The Pittsburgh Steelers have gone winless over their last three weeks. They did not look good at all in a tie with the Detroit Lions in Week 10 before suffering consecutive losses to the Los Angeles Chargers and the Cincinnati Bengals. The setback at the hands of the Bengals was a hard one to take for the Steelers and their fans, as Pittsburgh simply did not look competitive at all on both sides of the ball. With that said, here are some takeaways from that game.
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Pittsburgh Steelers Takeaways from Week 12 loss to Cincinnati
3. Pat Freiermuth just keeps on producing
The rookie tight end is arguably the biggest surprise of the 2021 NFL season for the Steelers. In Freiermuth, the Steelers appear to have found the tight end of the future. Freiermuth has truly turned up the heat in the second half of the season after showing signs of high upside in the first few weeks of the 2021 NFL campaign.
This is good news for the Steelers' offense and the team's fans, and not for veteran tight end Eric Ebron, who is looking more and more dispensable each week. Against the Bengals, the former Penn State Nittany Lions star posted 40 receiving yards on four catches and four targets, including the lone Steelers touchdown score in the game. While it came in garbage time, Freiermuth's touchdown gives him six TD receptions on the season — the most among Steelers players in 2021, thus far.
2. Ben Roethlisberger is running on fumes
Outside of a meaningless late-game drive that ended on Freiermuth's touchdown score, Roethlisberger had a completely forgettable outing in the defeat at the hands of Cincinnati. Big Ben ended up with 263 passing yards and a touchdown with two interceptions on 24-of-41 completions while also getting sacked a total of three times for a loss of 13 yards and losing a fumble once.
Roethlisberger will remind Steelers fans from time to time that there's still gas left in his tank, such as when he threw for three touchdowns and zero picks while completing 63.6 percent of his passes, albeit in a 41-37 road loss to the Los Angeles Chargers back in Week 11. But oftentimes, the 39-year-old signal-caller puts up a performance that comes across as a reminder that his time in the NFL as a dependable quarterback is up. Roethlisberger is still completing 64.4 percent of his passes this season, which is around his career average, but his 88.9 passer rating is the second-lowest in his career since 2009. Moreover, his quarterback rating of 43.1 is the worst since 2006.
1. The Steelers are better than that
Even against a team on a roll like the Bengals, the Steelers should have played a lot better, simply because they are capable of doing so. Sure, Big Ben is no longer that Big Ben, but a receiving corps with Diontae Johnson, Chase Claypool, and the rapidly rising Freiermuth could have done more damage. Johnson shined in the game, as he led the Steelers with 95 receiving yards on nine catches and 14 targets, but Claypool struggled. He only caught three of eight targets for 82 yards. He's not looked right of late, but the Steelers will continue to count on him, given his well-established talent as a downfield threat and the fact that they are already missing JuJu Smith-Schuster for the rest of the year.
Rookie running back Najee Harris was a missing factor in Week 12, but it was also because of a lack of touches out of the backfield. Harris rushed for only 23 yards on eight carries against the Bengals, though the game script had a lot to do about that. The Steelers have not been running the ball as much as they used to. In fact, they are just 28th in the NFL in rush play percentage, but there's got to be more load put on their ground attack to take away some of the pressure on Roethlisberger.
Then there's the Steelers' defense that got carved up real good by Bengals running back Joe Mixon, who had 165 rushing yards and two touchdowns on 28 carries. T.J. Watt can't do it all on that side of the field for Pittsburgh, and he should not, since there is plenty of talent on the Steelers' stop unit that was among the best in 2020. It's been dealing with key injuries this season, but guys like Cameron Heyward, Minkah Fitzpatrick, and Joe Schobert are healthy and good enough to keep the Steelers from getting blown out like they had in the past couple of weeks.
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