Will Cowboy Joe Lasso The Steelers Again?

I have a bit of a problem when it comes to picking Steelers games, both straight-up and against the spread. When the team plays poorly, I’m frequently unable to imagine a scenario in which they pull themselves out of the doldrums and win their next game.

It might not shock you to find out, for what it’s worth, that I don’t have this same issue in the opposite direction. No, every win is merely a brief surprise, a forestalling of the next loss.

This gets me into trouble because NFL teams are not robotic and precise, and coaching staffs aren’t, either. Not even Mike Tomlin’s.

And so it is that I find myself being pulled in two directions as the Steelers ready themselves to face off with Joe Flacco and the Bengals for the second time in a month. It was Flacco who took a 4-1 start and the attendant confidence it created and shredded it with ease on a Thursday night in Cincinnati, starting what has become a season-altering 1-3 stretch for Pittsburgh. The memory of that performance is tough to shake, even if the NFL provides ample evidence every week that putting too much stock into one game is a fool’s errand.

The stakes in this one are quite clear for Tomlin and his team; win, and you keep a little breathing room between yourself and the second-place Ravens, who have again become the betting favorite to win the AFC North. Lose, and the division starts to feel like a quaint afterthought, with only the fate of Tomlin’s non-losing season streak remaining as dramatic fuel.

Whether or not the Steelers keep themselves atop the division and retain some legitimacy as a contender depends entirely on their ability to solve Flacco. Judging by what I’ve heard this week, I’m not sure that they can.

As it happens, that opinion also seems to be the minority view, both locally and in Las Vegas, where the Steelers have been installed as a 5.5-point favorite.

Most of what I’ve heard, from co-workers and those who cover the team for a living, is that the Steelers are going to figure out a way to either fix their Flacco problem, or simply outscore it. Both of these beliefs seem flawed; the former because they didn’t do it last time, and the latter because did you see the offense against the Chargers?

Of course, it’s not that simple. The Bengals’ defense is the league’s worst. They will not have Trey Hendrickson, a man who can accurately be termed their only good player. They are a tonic for an ailing offense - any ailing offense. Cincy has surrendered 86 points and 1,078 yards in their last two games. They are 0-2 despite scoring 38 and 42 points.

Would you care to take a guess as to how many teams in NFL history have gone 0-2 while scoring at least 38 points in each game and also giving up at least 500 yards each time? That’s right, it’s one. These Bengals.

So yes, they are singularly wretched on that side of the ball, and unless Aaron Rodgers turned into a pumpkin in the span of 60 minutes in Los Angeles, the Steelers should move the ball and they should put some points on the board.

Believing in the Steelers offense against this defense? That’s the easy part. Believing that this Steelers defense has any tricks up their sleeve for Flacco? That’s a much tougher sell.

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What’s the argument in favor of them shutting him down? That the game will be played on grass and the footing might not be great? That Flacco’s gargantuan numbers over his last three games were aided by all three of those contests being at home? I don’t buy it.

He’s played one bad half of football since joining the Bengals. It was the first 30 minutes of his Cincinnati tenure, where he looked like a man out of sorts against the Packers at Lambeau Field.

Cincinnati’s first five drives in that game yielded four punts, a missed field goal, and a grand total of 65 yards on 23 plays.

The next three drives? 36 plays, 193 yards, 2 touchdowns and a field goal and, for a time, a very unsettled home crowd. He has not stopped cooking since, vivisecting the Steelers, dicing up the Jets, then casually throwing for 470 yards and 4 touchdowns in a loss to the Bears.

How many quarterbacks in their 40s have a game with at least 450 yards passing and 4 touchdowns? You guessed it, one. Joe Flacco.

Again, I ask: How, exactly, are the Steelers going to stop this guy? Ja’Marr Chase said after the teams’ first meeting that Cincinnati knew what the Steelers were going to do, and that the Bengals were hoping they would do it. Tomlin, when asked during his weekly presser about how the Steelers could try to limit Chase’s touches, offered this incredible pearl of strategic thought; he said the Steelers would try to make Cincinnati throw the ball to someone else. Wow!

You could perhaps squint and point out that Pittsburgh held the Bengals scoreless in the first quarter of their first matchup, and that if the team can prevent Chase Brown from averaging 10 yards per carry, they’ll be able to dictate terms to Flacco in a way they weren’t able to last month.

I remain unconvinced. Flacco looks like a guy with the answers to not just the Steelers test, but all tests he might face. He’s on an absolute heater, and try as I might, I can’t find some sober analytical take on this game that leads me to any conclusion other than, “Joe Flacco is going to give this team hell again, and if they win, it will be by the skin of their teeth, at most.”

And if they don’t manage that win by the skin of their teeth, and Flacco emerges like the Boogeyman to terrify fans on the North Shore yet again? Then not only will the Steelers not make the playoffs, they’ll have the look of a team that could be headed for much worse.