I’m not a big fan of Ben Roethlisberger this week. He’s a great quarterback who’s had a lot of big games, but he tends to be not nearly as good on the road. He’s also playing an opponent this week that seems to have a good feel for him.
Divisional games tend to be lower scoring. This can be shown by looking at the hundreds of games over the last 5-10 years. Games between divisional opponents (on average) tend to have a little less offense than those outside the division. I think this is because defenses develop immunity against the offenses they’re seeing – they learn how to defend them.
I think this is the case with the Bengals and Ben Roethlisberger. They see him twice a year, so they’ve figured out a lot of the dos and don’t.
Roethlisberger has won six of his last seven games at Cincinnati, but he hasn’t put up big numbers in those games. Just one game, in fact, with more than one touchdown pass. The Steelers pulled a 18-16 win out of the fire in the playoffs there last year, but he had a very unremarkable day, with 229 yards and a touchdown.
If you look at home/away in general, Roethlisberger tends to be up around 3 TD passes per game at home, and just over one touchdown pass (on average) on the road.
My leaning, therefore, is to start many of the lesser quarterbacks before Roethlisberger this week.
Alex Smith, for example, isn’t nearly as good, but I would rather start him in a fantasy league this week.
| ROETHLISBERGER AT CINCINNATI | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Result | Yards | TD | Int |
| 2010 | W 27-21 | 163 | 1 | 1 |
| 2011 | W 24-17 | 245 | 1 | 1 |
| 2012 | W 24-17 | 278 | 1 | 1 |
| 2013 | L 10-20 | 251 | 1 | 1 |
| 2014 | W 42-21 | 350 | 3 | 0 |
| 2015 | W 33-20 | 282 | 0 | 1 |
| 2015 | W 18-16 | 229 | 1 | 0 |
Roethlisberger really hasn’t been great against Cincinnati at home either. Just 10 TD passes in his last seven games. An average of 240 yards in those games.
| ROETHLISBERGER VS. CINCINNATI (home) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Result | Yards | TD | Int |
| 2010 | W 23-7 | 258 | 0 | 0 |
| 2011 | W 35-7 | 176 | 2 | 0 |
| 2012 | L 10-13 | 220 | 1 | 2 |
| 2013 | W 30-20 | 191 | 1 | 1 |
| 2014 | W 27-17 | 317 | 2 | 1 |
| 2015 | L 10-16 | 262 | 1 | 3 |
| 2016 | W 24-16 | 259 | 3 | 2 |
Strange to say, but I actually like Andy Dalton more than Roethlisberger in this game. The Steelers probably will shut down the run. Dalton will be flinging it around, giving him a good chance to finish with more yards and touchdowns.
Set aside Dalton’s first two years (when he was just a young game manager, feeling his way) and set aside the game last year where he was sidelined with the early freak injury on the shuffle pass gone array. Dalton has gone only 2-4 in his last six other games against them, but he’s averaged 276 passing yards in those games, with 9 TDs and 4 interceptions.
Bengals are a 3-point underdog in this game, but I like the way they’ve played recently (particularly in dismantling the Eagles). They’ll probably get A.J. Green back. I expect them to win this game, and for Dalton to outperform Roethlisberger along the way.
| DALTON VS. PITTSBURGH | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Site | Score | Yards | TD | Int |
| 2013 | Cin. | W 20-10 | 280 | 1 | 0 |
| 2013 | Pitt. | L 20-30 | 230 | 2 | 0 |
| 2014 | Cin. | L 21-42 | 302 | 2 | 0 |
| 2014 | Pitt. | L 17-27 | 244 | 2 | 2 |
| 2015 | Pitt. | W 16-10 | 231 | 1 | 2 |
| 2015 | Cin. | L 20-33 | 59 | 0 | 1 |
| 2016 | Pitt. | L 16-24 | 366 | 1 | 0 |
—Ian Allan