Strategy Analysis: Cincinnati Bengals vs. Pittsburgh Steelers
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00:00 Cincinnati Bengals take on the Pittsburgh Steelers. This is one of those games where it's a standalone. A lot of people Warren will be watching this and boy is it different than what we thought at the beginning of the season. No Joe Burrow third different quarterback for the Steelers.
00:17 We have yet to see the Steelers go through this kind of slump in the Mike Tomlin era where they're getting three points at home against a team in the division. I mean, let's let that sink in for a minute here with Pittsburgh.
00:31 A lot of better is doubling down on their loss two weeks ago saying they're going to get right this week. It's going to happen didn't happen again. Steelers have just had a lot of problems both on offense and on defense and it feels like in the locker room to.
00:45 Yeah, look when they're going up against the Cincinnati Bengals the thing that's going to cure all the ails and potentially is the ability to run the football and you don't have DJ reader in there for the Cincinnati Bengals.
00:55 The Steelers had a ton of success running the football in their prior matchup and the Bengals basically shift from a top five run defense with reader to a bottom five run defense without him.
01:04 And if you look at what the Steelers have done this season when they've gone up against teams that ranked 20th or worse against the run their five and one when they go up against teams that rank better than that.
01:15 They're two and five so they have had success going up against teams where they're going to be able to run the ball. The Bengals had a bottom six bottom seven run defense even with reader in there now without him.
01:26 Yeah, the Steelers should be able to run the football here that could be problematic for the Cincinnati Bengals. So, you know what the Bengals need to do here. They need to make it a combat upon their game plan and their strategy to come out here and build a quick lead force Mason Rudolph to throw the ball.
01:40 Do not let the Steelers sit back and have ability to run the ball against your soft run defense. And the only way that you're going to be able to do that is to build a lead and the Cincinnati Bengals have not had a lot of success against the Steelers the last couple of years.
01:53 They're one win two losses. They lost earlier this year and part of the problem is they cannot run the ball on early downs. If we look at what Joe Mixon is doing, for example, he averaged two yards per carry 16 total yards on eight rushes earlier this year.
02:07 The last two years combined the Cincinnati Bengals against the Steelers on early down running back runs are averaging just 2.3 yards per carry 13% success. They've run it 52 times in average just or total gained 120 rushing yards on those 52 running back runs.
02:24 However, what is working are passes to the running backs. If you look at when they pass the ball to their backs on early downs, those passes are gaining 9.7 yards per attempt 78% completion rate 74% success rate plus .62 EPA per attempt significantly better when they throw the ball to these running backs.
02:44 It's very terrible when they try to run the ball with these running backs. And if you look at the Steelers over the last month, struggled massively defending running back passes. They ranked 28th in the NFL. In my opinion, you've got a Steelers defense. They're down some safeties. They're down additional guys in the secondary.
03:02 The Bengals have to come out here and don't try to worry about running the football with their backs on early downs. It hasn't worked before. That's the strength of this Steelers defense is currently constructed is the run defense. They're defensive line. Throw the ball to your running backs out of the backfield. Let Chase Brown cook in the open field. Get a little Joe Mixon sprinkled in as well. Get it to guys with speed, especially with you being down.
03:25 Jamar Chase, get Chase Brown a lot more involved in the passing game. You'll have so much more success than if you sit here and try to run the ball. You force the Steelers to play left handed with Mason Rudolph throwing the ball. It's something they don't want to have happen, but they will have to do it if you can build a quick lead.
03:41 [MUSIC]