Each week the Steel City Underground staff will put their brilliant minds to task in order to come up with their keys to the game, or, those players, coaching decisions, or situations which could determine the outcome of the game.

The Steelers travel to Cincinnati to play the Bengals on Monday Night Football. The SCU panel gives their thoughts on Monday’s keys to winning the game.

Brian E. Roach

The key to this game is often the key to any game – control the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball. The Bengals have a tough defense and a solid pass rush. The Steelers will need to be able to open holes for Le’Veon Bell and keep Ben Roethlisberger upright when he needs to throw. The last time around the Steelers defensive line hit Andy Dalton early and often, and as a result, on a fourth down play, Dalton threw the ball away rather than trying to make a play. They need to keep that kind of pressure.

This is not the same Bengals team they faced earlier in the year. Joe Mixon has become much more ingrained and comfortable in their offense, and the Bengals will try and use him early and often. If the Steelers can control the line, and maybe jump out to an early lead to make the Bengals one dimensional then they should be able to “ruin Christmas” for the Bengals, rather than the other way around.

Joe Kuzma

My key is limiting mistakes, at least the preventable ones. That means cutting out the little penalties and controlling the turnover margin.

We saw the Steelers overcome a -3 turnover differential against the Packers to win in the final seconds of last Sunday’s game, but we’ve also seen them get decimated by the Jaguars in a game where they were -4 (following five picks by Big Ben).

Keep it clean and this should be a clean win. Get ugly, and, well, you can figure out the outcome.

Tina Rivers

The Steelers need to step out of the mental game that is a distraction and focus. Head coach Mike Tomlin said this week that the defensive backs need to stop thinking about what to do physically and pay greater attention to what the receivers are showing them. If the defense can play tighter in the backfield, pressuring Dalton and limiting Mixon should be a no-brainer.

Offensively, the secret to keeping the Bengals out of their faces is to run a more up-tempo series here and there as they set Bell up for the run game. Expect Brown to push Dre Kirkpatrick in the open field for at least one big play this week.

Ryan Lippert

My key to this game would be getting pressure on Dalton. I saw an interesting tweet that Terry replied to from David Todd, that pointed out how the secondary has been giving up long passes the past few games. So I looked up some stats and most of the damage done to the defense this year has been through the air. Last week, we gave up 3 TD and 245 yards to Hundley, which is unacceptable. With a more experienced QB in Dalton, they have to put pressure on him. If Heyward, Watt, Dupree, hopefully, Shazier, whoever it may be, can limit time Dalton has in the pocket, it can help the injury-stricken secondary tremendously.

Mike Pelaia

1. The Steelers need a heavy dose of Le’Veon Bell. The Bengals have a porous rush defense but a solid pass defense. The Steelers need to use their best asset against the Bengals weakest link.

2. The defense needs to pressure Andy Dalton. The Bengals offense is anemic, at best but they do have talent with AJ Green on the outside. Dalton is average but capable of getting the ball to Green; once Green has it, anything goes. The Steelers need to pressure Dalton to keep the ball away from Green.

3. I wrote this the last time these teams played but it’s important again; the Steelers need to avoid the chippiness that comes along with this rivalry. It gets very heated and the penalty flags begin to fly. Pittsburgh can’t afford to get caught up in that mess, they need to focus on football and coming out with the ‘W’.