Penguins' Sidney Crosby keeps tight grip on NHL torch

By Tim Benz

http://triblive.com/sports/

October 25, 2017

Edmonton Oilers' Connor McDavid (97) and Pittsburgh Penguins' Sidney Crosby (87) battle for a loose puck in the first period of an NHL hockey game in Pittsburgh, Tuesday, Oct. 24, 2017. (AP)

Implied in the phrase “passing of the torch” is a suggestion the flame is dimming.

This is not the case with Sidney Crosby.

While the NHL is blessed with an unusual wealth of young talent willing to grab that torch from the league's top player, it doesn't appear the Penguins captain is close to loosening his grip.

Crosby and his Penguin teammates just beat reigning MVP Connor McDavid and his Oilers on Tuesday. They will see the 20-year-old phenom again next Wednesday.

“It's nice to see the both of them performing at the top of their game,” Edmonton coach Todd McLellan said. “It's a real reward for fans of the NHL.”

It doesn't stop with Crosby vs. McDavid, though. On Thursday, the Penguins host 19-year-old goal-scoring stud Patrik Laine and Winnipeg at PPG Paints Arena. Then a rematch on Sunday in Winnipeg. Also, Calgary young star Johnny Gaudreau will be on the other bench Nov. 2 and Buffalo cornerstone Jack Eichel on Nov. 14.

Fan bases in each city hope their star will be “the next one” to replace Crosby as “the best one” in the game.

It looks like they will have to wait.

“We don't see him slowing down anytime soon,” Penguin coach Mike Sullivan said Tuesday. “He's an extremely physically fit guy. He takes care of himself. He lives the right way. He does the right things off the ice. He is in the prime of his career right now.”

Yes, Sidney Crosby is 30. And he has 12 NHL seasons under his belt. But Wayne Gretzky totaled 878 points after his first dozen seasons. Mario Lemieux scored 119 goals when he was 30 and 31. Steve Yzerman won all three of his Stanley Cups after his 30th birthday.

Is there any reason to believe Crosby can't replicate those accomplishments in some way?

“Everybody thinks, ‘He is 30 years old,' ” Sullivan said. “Well, I look at Sid, and I think he is a young guy.”

And with age comes refinement.

Crosby's elite standing as captain of the Cup champs and figurative title as “Best Player in the World'' is being challenged from this batch of up-and-comers. But he is warding off their advances with a different skill set than what you might expect.

Defense.

On Tuesday, Crosby spent 10 minutes, 58 seconds on the ice with McDavid, according to naturalstattrick.com, in the Penguins' 2-1 overtime win.

In the limited time when McDavid was on the ice without facing Crosby, McDavid's Corsi-For was 70 percent. With Crosby on the ice, it was 44 percent.

And McDavid's beautiful third-period snipe of a goal to tie the score at 1-1 was accomplished while Crosby was on the bench.

“You just have to understand who you are playing against,” Crosby deadpanned. “And in this case, it was a lot of Connor. So you just … prepare.”

Well “just preparing” for McDavid's skill and speed is akin to “just preparing” for Mariano Rivera's cutter. Or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's sky hook. You know what's coming. But good luck trying to stop it.

Yet Crosby did. And a younger version of “Sid the Kid” might have entered this contest feeling like he needed to outscore McDavid to win the game. And win the matchup on the score sheet. But the 30-year-old edition with three Stanley Cups applied a different stamp.

“I thought his defensive game was on display (against McDavid's line),” Sullivan said. “For me, Sid could be in the conversation for the Selke (Trophy) if he wanted to, based on his two-way game. When he goes head-to-head against a guy like McDavid, it brings out the best in him at both ends of the rink.”

Mark Letestu played with Crosby in Pittsburgh from 2009-12. Now he is McDavid's teammate in Edmonton. And he said McDavid still can learn from Crosby in the offensive end, too.

“I think if Connor wants to add the goal-scoring totals he is talking about, he is going to need to add those little skills around the net that Sid has,” Letestu said. “And Sid is a great role model for him to model his game after.”

In Pittsburgh, the line of progression was clear. Lemieux drafted, played with and even housed Crosby. And when he was 41, he retired. Thus leaving the hockey stick-in-the-stone for Crosby to grasp as the league's best player.

