PITTSBURGH — Joe Burrow stared into his locker after it was over, and you knew he wasn't thinking about staging that mobile Hall of Fame exhibit he had just displayed with Steelers quarterback Aaron Rodgers in a den of din at Acrisure Stadium.

With two new-look defenses scrambling for control of the AFC North, Burrow staked the Bengals' claim when he tore the heart out of the post-Mike Tomlin zone with the best passer rating (123.9) in his nine games against the Steelers.

He hit his first 14 passes, 18 of 21 in the first half, 76% for the game at 28 of 37. And one of his three touchdowns came on a riverboat-gambler-fourth-and-two pass to tight end Mike Gesicki from 25 yards that Burrow finished off with a dice winner's roll as he went to the bench with a 27-24 lead at 13:29 left in the game.

"Just trying to critically think about the game," said Burrow of those moments right after the 30-27 loss. "Where I could have been better, where we could have improved. Just trying to get better."

The game died with 44 seconds left on the Steelers 38 when defensive tackle Derrick Harmon's bull-rush produced their only sack of the game and a cruel strip of Burrow.

"You know he'll beat himself up over that,' said wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase, wondrous again with nine catches for 98 yards and another touchdown catch.

Bengals-Steelers. Still the same after all these years.

"Absolutely," said left tackle Orlando Brown Jr. after his 15^th career bout against Pittsburgh.

The Bengals came in with a new defense, a new superstar, a new swagger. The Steelers came in with a new head coach groomed right here at the confluence of the Three Rivers.

Didn't matter.

Bengals-Steelers. Forget the big players and the even bigger plays. Always, it seems. Mistakes. Turnovers. Last quarter. Last series. Last snap. Bengals-Steelers.

"We've got to play more sound football than what we did today to beat a team like that," said Burrow, who, as usual, boiled down 60 minutes of havoc into a pure, uncut nutshell better than anyone.

(Media included.)

"Self-inflicted. Like last week with the penalties, we just can't shoot ourselves in the foot like that. You can't win in this league when you do that. It's really hard. It's really hard. We could have overcome it, but it's really hard to win like that."

Rodgers stunned the new Bengals defense early with a long ball that had been in mothballs this season.

"He kept us on our toes. They were going fast early," said cornerback Dax Hill. "Made sure we didn't get aligned, switching up the cadences. He's good at reading defenses. He was anticipating different things."

But as the pass rush heated up (the Bengals hit him eight times and Pro Football Focus had them for 20 pressures), Rodgers couldn't put them away with touchdowns on the game's last two drives that had the Steelers at the Bengals 9 and then at the 6. Courtesy of third-down sacks from that new superstar. Defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence II.

They had to settle for two field goals, but they won the game as Rodgers survived an interception and a 56% completion percentage.

"Two great quarterbacks. It's going to be like that," said Bengals safety Jordan Battle, who turned the game with that interception with 1:40 left in the first half that became a Burrow touchdown pass. "Any AFC North game, it's going to be four quarters... Tough AFC North game. It's what it's about."

Bengals-Steelers. There's always a physical toll. Both sides. The coaches always seem to end up hearing injury questions first thing Monday.

With Bengals No. 3 wide receiver Andrei Iosivas on injured reserve, fourth-rounder Colbie Young got his first NFL start, got the ball for a two-yard gain on the game's first play, and was out with a knee injury.

Slot cornerback Jalen Davis injured his hamstring early enough so that rookie cornerback Tacario Davis took the bulk of the snaps.

Safety and captain Bryan Cook injured his ankle early, tried to come back, left again and came back for the last field-goal stand when safety Kyle Dugger got hurt.

Still, the Bengals offense rolled.

"We're the best in the world at this," Chase said. "They can only do so much to slow us down."

Wide receiver Tee Higgins had 90 more yards and a remarkable touchdown catch in a career year. There was Gesicki's fingertip grab. There was right tackle Amarius Mims stoning NFL sack-leader T.J. Watt with a PFF stat sheet that read nothing.

"I thought we were pretty dang good," Burrow said after they punctured new Steelers defensive coordinator Patrick Graham's scheme for 352 yards.

"We had a couple of penalties that set us back that we just can't have happen. A couple of things procedurally that we've got to clean up that put us behind the eight-ball a little bit. Overall, I thought we were pretty good."

The Steelers didn't stop them, Chase seemed to say.

You can talk about the two special teams' disasters in the second half that gave the ball right back to Pittsburgh on a Cedric Johnson roughing the punter penalty and a Ke’Shawn Williams' fumbled punt at the Bengals 14.

But the Bengals had a shot to go up 24-17 on the first series of the second half when Mims' false start at the Steelers 15 on third-and-four turned into a field goal for a 20-17 lead.

"We have to eliminate the penalties," Chase said.

When the last drive started with 2:08 left, the Bengals had to take a timeout to beat the play clock.

"Procedurally, we were not very good right there. We were not very good," Burrow said.

And with seven minutes left in a 27-27 game, the defense allowed the Steelers to escape the Pittsburgh 8 on a pass (tight end Darnell Washington's 47-yard catch-and-run) and run (Jaylen Warren's 26-yard slither-and-bolt) that were two explosives the Bengals know they can't allow in the guts of a game.

"You have to know where 80 (the 300-pound Washington) is," Battle said. "You have to know when to shoot. You have to get him low, he's a big dude."

Lawrence played his star turn to a  tee with his first two sacks as a Bengal as massive as he with both in the red zone on third down. And his first declaration as a captain.

"We made a lot of mistakes that made it close," said Lawrence, saying it all in his Bengals-Steelers debut. "I know who we are. I know the men we have in here. I have no doubt that when we come to practice next week, we'll be locked in, eliminate mistakes and correct the ones we made."

Bengals-Steelers.

"It came down to the last few plays," Hill said.

"Tough AFC North game. It's what it's about," Battle said.

"Always is," Orlando Brown Jr. said.

After a masterpiece that couldn't be framed, Burrow put on the finishing touches:

"I think we've got a chance to be great. We've got to improve it. We've got to show it every day. Today we didn't."