It wasn’t always pretty, and at times it was very ugly, but there was quite a bit good to talk about in the Steelers 24-16 victory over the Cincinnati Bengals on Sunday.

The Good

Obviously, the good news is that the Steelers came away with a victory; however, it was also a triumph that the Steelers walked away from the game healthy. Injuries had plagued the team during the preseason, and it seems as though every recent Bengals game was marred with someone getting hurt, so walking away unscathed was the second-biggest victory next to the final score.

Credit should go to Pittsburgh’s offensive line, who themselves stayed healthy while playing every single offensive snap in this game. They surrendered a single sack on Big Ben, which is tremendous when you consider the pedigree of the Bengals defense, mainly their front 7.

The defense gave up a lone touchdown in this game, a garbage time scamper from Giovanni Bernard in the closing minutes of the fourth quarter. Prior, the Steelers stopped the Bengals short in three trips to the red zone, including a reset of the downs following a pass interference call which gave Cincy the ball on the Steelers 1.

The Bengals followed up their touchdown drive with fumbles in each of the next two; James Harrison added his third straight regular season game with forcing a fumble, while Robert Golden recovered his career first.

While the lone sack by Arthur Moats could barely be considered a sack, the pressure in the pocket was there all day. The D didn’t hit Andy Dalton as much as we may have liked, but they got their licks in several times, and rushed Dalton into making decisions. Regardless, the Steelers held the Bengals to a 25% efficiency rating on third down conversions.

Ryan Shazier lead the charge with 11 tackles, including a stuffing Jeremy Hill tackle for a 2-yard loss on the aforementioned goal line play by the Bengals.

Ross Cockrell shadowed A.J. Green the entire time, holding him to catches for 38 yards: Green previously averaged 8.3 receptions and 120.0 receiving yards over the last 6 games.

This earned Cockrell PFF’s highest grade on the team for this week.

Right behind him were safeties Mike Mitchell and Robert Golden; Golden, Shazier, and Will Gay played every snap in the game.

DeAngelo Williams also came to play, exceeding 10,000 scrimmage yards for his career having accumulated 132 all-purpose yards on the day. His receiving touchdown sealed the victory for the Steelers, who controlled the ball for nearly 6 more minutes than their opponent, mostly behind Williams’ rushing.

The other field position award goes to punter Jordan Berry, who crushed 8 punts for 377 yards, including critical kicks in pouring rain.

The well-rounded team win saw the Steelers gain the lead with 3:53 left in the first quarter, and never look back.

The Bad

The passing game suffered due to the power run, possession/clock control game plan which exploited the Bengals run defense while factoring in the weather conditions. For the first time since October 20th, 2013, Ben Roethlisberger didn’t throw a touchdown pass to a wide receiver (when throwing at least one in a game.)

Following last week’s explosion, no one would’ve seen Big Ben regressing in this game, with 2 interceptions, and then throwing 3 touchdowns to non-receivers. Antonio Brown was targeted 11 times in the game, but only caught 4 of those passes.

Ben only completed half of his attempts, also attributed to the foul weather, however, of the 19 he did complete, only 8 went to his receivers (half of those, 4, to AB, as noted.)

The other 11 went to running backs (Williams, 4, Toussaint, 1) and tight ends (James, 3, Grimble, 2, and Johnson, 1).

That part should go in the “good” portion of this article, but fit better here: the tight ends stepped up big time, and shredded the Bengals for 2 scores. Steelers tight ends only scored 3 touchdowns combined in the entire 2015 season; both of Sunday’s scores were longer than all 3 of the 2015 tosses combined as well.

The Ugly

The Steelers also had a case of the dropsies, with Brown having missed an easy one in the middle of the field which would have converted on third down, as well as Ross Cockrell and Jarvis Jones having attempts to intercept Dalton.

Gio Bernard’s touchdown late in the game was the result of Artie Burns and Sean Davis, both rookies, missing key tackles. Drafted as sure tacklers, this should serve as an NFL wake-up call to both defensive backs.

Have I mentioned the weather was ugly as well?

Conclusion

It wasn’t the blowout we were calling for, but the game plan set forth by Mike Tomlin and Todd Haley focused on chewing the clock, and protecting both Ben and the football. I’ll take 24 points and a win as the outcome any day of the week.

It appears the coaching staff was focused on taking away the pass 2 straight weeks; attributed to a rebuilt secondary that is starting to gel as time goes on.

The contributions by the inexperienced tight ends also helps this team grow, and when players such as Markus Wheaton and Le’Veon Bell rejoin this team in the coming weeks, it’s going to create even more headaches for the opposition.