He did.

He hasn't let go of it since.

And he doesn't appear ready to do so for quite some time despite the many capable hands trying to seize it.

Tim Benz hosts the Steelers pregame show on WDVE and ESPN Pittsburgh. He is a regular host/contributor on KDKA-TV and 105.9 FM.

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Sidney Crosby, Connor McDavid focusing on teams, not 1-on-1 matchup

By Will Graves, The Associated Press

http://www.espn.com/nhl/

October 24, 2017

PITTSBURGH -- The fan in Connor McDavid comes out whenever he sees Sidney Crosby's familiar No. 87 on TV.

"When you're watching, you're hoping for him to do something cool," the Edmonton Oilers star said.

Defending one of his childhood idols is another matter entirely. McDavid will get an up-close look when the Oilers visit Crosby and the two-time defending Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins on Tuesday.

"If you want to model yourself after someone, I think he's as good a guy as you can get," said McDavid, who has three goals and five assists through seven games. "He's won just about anything there is to win in hockey: individual awards, team awards. You name it, he's got it. If you're a young guy like me, that's what you want to do with your career."

While Crosby totally gets why sharing the ice with McDavid is a thing, he'd rather not talk about it.

"I think there's always matchups, storylines and things like that ... but we're just going to go out there and play," said Crosby, who has five goals and five assists.

At the moment, Crosby and the Penguins have more pressing matters than the hype that accompanies the biannual meeting between two of the NHL's brightest lights.

The Penguins placed goaltender Antti Niemi on waivers on Monday just three games into his tenure as Matt Murray's backup, called up rookie Casey DeSmith from their AHL affiliate in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton and acquired forward Riley Sheahan from Detroit over the weekend to address their need for a third-line center. The Oilers, meanwhile, are off to a slow start following their first playoff appearance in more than a decade.

Pittsburgh swept Edmonton last season, a testament to the depth around Crosby. Crosby was held without a point while McDavid had a goal and three assists in the two games.

"They were two really, really entertaining games," McDavid said. "Obviously you hope for that and hope for a better result."

The 30-year-old Crosby and the 20-year-old McDavid are separated by a decade but little else.

They finished 1-2 in Hart Trophy voting last season, with McDavid and his league-leading 100 points edging Crosby and his NHL-high 44 goals. For a while last spring it appeared they were on a collision course for the Stanley Cup Final until the Oilers blew a 3-1 lead against Anaheim in the second round.

It's not unlike the path Crosby and the Penguins followed shortly after he made his NHL debut in 2005. Pittsburgh reached the postseason in Crosby's second year. The Penguins reached the Cup final in his third year. In his fourth, he raised the Cup with the franchise's third championship.

"I can only speak of my experience, going to the final and losing was a really good experience for us as a group," Crosby said. "Going through that, it's something you learn through."

The Oilers are hoping last spring can serve as a launching pad for McDavid, whose vision and speed make him a nightmare matchup for anyone tasked with trying to keep up. The responsibility will fall largely on Pittsburgh defenseman Kris Letang, who should see plenty of McDavid's No. 97 on Tuesday.

"I just think what's tough for a defenseman is sometimes a guy can go fast in a straight line and he doesn't have his head up, he's just worried about beating you wide," said Letang, one of the fastest skaters in the league. "This guy is like looking straight into your eyes and he's going full speed so you're like, "Oh [no], what is he going to do?'"

Asked to compare McDavid's quickness to another player outside his own dressing room, Letang responded: "No one is near that guy."

Oilers coach Todd McLellan will try to find a balance between figuring out a way to steer his team out of its early funk while also appreciating the special talent on the ice.

"It will come down to team play but you do appreciate as a coach, a fan, even a player, their skill set and what they brought to their teams and their communities," McLellan said. "Even off the rink, both of them are tremendous that way. It's fun when they're together."

Le'Veon Bell stiff-arms Bengals into submission

By Kevin Gorman

http://triblive.com/sports/

October 22, 2017

(http://www.steelers.com/photos/)

Le'Veon Bell made a move and heard a Cincinnati Bengals defender say what everyone else at Heinz Field was thinking.

Oh, my goodness.

