PITTSBURGH – Adam Jones, once the NFL’s lead miscreants, is a team captain now. The former pro wrestler is in his 10th season and his teammates voted him to lead. And he’s going to lead in his own special way.

After the Bengals’ 24-16 loss to the rival Pittsburgh Steelers, he was asked what he said to rookie Tyler Boyd, who fumbled away his team’s last chance to tie the game Sunday in the last two minutes. Replay showed Boyd’s knee might have been down before James Harrison popped the football loose. The officials called it a turnover. Replay upheld it. So instead of second-and-short at the Steelers’ 33, the game was basically over.

“First of all, I thought it was a [expletive] call,” Jones said. “That’s what I thought it was.

View photos Adam Jones gets an interception while defending Antonio Brown. (AP) More

“Tyler Boyd is the real deal,” Jones added. “This kid got a lot more football to play. We love TB here. Like I told him, ‘No reason to hold your damn head down.’ Boyd gonna be special. See how we do in the next game when we play these [expletives].”

Here is the state of the most heated rivalry in the NFL now: the Steelers “run the North,” as the T-shirts say, winning Sunday without top running back Le’Veon Bell and with star wide receiver Antonio Brown held to four catches and 39 yards. Sunday’s touchdowns came from Xavier Grimble, Jesse James and DeAngelo Williams. Cincinnati is not quite physical enough, not quite dynamic enough and not quite explosive enough. That was the story of their WWE-style loss last season in the playoffs, and it’s still the case this season so far.

Jones can talk though. There was talk during the game and in the locker room, even after the first meeting with the Steelers since Vontaze Burfict targeted Brown in a brutal hit and Jones accused him of faking it. (Jones later apologized.)

“How many yards did he have?” Jones asked by his locker. “How many touchdowns?”

“Looks like we did our job. Against him.

“But we didn’t win the game.”

This wasn’t a slam. Jones said Brown “will be wearing a gold jacket.” But when the other guys have the better record, bravado matters a little more.

“My wife called me,” Jones said. “She sent me some scripture saying do what I can do and let the Lord handle the rest of it. I’m content. Whatever y’all want to write, y’all write. I know the guys we got. All we gotta do is keep working hard. We see those [expletives] again. Can’t wait till we play ’em again.”

View photos DeAngelo Williams (R) scored on a 4-yard catch in Pittsburgh’s victory against Cincinnati. (Getty Images) More

The Bengals’ secondary is arguably, improbably, their shining light now. They kept Ben Roethlisberger guessing for most of the day. The Steelers quarterback threw two interceptions – Jones had one – and Brown was not much of a factor.

“Just going up, challenging him, kinda making him frustrated at the line,” defensive back Dre Kirkpatrick said. “Get your hands on him at the line. A lotta guys do Cover 3, they start up give him access to run his routes. We wanted to go up and challenge him.”

If only the Bengals had that kind of moxie on the other side of the ball. Jeremy Hill rushed for 22 yards. Gio Bernard ran for 17. While Jones spoke (and spoke some more), Bernard quietly dressed and left. Guard Clint Boling called the team “one-dimensional” and that’s an understatement. Andy Dalton threw 54 times in the rain for 366 yards. The longest Bengals rush from scrimmage was 10 yards.

“They know what we’re going to do, we know what they’re going to do,” Boling said. “It’s about being physical and beating the man in front of you and we just weren’t able to do that today.”

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