Cincinnati Bengals at Heinz could be trouble

They’ve won two in a row there and three of four.

PITTSBURGH (AP) — What a mess the Cincinnati Bengals are getting themselves into.

The underachieving-yet-again Bengals (4-7) are one loss away from a 16th non-winning season in the last 17 and, with it, likely playoff extinction.

It’s a familiar scenario for a team that regularly packs it in most Decembers, when the good teams pull away, the bad teams fall apart and the Bengals become ... the Bungles.

Worse still, they’re being packed off to Pittsburgh and mushy Heinz Field, the NFL’s answer to sandlot football with its slippery surface, huge brown spots where there should be grass and ankle-deep ruts.

Only six days after the Steelers beat the Dolphins 3-0 on a muddy, mucky swampland of a field that became saturated with near-record rain and slowed both teams to a crawl, the Steelers (8-3) and Bengals (4-7) will try to play a reasonable facsimile of an NFL game there tonight. Hip boots are optional.

“I’ve never seen a field that bad, really,” Bengals receiver T.J. Houshmandzadeh said.

The weather forecast? Windy, with a good chance of rain — nearly the same forecast for last Monday, though no one is expecting the nearly 11⁄2 inches that fell that day.

Here’s the surprise for those that don’t keep up with the day-to-day doings of the AFC North: Despite their record, despite their history, the Bengals might be the team best equipped to play in Pittsburgh so soon after the Monday Night Mud Bowl.

The Bengals’ own grass practice field isn’t much better this time of year, and no other division team has played as well in Heinz as the Bengals. They’ve won two in a row there and three of four, and they certainly should have a sense of urgency to win this one.

Lose and the Bengals are out of the division race because the Steelers can finish no worse than 9-7 and the Bengals no better than 8-8.

“If we don’t, we’re finished,” coach Marvin Lewis said. “We have no margin of error.”

The Steelers make a habit of ending Cincinnati’s season, doing so in the wild card playoffs two seasons ago and on the final day of the regular season last year. Both those games were in Cincinnati, fittingly enough given the visiting team has won nine of the last 10 in the series.