Pittsburgh jumped out to a 14-0 lead early in this one and it looked like a blowout, but — as only the Steelers can do — they allowed the Bengals to climb back into the game before a William Gay interception late in the 4th quarter finally ended it.
Ben Roethlisberger was on fire early, throwing the ball for nearly 200 yards in the first half. But Troy Polamalu and Ryan Clark got embarrassed by AJ Green in the endzone making it 14-7 and then Heath Miller bobbled a pass right into the chest of Leon Hall, giving the Bengals a short field. That made it 14-10. Both scores were easily avoidable and the Steelers essentialy handed Cincy 10 points. Not good.
Unlike last week against Baltimore, the Steelers’ offense was able to come up big late in the game. They had an 11 play drive late in the 3rd quarter to take the lead after the Bengals tied it up. More importantly, the Steelers put the Bengals away for good by churning out a couple of first downs after Gay’s pick. Weslye Saunders and Mike Wallace each had first down catches and Mike Tomlin continued the pattern of throwing the ball and going for the jugular late in the game.
All in all, it was a solid win despite the Steelers making some mistakes. The offensive line strugged pretty often in the 2nd half and Andy Dalton had some success dinking and dunking throw the air, but Gay, Timmons and Roethlisberger came up huge down the stretch and the Steelers were able to sneak away with a huge divisional win.
The Steelers finally have a bye week and will hopefully be able to get some guys healthy for the stretch run.
