Mason Rudolph hits George Pickens for two long TDs as Steelers rout Bengals

Mason Rudolph and embattled receiver George Pickens connected for two long touchdowns, and the Pittsburgh Steelers kept their fading playoff hopes alive, beating the Cincinnati Bengals 34-11 on Saturday.

Rudolph, making his first start in two years in place of the injured Kenny Pickett and the ineffective Mitch Trubisky, hit Pickens for an 86-yard catch-and-run score on Pittsburgh’s second offensive snap. He found a streaking Pickens with a 66-yard rainbow in the third quarter as the Steelers (8-7) snapped a three-game skid.

Pickens caught four passes for 195 yards. Rudolph finished 17 of 27 for 290 yards as the Steelers put together their best offensive performance in years.

Jake Browning threw for 335 yards and a touchdown but also tossed three picks the Steelers turned into points as Cincinnati (8-7) saw its three-game winning streak snapped. Pittsburgh raced to a 24-point halftime lead and cruised the rest of the way.

Pittsburgh’s 34 points were its most in a victory since 2020. The performance also likely silenced — for the moment — critics of Pickens, who has been scrutinized for his sometimes lackadaisical play.

Steelers coach Mike Tomlin said the 22-year-old Pickens’ maturity remains a work in progress but refused to bench him. Pickens repaid that loyalty by showcasing the game-breaking talent that’s only been highlighted sporadically during his first two seasons, mostly because he plays on an offense that has struggled for years to move the ball with regularity.

For a few hours on the eve of Christmas Eve, all the negativity surrounding the Steelers during a late swoon that’s led to speculation Tomlin’s 17-year run could be coming to a close went away.

Scoring points in bunches for the first time in a long time will do that. The path for Pittsburgh to reach the playoffs remains complicated — and who knows what will happen at Seattle next week, when Pickett could be ready to return from right ankle surgery — but the Steelers’ first sweep of the Bengals since 2019 made it a little more navigable.

Rudolph, buried on the depth chart for the last two years, was decisive and dynamic, issues that have dogged whoever has happened to be behind center this season.

He hit Pickens on a slant, and the receiver displayed the speed and athleticism that made the Steelers so high on him before the 2022 draft. Pickens later added a diving 44-yard sideline grab that set up Chris Boswell’s 50-yard field goal at the halftime gun. It was Pittsburgh’s highest-scoring first half in more than three years.

Tee Higgins finished with five receptions for 140 yards and an 80-yard touchdown for the Bengals, but Browning’s miscues — an ill-advised heave into the end zone in the first quarter in which he seemed to be trying to throw the ball away, a tipped ball that ended up in the hands of Steelers safety Eric Rowe and a fourth-down incompletion in the end zone late in the first half — put his team into an early hole.

Browning fell to 3-2 as a starter in place of franchise QB Joe Burrow, who’s out for the season with a right wrist injury.

Reporting by The Associated Press