Winners and Losers From Cincinnati Bengals' 16-10 Loss to Pittsburgh Steelers

The Bengals lost to the Steelers 16-10 on Sunday at Paycor Stadium. Here are our winners and losers:

Winners

Myles Murphy

The Bengals first round pick has had an impressive stretch of games recently, and he kept the streak going against the Steelers with a sack.

Murphy had a slow start to the season, but his past couple games are a great sign for his development.

Ja’Marr Chase

It wasn’t the usual Ja’Marr Chase performance with Joe Burrow out, but he still had some incredible plays. Chase caught four passes for 81 yards, two of which were deflections that he was able to get his hands on and make a play.

The sights are on next season when Burrow returns and his connection with Chase will be the main factor in this offense.

DJ Turner II

DJ Turner had yet another impressive performance with a fumble recovery and two big pass deflections. It’s early, but it’s looking like the Bengals nailed their second round pick.

Cam Taylor-Britt was out against the Steelers, but Turner and Taylor-Britt could be a great cornerback duo for years to come.

Losers

Jake Browning

There aren’t a lot of expectations for Jake Browning, but the Bengals would have liked to see a better performance out of the back-up against the Steelers. Browning often looked uncomfortable in the pocket and took a few unnecessary sacks instead of throwing the ball away or taking a short gain. 

After this loss, the Bengals don’t have much to lose the rest of the season, so it would be nice to see Browning take more risks and try to move the ball around downfield to his talented receivers.

Brad Robbins

The Bengals rookie punter has made this list a few times this season, as he hasn’t been impressive so far. They clearly wanted more hang time out of a punter by using a draft pick on Robbins, and even though he gets some solid hang time, he doesn’t have the distance and accuracy needed out of an NFL punter. Cincinnati was able to rely on Kevin Huber for a long time, but they might already need to find another punter after moving on from Drue Chrisman last season.

Bengals Defense

The Steelers were on a 58 game streak of not gaining 400+ yards going into this game which dated back to 2020. Pittsburgh broke that streak against the Bengals defense on Sunday.

The Steelers offense is pretty rough, but the Bengals were unable to shut them down. Despite only giving up 16 points, the Bengals needed a stronger defensive performance against the Steelers, especially with a backup quarterback on their offense.

Joe Mixon

The Bengals running back wasn’t able to get much going against the Steelers on Sunday, finishing with 16 rushing yards. With a backup quarterback in, the Bengals needed a lot more out of their running game to help their offense and they couldn’t get it done.

Mixon did have an impressive gain on a screen pass late in the game, but he only averaged two yards per carry.

The Bengals running game has struggled all year, and if Mixon and the other backs can’t get more consistent gains, it’s going to be a long end of the season with Browning at quarterback.