Juice was loose, and nobody was ready for what came next, especially not Bengals cornerback Dre Kirkpatrick.

After making linebackers Vincent Ray, Nick Vigil and Vontaze Burfict miss, Bell drilled Kirkpatrick with as wicked a stiff-arm as we've seen by a Steelers running back.

“I don't know what happened or what came over me on that play,” Bell said, “but that was one of the better stiff-arms of my life.”

Bell turned a simple, second-and-2 check-down pass into a highlight-reel 42-yard gain, stiff-arming Cincinnati into submission in the second quarter of the Steelers' 29-14 AFC North victory Sunday.

It was a play that had even Steelers Hall of Famer Jerome Bettis shaking his head in admiration.

“Impressive stiff-arm,” Bettis said. “My stiff-arm was never as good as his.

“That's what a special player does: You find a way to extend the play. That could have been a good gain, but he turned it into a 40-yard play because of his ability. That's the gift that he has.”

Bell was the gift that kept on giving, wearing out the Bengals by rushing for 134 yards on 35 carries and catching three passes for 58 yards.

It followed a 179-yard rushing game at Kansas City, marking the first time in his career that Bell rushed for 125 yards in back-to-back regular-season games and becoming the first Steeler to do so since Willie Parker in 2007.

“This is what we've come to expect from him,” Steelers coach Mike Tomlin said. “He's rolling well, but when he does it, it's the product of a lot of things. The guys up front, obviously. I thought the wideout perimeter blocking was excellent. It's an 11-man job to run the football for us.”

Bell started by crediting the blocking of fullback Roosevelt Nix and the offensive line, noting they were the reason the Bengals weren't filling holes with the same ferocity in the second half. But this was as good as I've seen Bell run, whether it was making Bengals miss or breaking their attempts to arm tackle him.

“It's great seeing him get loose,” Steelers right guard David DeCastro said. “He's such a special player. You really appreciate when you see him do it, hitting the holes hard, guys blocking and pushing the pile. That's fun.

“That's the Le'Veon we know and have come to love. It's great when your stars play like stars.”

The score was tied 14-14 when Bell broke that big play to the Bengals' 17. The Steelers settled for the first of Chris Boswell's five field goals.

As good as the Steelers offense was, it converted only 2 of 11 third downs and 1 of 6 in the red zone, including 1 of 3 in goal-to-go scenarios. Or this would have been a bigger blowout.

But as Bell got better, the Bengals got worse. They didn't score again, as the Steelers dominated the second half. And it started with that stiff-arm, on a play where Bell claimed he had tunnel vision and didn't see the trail of Bengals he left in his wake.

“When you have a play like that, especially early in the game, it gives you more confidence throughout the course of the game,” Bell said. “I felt like, ‘I broke a big run. Now, I've got to wear these guys out. I've got to make them not want to tackle me anymore.' Over the course of the game, I started feeling like that.”

Bettis was among those impressed, saying Bell has “a chance to be one of the best ever,” knowing that his rushing records are at risk as long as Bell is wearing the black and gold.

And Nix, the engine to his caboose, believes that Bell is on fire.

“Le'Veon's a beast, man,” Nix said. “Every time he touches the ball, something magical can happen.

“He's no shortage of a physical back, neither. He used to be bigger, so he runs hard. Don't think just because he's really patient that he won't bring some power with it.”

And use a stiff-arm for submission.

Kevin Gorman is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at kgorman@tribweb.com or via Twitter @KGorman_Trib.

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Don't look now: Steelers dangerous again after dismantling of Bengals

Jeremy FowlerESPN Staff Writerhttp://www.espn.com/blog/pittsburgh-steelers/October 22, 2017

Bud Dupree sacks Andy Dalton in the fourth quarter of Sunday's 29-14 win over the Bengals. (http://www.steelers.com/photos/)

PITTSBURGH-- So this is what a complete Steelers performance is supposed to look like.

Despite a few flat moments late, the Pittsburgh Steelers looked as crisp as they have all season in a 29-14 win over the Cincinnati Bengals, ripping off 251 first-half yards on the league's second-ranked defense and never looking back.

The identity is intact: Give Le'Veon Bell the ball a ton and throw blockers all over the place and stop the run as a way to create turnovers on defense.

