00:04And it's keys time. The Bengals are trying to get to 3-0 for the first time since Jacob was
00:09four years old. 2015. Will they do it? Well, we're going to start with Marissa. What are
00:14your keys to the game? Yeah, I'll go with my keys first. I'm not 11, man. Oh, I didn't do
00:21math.
00:22All right, he's a little older than 11. It's all right, little buddy.
00:27I'm glad you jumped in there. That's a glued-on beard. That's not a real one. I'm just joking.
00:33It's Friday. It's all fun and games. Then you drop the little buddy. Where's Paul? I can't
00:38tap you on your head right now. You can't either when we're standing up. Yes, we can. Yeah, come on.
00:42Oh, I'm six foot tall. Well, it might surprise you. That is not one of my keys to victory on
00:48Sunday. Is Jacob's height? Jacob's height is not. He didn't make the cut. Sorry. He did not.
00:52Not this time. But what did make the cut, first and foremost, you've got to get some
00:56pressure on Aaron Rodgers. Rodgers has not looked great through the first start of the season and
01:01even dating back to how he finished off 2025 in the regular season. His last 300-yard passing game
01:08was back in week 14 of 2024. He had five straight games, including the last three of the regular
01:14season and the two to start the season, where he has had under a 93 quarterback rating. And over those
01:19last five games, he's only thrown three passing touchdowns. Got to get pressure on Rodgers. Don't want to
01:24get him going early, make him uncomfortable, force him into mistakes. And then with that,
01:29we talked about it in Marissa's matchup earlier in the show, limit the tight ends. Pat Friermuth is
01:34Pittsburgh's leading pass catcher currently on the season. 78 receiving yards, has nine receptions on
01:3910 targets. The lone Pittsburgh receiving touchdown on the year two. Friermuth has just hit different
01:45levels when he has played this Bengals team. So really try to limit what he's able to do there in
01:51the
01:51passing game. And that starts with pressuring Aaron Rodgers. And then lastly, I really want
01:55this Bengals team to get Chase Brown going. As a team, the Bengals are still averaging under four
02:01yards a carry. They've got to get that number up higher, get that closer to that five range,
02:06because Chase Brown needs to be utilized more. He does have 136 rushing yards through the first two
02:11weeks of the season. That is the most he has had to start a season in his NFL career. So
02:17I love the
02:17usage by him so far. Want to get that going a little bit more because the Bengals only have
02:21one rushing touchdown on the season. I do think they'll add to that total on Sunday.
02:25A lot of these best starts of the year stats for various Bengals players, whether it's Chase Brown
02:30or Joe Burrow, it's just a reminder of how bad they've been to start seasons over the last few
02:36years, because a lot of the complaints that I have about this Bengals offense going forward
02:40has been stuff that is career highs so far. So it's a nice starting point to move forward,
02:44but certainly want a lot more out of Chase Brown. I think it's a huge key, especially
02:47against the Steelers pass rush.
02:49Well, that's it. If you can get Chase Brown going and not like turn the ball over all
02:54the basic stuff, the Bengals are going to win by double digits. I truly believe that because
02:59if you get explosive on the ground, then guess what? You are going to see some of that single
03:05high stuff that Chris Carter mentioned. You are going to see this Steelers defense have
03:09to resort to stopping 30. And if they don't stop 30, well, the Bengals will just do
03:13that. I think they are comfortable with their defense. They will live and just keep rolling
03:20with the run because it's like, ah, Joe's not going to get hit on this. We can keep Joe
03:25upright. We can take pressure off of our offensive line and alleviate the pressure they want to
03:29bring by just not throwing it. So I think that's it. Like if you're the Steelers, you
03:33cannot let the Bengals run the ball. It's a perfect key, Marissa, because if they can, if
03:37they're explosive on the ground and they're running for four yards a clip and they ran for four
03:41yards a clip last week, they were really close to a couple of explosives. If that happens,
03:45man, this offense is, they're going to kick in gear and they're going to be the best we've seen
03:49them this year. And like you mentioned, it's been the best start they've had, which shows how bad
03:54they've been starting off seasons. But I do think they have another gear and that ground game could
03:59be it. I think if they hit that this week, it has a chance to be a blowout or to
04:04be a game that we
04:05haven't seen against the Steelers in a while because of that Steelers offense. If this Bengals offense
04:09is humming through this week, then there's a chance to make this game ugly. And I think that's
04:13the biggest thing going into this game. We've talked about the pass rush a ton, the depth for
04:18this Steelers defensive line. I don't think the Bengals are going to be able to keep Joe Burrow
04:21clean, but you need to give Joe Burrow time. That's my first key for this weekend is give him
04:27enough time to figure it out. I would like a little bit better than Houston in terms of those total
04:31numbers, 10 QB hits, five sacks, but I'm not going to say he's going to go out there and not
04:35get hit
04:35at one time. That's an irrational thing to think about the Steelers front. So give him enough time
04:40to make plays. And on the other side of the ball, number two, get to Rogers. He can't move anymore.
