It was the most points the Steelers have scored in six seasons.
- Once again the offensive line proved it can’t properly protect Burrow, a recurring problem that gets him battered every season, including Sunday when Pittsburgh’s front-line marauders treated him like a tackling dummy, sacking him four times; forcing him to fumble twice, once on a blindside hit by defensive end T.J. Watt; and intercepting one of his passes after defensive tackle Cam Heyward, bulldozed in and tipped the ball after it took flight.
- Season after season — Burrow’s been a Bengal five years now — the front office has failed their franchise quarterback because it still operates with a frugal, understaffed approach when it comes to scouting and player assessment.
Too often that’s meant a failure in getting the caliber of draft picks and free-agent signings that can play at a championship level to help turn this team around.
Instead, Cincinnati is now having a Yogi Berra — “deja vu all over again” — season and playing like this was the mid-1990s when the Bengals lost far more than they won.
Yet, through it all, Burrow is having an MVP season — he has 30 touchdown passes against just five interceptions — and he’s doing it while not fully healthy. It was just a year ago, almost to the day, that he had surgery to repair a torn ligament in his right wrist.
Burrow has had three straight games where he’s thrown for over 300 yards and three touchdowns and the Bengals have lost all three.
Meanwhile, Cincinnati’s defense has given up at least 34 points in each of those games and six times overall in this dismal 4-8 season.
ESPN researchers were having a field day with the Bengals’ defensive ineptitude Sunday and discovered this was the first time in NFL history that a team has scored at least 34 points four times in a season and lost all four of those games.
Cincinnati came into the season believing it was a Super Bowl contender. Instead, it has failed time and again on the field and now, if you pushed aside the veiled language in the post-game dressing room, you sensed a team about to unravel off the field.
The team that seemed to properly embrace Burrow Sunday was the same one that too often had smacked him around on the field, only to still see him soldier on and complete 28 of 38 passes for 309 yards and three touchdown passes.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
Respect from a rival
When the final gun sounded and Burrow — wearing an orange and black watch cap and a tight- lipped, disheartened look — walked toward the scrum of players at midfield and found himself sought out by one Steeler after another.
At least 12 players and coaches — from the Steelers stars to head coach Mike Tomlin — hugged him and many whispered in his ear, some while patting him supportively on the back.
This was a sign of respect by a heated rival who saw him take every lick and still come back to amaze them with his grit and derring-do.
As he left the field, Burrow had a limp that was even more noticeable when he finally walked into a press gathering following his shower and a change into street clothes.
He explained he had been “cleated’ on the first play of the game and the resulting gash on his right leg had bled a lot after that.
Burrow was hurting as he gave his post-game eulogy, but not because someone had stepped on him. It was from the weight of the season suddenly pressing down on him.
This was one of the first times I’d seen his dejection fully eclipse his usual optimism.
It caused him to speak more candidly than ever about himself and the plight of his team.
He admitted he felt pressure to play near perfectly to give his team a chance in games where the opposition often was unimpeded on defense or offense.
Sunday, the Bengals defense allowed Steelers quarterback Russell Wilson — who turned 36 on Friday and whose career had seemed to be on life support a year ago — to morph into the ghost of Ben Roethlisberger who retired after the 2021 season.
Wilson — who was born in Cincinnati by the way — threw for 414 yards, the second most in his 13-year NFL career. It was the most yards by a Steelers quarterback since Big Ben had departed.
Joe Burrow speaks to the media following Week 13. https://t.co/OqI1TI8mTW
— Cincinnati Bengals (@Bengals) December 1, 2024
While his defense turns opposing quarterbacks into herculean figures Burrow must somehow rise above his counterparts.
“I feel it. I feel it,” Burrow said quietly. “I feel the pressure on me to be great. That is part of playing quarterback in the NFL. I have to play at the absolute peak of my ability each week to go and win.
Hilton was just as candid as he stood at his locker afterward. He admitted the defense was often inept at tackling and had not lived up to expectations all season long.
Two of the more noticeable milquetoast tacklers Sunday were safety Geno Stone and linebacker Germaine Pratt.
And yet just across the room from Hilton, Pratt said he didn’t see a problem with tackling. He said it all came down to Wilson getting rid of the ball quickly.
The Steelers, who are now 9-3 and lead the AFC North, had 10 different players catch passes Sunday.
“We’ve got to man up and put a little pressure in his face,” Hilton said of Wilson, who was sacked just twice for minus four yards.
The Bengals prime quarterback disruptor — defensive end Trey Hendrickson — managed just one tackle, one quarterback hit and no sacks.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
‘We need to change a lot of things’
“We need to change a lot of things this year,” Burrow said. “We haven’t been good enough to win games.”
He was asked — as a franchise leader and cornerstone of the team — how he could help with that turnaround. After all, he’s working under a five-year, $275 million contract, so that holds a lot of weight both with the rank and file and with management.
He said he’d try to give his opinion in ways that come off best:
“The cornerstones of this organization are going to be remembered by more than this season. We will be remembered how we handle this. It is still an exciting opportunity to go out and play for this city and this team, week in and week out.
“That’s something I don’t take for granted.”
He said the way the Bengals play the last five weeks of the regular season will determine what the future roster here looks like:
“I think we’ll learn a lot about who we have in the locker room. The guys we can count on going forward and the guys we can’t.”
Asked about his message to his teammates afterward Burrow said he told them:
“Whatever you put on tape is out there forever. Whether it’s effort, execution or playmaking ability, GMs and scouts go and look at the tape in the offseason when they’re looking to go and get guys.
“They’re not going to care what the score is; they’re going to care how hard you played, how you executed and how many plays you make.”
Unlike Pratt, Hilton gave clear-eyed assessment of the defense and his own failings.
“I gave up the deep ball today,” he said of the 23-yard touchdown catch Calvin Austin III made against him early in the second quarter.
“We can’t be mad at anybody but ourselves,” Hilton concluded. “We put ourselves in this hell…eeerh…in this hole and now we’ve got to dig ourselves out.”
But when you’re in football hell, you don’t need a shovel.
You need a team that supports its MVP-caliber quarterback.
Joe Burrow needs a defense that doesn’t force him to continually play catch-up; an offense that keeps him from constantly being battered and a front office that gives him the kind of players who can do that.
Sunday all Joe Burrow got was a cleat to the leg, a bloody gash and postgame pat on the back from some sympathetic Steelers.
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