What it means: A team that's dealt with contention and underwhelming performances through the first six weeks appears to be hitting a midseason stride and brimming with confidence. Sunday had a little bit of everything -- a convincing performance from Ben Roethlisberger, another dominant Bell showing, Antonio Brown acrobatics, defensive turnovers, another sack party in the second half and special-teams tricks. With the AFC wide open, the Steelers are strengthening their case for playoff positioning.

This looks like a versatile -- and dangerous -- team right now.

Roethlisberger completed 12 of his first 16 passes for 193 yards, by halftime and Bell (192 total yards) did the rest.

"When you are in a groove, you feel like you can kind of do whatever you want throwing the ball, but Le'Veon comes on in the second half, especially," Roethlisberger said. "We just started giving him the ball and only throwing it on third down. Things worked out."

What I liked: The perfect pass from Robert Golden to Darrius Heyward-Bey on a fake punt basically sealed the game late, and the hide-and-seek touchdown celebration after JuJu Smith-Schuster's score was money. But the Steelers' pass coverage shouldn't go overlooked. Joe Haden and Artie Burns have limited deep downfield gains all year, and Sean Davis was active over the middle for the second straight week. The Bengals managed one first down in the second half, thanks in part to back-to-back interceptions by Haden and Will Gay.

"We got off [the field] quick in the second half a lot -- the pressure picked up, we stopped the run," said defensive end Cam Heyward, one of four Steelers with a sack. "And they didn't get any points in the second half. So that's what we have to continue to do."

What I didn’t like: Iffy run defense, at least to start. The Steelers have been erratic in this area all year, and they allowed a rookie averaging 2.8 yards per carry coming in (Joe Mixon) to break off 48 yards on his first seven carries (6.9 average). The defense relied on two interceptions and three sacks to force Cincinnati into pass-first mode. By then, it was over. But the Bengals had matched the Steelers' intensity entering the third quarter. And the Steelers probably could have gotten one more play off at the goal line at the end of the first half, waiting until three seconds left to call the final timeout.

Fantasy fallout: Martavis Bryant might be unplayable right now. The Steelers tried targeting him a few times, but that seemed forced. Bryant (one catch, 3 yards) is too talented not to break out eventually, but the offense looks most comfortable with Bell, Brown, Smith-Schuster, two tight ends and Bryant as a specialist. Bryant had a good week of practice and seemed poised to create splash plays. That process is on hold for now.

Stiff-armrampage: Bell has looked like his old self the last few weeks, but he punctuated that reality with a fierce 42-yard reception that included a stiff arm so hard that Bengals cornerback Dre Kirkpatrick bounced off the turf like a basketball. "That was one of the better stiff-arms of my life," Bell said. "I don't know what happened or what came over me that play." Bell finished the play by throwing linebacker Vincent Rey to the sideline. Bell's got it working right now, and the Steelers would be smart to keep riding him.

What’s next: The Steelers match up with the Detroit Lions on the road next Sunday night, then head into a bye, when, worst case, they'd be 5-3. Roethlisberger, whose decision making has been better the last few weeks, typically likes throwing in a dome. He threw for three touchdowns last year at Indianapolis.

But coach Mike Tomlin isn't trying to overanalyz"We won and won definitively. I'm not combing through it in that way," said Tomlin when asked if he was looking for more from his offense. "I'm really not. We did what was necessary to win."

Cincinnati Bengals remain Pittsburgh Steelers' 'Little Brother'

Paul Daugherty
http://www.cincinnati.com/sports/bengals/
October 22, 2017


Pittsburgh Steelers strong safety Sean Davis (28) breaks up a pass intended for Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Josh Malone (80) that is intercepted by Pittsburgh Steelers free safety William Gay (22) in the fourth quarter.  (Sam Greene)

PITTSBURGH – On fourth down-and-2 with 3:27 left in a game the Bengals trailed 29-14, Andy Dalton took a shotgun snap, was flushed from the pocket and ... threw an uncatchable pass 20 yards out of bounds. If you’re looking for a metaphor to explain this latest Bengals disappointment, that’ll do.

Need we mention that it was fourth down? That throwing a ball into the front row in that situation is essentially a turnover? A.J. Green was the intended target. Maybe Dalton thought A.J. Who Catches Everything was more than a nickname.

The Steelers Week! rhetoric indicated it could be some sort of turning point game. Not just for Cincinnati’s season, but for the future of the team’s core players and the coaches who lead them.

I don’t know about that. Things tend to get overcooked around here when the subject is Pittsburgh. It could be a good time to see your shrink and remember there are 10 games left in the regular season, including one at home against Pittsburgh. Here’s what I know:

The Bengals have lost five in a row and eight of nine to the team they most need to beat. They fall apart physically and mentally. On Sunday, Green and Joe Mixon combined to touch the ball exactly zero times in the second half. That’s inexplicable and inexcusable.

After Cincinnati tied the game at 14 in the second quarter, Pittsburgh’s offense outgained Cincinnati’s offense, 266-19. “They have our numbers," Green said afterward. Which was one shocking thing for the team’s best player to admit, even if it is true.

“Sadly, that’s one thing that’s been a trend," said Carlos Dunlap, who did not agree with Green. “We can fix it."

The Steelers lay open the Bengals' wounds like no other team. They expose Cincinnati’s weaknesses, they prey on Cincinnati’s Little Brother insecurities. On Sunday, they remembered to play the second half the way they played the first. The Bengals did not.

Maybe that’s why Pittsburgh is Pittsburgh and Cincinnati is not.

Where do the Bengals go from this?

If the stated goal is to win a championship, what else does the current roster/regime have to offer?

When someone asked Marvin Lewis why Mixon didn’t get the ball in the second half, the head coach said, “Whatever plays are called are called."

Green said he didn’t get the ball after intermission because the Bengals had no running game to keep the Steelers' safeties honest. “We couldn’t run the ball in the second half. If you can’t run the ball, you really can’t do anything," he said.

They couldn’t run because the line wasn’t making room. They couldn’t pass because the line wasn’t stopping the Steelers' rush. Somewhere, Andrew Whitworth wasn’t laughing, because he isn’t that kind of guy. He could have been laughing, though. The offensive line he used to call home was exposed Sunday.

The Steelers overburdened the Bengals' offensive line in the second half. At one point in the fourth quarter, Pittsburgh sacked Dalton four times in five plays. A pressured Dalton is a skittish Dalton. When he wasn’t being hassled, he was throwing interceptions. Or throwing into the stands on fourth down in the fourth quarter.

Dalton is now 3-10 versus Pittsburgh. He’s 0-4 in the last four, in which he has contributed four interceptions and one touchdown pass.

Meantime, the Steelers – who don’t treat their Bengals games as the be-all, end-all – calmly went about their business. On Sunday, they resembled the old-school, Jerome Bettis hammers, not the swift, pass-catching counter-punchers of recent vintage.

Le’Veon Bell did his best Bus impression. Bell played like this was 1975 and he took orders from Woody Hayes: Thirty-five carries, 134 yards. He didn’t decimate the Bengals. He just drip-drip-dripped them to death. He was rust on a bumper. With Bell, Pittsburgh controlled the clock and the game.

The Steelers punted once in the first quarter, and not again until the fourth. It wasn’t that the Bengals defense was especially vulnerable. Bell averaged just 3.8 yards a carry and Antonio Brown caught just four passes even as he was targeted 10 times.

It was that the Steelers were going to do things their way, and Cincinnati couldn’t stop them. Sound familiar?

We’ve employed the insanity definition here many, many times. You know: Doing the same things again and again, expecting different results.

The little picture shows the Bengals at home, whomping Indy next Sunday. The schedule after that isn’t ferocious. The playoffs are possible. But on the big screen, if you can’t beat Pittsburgh, almost ever, you’re never going to get where you and your fans want to go.           

Assuming, of course, you really want to go there. After 14-29, that’s an issue everyone at PBS needs to re-visit.

Goaltending in back-to-backs not giving Pens a Chance

By Mark Madden

http://www.timesonline.com/sports

October 22, 2017

Steven Stamkos #91 of the Tampa Bay Lightning celebrates a goal against goalie Antti Niemi #31 of the Pittsburgh Penguins during the first period at Amalie Arena on October 21, 2017 in Tampa, Florida. (Photo by Scott Audette/NHLI via Getty Images)

The Penguins’ early-season stumbles are easy to diagnose: After playing 213 games over the two seasons prior, they can’t deal with games on back-to-back nights when the second opponent hasn’t played the evening before.

