CINCINNATI -- This was a butt-kicking contest. The Bengals provided the foot. And the Steelers provided their butts. Again. And again. And again.
Having beaten the Steelers by 14 earlier this season at Heinz Field, the Bengals were looking for their first series sweep of Pittsburgh since 2009. They also were looking for their first three-game winning streak against their AFC North rivals since 1988 through 1990, when both were still members of the AFC Central Division.
The Bengals accomplished that, and did so in fine fashion.
Joe Mixon had a career-high 165 yards and scored a pair of touchdowns as the Bengals rolled over the Steelers, 41-10, Sunday at Paul Brown Stadium.
Cincinnati (7-4) rushed for 125 yards in the first half, as Mixon had 20 carries for 117 yards in the first two quarters. The Bengals finished with 198 rushing yards on 38 carries, marking the third straight Steelers opponent to go for 159 rushing yards or more against them.
But in those previous games -- a tie against the Lions and a 41-37 loss to the Chargers -- the Steelers had risen up and gotten some stops after hemorrhaging yards at times. In this one, it was a long, slow bleeding the Steelers (5-5-1) were unable to stop from the start.
"You know, it's alarming. It is," Mike Tomlin conceded. "We're not trying to play it cool by any stretch. We don't play football like that, but we have been our last couple of weeks, so some adjustments need to be made."
Whatever adjustments the Steelers made in this game didn't work. The Bengals just kept pounding away with their running game from the second offensive play of the first quarter, when Mixon broke off a 25-yard run.
Mixon might not have gotten 25 yards every play as he did on that one, but he just kept chipping away. Seven yards here, 11 there. And by the time the Bengals finished off their first possession with an 8-yard touchdown run by quarterback Joe Burrow, getting around Alex Highsmith after the Steelers linebacker beat left tackle Jonah Williams with an inside move, the die was cast.
"I’m not going to make excuses," said Cam Heyward, who started this game at nose tackle in place of Isaiah Buggs, who was deactivated, in an effort to shore up run defense.
"We sucked out there. We dropped the ball."
The Bengals did not. Ben Roethlisberger's second pass of the game was an attempt at a deep pass down the sideline to Chase Claypool, who the Steelers obviously felt had an advantage working against corner Eli Apple.
The Steelers would test that matchup several times, with Roethlisberger and Claypool actually connecting on passes of 41 and 30 yards, but on this occasion, the quarterback and receiver weren't on the same page. Roethlisberger attempted to throw a back-shoulder ball to Claypool, who had gained inside leverage on Apple.
The result was disastrous.
"I had to step up in the pocket and let go of it sooner than I wanted," said Roethlisberger. "It was a double move. I let go of it like he was going to go outside of it. It wasn't the wrong route. I let go of it too soon."
The defense did get a stop there, holding the Bengals to a field goal, but the 10-0 lead might well have been 100-0 considering the Steelers couldn't stop Cincinnati.
Though the Steelers cut the lead to 10-3 on their next possession on a Chris Boswell field goal, Burrow kept handing the ball to Mixon. And Mixon continued to have success.
And even when the Steelers got the Bengals into a third-and-long situation, as they did after taking a 17-3 lead on a 32-yard touchdown pass from Burrow to Tee Higgins, the pass defense didn't hold up.
Faced with third-and-12 midway through the second quarter after being sacked on second down by Heyward, Burrow calmly dropped back to pass and delivered this 16-yard strike to Higgins, who finished with six catches for 114 yards and a touchdown.
"We got our tails kicked," said Heyward. "Too much pitch-and-catch, and when they didn't pass the ball, they fell forward every time. Even down in the red zone, the stops we got were not enough."
No, they weren't.
Burrow completed 14 of 16 passes in the first half for 154 yards and a touchdown. He did throw an interception late in the half -- Minkah Fitzpatrick's first of the season -- with 50 seconds remaining in the second quarter. But even that turned into a disaster for the visitors.
On the very next play, Roethlisberger was intercepted by former Steelers corner Mike Hilton, who returned the turnover 24 yards for a touchdown and a 31-3 halftime lead.
From there, it wasn't a matter of if the Steelers would lose, but by how much?
"It wasn't pretty, and not anything we're proud of," said T.J. Watt, who returned after a one-game absence due to hip and knee injuries. "You never want to have that feeling coming out of a game. We put it on tape. Now, we have to own it and move forward. We have to stop this before it continues to unravel."
With the Bengals having swept the season series against the Steelers, the importance of next week's game at Heinz Field against the Ravens becomes critical. With six games remaining, lose that one, and the Steelers will likely be playing out a string of meaningless contests.
"The AFC still seems open," said Roethlisberger, who threw two interceptions and lost a fumble. "We didn't do ourselves any favors. But with six left, it's about how we can bounce back."
Watching film of this one on Monday won't be fun. It won't be pretty. And if the Steelers don't make changes, either in their approach or in terms of personnel, the issues aren't going to fix themselves.
"Not a lot to say," said Tomlin, whose team has now given up 82 points the past two weeks, the most since allowing 74 in back-to-back games in 2013 to the Bears and Vikings.
"(We) tip our cap to those guys. They did the things that were required of them in a big game like this. And we didn't to be quite honest. We didn't play nearly well enough in any of the phases and -- significantly, I thought -- we got beat up front on both sides of the ball. They won the line of scrimmage. When you win the line of scrimmage, a game has a chance to look like that. ... We stunk it up."
