Quite frankly, you wouldn’t to be a Cincinnati Bengal tonight.  Perhaps if Joe Burrow was still able to play, but without his presence this Monday Night Football (MNF) game is looking a bit like Bambi versus Godzilla.  Big Ben Roethlisberger got beat last week by the Buffalo Bills by a score of 26-15 and threw for only 183 yards, so, you can’t really call him Godzilla, but the Pittsburgh Steelers team as a whole is just, man for man, better than what the Bengals are putting on the field.

Steelers Have Easy Night In MNF

Cincinnati has scored a grand total of 50 points in their last five games; you can’t win in the NFL scoring just ten points per game.  Sure, they lost their number-one draft pick quarterback, but football is a team sport and tradition dictates that, when a man goes down to injury, it’s next man up and the game goes on, unless we are talking about Cincinnati.  They will need to do some serious wheeling and dealing during the draft and the offseason to make this right.  They’ll have to spend some money too, or else it is going be 2-10-1 again.

Add to that the fact that the Steelers are mad since losing their last two games, to the Washington Football Team and Buffalo, during a stretch when Pittsburgh played three NFL games in just 12 days.  They must be bummed out, but they have had an extra days rest to get ready for the MNF game with the Bengals.  It is just possible that the Steelers are going to come out tonight breathing fire and the poor Bengals are going to be in for it.

Odds Expect Low-scoring Game

The Over/Under is just 40.5 and it is just possible that Roethlisberger get to that low number all by himself.  The Steelers should have no problem covering the 14 points that the oddsmakers in Las Vegas have put on the Bengals for the game tonight.

To make matters worse for Cincinnati, backup quarterback Brandon Allen, who came in when Joe Burrow got hurt, now has banged up his knee and will watch this one from the bench as Ryan Finley, now in his second year out of North Carolina State, will get the start tonight. Finley played in three games last season and was less than impressive, but then so is most of the rest of the Bengals team.

The Pittsburgh Steelers looked unstoppable during their opening 11 game winning streak. They have already clinched the team’s first playoff berth since 2017.

Steelers Lock In On AFC North Title

Should they manage to beat the Bengals tonight, the Steelers will win the AFC North title and have at least one home playoff game at Heinz Field.  That is yet another reason that the Steelers are going to look like the Steelers of old tonight and take it out on the hapless Bengals, but hey, that’s pro football.

Pittsburg will finish out the season with the 9-4 Indianapolis Colts and the 9-4 Cleveland Browns and either one of those games could be dangerous for Big Ben and company. Going up against Phillip Rivers and Baker Mayfield back to back will be a challenge for the Steelers and they could possibly drop one or both games if something goes wrong.

Usually with the Steelers, that means something is wrong with Roethlisberger so keep a close check on the injury reports before placing your wagers on those two games.