Seldom does a game live up to its hype, but the general feeling during the 10-day build-up to the Week 12 match-up between the Steelers and Bengals at Paul Brown Stadium on Sunday was that things would likely look very ugly.
You knew it would be ugly on Cincinnati’s side, thanks to its 0-10 record, but the Steelers figured to turn in some less-than stellar play as well.
Why? In addition to the inexperienced Mason Rudolph coming off his worst performance as an NFL quarterback in a 21-7 loss to the Browns on November 14, Pittsburgh’s offense would go into the game dealing with key injuries—receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster and running back James Conner were both ruled out—and the three-game suspension of center Maurkice Pouncey.