You gotta hand it to Cincinnati, the Bengals made the plays when they had to and the Steelers didn’t. That’s why the Steelers are going to play catch-up over the regular season’s final 7 games and the Bengals control their own destiny.

That stinks!

Excuse me — the Steelers stunk Sunday afternoon. The offense stunk, the special teams stunk and the defense was merely OK -- all of which adds up to a 18-12 loss to the former “Bungles.”

The resurgent offensive line got absolutely no push against Cincinnati’s largely no-name defensive line. Ben Roethlisberger spent a lot of time with a Bengals’ defender on him and Rashard Mendenhall didn’t have many running lanes. I didn’t expect Mendenhall to post stellar numbers against Cincy and its No. 2 rush defense, but I thought he’d get more than 13 chances to tote the rock.

We have Bruce Arians to thank for that. All together now, “Thanks, B.A.!”

But Arians had no control over Cincinnati defenders constantly getting their paws in the way of Roethlisberger’s passes. That blame goes partly to Roethlisberger for not making that great of passes (more on this momentarily), and the rest goes to the aforementioned offensive line.

I rarely see Steelers’ defensive linemen or linebackers get their hands on a thrown ball near the line of scrimmage, but it seems like every game their opponents have no problems. I guess the Steelers’ coaching staff must not practice that. Either way, it gets kind of old seeing ball after batted ball fall harmlessly to the turf each Sunday.

Back to Big Ben. He played like — pardon my French — doo-doo. He had absolutely no accuracy on his passes. Roethlisberger’s passes were almost always high or too long and not even close to the intended target.

The kickoff-coverage team has been so off target for most of the year its not even funny. Their follies earlier in the year fortunately didn’t come back to bite them in the butt. When they allowed former Division II standout Bernard Scott return a kickoff for a touchdown in the first quarter Sunday, it did. This is becoming all too common with the Steelers’ coverage units, especially considering they have allowed a return for a touchdown in their past 3 home games.

Something has to be done. Whether it’s something simple as changing the players on the coverage units, or firing the special teams coaches, something has to be done and done quickly.

Steelers’ coach Mike Tomlin partially disagreed Sunday:

“It’s not anything complex in terms of where we are in our kick coverage,” the 3rd-year coach said. “I’m open to all considerations at this point. I’d put myself out there if I thought I could do the job.”

Once inside the red zone, Roethlisberger & Co. certainly didn’t do their jobs. The Steelers obviously failed to score a touchdown on all 4 trips inside the red zone Sunday. Both teams seemed to tighten up once the Pittsburgh offense got inside the Bengals’ 20, but tightening up like that only benefits the defense.

“We weren’t able to execute in the red zone,” Tomlin said. “When you kick field goals, you potentially open yourself to losses.”

You also expose yourself to losses when your defense can’t get off the field, can’t force turnovers and can’t apply any sort of pressure on the quarterback coach, but I’m sure you already knew that.