Steelers’ defense shuts down Cincy

With Bengals’ receiver Chad Ocho Cinco suspended for mouthing off to his coach, the Pittsburgh Steelers defense shut down Cincinnati’s offense en route to a 27-10 victory on Thursday night.  Steelers QB Ben Roethlisberger threw for one TD and ran for another as Pittsburgh remained perfect against division rivals—and the Bengals remained winless.

Early in the day on Thursday, Bengals officials announced that Chad Ocho Cinco would be deactivated for the game due an unspecified rules violation.  Most reports suggest that he was mouthing off to Bengals’ head coach Marvin Lewis during a team meeting.  Lewis clearly has enough problems, and didn’t need a petulant receiver on the field so he swung the hammer.  Despite that, Bengals QB Ryan FItzpatrick wasn’t using that issue as an excuse:

"It's a curveball for us, but we had guys who stepped in and knew the game plan and knew how to execute it. Nothing changed. It was more of a curveball."

The Bengals offense may have known how to execute, but the Steelers stout defense kept them from doing so.  Pittsburgh’s defense held Cincinnati to 11 first downs, 208 total yards and helped give the Steelers the time of possession edge 35:20 to 24:40.  Five of the Cincy first downs game on an opening TD drive, with the Steelers holding them to a paltry six the rest of the way.  It was the eleventh straight game in which the Steelers held their opponents to 300 yards or less, which is the third longest run in NFL history. 

Pittsburgh’s defense was aided by miserable weather conditions, described by Steeler QB Roethlisberger:

"It was a blizzard out there, the wind was coming from the side and a lot of balls were going sideways. I threw a lot of sliders out there. It was hard to see."

Cincinnati dropped to 1-9 and is clearly going nowhere this season.  They’ll get something of a break over the Thanksgiving holidays and return to action on 11/30 at home against the Baltimore Ravens.  They’ll then travel to Indianapolis for a game against the Colts on 12/7 before returning home to play the Washington Redskins on 12/14.

Pittsburgh improved to 8-3 and will travel to New England for a game against the Patriots on 11/30.  They’ll host the Dallas Cowboys on 12/7 before heading to Baltimore to play the Ravens on 12/14.