The National Football League continues their four days of football for this holiday weekend with a pair of contests today in Pittsburgh, where the Steelers host the Cincinnati Bengals, and Los Angeles, site of a matchup between the Chargers and Buffalo Bills. This is the second day of NFL play over the Christmas holiday, the action started on Thursday night with the Los Angeles Rams win over the New Orleans Saints. In addition to tomorrow's 10 NFL games, the league will stage three Monday contests on Christmas.
Both games played today will offer good football weather with only a slight chance of rain.
The early game in Pittsburgh, scheduled to start at 1:30 p.m. Pacific Time, features a pair of backup quarterbacks. The Starters of these two teams, Kenny Pickett of the Steelers and the Bengals Joe Burrow, are missing with injuries. Burrow is out for the season; Pickett has been sidelined for three weeks with an ankle injury suffered during the Steelers last victory, gained in Cincinnati four weeks ago.
Burrow had an injury plagued season, first playing through a calf injury during the first month of the regular season and then having his campaign ended with a wrist injury that required surgery. His replacement, Jack Browning, lost his first start, that defeat suffered against the Steelers in Cincinnati, but has strung together three impressive wins over the Jacksonville Jaguars, Indianapolis Colts and Minnesota Vikings.
While the Bengals were winning the prior three weeks, the Steelers were not. Behind awful quarterback play by Mitch Trubisky, the Steelers have gone down to defeat against the Arizona Cardinals, New England Patriots and Indianapolis Colts.
The Bengals may be better than all three of those teams, so what chance does Mike Tomlin and his men have for a win today? Not much with Trubisky behind center was a decision he made. So the Steelers head coach has gone back to the bench in Pittsburgh to designate Mason Rudolph today’s starter.