PITTSBURGH (2-2-1) at CINCINNATI (4-1) from laiyongcai92's blog

Sunday Atlanta Falcons Hoodie , 1 p.m. ET, CBSOPENING LINE — Bengals by 2 RECORD VS. SPREAD — Pittsburgh 2-3, Cincinnati 4-1SERIES RECORD — Steelers lead 62-35LAST MEETING — Steelers beat Bengals 23-20, Dec. 4, 2017LAST WEEK — Steelers beat Falcons 41-17; Bengals beat Dolphins 27-17AP PRO32 RANKING — Steelers No. 12, Bengals No. 5STEELERS OFFENSE — OVERALL (8), RUSH (27), PASS (4).STEELERS DEFENSE — OVERALL (29), RUSH (15t), PASS (29).BENGALS OFFENSE — OVERALL (17), RUSH (23), PASS (15).BENGALS DEFENSE — OVERALL (25), RUSH (23), PASS (21).STREAKS, STATS AND NOTES — Steelers won last six in series, nine of 10 and 14 of 17. Bengals are 8-24 vs. Steelers under coach Marvin Lewis, including 2-15 at Paul Brown Stadium. ... Steelers overcame 17-0 deficit to win last meeting in Cincinnati. Ryan Shazier hurt spinal cord in game. Teams combined for four penalties for unnecessary roughness, one for unsportsmanlike conduct, one for taunting, one for roughing the passer, and two 15-yard penalties for grabbing facemask. Cincinnati set club record with 173 yards in penalties. ... QB Ben Roethlisberger is 24-4-1 in his native Ohio, including postseason. He's 13-2 at Paul Brown Stadium with 23 TDs, 10 INTs. ... Roethlisberger has three games with three TDs Customized Atlanta Falcons Jerseys , tied for most in NFL. ... RB James Conner ran for 110 yards and two TDs, had four catches for 75 yards in win over Atlanta. He joined Jim Brown as only players with two games in first five of season that included 100 yards rushing, 50 receiving and two TDs rushing. ... LB T.J. Watt had three sacks vs. Falcons, is tied with brother DE J.J. Watt and Bengals DT Geno Atkins for NFL lead with six sacks. ...WR Antonio Brown coming off first 100-yard game of season. Brown averaging 10.7 yards per catch, well below career average of 13.4 yards. ... K Chris Boswell struggling after reaching Pro Bowl last season. Boswell just 3 for 6 on field goals and 14 of 17 on extra points. ... Steelers ranked 29th in defense through five weeks. Team has finished worse than 20th in yards allowed just once since 1991 (21st in 2015). ... DE Michael Johnson had 22-yard INT return for TD and DE Sam Hubbard had 19-yard fumble return for TD in win over Dolphins, first time two Bengals defensive linemen scored in same game. Bengals' defense has three returns for TDs. ... Bengals overcame 17-point deficit for eighth time in club history to beat Dolphins. ... QB Andy Dalton is 3-11 vs. Steelers with 17 TDs, 13 INTs. ... Dalton needs 171 yards passing to move ahead of Boomer Esiason for second on team career list. ... WR A.J. Green has 62 receiving TDs, one shy of Carl Pickens for second on team list. ... Fantasy tip: Conner looking for another big game against defense that has trouble covering multipurpose back. Miami's Kenyan Drake had seven catches for 69 yards, including 22-yard TD, to go along with six runs for 46 yards. Heading into the break between the 1993 regular season and the bowls, the public was unhappy. At first glance, it might be difficult to see why.This had been, after all, a rousing year. Just about every time two top-10 teams had met, they played a classic, from No. 5 Tennessee vs. No. 9 Florida early on (the Gators won, 41-34) to No. 9 WVU vs. No. 4 Miami late (the Mountaineers won, 17-14, to stay unbeaten). Plus, we had plenty of silliness, like unranked Michigan State beating No. 9 Michigan (that might seem familiar), a loss that set up unranked Michigan destroying No. 5 Ohio State (which might seem less familiar).In between the zaniness were two legendary November contests, both of which involved Lou Holtz’s Fighting Irish.On November 13 www.authenticsatlantafalcons.com , second-ranked Notre Dame hosted top-ranked Florida State. It was an all-time classic. The Irish went on a 