Bengals vs. Steelers score, takeaways: Cincinnati's Joe Flacco wins wild duel with Aaron Rodgers on late FG

D.J. Ivey knocks down Aaron Rodgers' Hail Mary attempt, and the Bengals win a thriller.

What a throw, what a catch and what a heads-up play. The Bengals have taken a 33-31 lead with seven seconds to play. Joe Flacco found Tee Higgins for a 28-yard gain on a beautiful go ball, and Higgins smartly slid down to force the Steelers to use all of their timeouts before Evan McPherson's kick.

Aaron Rodgers. Mic drop.

That's a 68-yarder to Pat Freiermuth, their second touchdown connection of the night. Rodgers is the first player with four touchdown passes to tight ends in a single game since Patrick Mahomes in 2022.

Yes, that is 40-year-old Joe Flacco pulling the ball on the read option and taking off for a 12-yard gain and a first down!

It's an offensive explosion here in the second half. Aaron Rodgers rolled out and found an open Darnell Washington for a 2-yard touchdown to make it 27-24, Bengals.

All three of his touchdown passes have gone to tight ends -- Washington, Jonnu Smith and Pat Freiermuth have one each -- tying his career high for touchdown passes to tight ends in a game. The Steelers are just the second team in NFL history to have three different tight ends catch a touchdown pass in a game.

This might be turning into a "Who has the ball last?" sort of contest. The Bengals have scored on five straight drives, and the Steelers now have touchdowns on each of their past two possessions.

It's 27-17 after Joe Flacco found Noah Fant for a 5-yard touchdown pass on the first play of the fourth quarter. Just a nice job by Flacco dropping back, staying calm and finding his tight end over the middle after things cleared out. It's Flacco's 30th career regular-season touchdown pass against the Steelers, tying Tom Brady for most all time.

Flacco is absolutely dealing. Yes, having Ja'Marr Chase and Tee Higgins helps, but he just completed a beautiful 37-yard arcing ball to Andrei Iosivas to move the chains on third and 4. The Bengals are in business again.

Third and 18? No problem for Aaron Rodgers. The Steelers quarterback just ripped a 19-yard touchdown pass to seldom-used tight end Pat Freiermuth (maybe they should use him more!) to cut the Bengals' lead to 20-17.

It should be noted that on the play before. DJ Turner II made a great break on the ball to break up a short Rodgers pass intended for Jonnu Smith, but he went down grabbing at the back of his leg afterward. He exited and went down the tunnel under his own power.

Cincinnati has officially flipped this game on its head and now leads Pittsburgh 20-10 after a 23-yard Evan McPherson field goal.

The Bengals have scored on four straight drives for the first time this season.

What a finish to the half from Cincinnati. Joe Flacco led a third straight scoring drive to finish the half, this one ending with Evan McPherson's 49-yard field goal as time expired in the second quarter.

Considering he's been in Cincinnati for a week and a half, what Flacco is doing -- and especially the chemistry he's displaying with Ja'Marr Chase and Tee Higgins -- is remarkable. Chase has seven catches for 61 yards and a touchdown, and Higgins has three catches for 54 yards and a touchdown.

The Steelers, for the most part, are stopping themselves: Their final two drives ended in Aaron Rodgers interceptions (one his fault, one an amazing play by DJ Turner II), and the drive before that, a false start forced them to settle for a field goal.

Who are these guys, and what have they done with the 2025 Bengals defense?! DJ Turner II just ripped the ball away from DK Metcalf with help from a big hit from Geno Stone, and he somehow came down with the interception inbounds, just as Pittsburgh was on the edge of field goal range.

Wow. Just wow. The Bengals have a little bit of time to add to their lead here.

Joe Flacco is letting it rip, and now he has his second touchdown pass of the night, a 29-yarder to Tee Higgins.

Flacco has been awesome, and Cincinnati will of course be encouraged by that. But another significant development is the suddenly resurgent ground game. Chase Brown ripped off a season-long 37-yard run to start the drive, and he is already up to 74 yards. For comparison's sake, his season high for an entire game this season is 47 yards, so this is huge for the Bengals' offense.

Paycor Stadium has come to life! After most of the loudest noises were boos, the cheers came on Ja'Marr Chase's touchdown pass and got even louder on the very next play from scrimmage: Jordan Battle picked off Aaron Rodgers.

Battle now has three interceptions this season. He had two in his entire career before that.

This was a really, really bad throw and even worse decision by Rodgers; DK Metcalf was double-covered all the way.

If at first you don't succeed ... Ja'Marr Chase just caught a beautiful touchdown pass from Joe Flacco, one plat after he had a touchdown catch overturned.

