Bengals Embracing Must-Win Nature of Thursday Night's Game Against Steelers

CINCINNATI – Mathematically, the Cincinnati Bengals are not facing a must-win Thursday night against the Pittsburgh Steelers.

But realistically, yeah, they are.

The Bengals have lost four in a row to fall to 2-4, and they trail the 4-1 Steelers by 2.5 games in the AFC North Division.

Falling 3.5 games behind before Halloween would kill any sensible hope for winning the division.

But Chapter 1 in the coaching Bible is to take it one game at a time and treat them all the same.

So how do the Bengals balance the added emphasis that needs to be placed on Thursday night’s game at Paycor with the wide lens view of the entire season?

“There's a lot of emphasis on this game,” head coach Zac Taylor said. “We're coming off the stretch we've come off of. We want to win. We're hungry for it. Our guys have worked for it.”

Despite the losing streak, the Bengals are in second place in the division, looking up only at the Steelers.

The Ravens and Browns are both 1-5.

“The division is where it is right now,” Taylor said. “As it stands, it's the top two teams, and you get a chance to knock them down a peg and put yourself up one. So our guys understand what's at stake, and it's big for us.

“We'll treat it as such, and guys got to get to work, and we've got to have a great performance by everybody.”

On Sept. 21, which was Week 3 of the season, the Steelers beat the New England Patriots 21-14 to improve to 2-1.

Since that day, Pittsburgh is 2-0 and the rest of the division is a combined 0-10.

If the Steelers win Thursday night, they could pass out 2025 AFC North champion T-shirts and hats and without too much fear of karma reversing their fate.

And forget the math. A win would be huge for the Bengals simply to stop the losing streak and instill some hope that Joe Flacco can help the team win games after his encouraging second-half performance Sunday against the Packers.

“Obviously, we are in a rough stretch right now. There is no getting around that,” Bengals offensive coordinator Dan Pitcher said. “But we still believe collectively we can get to where we want to go. We know we have our work cut out for us.”

If the Steelers win Thursday night, they will have no worse than a 3.5-game lead in the division, regardless of what the Browns do Sunday.

Since the NFL went to the current division alignment, there have 13 teams who led their division by at least three games through Week 7.

Eleven of them held on to capture the division championship.

The two exceptions are the 2009 Broncos, who were 6-0 after seven weeks and led the Raiders (3-3) by three games.

Denver went on to lose eight of its final 10 games to finish 8-8 and miss the playoffs, while the Chargers cruised to the AFC West title at 13-3.

And in 2003, the Vikings went 6-0 through seven weeks to open a 3.5-game lead on the Packers (3-4), but Minnesota lost its next four and finished 9-7 to miss the postseason.

Green Bay won the NFC North at 10-6.

No AFC North team has ever led the division by at least three games through seven weeks.

“It’s young in the season,” Pitcher said. “Me, personally, I’m very much in the mindset of we have a bunch of one-week seasons. Yeah, if you zoom out and try to project the outcome of this game on the ultimate opportunity to get where we want to go, certainly it’s an important game.

“But I am personally not feeling the burden of that as much as getting ready to play a really good defense on Thursday night and all the other things that will result from the outcome of this game.”