Alliance... » Bengals starting to gain national respect after 2-0 start

The Bengals kicked off Week 2 by defeating the Ravens and advancing to 2-0. This accomplishment only got better when the Browns and Steelers both lost on Sunday and fell to both boasting the record of 0-1-1. Now Cincinnati is sitting atop the division http://www.cincinnatibengalsteamonline.com/hardy-nickerson-jersey , and they are starting to get some attention.In fact, Dan Graziano of ESPN wrote an article examining some overreactions to Week 2 and whether or not they are overreactions or not. In this article, Graziano declared it wasn’t an overreaction that the Bengals are the favorites to win the AFC North.Graziano makes plenty of realistic points. The Bengals next two games could really define their season, and they will have to do it without Joe Mixon for, at the very least, one of those games. Mixon has been a vital piece for Cincinnati this season, but luckily the Bengals have Giovani Bernard to fall back on. He is a veteran running back who has shouldered the load in absence of Mixon and even Jeremy Hill back in the day when needed. Bernard hasn’t been very productive this season so far, but it is hard to imagine that Bengals offensive coordinator Bill Lazor won’t be able to add a few more plays to get Bernard out in space during an extended break between games. Not to mention, Cincinnati also has Tra Carson who can help with a few snaps per game. He has always been productive during the preseason, and now he will have a chance to show what he’s got in an actual game.As far as the offensive line goes, Cincinnati has some depth, but it really matters who gets injured, and who the team decides to replace them. Cordy Glenn at left tackle and Clint Boling at left guard are probably the most crucial players. An injury to either of those guys could hurt the team’s overall production pretty badly. Rookie Billy Price at center is also important, but not to the same extent. That is understandable though considering he is still a rookie getting use to the NFL game, where as the other two are established pros. As far as the right side goes Authentic A.J. Green Jersey , it is hard to imagine it getting too much worse. Alex Redmond at right guard and Bobby Hart at right tackle improved in Week 2, but it was easy to improve after a bad start in Week 1. Finally, we come to Graziano’s biggest point, which is that the Steelers could easily implode after their 0-1-1 start. It feels like a different team out there. They just got steam rolled by the Chiefs and Patrick Mahomes’ six touchdown passes. Not to mention who knows when Le’Veon Bell will return, if he does at all. How Pittsburgh bounces back could easily determine if the Bengals run away with the division. Of course these two teams will meet in Week 6. Cincinnati will hopefully have Mixon and Vontaze Burfict back on the field for that game. Until then the Bengals will play the Panthers, Falcons and Dolphins, which sounds like a good run of games to show whether this team is for real or not. Meanwhile, Pittsburgh will suit up against the Bucs, Ravens and Falcons before heading into Cincinnati for a showdown in the jungle.It is great to see the national media actually taking the Bengals’ side for once. It has been a long time since Cincinnati was viewed as the darling of the AFC North, and we can only hope the Bengals keep rolling and gaining even more respect.Steelers QB Ben Roethlisberger wants to play against the Bengals “like it’s a normal football game” Animosity is no stranger when the Bengals and Steelers are playing one another. No shortage of injuries, fines, and suspensions are handed out after every matchup, and it’s taken its toll on those involved.“Every game I’ve been in against the Steelers has (had) some type of aggressive hits, or something dirty going on,” said Bengals wide receiver Tyler Boyd.Nobody wants to see this. The fan bases don’t like to watch these games. While there are some NFL fans that will say this is good old-fashioned football http://www.cincinnatibengalsteamonline.com/c.j.-uzomah-jersey , most others will say that rivalries like this are bad for the game. But the players are the ones that despise these kinds of games the most.“You know, it’s AFC North football,” said Steelers’ quarterback, Ben Roethlisberger. “It’s one of those game that can get chippy at times. You hope it doesn’t. You hope it’s just a hard-fought football game but sometimes it gets a little chippy. So, we’ll do our best to put all that in the past behind us and play like it’s a normal football game.“It’s not about just the physicality of the football game to me,” he continued. “It’s when it gets the extracurricular stuff that you wish would be cut out of it — and hope is cut out this time.”That is all well and good, but it is easier said than done. It will take more than a snap of the fingers to put years of ugly history in the rear view mirror.“Well, I think on our side, we’ll put it behind us,” said Roethlisberger. “We are going to go in and play like it’s a normal football game. AFC North physical football game. We can only control half the players out there though, so we know how important this game is for us to try and get a ‘W.’”By only mentioning “half the players,” Roethlisberger happened to omit the one player that comes to mind whenever anyone thinks of this rivalry: Vontaze Burfict.It’s no secret that the Steelers don’t see eye-to-eye with Burfict. For instance, in the latest installment of this series, wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster delivered a devastating blow to Burfict’s head, ending the linebacker’s season. When Smith-Schuster was asked about it in a postgame interview Womens Jordan Evans Jersey , his teammate Antonio Brown was heard yelling “Karma,” over his teammate. That play has become so iconic in Steelers’ lore that the image of Smith-Schuster standing over an unconscious Burfict with “Karma”in the background has been made into a T-shirt.Smith-Schuster has since confessed: “I don’t have to pay for anything. When I go to bars, I don’t have to pay for drinks or anything. ‘Yo, we appreciate what you did,’ and stuff like that.”But despite all the beef between Burfict and the Steelers, Roethlisberger decided to take the high road.“He’s a good football player,” said Roethlisberger of Burfict, “Honestly, I have said this to him on the football field, he is a phenomenal football player. [He’s] very smart, physical, can make all the plays and so you need to know where he is in that sense, yes, because of how good he is.”Roethlisberger even came up with a plan to protect himself against Burfict.“[I’ll] just tell the linemen to block really well.”Even if Roethlisberger didn’t mean what he said, he still made a solid effort to ease the tension as much as he could. We’ll see on Sunday if the Steelers really do keep themselves under control.Dre Kirkpatrick offers some perspective on how he was able to keep his emotions in check.“Before me and [Brown] got cool http://www.bengalscheapstore.com/shawn-williams-jersey-cheap , we didn’t like each other,” said Kirkpatrick. “I’m going into the game... like ‘How could I get into it with him?’ At the end of the day, that’s not playing football. That’s going out there trying to bull somebody or pick fights. At the end of the day, we lost, so we’ve got to change something.”“At the end of the day, it’s football,” said Boyd. “You can’t go out there and play scared, play frightened. You’ve got to go out there and hit. It’s hit or be hit. Those are the games that are going to be hard fought and those are the games you have to bring it to get the win. It’s a (divisional) game. Not saying we don’t come out and bring it every game, but it’s something about the Steelers when we play them, and the Ravens. Those type of games, we’ve got to be super locked in, super prepared and focused.”Even though we’re not even halfway through the season, this upcoming game against the Steelers already seems like a must-win for the Bengals. As Cincinnati is chasing their first postseason berth since 2015 — which was ended in a dramatic fashion against the Steelers— picking up a division win would go a long way to help. Staying focused will be very important, especially since the Steelers will enter this game as the most penalized team in the NFL.Let’s hope that good football wins out over high tension.