Heck of a play from Chase, who beat Jalen Ramsey at the line of scrimmage, shrugging off physical coverage -- Ramsey was even called for defensive pass interference, which Cincinnati obviously declined -- and reeled it in.

Going into Week 7, the Bengals didn't have a single run of more than 15 yards, but that changed on Thursday night with Chase Brown dashing for a 28-yard run against the Steelers. 

Explosive run plays are a rarity under Zac Taylor. Since he was hired in 2019, the Bengals don't have a single 50+ yard run.

Chris Boswell booted through a 41-yarder to make the Steelers' lead 10-0.

The Bengals' defense is pretty helpless. With no Trey Hendrickson to deal with, Rodgers has all day to throw, and the rushing attack already has 56 yards on nine carries -- a 6.2 average.

Joseph Ossai actually got some pressure on Rodgers on the penultimate play of the drive, though Rodgers ended up completing a 4-yard pass to Kenneth Gainwell to set up fourth and 1. The Steelers lined up to go for it, but Mason McCormick false started, leading to Boswell's kick.

The Bengals really need their offense to put something on the board here.

The Bengals did some good things, moving into plus territory for the second time in two drives, but things fizzled out once again. Chase Brown dropped a checkdown that looked like it could have gone a long way on first down, a false start turned a third and 6 into third and 11, and then Andrei Iosivas dropped a pass that might have converted for a first down or at least would have been close.

It's been that kind of year, especially for Brown, whose 2.7 yards per carry entering this week was second-worst in the NFL among qualifying runners.

This stat from NFL Next Gen is interesting: Aaron Rodgers had ALL DAY to throw. The Bengals are going to have to figure out how to generate a pass rush without Trey Hendrickson. 

When you give Aaron Rodgers this sort of time, you're going to be in trouble. The veteran quarterback found Jonnu Smith for a 10-yard touchdown to open the scoring in Cincinnati.

Rodgers was sharp on the drive, going three for five for 53 yards, with most of the damage coming on this 39-yarder to DK Metcalf.

After zero receptions 20+ yards downfield through four games, Metcalf had two last week and has one tonight. Something to watch moving forward tonight and beyond.

Aaron Rodgers and the Steelers have the ball first.

Joe Flacco has a 11-13 career record as starter against the Steelers (including playoffs), with all of those starts coming when he was a member of the Ravens. But one of his more memorable recent highlights against his longtime divisional foe actually came with the Colts last year, when he came in for an injured Anthony Richardson and threw two touchdown passes in a 27-24 Week 4 win over Pittsburgh.

With a win tonight, Flacco would tie Tom Brady for most quarterback wins vs. the Steelers since quarterback starts became official in 1950.

The Bengals star quarterback hasn't attended a game since injuring his toe in Week 2, but he's in the building for the team's huge Thursday night showdown against the Steelers. 

Bengals corner Cam Taylor-Britt will be inactive for tonight's game against the Steelers, which is a total shocker. The coaching staff clearly hasn't been happy with him so no one would have been surprised if he had seen some reduced playing time on Thursday, but a total benching is definitely surprising. 

Earlier this week, Bengals defensive coordinator Al Golden was asked if he was going to stick with Taylor-Britt going forward and he gave an ominous answer. "We're always challenging everyone to be better. We have to coach better, he has to be better."

Golden apparently became extremely frustrated with Taylor-Britt after the Packers converted a key third-and-9 during the fourth quarter of their 27-18 win over the Bengals. 

According to Golden, Taylor-Britt was supposed to be helping with a double-team on Packers receiver Matthew Golden, but he was nowhere to be found. 

The Bengals haven't been afraid to ruffle feathers this week. This move comes after linebacker Logan Wilson was also benched earlier this week. 

With Taylor-Britt on the bench, it's certainly possible the Bengals could look to trade him before the Nov. 4 deadline. 

The Steelers will have DeShon Elliott active tonight. He did not travel with the team to Cincinnati on Wednesday (personal), but he joined the team this afternoon and is good to go, a big boost for Pittsburgh's secondary.

Here are the Steelers' inactives:

The Bengals ruled out Trey Hendrickson with a hip injury, meaning they will be the player who leads their team in sacks (four) and pressures (23). No one else on the team has more than two sacks or 15 pressures.

Cincinnati will also be shorthanded at tight end with Tanner Hudson ruled out and Mike Gesicki (pectoral) on IR. Noah Fant and Drew Sample will be in line for more snaps.

But the biggest news is not only the benching but the complete inactivation of cornerback Cam Taylor-Britt, who is a healthy scratch.

Here are all of Cincinnati's inactives: