The Steelers will travel to Cincinnati on Sunday to open their season against the defending conference champion Bengals. Here are five things to know about the AFC North rival.
Protection should be better — Joe Burrow drew rave reviews for a breakout season in 2021, but he also paid for it dearly. The second-year product of LSU was sacked a league-leading 70 times, which caused the front office to invest heavily in better blocking this offseason. Former Dallas Cowboy La'el Collins was a big prize. The acclaimed pass blocker was added at right tackle on a three-year deal worth $30 million. Then former Tampa Bay guard Alex Cappa and New England center Ted Karras were signed to bolster the interior of the line. So that’s three new faces out of five in front of Burrow. The Bengals hope the moves will give Burrow consistently more time to find his many dangerous targets downfield and take his stats from impressive to MVP-caliber.
Secondary, too — This was the other area where the front office invested a lot of capital after the defense ranked 26th in pass defense in 2021, allowing an average of 248.4 yards through the air per game. Corner Eli Apple was brought back on a one-year deal. Then the team’s first two picks in the draft were devoted to defensive backs. Safety Daxton Hill of Michigan was selected with the 31st overall pick. Then Cam Taylor-Britt was added from Nebraska at No. 60, giving this draft class a potent 1-2 punch in the secondary. Hill has since shined in the preseason, racking up an impressive pick in Week 2. He will push Vonn Bell and Jessie Bates for playing time and probably move around in sub-packages like he did with the Wolverines. Taylor-Britt, meanwhile, will start the season on injured reserve, but the Bengals seem to like his potential to contribute whenever he’s activated at some point after Week 4.
Hayden Hurst is the new name at tight end — The Bengals have had some good ones in recent years, including C.J. Uzomah, who stepped up to be an important piece of a team that reached the Super Bowl. That stellar performance led him right out of town, though, as he signed a lucrative deal with the New York Jets. Enter Hurst, a familiar name for those in the fantasy football ranks. The former Baltimore Raven and Atlanta Falcon improved his receiving totals in each of his first three seasons from 2018 to 2020, when he had his best season in Atlanta: 56 receptions for 571 yards and six touchdowns. Last year, however, was a noticeable step back to 26 catches for just 221 yards and three scores. For that reason, he was available to the Bengals at a discount, and they hope he can outperform his one-year deal with a bounce-back campaign while adding some additional protection for Burrow, as well.
It looks like Tee Higgins will play — The standout receiver has been nursing a shoulder injury through the latter portions of the preseason. He returned to practice Monday, though, a pretty strong signal he’ll be available Sunday afternoon at Paycor Stadium. Good news for the third-year target who broke through the 1,000-yard threshold for the first time in 2021, nabbing 74 of 110 targets for 1,091 yards and six touchdowns. That comes out to an impressive average of 14.7 yards per catch. And this despite the presence of uber-productive rookie teammate Ja’Marr Chase, who quickly established himself as one of the league’s top receivers with over 1,400 yards and 13 scores. The Steelers will hope they can slow at least one of them down, though that proved to be a struggle in the case of Higgins last year. He torched Pittsburgh for eight catches, 114 yards and a touchdown last Nov. 28 to help the Bengals cruise to a 41-10 win.
Joe Mixon has been in bubble wrap — Unlike the Steelers’ Najee Harris, the Bengals’ standout runner did not receive a single carry in the preseason. And that’s understandable considering his career-best campaign in 2021: 1,205 yards and 13 touchdowns on the ground plus 42 catches for 314 yards and three scores through the air. The result was his first Pro Bowl selection in five seasons. Now he enters Year 6 fully healthy and hopes to help push Cincinnati’s running game higher. Despite his individual success, the Bengals finished 23rd in football with an average of 102.5 rushing yards per game in 2021. That put them less than 10 yards ahead of the Steelers, who posted some of the worst rushing stats in the league.
Adam Bittner: abittner@post-gazette.com and Twitter @fugimaster24.
First Published: September 7, 2022, 9:30 a.m.
Updated: September 7, 2022, 10:38 a.m.