24-0 run and led by 14 well into the fourth quarter, but FSU came back, scoring on a tipped, fourth-and-20 pass from Charlie Ward to Kez McCorvey to cut the Notre Dame lead to 31-24. The Seminoles got the ball back and drove to the Irish 14 with three seconds left.Shawn Wooden’s deflection of a pass to Warrick Dunn gave the Irish the win. But that was alright — it felt like merely Chapter 1 in the era’s proto-BCS system. From Sports Illustrated’s Austin Murphy:The thought of a rematch was new to college football, but this was a time for imagination.The Supreme Court’s famed NCAA v. Board of Regents of Oklahoma ruling in 1984 had opened the television floodgates, and in the name of fairness revenue, the sport’s minds were making changes, including a conference realignment frenzy.In the late-1980s, the College Football Association — originally formed to help programs negotiate with networks for TV deals — had begun to investigate the possibility of a (TV-driven) college football playoff. Many people had wanted it for decades, and only more so in the early-1990s, with split national titles in back-to-back seasons (Georgia Tech and Colorado in 1990, Miami and Washington in 1991).In 1992, the Bowl Coalition formed to assure better matchups. It didn’t include the Big Ten and Pac-10, which were married to the Rose Bowl, but in 1992 it had produced No. 1 Miami vs. No. 2 Alabama and No. 4 Texas A&M vs. No. 5 Notre Dame. This was seen as definitive progress.In 1993, however, came a lesson in the drawbacks of what amounted to a two-team playoff.Even as FSU fell to only No. 2 in the polls following the tight road loss to new No. 1 Notre Dame, 10-0 Nebraska lurked at No. 3, with unbeaten No. 5 Ohio State (9-0-1), No. 6 Auburn (10-0), and No. 9 West Virginia (9-0) behind. Being assured of a No. 1 vs. No. 2 battle was great, but no one was going to be satisfied with just that in 1993.That became doubly true when Notre Dame lost to Boston College.Three teams finished the regular season unbeaten, and none were FSU or Notre Dame. When the Bowl Coalition mashed poll rankings together Atlanta Falcons T-Shirt , it produced a No. 1 vs. No. 2 matchup of FSU-Nebraska in the Orange Bowl. Undefeated West Virginia would get rocked by No. 8 Florida in the Sugar Bowl. Unbeaten Auburn was banned from the postseason. And No. 4 Notre Dame would play No. 7 Texas A&M in the Cotton Bowl. So Holtz would spend most of the bowl break politicking.To those sympathetic and unsympathetic to Notre Dame alike, this stunk. A world of possibility was opening, and this sport was still settling its title in the least satisfying way possible. The Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel’s Randall Mell:With a blowout over A&M and the narrowest of FSU victories over Nebraska, Notre Dame might have been able to swing the polls. But the Irish only eked by the Aggies, 24-21. So when a late Nebraska field goal came up short, it clinched the Seminoles’ No. 1 ranking.Twenty-five years later, the season is noted mainly for two classics and Bowden’s first title. But at the time, no one outside of Tallahassee was particularly satisfied. It was clear that college football was capable of a great national race, but college presidents remained stubborn.If you needed an ivory-tower villain to rail against, college football was still the standard. Here’s the San Francisco Examiner’s Ray Ratto after FSU’s Orange Bowl win:The story, of course, has a happy ending. After 1993, it would only take a Bowl Coalition, a Bowl Alliance, a Bowl Championship Series, a BCS formula modified to the point of parody, an all-SEC national title game, and a couple decades of increasingly amplified complaints for college football to establish a system that only screws half of FBS instead of 90 percent.At this rate, we’ll figure out the amateurism issue by 2055 at the very latest.