The Steelers finished strong in a Week 11 loss to the Chargers and that created some hope that they would be able to put together a strong performance against the Bengals on Sunday.
Cincinnati didn’t take long to dash those hopes. They went up 10-0 in the first quarter and had a 24-3 lead when cornerback Mike Hilton picked off Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger and returned the interception for a touchdown with 30 seconds to play in the first half.
The 41-10 Bengals win dropped the Steelers to 5-5-1 on the season and 0-2-1 in their last three games. Linebacker T.J. Watt said the team has to draw a line in the sand now or the season will be lost.
“It wasn’t something any of us are proud of,” Watt said, via Brooke Pryor of ESPN.com. “You never want to have that feeling coming out of a game. We put it on tape and now we have to own it, move forward and know that everybody sees what just happened today and what we can expect moving forward. We have to stop this before it continues to unravel and become a bigger issue than what it already is. We can’t keep playing like this. It’s absolutely embarrassing.”
The Bengals ran for 198 yards and the Steelers have given up 586 rushing yards during the last three games. Defensive end Cam Heyward said it’s “probably” the worst defense he’s been part of in Pittsburgh and that the team “won’t win another damn game” unless they get things fixed.