That scenario has taken place on three occasions in October, each time on the road against a quality foe. The result: 0-3, with six goals for and 22 against.

The same situation occurs twice in November: Nov. 2 at Calgary and Nov. 11 at Nashville. Bet big on the Flames and Predators.

It’s hard to imagine bigger problems than a 10-1 loss at Chicago Oct. 5 and a 7-1 defeat at Tampa Bay this past Saturday.

But goaltender Antti Niemi is at the root of those problems.

Signed as the backup this past off-season, Niemi isn’t giving the Penguins a chance to win, or even compete. Niemi’s goals-against average is 7.50, his save percentage .797. Chop the former number in half, and it still stinks.

The Penguins trailed 4-0 inside of 10 minutes at Chicago on Oct. 5, and 3-0 after one period at Tampa Bay in the Penguins’ last game. That is unacceptable goaltending no matter how tired or sub-par the Penguins are in front of Niemi.

Niemi had his worst numbers as a pro last season with Dallas. He’s currently proving that was no hiccup, but the beginning of an outright disintegration. As bad as Niemi’s statistics are, he’s looked even worse in the compilation.

It was good to see Coach Mike Sullivan make Niemi play all 60 minutes in Saturday’s defeat at Tampa Bay. A primary purpose of playing Niemi is to rest top goalie Matthew Murray, and that can’t be compromised every time Niemi implodes, which is too often. Leave Niemi in there to take his medicine.

Niemi’s contract is chump change: One year, $700K. The Penguins could cut him, pay him, and be none the worse off.

Three games might seem too short a sample to write off Niemi, but there’s no denying his horrific stats or how awful he’s looked.

The Penguins need to consider options. The most obvious is Tristan Jarry, currently toiling for the Penguins’ Wilkes-Barre/Scranton farm club.

Jarry, 22, was a second-round draft pick in 2013. He’s off to a shaky start in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton: His goals-against average is 3.96, his save percentage .883. Then again, that’s star-quality stuff compared to Niemi.

Management would prefer to keep Jarry in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton by way of development via playing at least half the games there.

But Murray is 23, just one year older. He’s projected as the No. 1 goalie for the next 10 years. What’s the end game re: Jarry’s development? He’s not going to beat out Murray. Then again, Murray beat out Marc-Andre Fleury.

Success for the Penguins should trump Jarry’s development. But Jarry has played just one NHL game. He offers no guarantees at the top level. But how could he possibly be worse than Niemi?

God forbid Murray gets hurt. As he often does.

The Penguins filled one hole on at least a temporary basis by trading winger Scott Wilson to Detroit for center Riley Sheahan. The Red Wings also received a third-round pick in the deal. The Penguins got a fifth-round pick.

Wilson was a seventh-round pick in 2011 and had performed mostly inconsequentially in Pittsburgh.

Sheahan might have been the NHL’s worst player last season: He didn’t score in his first 79 games and was minus-29. Sheahan has zero points in his first eight games this campaign.

But Sheahan has size (6-foot-3, 226 pounds) and pedigree: He was a first-round pick in 2010. Sheahan kills penalties and won over half his face-offs last season. He’s an improvement over Greg McKegg and Carter Rowney, both marginal NHL players.

Sheahan may initially be the Penguins’ third-line center. But he probably won’t have that job come playoff time. Expect GM Jim Rutherford to acquire an upgrade over Sheahan before the NHL’s February 26 trade deadline, and Sheahan will drop to the fourth line.

Mark Madden hosts a radio show 3-6 p.m. weekdays on WXDX-FM (105.9).

Pittsburgh Steelers, Cincinnati Bengals on similar defensive rises

Paul Dehner Jr.

http://www.cincinnati.com/sports/bengals/

October 19, 2017

Ryan Shazier tackles Giovani Bernard in their 2016 playoff game. (USA Today Sports)

The results are different. Many players are different. But as the film of the Pittsburgh Steelers defense rolls inside the meeting rooms at Paul Brown Stadium this week, make no mistake, this group ranked third in yards and fourth in points allowed hasn’t changed.

