2020 Steelers Season Recall: Bengals shock Steelers in Monday Night debacle
Steel City Underground presents our 2020 Steelers Recall: a look back at Pittsburgh Steelers games and storylines from last season.
Steelers Nation was looking forward to a rebound by their previously unbeaten team who dropped their first two losses of the 2020 season in consecutive games to Washington and Buffalo. Unfortunately, the 2-10-1 Bengals weren’t the cure for the Steelers ailments.
In what was statistically Ben Roethlisberger’s worst game of the season, Pittsburgh would head into halftime totally stunned by a lack of offense following proclamations of “change” to help spark the opposite. Ben would complete only 52.63 of his passes for 170 yards, throwing one touchdown and interception each, and finishing with a 62.4 QB rating, his second-straight week of a sub 70 figure.
Offensive Coordinator Randy Fichtner was to devise some new ways for the Steelers offense to maintain drives longer, as well as a renewed focus on the run game.
Instead, we witnessed a train wreck that would see the Steelers operate drives of 3 plays (punt), 3 plays (punt), 1 play (fumble lost), 3 plays (punt), and yet another three-and-out that totaled a negative seven yards of offense.
That was only in the first quarter.
The most promising drive came in the second quarter, when Pittsburgh chewed up 6:13 of game clock off of ten plays… which only totaled 22 yards as the Steelers mediocrity on offense soared to new heights. That drive would end with a Roethlisberger interception, setting the Bengals up with great field position: a microcosm of what was the entire game for a Cincinnati team without its starting quarterback.
With Joe Burrow sidelined, Ryan Finley bested Big Ben on this Monday Night Football “showcase”, earning a 101.1 QB rating on only 13 pass attempts – completing only 7 of them.
Yes, it was that bad and the Steelers only had themselves to blame.
The Bengals punted twice to start the game, both three-and-out drives themselves, before an Austin Seibert 34-yard field goal put them up 3-0.
Then the flood gates opened, as Giovanni Bernard scored on two different touchdown runs to see the stunned Steelers down 17-0.
The wounds were self-inflicted as each of the Bengals scoring drives in the first half started deep in Steelers territory, on the Pittsburgh 20, 38, and 26 yard lines.
The Steelers would start coming back, as you’d suspect they might, as the held the Bengals to three punts in the third quarter while Pittsburgh finally scored on offense with a 23-yard Roethlisberger pass to Diontae Johnson, which was one of the lone highlights on the evening.
Chris Boswell’s 25-yard field goal, as the Steelers failed to punch into the endzone from 10 and 7 yards out, closed the Bengals lead to within seven.
Cincinnati then did the unimaginable, as Finley led a 9-play, 80-yard drive that included eight running plays that Pittsburgh’s defense could not stop.
Part of the Steelers defensive dilemma was losing Robert Spillane, backed up by newcomer (and veteran) LB Avery Williamson who joined the team at the Week 9 trade deadline. Williamson would be the third inside linebacker the Steelers went to after losing play caller Devin Bush after Week 5.
Despite the setback, the Steelers answered when Big Ben led a 12-play, 75-yard touchdown drive to get within seven, Cincy still up 24-7.
The Steelers defense struggled but got the ball back to the offense – but it was too little too late as four Roethlisberger incompletions effectively ended their comeback attempt, with the Bengals getting the ball back and adding another field goal as the icing to their 27-17 victory.
The Steelers would drop their third-consecutive game in 2020, falling to an 11-3 record.
