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}