It’s been a long time coming…
The Steelers scored 44 points this past Sunday in a win against the Cincinnati Bengals. Of the 195 games played so far in this NFL season, the Steelers 44 points was tied for the 7th highest scored by a team. In the 2024 season, the Steelers have the 12th most points at 296. That is 8 points fewer than last year’s Steelers scored in the entire season, and there are still 5 games to play! The win Sunday against the Bengals marked the first time the Steelers scored 44 or more points since 2018 when they defeated Carolina at home 52-21. The 520 yards of offense the Steelers tallied in the win was the first time since the playoff loss to Cleveland in 2021 (Ben Roethlisberger) and first time in the regular season since 2018. Russell Wilson threw for 414 yards in Cincinnati, which was the first time a Steelers quarterback did that since Big Ben in 2018. The Steelers also rushed for 110 yards, generated 28 first downs, ran 66 plays with only 1 punt, and scored 4 touchdowns. For those of us that have been watching the Steelers for a long time, this type of offensive day was truly “a long time coming.” Sometimes it takes watching a game like this to realize how good we had it with Big Ben. Quality, efficient, and explosive quarterback play is hard to come by in the NFL. This is probably why the best in the game are compensated in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The Steelers are paying Russell Wilson approximately 1 million dollars this season (most of his contracted money is being paid by Denver). Nevertheless, this past Sunday was a masterclass in quarterback play but also a beauty to watch from play calling, blocking, execution, and scheme. The Steelers came in with the perfect offensive game plan, they executed it, and the results showed in the stats/scoreboard. Now, let’s address the elephant in the room: The Cincinnati defense is uniquely bad and played uniquely bad in this game; however, what should good teams do to bad defenses? They should score 44 points on them utilizing the pass and the run. That is exactly what the Steelers did on Sunday. Do I think the Steelers are going to score 40 plus points in each of their next 5 games? No. Do I think this offense, with this quarterback, these playmakers, this offensive coordinator, and this level of confidence can score 40 points in each of those 5 games? Yes. I think this team steps on the gas in December and I, for one, am glad the wait might be over to have this consistently.