04:46That's something we've learned through the first two weeks. He really struggles to get out of tight
04:50pockets at this point in his career. And the Bengals have done a really good job of making opposing
04:54quarterbacks uncomfortable. If they're able to do that, Steelers offense that has been the worst in
04:58the league through two weeks will continue that way. And the Bengals will have a lot of success on that
05:02side of the ball. Number three, someone other than one and five. I don't need it to be week one
05:07where
05:07Mike Gusecki is the number one receiver leading in every statistic, but I need a little bit more than
05:12week two where it was almost all Jamar Chase and Tee Higgins. If that's Dante Myers stepping up with
05:18Yoshivas out, great. If it's Mike Gusecki having another really good game, awesome. If it's Chase Brown
05:23having his best rushing attack of the season so far, that would be great too. I think you just need
05:28a third
05:28body on the offense to step up and have a really big game as well. Yeah, I agreed with all
05:34of those.
05:35I'm never going to argue about a weapon needing to step up. They are going to need one more because
05:40they're going to do everything they can to make sure Jamar and Tee does not beat them. That would
05:43be my goal. And it's obviously you don't want Chase Brown to be explosive on the ground. You also
05:49don't want Jamar Chase gritting in your end zone or doing the people's elbow 12 times in Heinz field
05:53either. And so, yeah, I think that's a big, big key. The Aaron Rodgers one. How bad do you think
05:59he moves now? It is bad. It's just funny. You've brought it up 20 times this week. If I had
06:05a
06:05dollar for every time, I could buy lunch for not just the first word crew, but the working lunch
06:09crew. Like you mentioned a lot. He can't get out of anything anymore. I mean, that's what,
06:13obviously it's going to become a problem for the Spangles team if they can't finish around Aaron
06:17Rodgers. So you're going to have to bring him to the ground, but absolutely he's been susceptible
06:21to pressure more than he ever has been through two weeks. And that changes as the sample size
06:25grows. Absolutely it could, but it's not like they've played world beating defenses through
06:29two weeks either. Yeah. I look at this and I have three keys and naturally my keys are way
06:36different. No, they're pretty standard keys this week. Excuse me. The first one everyone agrees
06:41with and my fantasy team might not agree with it, but Jalen Warren specifically, just like you
06:48said, you can't, you got to get Chase Brown going, Marissa. You cannot let Jalen Warren get going
06:54because he has a similar skill set to Chase Brown. It's a different offense, but if you let him get
07:00going, if you miss tackles, take pressure off of Aaron Rodgers that doesn't allow this pass rush to
07:05get there. Well, yeah, then that's a good way to make life easier on Aaron Rodgers. He can look a
07:10lot
07:10younger if that play action's working and that only works if Jalen Warren in that run game gets going
07:14for the Steelers. So that's part of it. I think the tight ends are an extension of that. And so
07:19I'll
07:19group them all together. Warren, Friermuth, Washington cannot let them make big plays and
07:25take over the game or just be consistent to, as always, limit hits on Joe Burrow. He's going to
07:31get hit. Jacob hit the nail on the head there, but limit those hits. I don't want to see it.
07:35I looked up
07:36Joe Burrow hasn't played the Steelers since they won 19-17 at the end of the 2024 season.
07:45And when I looked up photos from that game yesterday, it's Burrow laying on the ground
07:49looking up at the sky. And he got up. He was okay, but he got a lot of treatment that
07:54next day.
07:55You want to talk about soreness. He was really, really sore after that Week 18 matchup where
08:00the Bengals wanted to get the 9-8 on the season. Eliminate some of those hits. Limit those so we're
08:05not talking about Joe moving very, very slow like Aaron Rodgers does in the pocket on Monday
08:11after the game. And then three, and this is a big one, the only big plays need to come from
08:19the men
08:20in stripes. That is it. When we're talking about explosive plays, splash plays, splash plays are for
08:26the guys in stripes. You've got to eliminate that for the Steelers. Last year, as good as Joe Flacco was
08:31and Jamar Chase is torching them on Thursday night football, a splash play got the Steelers
08:37back into it. We saw Week 1 what splash plays can do on defense. You need to be the ones
08:43creating
08:43the splash plays, whether it's defense, offense, both. Do not do that. Make Aaron Rodgers drop back
08:4845 times. Make them scratch and claw for three and a half yards of carry. Do those two things. Do
08:55not
08:55give up explosives. Keep them in front of you. Tackle. If you do that, they're going to make some
08:59mistakes. You're going to force some turnovers. Yeah, absolutely. And I think your first key
09:03there, especially with Warren in the ground game, is one that's gone under the radar a little bit.
09:06I mean, the Bengals have much improved this run defense. They've allowed the third fewest rushing
09:11yards through the first two weeks of the season. And Pittsburgh hasn't scored a touchdown on the
09:16ground yet. And they are averaging only 3.4 yards per carry. So got to keep that number to where
09:21that
09:22is or even less on Sunday. Yeah. And if the Steelers can't run the ball or get chunk plays on
09:27offense,
09:27should be a pretty easy path to victory for the Bengals. That's it. Keep them in front
09:31of you. Tackle. And then you're going to get some turnovers because that guy Aaron Rodgers,
09:36who was in year 15 when Jacob was born, is... No, I'm just kidding. All right. Now I'm stopping.
09:42That was a fun one. No? The first one was good. Yeah. That one was a reach. It was. Yeah.
09:46Don't reach too much. Just get to 3-0.
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