This is prototypical Steelers defense. The reputation built over generations of leading the league has returned. As for what that looks like, just take tape of recent relatively subpar seasons and hit x16 on the DVR.

“They are fast as hell,” tight end C.J. Uzomah said.

The past three years the Steelers attempted to rebuild a group that spent much of the early portion of this century lofted atop the defensive rankings. The process has taken time to mold. Ben Roethlisberger, Antonio Brown and Le’Veon Bell replaced the defense as the calling card of Pittsburgh football.

In fact, after back-to-back years leading the league in points allowed from 2010-11, they gradually regressed outside of the top 10, until ranking 10th again last year.

Struggles in the secondary and pass rush often were to blame.

No more. Now with seven of the 11 starters 24 years old or younger and new pieces scattered across all three levels, the zone schemes that built the reputation are matched by the ability to execute. In a hurry.

In 2015, they ranked 30th in passing yards allowed. They currently lead the NFL.

“The scheme doesn’t change,” said Marvin Lewis. “The zone blitz started in 1993, and they continue to plug guys in while everybody else stays in their spots. So that helps you play well. As they plug in new pieces, they’re able to use their abilities as best they can within the game plan.”

The new pieces are providing depth and versatility. The development should ring familiar for Bengals fans. The exact same dynamic is happening in stripes. You’ll have a hard time finding two defenses with brighter futures than the two sharing Heinz Field on Sunday.

While the Bengals point to pass rusher Carl Lawson, the Steelers match with first-round pick OLB T.J. Watt. The Bengals proudly boast rising 2016 draft picks Nick Vigil and William Jackson III, the Steelers do the same watching 2016 picks CB Artie Burns (first round), DT Javon Hargrave (third round) and S Sean Davis (second round) excel as starters.

Fresh faces are as much a part of the NFL story as sacks and interceptions, but new players don’t always mean new results. In the parallel paths of the Bengals and Steelers, they have.

“Some of our young players are not new to us, they are getting into the prime of their careers — mid-20s — it’s a natural maturation that has taken place for a number of individuals,” Steelers coach Mike Tomlin said. “It’s showing for us collectively. There is an appearance they are playing faster because they have more experience and understanding of how what they are doing fits into the big picture. That allows you to hustle and play free.”

Nobody plays freer than Ryan Shazier, not new to the Bengals or the nightmares of running back Giovani Bernard, who took one of the nastiest hits in PBS history in the January 2016 playoff game.

“I feel like it starts with him,” Uzomah said of Shazier.

He’s ascended to be one of the premier linebackers in football and for a defense impressing with their speed, anticipation and tracking of tight ends and running backs jumps off the page. He ranks fifth in the NFL in tackles, already forced two fumbles, picked off two passes and broke up six more.

Couple his range with the addition of former Browns cornerback Joe Haden along with instant success from Burns, selected one pick after Jackson III last year, and the stiff pass defense makes perfect sense.

“The two corners, you can go complete quarters of a game watching and hardly notice them, and that’s a compliment,” Bengals receivers coach James Urban said. “The ball isn’t pushed out that way because they are playing the scheme so well. That is the whole thing. The linebacker-level players get in the lanes and make you make throws you shouldn’t make or take away throws you think you can make because of how they leverage the ball.”

Different, but the same.

“They're younger,” said A.J. Green, who caught only two passes for 38 yards in his lone game against the Steelers last year. “But they still play the same way, they play sound defense. They make you play the sticks, they drive the ball, no big plays.”

The days where Green would terrorize an overwhelmed Steelers secondary with 11 receptions for 224 yards as he did in 2014 or 17 catches for 250 yards as he did in the two combined 2015 regular season meetings are probably a thing of the past.

Still, even through relatively lean defensive years for the Steelers, the Bengals haven’t scored more than 21 points against Pittsburgh since September of 2009.

The blur of new speed only accentuates the Bengals’ issues in this series. The job for Andy Dalton and company only grows more challenging. 

“Every time we have played them they have played us tough no matter what their defense is ranked in the league that year,” guard Clint Boling said. “There are some different pieces, but it’s a familiar game.”