Steelers vs. Bengals 2017: Time, TV schedule for ‘Monday Night Football’

The Pittsburgh Steelers and the Cincinnati Bengals are two entirely different teams this season. Pittsburgh, the class of the AFC North, is jockeying for one of the top two seeds in the AFC playoff picture. Cincinnati, on the other hand, is valiantly fighting to stay alive in the AFC post season race. Now, both teams will lock horns for an AFC North showdown during Monday Night Football at 8:30 p.m. ET. ESPN (live stream) will broadcast the action live from the Paul Brown Stadium.

Pittsburgh (9-2) and Cincinnati (5-6) met back in Week 7, and the Steelers cruised to a 29-14 victory. However, the Bengals won three of their last five games. But that doesn’t mean Cincinnati will dominate a Steelers team that has a top-10 offense and a top-five defense.

The Pittsburgh Steelers are 9-2 after defeating the Green Bay Packers on Sunday Night Football in Week 12 at Heinz Field, but the topic of discussion surrounding the team wasn’t necessarily focused on the most recent game, but comments made by Mike Tomlin to Tony Dungy on NBC leading up to the prime time game.

If you missed the segment, here is what was said, as transcribed by Kevin Gorman of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

It was Steelers receiver Antonio Brown who taped Tomlin’s private, expletive-filled Patriots message to his team before last season’s AFC championship game and posted it on social media for all to hear. NFL coaches think and say a myriad salty things in private, so that was amusing but not stunning. Rarely do NFL coaches actually plant such specific, look-ahead, opponent-oriented stuff so audaciously in public.

Here’s what I see — Tomlin has a Patriots problem.

The Cincinnati Bengals had a nice welcome home game against the Cleveland Browns in Week 12. The Bengals returned to Cincinnati following a three-game road trip where the team went 1-2, but they somehow came out on the other end with signs of life in the AFC playoff race.

Now with the Bengals sitting at 5-6, they are only one game out of the playoffs. This means this team is still playing to win, and we aren’t close to evaluation games. Still, there were a few players who got to play more because of injuries. Other than that, the Bengals were rewarded for finally feeding one rookie who has deserved to be fed all season long.

The Cincinnati Bengals are enjoying a resurgence, winning five of their last eight games to get back into the playoff hunt. However, they’ve still got some major issues they need to correct to become a true playoff contender.

Pro Football Focus released their grades for the Bengals versus Browns game, and it confirmed what we’ve been seeing the past few weeks. Nick Vigil isn’t playing well.

As always, this should be a knock-down-drag-out affair between two teams that don’t like each other. But six of our eight experts believe the Steelers will win this game.