NFL Week 11 Bengals vs. Steelers preview with Kelsey Conway
Bengals Beat Reporter Kelsey Conway discusses the upcoming game between the Bengals and Steelers
Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Aaron Rodgers suffered a left hand injury on a hit by multiple Cincinnati Bengals late in the second quarter of the team’s NFL Week 11 game at Acrisure Stadium.
Rodgers was replaced by backup Mason Rudolph on the Steelers’ first drive of the second half.
The Steelers announced that Rodgers was questionable to return.
“He’s grabbing his left elbow,” CBS analyst Trent Green said after Rodgers was hit. “He’s grabbing that left wrist. Something doesn’t feel good on that left side.”
Rodgers remained in the game for one play, but went to the locker room early for halftime.
“He’s being evaluated as we speak,” Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin told CBS sideline reporter Melanie Collins before the start of the second half. “We’re hopeful (but) … we better get Mason Rudolph ready to go.”
“That is huge news,” CBS analyst Trent Green said during the broadcast. “(But) this moment isn’t too big for (Rudolph).”
Rodgers had 249 passing yards with four touchdowns and two interceptions in the Week 7 meeting between the teams in Cincinnati.
At 41, Rodgers is the NFL’s oldest starting quarterback. At 40, Bengals starting QB Joe Flacco is second-oldest.
Rodgers is the only Week 1 starting QB in the AFC North who hasn’t been injured or benched.
Rodgers is 2-3 against the Bengals in 20 NFL seasons, with all but one of those games having taken place while he quarterbacked Green Bay.
Flacco and the Broncos lost to Rodgers’ Packers in 2019. As the Ravens’ starter, Flacco was 0-2 against Green Bay with Rodgers starting.
When Rodgers brought the Packers to Cincinnati in October of the 2021 season that concluded with a Bengals’ Super Bowl appearance, both teams entered the game with 3-1 records.
The Bengals scored on a Joe Mixon touchdown run with 3:27 left in the 4th quarter, and tied the game on a 2-point conversion from Joe Burrow to Tee Higgins.
But a 49-yard field goal by Mason Crosby in overtime gave the Packers a 25-22 win.
Rodgers was 27-of-38 for 344 passing yards with two touchdowns and an interception.
Burrow, referred to by former teammate Mike Daniels before that season as “baby Aaron Rodgers,” finished 26-of-38 for 281 passing yards with two TDs and two INTs.
When Andy Dalton and the Bengals visited Rodgers and the Packers at Lambeau Field in September 2017, they led 21-7 at the half.
But the Packers rallied to outscore Cincinnati 17-3 in the second half, and beat the Bengals on a Crosby field goal at the end of OT.
Rodgers passed for 313 yards with three TDs.
Dalton and the Bengals stunned Rodgers and the Packers with 13 unanswered, fourth-quarter points to win 34-30 in Cincinnati in September 2013.
Carson Palmer, Chad Johnson and Cedric Benson propeled the Bengals to a 31-24 win at Lambeau Field against Rodgers and the Packers in 2009.
