On Sunday, the Pittsburgh Steelers and Cincinnati Bengals will square off for the second time in five weeks and the Steelers are looking for revenge. Pittsburgh’s defense got torched by veteran quarterback Joe Flacco in his second start with the Bengals and the Steelers lost 33-31. Pittsburgh currently sits at 5-4 and clings to a one-game lead over the Baltimore Ravens in the AFC North. The Bengals are trying to keep winning until Joe Burrow returns.
Here are the big storylines to watch this week.
Steelers defense looking for payback
The Steelers defense isn’t just looking for some payback after how badly they played against the Bengals in the first matchup, but for how badly they have played on more than one occasion this season. This group could go a long way toward repairing its reputation.
Can Aaron Rodgers relax?
Rodgers is coming off one of his worst games as a pro where he looked old and terrified to take a hit. This week, we want to see if Rodgers can come in and relax and learn from his shaky performance.
Changes on offense or defense?
One big criticism of the Steelers on offense and defense has been the coaches’ insistence on making any real changes. Pittsburgh seems to get stuck running very vanilla gameplans on both sides of the ball and no matter what the situation is in game, feel no pressure to make any adjustments.
Steelers pretender status
At some point, you can only have so many bad games before you are a bad team. If the Steelers get swept by a Bengals team led by Joe Flacco, it will be hard to recover and not be considered more pretenders than contenders, even in the lead in the AFC North.
This article originally appeared on Steelers Wire: Steelers vs Bengals: 4 big storylines this week
