NFL 2025 Week 7 Thursday Night Football Review: Bengals Stun Steelers in Cincy

   

Cincinnati Bengals 33 , Pittsburgh Steelers 31

This served as a pleasant surprise to me. A break from the predictable outcomes, if you will.

Granted, I was wrong, ultimately, in picking the Steelers over the Bengals. As it turns out, the Bengals managed to pull off a huge win, thus avoiding digging such a hole for themselves as to end their season prematurely.

Cincinnati entered this game with a 2-4 record, but had lost their previous four games. They were winless without quarterback Joe Burrow.

Yet another Joe stepped up in his place. This one was Joe Flacco, the seasoned veteran and former Super Bowl MVP. It felt a bit like old times, as Flacco showed glimpses of his former self, the one who led the Baltimore Ravens to regularly postseason appearances and victories for many years. That version of Joe Flacco helped to lift the Bengals over the Steelers, even if it did take to almost the final seconds of the game in order to do it. 

Flacco completed 31 of 47 passes for 342 yards and three touchdowns. Clearly, he was a major part of Cincy's offensive production in this game. Chase Brown added 108 yards on 11 carries on the ground. But it felt like the difference was Flacco, who brought in some consistency and even explosiveness to the Bengals offense. 

On the losing side, Aaron Rodgers was also impressive. He completed 23 of 34 passes for 249 yards and a whopping four touchdowns. However, he also threw two INT's. Those were the only two turnovers produced by either team in this one. But in a game that proved this close, that might just have been the difference.

So Cincy pulls off a fairly decent upset, reminds this guy that there really are some unpredictable results in the NFL, and thus snap a four game skid that was threatening their entire season. They improve to 3-4 on the season, and are back in relative contention.

As for Pittsburgh, they suffer only their second loss of the season, falling to 4-2 on the year. Still well ahead in the AFC North, where the 3-4 Bengals, of all teams, are in second place. But at least it makes the divisional race somewhat more competitive and interesting.

Not bad.

My pick: Inaccurate