Airing of Grievances: Lousy Steelers defense manifests Mike Tomlin's fears about Joe Flacco

After the Cincinnati Bengals upset the Pittsburgh Steelers 33-31 on “Thursday Night Football,” Joe Flacco was conducting an interview on the field with the Prime Video network team.

While Flacco was speaking, a large group of remaining fans started chanting “Thank-you, Cleve-land!” over and over again.

As Steelers coach Mike Tomlin was walking away from his postgame interview session, I’m sure he was muttering something else about Cleveland, but I bet the word “thank” wasn’t involved.

Indeed, all of Tomlin’s fears about Joe Flacco going to Cincinnati from Cleveland manifested Thursday night, and for the 13th time, he beat the Pittsburgh Steelers.

This time it occurred barely a week after arriving in Cincy. As for the Steelers, a month of goodwill has just been flushed down the toilet.

We’ll outline all the negatives to the defeat in this week’s “Airing of Grievances” after the Steelers’ first AFC North loss of the year.

Paranoia will destroy ya: Going back to his comments about Joe Flacco and Anthony Richardson in advance of his team’s game in Dublin three weeks ago, Steelers coach Mike Tomlin told on himself when it came to a level of concern about Flacco.

That concern turned into paranoia this week when he chastised Cleveland Browns general manager Andrew Berry for trading Flacco to Cincinnati.

The Steelers proceeded to play against Flacco as if they were paralyzed by fear over who was running the Bengals’ offense.

The Steelers acted like they were facing Joe Montana instead of Joe Flacco all week. As a result, Joe Flacco looked like Joe Montana dipped in Joe Burrow and rolled in Joe Namath.

And Ja’Marr Chase looked like Jerry Rice. He caught 16 passes on 23 targets for 161 yards and a touchdown.

Tee Higgins wasn’t bad either, posting a touchdown, 96 yards on six receptions and this catch to set up the game-winning field goal.

FLACCO DIME TO HIGGINS WHO MAKES A HIGH IQ PLAY ????

PITvsCIN on Prime Video
Also streaming on @NFLPlus pic.twitter.com/5kbBK0eoaO

— NFL (@NFL) October 17, 2025

Flacco finished with 342 yards and three touchdowns, completing 31 of 47 passes for a passer rating of 108.6

Oh, and he had this nifty run (yes, I said run) to pick up a first down and kill some clock in the fourth quarter.

JOESEPH VINCENT FLACCO.

PITvsCIN on Prime Video
Also streaming on @NFLPlus pic.twitter.com/CnVzQCxMLO

— NFL (@NFL) October 17, 2025

Flacco is now 13-13 lifetime against the Steelers, including postseason games. He will apparently live rent-free in Tomlin’s head for all eternity.

Related

• Joe Flacco, Bengals knock off Steelers with last-second field goal
• First Call: Ja'Marr Chase says Steelers 'did exactly what we were expecting'
• Bengals' 40-year-old Joe Flacco shines, ties record for most all-time QB wins vs. Steelers

Run game regression: Coming into the game, the Bengals were saddled with an NFL-worst rushing yards per game average of 56.7. That was almost 30 yards worse than any other team in football.

On Thursday, Cincinnati put up 142 yards on 23 attempts. Top back Chase Brown hadn’t exceeded 47 yards all year. He wound up with 108.

Chase Brown is LOOSE. Look at Ja'Marr get out and block ????

PITvsCIN on Prime Video
Also streaming on @NFLPlus pic.twitter.com/rUG5o2bi1B

— NFL (@NFL) October 17, 2025

At one point in the fourth quarter during the broadcast, Kirk Herbstreit pointed out that Cincy was averaging 11 yards per carry on first-and-10 runs.

The Steelers’ rush defense had become a punchline around these parts based on its failures at the end of the 2024 season. That carried over through the first three weeks of 2025 when they yielded 418 rushing yards to the Jets, Seahawks and Patriots (139.3 yards allowed per game).

Minnesota and Cleveland averaged just 67.5 yards over the last two games, and it looked like the Steelers’ defense may have gotten over its run-game trauma.

So much for that notion.

In all, the Steelers allowed 470 yards.

Big plays went away: The big-play defensive players were largely absent in this game. The Bengals ran 72 plays. Not counting kneel downs, Steelers defenders created no turnovers, just two sacks and three tackles for a loss.

T.J. Watt had one tackle with half a sack. He was getting shut out until late in the fourth quarter. He split that sack with Heyward, who only had two solo tackles. The allegedly vaunted pass rush — that delivered 16 quarterback hits and six sacks last week — got to an immobile Flacco behind a leaky offensive line just twice for sacks (Keeanu Benton had the other one).

The Nick Herbig Pro Bowl push certainly took a hit. He had just one solo tackle, no sacks and just one quarterback hit.

Derrick Harmon was a real spark for his first few weeks back from injury, but not on Thursday. The rookie defensive tackle managed just two tackles and had a goose egg besides that.

The reconfigured secondary, which was allegedly built with stopping Higgins and Chase in mind, was roasted all night. Jalen Ramsey, Darius Slay and Joey Porter Jr. took turns getting gashed.

The Steelers also created no turnovers. The Bengals have a league-leading 11 giveaways.

Cincinnati was 8-for-15 on conversion downs, and the Bengals held onto the ball for 34 minutes, 32 seconds.

On offense, Aaron Rodgers was able to hit Pat Freiermuth for a 68-yard touchdown, and DK Metcalf had a 39-yard reception. But Metcalf was quiet after that, going for just two more catches and 11 more yards.

Keep it simple: It’s pretty clear the Steelers’ offense doesn’t do “tricky” well.

After scoring on the opening drive, the offense botched a flea-flicker attempt on the second drive. It looked like Aaron Rodgers tried to “alert” out of it at the line of scrimmage, and Warren carried out the play anyway.

That stalled the drive, and the Steelers had to punt. After the game Rodgers said, “It wasn’t supposed to be a flea flicker. We weren’t on the same page.” However, Tomlin was also asked if a flea flicker was called, and the coach answered, “It was.”

On the next drive, the Steelers marched 11 plays and 55 yards. But then, on a fourth-and-1, the Steelers tried their version of an Eagles “tush push”

Connor Heyward took the snap. Rodgers did nothing but watch as Darnell Washington and a back shoved Heyward forward.

It worked in Ireland. It didn’t work Thursday. Offensive lineman Mason McCormick started early. The Steelers were whistled for a false start. They had to settle for a field goal to make it 10-0.

That was a lead they’d eventually blow in spectacular fashion.

Maybe they should’ve just given the ball to Jaylen Warren more often since he posted 127 rushing yards on just 16 carries (7.9 yards per touch).

First-half flag fest: The Steelers entered the game as the 31st team in total penalties. Only Atlanta had fewer.

However, Tomlin’s team racked up 10 last week, despite the coach’s warnings about how flag-happy that crew tended to be. Then they totaled seven Thursday with another crew that had a pretty clear scouting report of whistling infractions heavily. Six came in the first half.

Much like last year in Cincinnati, when Porter got six penalty flags, Steelers defensive backs were in the crosshairs again. Porter got hit twice more. Ramsey drew two as well.

The Steelers were much cleaner after halftime, committing just one infraction, but the penalties over the first 30 minutes were costly.