On a night where the Steelers had a chance to take a stranglehold on the AFC North, and shed some troubling historical trends, they ended up doing neither.

A 33-31 loss in Cincinnati has the Bengals now only 1.5 games back in the division, and has opened the door for maybe even Baltimore to storm all the way back, if everything goes well over there.

Meanwhile, the Steelers now have a week and a half to sit in a loss that could have been prevented. Despite a high-scoring performance tonight in the whiteout conditions of Paycor Stadium, there was a lot to dislike about how the Steelers played on Thursday night.

It feels like I just did this, but here’s my thoughts on this one.

1: Careful With The Crown

After the Steelers pretty soundly handled Cleveland on Sunday, there were a lot of people

It made total sense. The team was 4-1, on a three-game winning streak, and had a lot of things clicking.

The defense, after a very rocky first two weeks, was finally looking up to the standard that Tomlin and others had hyped them up as. Aaron Rodgers was still turning back the clock, having an effective 68.8% completion rate and a healthy ten touchdowns to just three interceptions. And despite the ever-steady calls for a WR2, the offense had massively improved their red-zone efficiency significantly.

But to me, it all felt just a little uneasy.

Not because those wins were somehow illegitimate; the Steelers still had to earn each of those wins, and did in one way or another. It was more about the level of competition the Steelers had played to that point.

The New York Jets are still winless. New England has proved they are quite good, but they quite literally fumbled the ball away in that game. Minnesota is a middling team, who played their backup quarterback across the pond. Cleveland is, well, kind of a mess at the moment.

Those are still four wins, but it was not the steepest of competition.

Neither was Cincinnati…on paper, anyways. A 2-4 team on their third quarterback this season and hanging on for dear life activated their running game like no other time this season, and used Joe Flacco’s arm to deploy their better offensive weapons all night long.

In the end, Cincinnati’s desperation won out against a team that should have handedly beat them. It’s the kinds of games like this, that we see almost every year, that routinely keep the Steelers as just a “good” team, as opposed to a “great” one.

I’m not saying that the Steelers can’t still be one of those top teams in the AFC, especially in a year where there is still no clear-cut favorite coming out of this conference yet.

However, we simply cannot crown the Steelers as one of those teams until we see them routinely be able to take care of business. That should have happened Thursday. It didn’t.

2: Thursday Night Thuds

The Steelers are now 0-7 in seven Thursday night divisional matchups on the road under head coach Mike Tomlin. Yes, those are tough circumstances for any team, but eventually, you have to start winning some of those games, especially when you look at the state of their opponents in these situations.

None of those teams had a winning record at the time the Steelers played them, and only one of them had finished with a winning record at season’s end. Yet, this is how that history stacks up:

• Lost to the 2-8 Browns in Cleveland in 2024 (Browns finished 3-14)
• Lost to the 1-1 Browns in Cleveland in 2022 (Browns finished 7-10)
• Lost to the 3-6 Browns in Cleveland in 2019 (Browns finished 6-10)
• Lost to the 0-1 Ravens in Baltimore in 2015 (Ravens finished 10-6)
• Lost to the 5-6 Ravens in Baltimore in 2013 (Ravens finished 8-8)
• Lost to the 1-11 Browns in Cleveland 2009 (Browns finished 5-11)

Now, add another one to that list. A loss to the 2-4 Bengals in Cincinnati. While no one knows how this season will end for Cincinnati, they still have a tall order ahead of them to get to a winning record.

Against a team in a weakened position like the Bengals, there simply is no excuse for the Steelers.

Cincinnati, who already has one of the worst defenses in the NFL, went into this one without star defensive end Trey Hendrickson and cornerback Cam Taylor-Britt. Even if the scratching of Taylor-Britt was a coach’s decision, as reported moments before the game, that’s still two big names taken out of an already bare-bones defense.

Yet, that crew recorded two interceptions in the first half, including Geno Stone ripping the ball directly out of DK Metcalf’s hands along the sideline. Rodgers was able to exploit their mistakes at times, but the Bengals got just enough from that side of the ball to get the win.

3: Mike Tomlin Was Right

Tomlin made some headlines earlier in the week when he questioned why Cleveland would trade Joe Flacco to Cincinnati.

“To be honest, it was shocking to me,” Tomlin said in his press conference on Monday when asked. “Andrew Berry must be a lot smarter than me or us, because it doesn’t make sense to me to trade a quarterback that you think enough of to make your opening-day starter to a division opponent that’s hurting in that area. But that’s just my personal feelings.”

Some read that as an opportunity to kick the Browns while they were down. Others took it as Tomlin showing his hand, frustrated that instead of playing against Jake Browning at quarterback, the Bengals found an upgrade, and someone who knew the Steelers very well.

I personally saw both angles of it, but I thought the second interpretation was very interesting. It was a little out of character for Tomlin to directly name an executive like that, but if you go back and look closer at Tomlin’s quotes in recent time, it’s clear he doesn’t like playing against Flacco.

Last year, when Flacco was a backup quarterback to Anthony Richardson in Indianapolis, Tomlin said part of the game plan was to keep Richardson healthy and in the game all day.

“Don’t put Joe Flacco in the game,” was a direct quote from the presser in the days leading up to that game. As Tomlin feared, Flacco did come into that game for an injured Richardson and diced Pittsburgh’s defense, going 16-of-26 for two touchdowns en route to a win.

A year later, Flacco does it again. The now 40-year-old went 31-of-47 for 342 yards and three touchdowns, unlocking the capabilities of the Bengals’ offense.

Tomlin was right to not want to play against Flacco.

4: The Defense Conversation

Chase Brown was averaging just 2.7 yards a carry for the Bengals over his first six games. If tonight was all you saw of him, you might have flipped those numbers if you were asked to guess his average.

Brown, though only getting 11 carries, totaled 108 yards and had a long of 37 yards. A player who was lamented by Bengals fans had a field day on the ground against the Steelers, and had Flacco not consistently been able to find Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins through the air, Brown might have had a much bigger night.

It was a rough, rough night for Jalen Ramsey, Darius Slay, and Joey Porter Jr. Ramsey and Porter were each flagged multiple times, and all three got beaten pretty bad multiple times during the night.

Chase was targeted a career-high 23 times, hauling in a career-high 16 catches 161 yards and a touchdown. Higgins had a season-high 96 yards on six catches, and a touchdown.

That was why they went out and got Flacco. Because even though the Steelers put up 31 points, it just wasn’t enough for that terrific trio.

5: At Least There Were Some Points Scored

If there was any positive to take away from this game, it’s that the offense still did some good things.

Scoring 31 points is an accomplishment, even if it was all for not. Rodgers had four touchdown passes, and both he and offensive coordinator Arthur Smith did something a lot of fans have wanted recently: threw to Pat Freiermuth.

The tight end had his first big game of the season, catching five passes for 111 yards and two touchdowns. He had 60 yards after the catch and was the recipient of that late-game Rodgers touchdown pass that was scored with just a little too much time left on the clock.

Look, usually in losses like this, there’s a lot to criticize about the offense, or lack thereof. Yeah, they made a few errors along the way, but they did more than enough to put this team in a position to win. They were let down by the defense.