The Pittsburgh Steelers defeated the Cincinnati Bengals 30-27 at Acrisure Stadium in Week 3 of the 2026 NFL season, improving their record to 2-1 and keeping them even in the deadlocked AFC North.
- Like any good AFC North rivalry game this one came down to the final gun.
When it was all said and done the Pittsburgh Steelers prevailed because a bold personnel decision made by Mike McCarthy had an end-to-end ripple effect across an offense that finally looked NFL-worthy.
Roman Wilson beats Jalen Davis for the first touchdown. Photo Credit: Chaz Palla, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
Four Plays Signal a Dramatically Different Steelers Offense
One constant through the Steelers win over the Falcons and their loss to the Patriots has been a substandard offense. This continued a trend from previous seasons that Mike McCarthy’s hire was supposed to change that. Yet he hadn’t.
Worse yet, the Bengals defense, highlighted by the arrival of Dexter Lawrence, was looking scary good. The recipe seemed to spell disaster for the Steelers.
But it only took Mike McCarthy and his players 4 plays to prove that this offense was capable of something both different and better.
The first play from scrimmage saw Jaylen Warren line up behind Aaron Rodgers, with Pat Freiermuth and Darnell Washington linked up besides him in the backfield. It wasn’t exactly a Wishbone formation, but the smart money was that McCarthy was going to use his bruising blockers to challenge the Bengals up the middle.
He did not. Instead he called a pass play where Warren slipped into the flat, Pat Freiermuth pancaked a would-be tackler, and 30 yards and a blink of an eye later, Warren was in Bengals territory.
A five-yard dink-and-dunk pass to Roman Wilson and an incompletion brought up a third and five. And here is when things really changed.
- How many times have we seen Steelers drives sputter in similar moments?
Raise your hand if you weren’t quietly hoping to avoid a sack and wondering whether Chris Boswell could make a 60-yarder. A lot of people should be raising their hands, but Mike McCarthy isn’t one of them.
Instead he was bunching four wideouts on the weakside, allowing Roman Wilson to gain a full 5 yards to hook up with Aaron Rodgers for a 38-yard touchdown.
No, Pittsburgh hadn’t proven it could go touchdown-for-touchdown with Joe Burrow and the Bengals’ high-octane offense, but the Steelers offense had at least made the suggestion….
12 Hands in the Pile for Pittsburgh’s Offense
You can attach a lot of superlatives to the Steelers offensive performance, even if no one will or should mistake it for the Greatest Show on Turf. But what really sticks out is that it was a end-to-end team performance with 12 different players touched the ball.
- Roman Wilson showed he was more than dink-and-dunk/garbage time wideout
- D.K. Metcalf didn’t dominate, but caught 3 of 5 passes thrown his way, including a touchdown
- Germie Bernard only had one catch, but it converted a critical third down
- Bernard also made a heads-up block enabling the longest catch of the game
- Darnell Washington made that catch, as well as a critical third down conversion
These individual performances, while important, don’t capture the full story of the step forward the offense took against the Bengals. Mike McCarthy has professed his desire for a balanced run-pass ratio.
With Aaron Rodgers throwing 34 passes and Steelers running backs carrying the ball 19 times, that ratio was once again skewed. But that ratio also shows how too tight a focus on statistics and skew the understanding of the game, as the Steelers second touchdown illustrates.
Ben Skowronek Comes Down With The Steelers Touchdown From Aaron Rodgers!
The Steelers Offense Is Looking REALLY Good Early. This Is An Intense Start For Pittsburgh! 🔥 pic.twitter.com/gXs2In91bw
— SM Highlights (@SMHighlights1) September 27, 2026
Ben Skowronek comes in motion, moves up field as if he’s a blocker, Rodgers fakes the handoff to Warren, the safety bites an in another blink of an eye Skowronek is scoring a touchdown – by forcing Cincinnati to respect the run, Rodgers burned the Bengals through the air.
Run! Jaylen Run!
Ever since he arrived as an undrafted rookie free agent in 2022, both fans and professional commentators have been screaming for the Steelers to use Jaylen Warren as a featured running back.
- For one reason or another, that role never emerged for Warren.
Until today.
And Warren proved he was more than up to the task. How good was Warren? Well, he logged a near-All Pro level game despite the fact that his best run, an 85-yarder, was called back due to a ticky-tacky penalty.
Jaylen Warren breaks free. Photo Credit: Chaz Palla
Warren hurt the Bengals through the air and on the ground, rushing for 127 yards and catching 3 passes for 49 yards. His play wasn’t flawless – he stumbled on what could have been a game-clinching touchdown run – but Warren was easily the MVP.
Special Teams, Defense Deliver When It Counts
The Steelers special teams were en route to a meh afternoon — Kaden Wetjen wasn’t scaring anyone with his kick returns, and the Steelers return coverage was a little too leaky, spotting the Bengals a little too much yardage.
Yet, when Ke’Shawn Williams let a punt bounce off of him with 11:04 left in the 4th quarter Ben Skowronek streaked in to make the recovery.
- Four plays later, Chris Boswell was kicking the tying field goal
Joe Burrow, Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins no doubt made a lot of Fantasy Football Owners happy after this game. It is easy to see why. Each man caught a touchdown, with Burrow throwing another to Mike Gesicki, and really for much of the afternoon they made it look easy.
But the defense delivered when it counted. Going into the locker room at halftime Mike McCarthy revealed that he needed his defense to get two stops of Burrow in the second half (who can imagine Mike Tomlin saying something like that?)
And that’s what he got. Midway through the 4th quarter with the Bengals at midfield on 3rd and 2, Cam Heyward wrapped Burrow forcing him to ground it, bringing up a punt.
- That allowed the Steelers to score the go-ahead field goal.
Giving the ball to Burrow with 2 minutes left and 2 timeouts is a very dangerous proposition, but with the Bengals passing from Pittsburgh’s 38 the Derrick Harmon strip sacked Burrow, with Sebastian Joseph-Day recovering, allowing the Mike McCarthy to send out the victory formation.
I’ll gladly trade fancy passing stats to Fantasy Football fans in exchange for defensive linemen that can rattle elite quarterbacks in critical situations on any given Sunday.
Offensive Line Provides the Foundation – Now It Is Time to Build
It wasn’t quite a shootout, but the Pittsburgh Steelers did outscore the Cincinnati Bengals. This end-to-end offensive effort was anchored by two names you won’t see in the stat sheet, Max Iheanachor and Brock Hoffman. The right side of the offensive line had been shaky through the first two games.
- Mike McCarthy not only took note, he took action by starting Iheanachor and Hoffman.
Switching out 2/5 of your offensive line in Week 3 is a risk, but McCarthy’s decision paid immediate dividends:
.@steelers @Bengals @MaxBurghh made his NFL debut…Looked like a Steeler from game’s first play. #herewego #BaldysBreakdowns pic.twitter.com/nVFJVyBPae
— Brian Baldinger (@BaldyNFL) September 28, 2026
Great offensive lines are built over the course of seasons, not in single games. Nor was the unit perfect, as sacks forced twin 4th quarter possessions into field goal situations. But hopefully this performance is something that both the line itself and the entire offense can build on.
Hopefully they’re fast builders, because a trip to Cleveland and another AFC North Game is just three days away….
