Steelers hold Bengals to 19 yards in second half
PITTSBURGH — JuJu Smith- Schuster hid his eyes, counted to 10 and went looking for Le’Veon Bell.
The Pittsburgh Steelers rookie wide receiver found his team’s star running back crouching behind the goalpost, then proceeded to chase Bell all the way to the sideline as part of a hastily planned touchdown celebration.
“That was just us being dramatic,” Bell said with a smile. In a good way for once. Smith-Schuster never did catch Bell, by the way. Now he knows how the rest of the AFC North feels about the surging Steelers.
Ben Roethlisberger threw for 224 yards and two scores, Bell added 192 total yards, and Pittsburgh’s defense dominated the Cincinnati Bengals in the second half of a 29-14 victory on Sunday.
A bit of a hot mess after getting upset at home by Jacksonville two weeks ago, the Steelers ( 5- 2) have figured things out quickly.
They shut down Kansas City on the road last Sunday and followed it up by suffocating Cincinnati in the second half to move into a tie for the AFC’s best record as their once- again promising season nears the midway point.
Pittsburgh held the Bengals (2-4) to 19 yards the final two quarters, intercepting Andy Dalton twice and sacking him four times.
Cincinnati came in looking to add some street cred to their resurgence after their 0-3 start, but instead spent the second half reverting to the kind of ineffective offense that got Ken Zampese fired two weeks into the season. Dalton finished 17 of 30 for 140 yards and the two picks while playing on a twisted ankle.
Dalton’s final pass symbolized a frustrating afternoon. Facing fourth down and trailing by two scores with five minutes left, Dalton scrambled to his left and then simply threw the ball away to seal Cincinnati’s loss.
“Any time you lose a division game, especially to the Steelers, the way they’re playing, every game counts,” said Bengals wide receiver A.J. Green after being held to three receptions for 41 yards. “It’s tough. It sets us behind even more.”
Two weeks after openly questioning whether he still “had it,” Roethlisberger put together easily his best half of the season. He hit Antonio Brown for a 7-yard touchdown to cap Pittsburgh’s first drive, found a wideopen Smith-Schuster for a 31-yard score in the second quarter and threw a perfectly placed 23-yard deep out to Brown late in the second quarter to spark a drive that ended with a 24-yard Chris Boswell field goal that put the Steelers up 20-14 at the half.
Dalton and Cincinnati appeared ready to keep pace early. He connected with Brandon LaFell and Tyler Kroft for first-half touchdowns, but when the Steelers turned the pressure up, the Bengals crumbled.
Cincinnati managed just one first down in the second half, much of which Dalton spent on the run or throwing into trouble. Joe Haden collected his first interception with Pittsburgh when he made a juggling grab that set up a field goal by Boswell. William Gay added one later in the third quarter on an ugly overthrow by Dalton.
Smith-Schuster’s joyous game of hideand-seek turned out to be Bell’s brainchild. He approached SmithSchuster, who at 20 is the NFL’s youngest player, about 10 minutes before kickoff with the idea.
“We didn’t practice it or nothing,” said Bell, a Groveport grad. “It just kind of happened.”