THE BLITZ projects the Cincinnati Bengals to be the 5th-most pass-oriented offense in football (in a neutral context) right now with a 66.8% pass rate.
The Cincinnati Bengals have run the 6th-most plays in football this year, averaging a whopping 61.3 plays per game.
Opposing teams have averaged 37.0 pass attempts per game versus the Pittsburgh Steelers defense this year: 8th-most in the league.
Hayden Hurst has been used less as a potential pass-catcher this year (73.9% Route% in games he has been on the field) than he did last year (44.9%).
THE BLITZ projects Hayden Hurst to garner 5.5 targets in this game, on average, putting him in the 86th percentile among TEs.
Cons
The Bengals are an enormous 7-point favorite in this game, indicating an extreme rushing game script.
THE BLITZ projects this game to have the 4th-smallest volume of plays run on the slate this week at 127.2 plays, accounting for the tendencies of each team and game dynamics.
Hayden Hurst’s skills in picking up extra yardage have tailed off this year, notching a mere 3.05 yards-after-the-catch (YAC) compared to a 4.08 figure last year.
The Pittsburgh Steelers pass defense has given up the 9th-lowest Completion% in the league (69.3%) to TEs this year (69.3%).
The Pittsburgh Steelers safeties grade out as the 8th-best collection of safeties in football this year in covering receivers.