Bengals’ Andy Dalton injured in loss to Steelers

Dalton, who exited with three completions on five attempts for 59 yards, watched the rest of the game in street clothes with a cast on his hand.

Andy Dalton’s right thumb hurt a bit as he came to the sideline. He went into the game with 786 yards rushing and four touchdowns as the primary replacement for Lynch, who is recovering from last month’s abdominal surgery. Dominated physically in a game where they were supposed to prove they were the big boy on the block, the Bengals once again found out that the Steelers were not going to be bullied and proved it by playing an absolutely punishing brand of football.

The Bengals are looking to win against the Steelers for the second time this season after winning back in Week 8 and a victory will give the team the division title. For most of the first half it seemed as there was “extracurricular activities” after each play.

The Bengals also lost starting tight end Tyler Eifert to a concussion and starting safety George Iloka to a groin injury in the 33-20 loss to the Steelers at Paul Brown Stadium.

“I’m going to play better”, AJ McCarron said.

McCarron, who threw for 280 yards while tossing two touchdown passes and two interceptions Sunday, inherits a 10-3 Bengals team that owns the No. 3 seed in the AFC ahead of the Patriots’ Sunday night matchup with the Houston Texans.

“Mentally, I’m fine”, said Dalton, wearing a cast. I’m confused as to how anyone could be happy about that, especially since they had just gone through the same thing.

The Steelers took the lead on their first possession of the match as Ben Roethlisberger guided his side downfield before DeAngelo Williams to power through on the goalline for the score. “I stepped in, and I have to play better”, McCarron said. Beginning to end, the worst officiated game we’ve seen this year with numerous issues involved nearly every member of the crew. Eifert, who leads the league with 12 touchdown receptions, returned to practice during the week and appears ready to play, which bodes well for the Bengals because the Steelers have struggled to defend tight ends. Because all of Pittsburgh’s remaining games are AFC games and because any Wild Card tiebreaker the Steelers are in for the final spot won’t involve another AFC North team, there’s not a lot of advantage or disadvantage to winning or losing one game over another for Pittsburgh. “I promise you that”. For example, there’s a headline on Yahoo! as we write this that says the Steelers “failed to gain any ground” despite their win over Cincy. Dig that. You’ll wanna go report something, report that.

The Bengals deactivated cornerback Adam Jones, receiver Mario Alford, linebacker P.J. Dawson, offensive tackle Jake Fisher, defensive tackles Marcus Hardison and Brandon Thompson and defensive end Will Clarke. He spread the ball around generously with Brown having seven receptions for 87 yards, Heath Miller with 10 receptions for 66 yards, Markus Wheaton with four receptions for 65 yards and Martavis Bryant with seven receptions for 49 yards.