After beating the Buffalo Bills on Sunday, the Pittsburgh Steelers will now get ready to close out their 2016 regular season schedule with three consecutive games against teams in their AFC North division. First up for the Steelers next Sunday will be a road game against the Cincinnati Bengals. According to VegasInsider.com, the Steelers opened up as 3-point road favorites over the Bengals.
While the Steelers beat the Bills Sunday, the Bengals were busy beating the Cleveland Browns 23-10 on the road. In that game, Bengals quarterback Andy Dalton completed 20 of his 28 total pass attempts for 180 yards with two touchdowns and no interceptions. Tight end Tyler Eifert was on the receiving end of both of those scoring tosses and he finished the game with 5 receptions for 48 yards.
The Bengals running game was clicking Sunday against the Browns as well as the Cincinnati offense amassed 213 yards on 38 attempts. Running back Jeremy Hill led the way with 111 yards on 25 carries and he scored once on the ground from one-yard out. Hill also caught 3 passes in the game for another 31 yards.
While the Bengals defense did allow the Browns offense to rush for 169 yards on Sunday, they didn’t give up much through the air as Cleveland quarterback Robert Griffin III completed just 12 of his 28 total pass attempts in the game for a measly 104 yards. The Bengals defense sacked Griffin three times and intercepted him once.
The 5-7-1 Bengals will likely will be without wide receiver A.J. Green against the Steelers. Green has missed the past two games with a hamstring injury. We’ll learn more about his status as the week progresses.
As far as weather potentially being a factor in Cincinnati, early forecast call for it to be mainly cloudy on Sunday with snow showers around in the morning. The expected high Sunday in Cincinnati is currently 27F and there’s a 40% chance of snow.
While Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger has had his struggles on the road this season, he normally plays well in Cincinnati. Including the playoffs, Roethlisberger is 12-2 all-time in games played in Cincinnati. In those 14 games, he’s thrown 20 touchdown passes while being intercepted 9 times.
During the Week 2 meeting between the Steelers and Bengals, Roethlisberger completed just 19 of his 37 total pass attempts in the game for 259 yards. While he did throw 3 touchdown passes in that contest, he was intercepted twice in the Steelers 24-16 home win.
The over/under for the week 15 game between the Steelers and Bengals opened at 45-points.
