The Bengals Must Show They’re the BEST Team in the AFC North on Sunday Night...

James Rapien (0:00)

The Bengals play the Steelers on Sunday night, and I have been crystal clear, the Bengals should have won in week three. Will they get their revenge? Will they move into first place in the AFC North? Let's dive on in to a Sunday night football edition of Bengals Steelers right now on Cincinnati Bengals Talk.

Hi again, everyone, and welcome in to CBT. I'm James Rapien of bengalstalk.com. Hit that subscribe button, ring the bell, and let's get to it because it's Bengals, it's Steelers, it's prime time, it's first place in the AFC North race. It's a chance for the Bengals to show everyone that they are that team, that they are a number one seed possibility. You lose number one seed ideas and thoughts. Well, they're going to get the hell out of my head. You win five straight wins and just like that, you are right there, not just number one in the division, but clear cut the favorite in the division and one of the teams in the running for the number one seed in the AFC. So that's what it is for me. Like six in three with two losses to the Steelers and the Steelers moving a game ahead of you and holding the tiebreaker feels a lot different. Does it mean you can't win the division? I do think it means you're not going to get the number one seed. That being said, there's a lot of matchups in this one that I think are really, really interesting and a lot of storylines. In the first one, let's just start with the quarterbacks. Joe Burrow is playing like an MVP.

Joe Burrow is playing awesome. Earlier this week, Joe Burrow is asked, is this the best ball you've played in your career or around it? And he said, pretty close, pretty close.

He needs to keep leveling up. He does. And keep playing at the level he's playing at. And it's going to be really hard to do that this week against the Pittsburgh Steelers defensive front. This is where this game starts and ends for me every time, including in Pittsburgh. Now, it didn't really because of the special teams issues, the running into the punter, the fumbled punt, like all those things, but that's it. If this offensive front holds up and keeps Joe Burrow clean enough for him to do his thing, the Bengals are going to win the game. I'm confident in saying that. Maybe not. Maybe they shoot themselves in the foot or have some turnovers or fumble the ball or do whatever.

But that's where it really comes down to for me. We had Chris Collinsworth on First Word this week. He's obviously on the call for NBC Sports on Sunday night football. Chris was awesome and I really encourage you to check out this entire interview. If you're listening, check out the First Word audio platform. If you're listening on Spotify or Apple or wherever, well, you can check out this full thing there. Obviously you can check it out on YouTube as well at First Word. Sincy is the channel. But Chris made it very, very clear that the trenches, meaning this defensive front for the Steelers, is a pain in the rear end. And the Amarius Mims part of it is going to be a major, major factor in deciding Sunday's game.

Chris Collinsworth (3:11)

Amarius Mims has become that guy that can block one-on-one. And so when you do that, so now you take him one-on-one, and you take four guys to block three, or four, depending on what's happening.

The problem is that one-on-one this week is Amarius Mims against TJ. Watt. Now they will take TJ and move him over to the other side a little bit. But it is really, really difficult to say, I got TJ. Watt all day, and nothing's going to happen. Now, he did well against them the last time out. But for all the stuff we want to talk about, Aaron Rodgers and Joe Burrow and these receivers and all of that, I think that matchup may well decide the game. If they can truly leave Mims over there on TJ. Watt and help the rest of it, because Pittsburgh, they're a blitz-happy team. And man, they're so good at it. I think they had seven sacks or something against the Browns. And what you see is that in that game, the first three or four sacks that they had in the game, the guy who actually got the pressure, who got the initial pressure didn't get the sack. It was the next wave that came in and got them. And so it's challenging. It's really challenging to beat this defense.