Cincinnati Bengals
Mission impossible without Green
The Bengals are struggling without star wide receiver A.J. Green and it has cost them their AFC North division lead as they were embarrassed by the Indianapolis Colts 27-0 on Sunday.
Falling to 3-2-1 on the season, the Bengals offense was shutout for the first time since December of 2009 as Indy limited Dalton to just 126 yards on 18 completions. It’s clear that the offense revolves around Green despite putting up over 500 yards of offense against Carolina the week before. His status for this Sunday is up in the air as the Bengals host the Ravens.
“I think that’s kind of an obvious question. When you don’t have one of your better players, it’s a difficult thing when you don’t score points, but you can’t use that as an excuse. We didn’t play well enough across the board.” ~ Bengals head coach Marvin Lewis on not having Green.
Week 8 keys
The Bengals will shift focus to a Baltimore Ravens team that is firing on all cylinders having won five of their last six games.
If Green is unable to go again on Sunday and the Bengals struggle against a Ravens pass defense that’s ranks 24th in the league, the big cats will be in trouble. It isn’t impossible to run against the Ravens, but they have certainly been stout against the ground game allowing opposing rushers 87.4 yards a game on average, good for 7th best in the league.
Cleveland Browns
Just when you think they may have turned it around…they do Browns things.
Things were certainly on the uptick for a Browns team that was looking to create some noise in the AFC North. That ended on Sunday as the Browns failed to take advantage of a bad Jacksonville Jaguars team. Falling to 3-3 and last place in the division, the Browns tasted what life was like without veteran standout center Alex Mack. They lost him for the season last week after he suffered broken left fibula forcing the team to shift right tackle John Greco to center.
“He’s the best center in football — yes, that hurts,” said receiver Andrew Hawkins said of Mack courtesy of ESPN.com. “But we know John is an incredible lineman. He’s underrated, honestly. I thought he played pretty well today for it being his first game at center against one of the toughest run defenses in the NFL. We’ll build off that and we’ll rally around John.”
Week 8 keys
Heading in to their week 8 match-up against the Oakland Raiders, the Browns will need to take advantage of Oakland’s 29th ranked run defense.
The Browns running back corps consisting of Ben Tate, Isaiah Crowell, Terrence West combined for just 62 rushing yards on 28 attempts. The loss of Mack has been crucial and if the Browns hope to right the ship at home this week, quarterback Brian Hoyer is going to have to step up sooner rather than later before the division is out of reach.
Pittsburgh Steelers
The black and yellow continue to hang around
Just when you thought the Steelers were heading down another road to defeat, they took advantage of a sloppy Texans offense to overcome a 10-point deficit prior to halftime and never looked back to improve to 4-3 on the season.
Running back Le’Veon Bell continues to be a viable threat for a Steelers offense that seemingly lacks playmakers outside of Bell and wide receiver Antonio Brown. Bell rushed for 57 yards on 12 carries but wreaked havoc on the Texans as a pass receiver, snaring 8 passes for 88 yards and 1 touchdown.
“We don’t want to be satisfied with the way we played. It was good, but there are definitely things that we can do better,” Bell told reporters following the game. “We didn’t get our goal this week in not turning the ball over, and we did settle down with the penalties, but we can’t turn the ball over. We missed assignments, had a sack in the red zone, so there are some things we can do better.”
Week 8 keys
Pittsburgh will certainly have their work cut out for them when they host Indianapolis on Sunday afternoon. The Colts bring to town the league’s best passing offense (329.6 ypg) that is averaging 30.9 points per contest and 452.9 yards per game, something the Steelers secondary will have trouble containing.
If the Steelers have any chance of winning on Sunday they will need constant pressure on Andrew Luck from their defensive front who have recorded just 10 sacks to date.
On the opposite side of the football Pittsburgh needs to contain a fierce Colts pass rush, something both the Ravens and Bengals had trouble with when they faced Chuck Pagano’s defense. To make matters worse, Pittsburgh has given up 20 sacks to opposing defenses so far in 2014.
Follow me on Twitter @sportguyRSR
