Obviously playing a guy named Rudolph a couple of days before Christmas was an ill omen. Or maybe it was even more simple: The Bengals had won three straight games, two in highly unlikely fashion, while Pittsburgh had lost three in a row in highly ugly fashion. So extending said streaks to four, given the state of the backup QB NFL, was always bucking the trend—and indeed the Steelers pummeled the Bengals 34-11 on Saturday evening.
The Steelers were backed into a corner, hair on fire, Mike Tomlin spitting hard truths while facing the possibility of his first ever losing season. It was a terrible spot for the Bengals, who felt invulnerable after finding a way to pull off the miracle comeback against the Vikings in what many felt was one of the great regular season games in franchise history. In the highly competitive, incredibly even NFL, sometimes prognosticating games comes down to identifying who looks worse the week before and betting on that team.
In that case, the Chiefs-Bengals game on New Year’s Eve Sunday should be an all-out affair decided in the final seconds, as it usually is between these two teams who have disappointed this year in differing ways.
More on that in a bit. First, let’s dispose with Saturday’s abomination at the confluence as quickly as possible. Mason Rudolph, as hinted at above, got the start for Pittsburgh and immediately did what so many journeyman quarterbacks have done to the Bengals over the years: look like he was Canton-bound for one afternoon. He turned George Pickens, a talented but emotional headcase who’s squarely in the tradition of Antonio Brown and JuJu Smith-Schuster and who’d spent the week in fear of getting benched for his selfish play, into another Hall of Famer, to the tune of 195 yards and two long, game-changing touchdowns.
Cincinnati has managed to lose to Rudolph, Kenny Pickett, and Mitch Trubisky over the past two seasons, a stretch of time when the Steelers offense and those quarterbacks have mainly been atrocious against everyone else. We always talk about the whammy the Browns have held on Cincinnati over the last few seasons, but that’s largely due to All-Pros like Myles Garrett and Nick Chubb. T.J. Watt be damned—losing to those scrub Pittsburgh QBs is much more maddening.
The great overall disappointment of this season, beyond Joe Burrow’s health, has been the regression of the Bengals’ defense. Lou Anarumo isn’t likely to be getting as many head coaching job interviews this offseason. Overall, their tackling hasn’t been bad—indeed, depending on your source, the Bengals are in the top five in missed tackles, meaning they haven’t missed nearly as many as it seems, at least officially. But they seem to have cluster games where it’s a problem. Despite the missed tackle numbers, Cincinnati’s defense is nearer the bottom in allowing yards after catch, suggesting the problem is less flat-out broken tackles than poor angles and missed assignments—guys not being in the right spot or leverage to even be in position to blow the tackle.
That certainly speaks to what they’ve missed without safeties Jessie Bates and Vonn Bell in defensive backfield. They’ve certainly missed Bell’s physical presence in particular. It’s ironic the Bengals are playing K.C. this week in a must-win scenario, as they took a holistic worldview in team-building this past offseason that identified the Chiefs as their primary rival and planned accordingly. The accent in the draft and free agency was on speed and more speed to combat the Arrowhead crew who did the same after Cincinnati and Ja’Marr Chase blew their doors off in 2021.
Unfortunately, that’s left the team behind the eight-ball in the AFC North, where brute power remains a critical component. And this makes five straight games this season against division rivals where the Bengals were clearly out-physicaled on both sides of the ball; the Browns and their immensely tough defense awaits in two weeks.
In Pittsburgh, the huge play to Pickens and subsequent Steelers score following an interception on a horrid decision by Jake Browning took the run game out of play, so Cincinnati effectively neutered itself when it came to establishing any sort of trench dominance on offense. Despite the game script the Steelers “only” ran for 113 yards—more than they had in the last two weeks, but not a huge number given the circumstances. But whenever they needed a big play, a conversion, a few tough yards, they were able to make it happen. Perhaps they re-fired disgraced offensive coordinator Matt Canada before the game without any noticing?
At least the game was basically over at halftime, allowing Bengals fans to get that last-minute Christmas shopping done with an easy mind.
Because of the loss, Cincinnati has to win both of its final two games, at K.C. and home for Cleveland, or have essentially no crack at the postseason. The fact they have an excellent chance (upwards of 90 percent, depending again on the your prediction algorithm of choice) if they do win twice is somewhat remarkable and is due to a series of losses by many of the teams in their same mediocre neighborhood. There are currently five 8-7 teams vying for what appears to be just one wild-card spot—Buffalo’s narrow win against the Chargers kept them just above the fray—although one of three 8-7 teams has to win the AFC South. The team that gets to 10 wins is probably playoffs bound.
To do that, the Bengals will have to avenge their crushing last-second defeat in the AFC title game, a loss that isn’t among the most brutal in franchise history only because of the three Super Bowl agonies, in particular the one in 2021. The league no doubt assumed this would be another Burrow vs. Patrick Mahomes thriller. Instead, the NFL will get Jake Browning vs. a quarterback who over the last eight weeks or so has closely resembled a backup.
As has been well-chronicled, the Chiefs’ lack of strong wide receiver play has resulted in a number of dropped passes and increased agita in K.C. It’s also reduced Mahomes, possessor of a right arm touched by the good lord, into a pigskin junkerball pitcher—Jamie Moyer in a helmet. His average depth of target is under seven yards, a far cry from when he lived over nine yards a target from 2018 to 2020. The Chiefs have managed just 45 completions of 20 or more yards this season, or three per game. Kansas City with just three explosive pass plays per game! Even in last weekend’s debacle, Browning completed four passes over 20 yards. It’s almost impossible to win without them in the modern NFL.
While the Chiefs lead the NFL in dropped passes, Mahomes also leads the league in attempts. As a percentage, however, the drops aren’t nearly as crushing—the Chiefs are 13th from the bottom in this more illuminating stat. Still bad, but not crippling. And Andy Reid’s scheme still works well—the Chiefs are second in yards per catch, so despite the receivers not being a strong group they’re still getting open with space to run.
The truth is Mahomes hasn’t been nearly as sharp as he has in years past, part of the reason K.C. is dead last in turnover differential. I’m sure his lack of trust in any receiver not currently dating Taylor Swift accounts for some of those struggles. As does the offensive line, which has regressed from its outstanding 2022 to lead the NFL in holding penalties and rank just 24th in Adjusted Line Yards—well below Cincinnati, as it happens.
The Christmas Day game against the Raiders was a nadir for the Mahomes/Reid combo, losing a home contest where they scored just 14 points, surrendered a pair of turnovers returned for touchdowns, and lost despite not allowing a single pass completion over the final three quarters! This of course is bad news for the Bengals; once again they’re facing a humiliated team people are throwing dirt on.
Incredibly, K.C. has not even locked up the AFC West, despite holding a huge lead over the likes of Denver and Vegas just a few weeks ago. At least their struggles guarantee Mahomes will at last have to play a postseason game on the road, which he has yet to do in his otherwise storied career.
On the other hand, Cincinnati was just humiliated on national TV as well. These are prideful pro athletes who will give their best after showing their worst. Mahomes is still quite capable of brilliance, of course, especially against this leaky pass defense (getting Cameron Taylor-Britt back from injury should help). And, of course, Cincinnati needs the game more than the Chiefs do—barely.
Put it all together, and it should be another classic between these two rivals, if not with quite the same stakes—or fireworks—as their previous four encounters.
Robert Weintraub heads up Bengals coverage for Cincinnati Magazine and has written for The New York Times, Grantland, Slate, and Deadspin. Follow him on Twitter at @robwein. Listen to him on Mo Egger’s show on 1530AM every Thursday at 5:20 p.m.
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