It wasn’t pretty the last time the Pittsburgh Steelers played the Cincinnati Bengals. In his second game with the team, Joe Flacco lit up the Steelers for 342 yards and three touchdowns. That wasn’t even the biggest story either. Instead, it was Ja’Marr Chase, who torched Pittsburgh for 16 receptions, 161 yards, and a touchdown.
Former Super Bowl-champion cornerback Aqib Talib thinks it will be different this time around.
“They not [gonna] let Ja’Marr have 25, 23 targets, no, it’s not gonna happen,” said Talib on a recent episode of The Arena. “The coordinator let that shit happen. I guarantee you the coordinator is going in there like ‘Bro, he will not throw the ball 23 times this week. I’ll make sure of that.’”
That would certainly be a positive for the Steelers, but it may be easier said than done. Pittsburgh is running out a depleted secondary on Sunday, missing starters DeShon Elliott and Darius Slay. On top of that, the Steelers didn’t exactly look great last week against the Chargers’ lower-tier passing offense. Not to mention that Chase has been on a heater since Flacco took over at quarterback, averaging 114 yards on 12 receptions a game.
Still, maybe Teryl Austin can come up with something to slow him down. They are potentially adding Asante Samuel Jr. to the mix, and, frankly, James Pierre has been better in his limited time playing this season than Slay. I know Pro Football Focus is often criticized, but this season Slay has earned a grade of 57.4, while Pierre is all the way up at 90.4. Couple that with some planning, and Talib believes Chase will play a smaller overall role in this game.
“You can make a quarterback throw it to the other side, and I guarantee you that’s what Pittsburgh will do on Sunday,” said Talib.
Talbi was quick to say that instead of Chase getting all those targets, maybe it’s Tee Higgins. Still not a good outcome considering how good Higgins is, but at least it’s not Chase, so Talib says.
He noted that he believes Flacco is due to have two turnovers in the game. If that comes to be true and the Steelers can negate the presence of Chase, they should have a better chance of slowing down the Bengals’ offense and leaving Pittsburgh with a win.
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