What's your gameplan vs the Bengals?

[BlitzburghRockCity]

It's MNF, primetime, the world is watching! It's a big time game for us as we've discussed at length this week so far. If you're Arians and Lebeau, what's your strategy? Putting aside the "Arians sucks" stuff because we all know our stance on him, lol.

If I'm Lebeau, I unleash blitzburgh all over Palmer. Don't give him a chance to set and find TO or Ocho, get in his face all day. That's how you deal with pocket passers, disrupt their timing. We'll always be out to stop the run, and we have to do that but I say get after Palmer all day long. Ben needs practice at the no huddle apparently so use it, get it in the game plan.

For the offense, open it up. The Bengals are banged up and we need to get the crowd out of it early. If we do that, they'll shut up and start that "here we go again" attitude and leave early so the Steelers fans can take over the place. Establish the line and get Mendy going but get down field to Heath and Wallace early and often and get up on them so we can dictate the tempo of the game.

[SteelerEyeZ]

Do what the Aints did to us. BLITZ!!! and Run on them, they prove they cant stop the run...and have a presume talk with the secondary and make sure they are awake

[SteelDad]

I will be shocked if we don't come out pounding the ball with Mendy and Red Monday night. Hall is a solid CB and Cincy doesn't stop the run well so I'm thinking in that direction. Of course this is just all offensive guessing with BA at the controls.....

Defensively, I want to see some creativity from DL. More twists with the ends and LB's. Seems like all of our blitzes are pretty vanilla right now.

[BlitzburghRockCity]

Running the ball on Cincy isn't traditionally all that difficult. Even based on our lack of an offensive line the last few years we've had some success. I like getting Redman into the mix, that dude is just a bull and makes a nice 1-2 punch with Mendenhall.

I want to see Heath involved a good amount too in this game, I'm sure he's chompin at the bit to atone for that fumble.

[coldrolled]

Whatever strength that the Cinci defense has we will try to exploit that....

Because they wont be thinking we will do that....

[Raleigh Steel]

quick passing game early. throw to heath early. try some draw plays with mendy and a true lead blocker. use wallace across the middle more on some underneath routes. power eye running off tackle. then hit some play action deep.


defensively, cut this soft CB coverage crap off. play press coverage with b-fad and ike, and blitz, blitz, blitz.

i wouldn't mind seeing another reverse or a fake reverse on a kick return either.

[LarryNJ]

This is a MUST win for the Bungals, they are going to come out desperate and play like it's a playoff game. We need to match or exceed their intensity.

Palmer has been an int machine this year, I look for Troy to come up with a huge pick. I'm concerned about TO. He loves MNF and usually shines under the lights.

They are going to try and blitz because it worked so well last week. I'd run and run some more to slow that down. If that isn't successful we need to go into the no huddle and let Ben get into a rythmn.

[LatrobePA]

Do what the Aints did to us. BLITZ!!! and Run on them, they prove they cant stop the run...and have a presume talk with the secondary and make sure they are awake

Exactly, our pass defense is ranked 25th, blitz the house at him!! RUN RUN!!

[BlitzburghRockCity]

Whatever strength that the Cinci defense has we will try to exploit that....

Because they wont be thinking we will do that....

HAHA exactly!!!!

This is a MUST win for the Bungals, they are going to come out desperate and play like it's a playoff game. We need to match or exceed their intensity.

Palmer has been an int machine this year, I look for Troy to come up with a huge pick. I'm concerned about TO. He loves MNF and usually shines under the lights.

They are going to try and blitz because it worked so well last week. I'd run and run some more to slow that down. If that isn't successful we need to go into the no huddle and let Ben get into a rythmn.

Most definitely, the Bengals are playing for their lives right now and need to break this losing streak they are on. If we let them hang around or get a lead on us in the 4th quarter they'll start thinking they can win it. The crowd will be a big factor early on but if we can get up and take them out of it they'll fade quicker than the Bengals playoffs hopes after they lose to us

[Goodfrom55]

Offense:
1st play of the game, if Wallace is matched up in man coverage, go play action bomb right off the bat. Otherwise, emghasize the run, but mix up run and pass on 1st down. Steelers are way too predictable on 1st down. Bengals will likely blitz a lot sonce it worked for the Saints. Would like to see the emergence of the screen game against the blitz as well. Steelers (Ben) needs to check off and WR's need to recognize blitz and basically throw at the vacated area of the blitz with slants, etc. Would like to see Heath and Mo in the backfield in shotgun on 3rd downs so they can block (if necessary) and then slide out to open area of zone. (Personnel note: Deactivate Randle El, and activate both Sanders and Brown and see if that elcetrifies the offense.)

Defense:
Aggressive but not careless defense. Reduce CB cushion from 8-11 yards to 4-5 yards and challenge Palmer to read defense, and make plays. Would execute more corner blitzes and look for mismatches where speed will win over size. Need a lot of push from Hamp so Palmer can't step up. Most important thing would do is eliminate the "soft coverage".

On 3rd downs, would blitz off edge with DB, and make sure there are defenders patrolling the middle of the field between the hashes about 6-10 yards off ball. This is where Brees made his living last week on 3rd down.

Stopping the run is a no brainer.