Updated: 10:45 a.m.
The NFL named Bengals right end Antwan Odom the AFC Defensive Player of the Week Wednesday after he tied a franchise record at Green Bay this past Sunday with five sacks in the Bengals' first-ever win at Lambeau Field. Left end Eddie Edwards had five sacks against Cleveland in the 1980 finale.
It is the second time in the last four weeks the Bengals have had the Defensive Player of the Week. Cornerback Leon Hall got it for his three interceptions during a 14-0 win in Cleveland in Game 15 last year.
Also Wednesday, Tampa Bay picked safety Corey Lynch off the Cincinnati practice squad and the Bengals replaced him with rookie cornerback Rico Murrauy.
According to the Bengals' Odom press release:
"Odom produced 31 yards in losses with his five sacks of Green Bay QB Aaron Rodgers. Two of his first three sacks helped push the Packers out of field-goal range, forcing punting situations, and midway through the fourth quarter, he pushed the Packers into a third-and-15 situation at their 28, with a punt the result of that drive.
Odom also recorded two sacks vs. Denver in Game 1, and his seven-sack total leads by three in the NFL sacks race. Odom and Edwards now share the Bengals record for most sacks over any two-game span, as Edwards had seven over the last two games of 1980.
Elias Sports Bureau reports this week that since 1982, when individual sacks became an official NFL statistic, no player has matched that total for the first two games of a season. The previous record for Games 1-2 of a season was 6.5, by Detroit DE William Gay in 1983 (Gay finished '83 with 13.5)."
The sack craze keeps going. The Bengals have nine sacks in two games, more than half of their total of last year's 17. It took them nine games to get there in '08. On Sunday, Odom matched what the Bengals did in the first six games.
The 5-11, 202-pound Murray, a free-agent rookie out of Kent State who played at Cincinnati's Moeller High School, played in all four Bengals preseason games and had eight tackles before he got waived at the final cut.
Lynch, a sixth-round pick out of Appalachian State in 2008, lost one of the more celebrated roster battles of the summer to safeties Kyries Hebert and Tom Nelson. He's now with the team where his idol played most of his career, former Pro Bowl safety John Lynch, one of the reasons Corey Lynch wore No. 47.
STEELERS NOTES: Gerry Dulac of The Pitsburgh Post-Gazette came up with some stat gems of what the Steelers have done to the Bengals at Paul Brown Stadium, where Cincinnati has beat them once this decade:
The Steelers have had a 100-yard rusher in each of the past five PBS games, and six of the past seven.
The Steelers have won the past eight meetings in PBS, including the 2005 Wild Card game while holding the Bengals to an average of 12.6 points. In five of the seven regular-season victories, the Steelers were coming off a loss.
Former Ohio State wide receiver Santonio Holmes has a career average of 20 yards per catch (15 for 300 yards) at PBS, where he knocked the Bengals out of the '06 playoffs with a 67-yard run-and-catch touchdown less than two minutes into overtime.
As for Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, everybody has sacked him but the Bengals. Dulac notes that he was sacked 139 times in the past three seasons, but Roethlisberger has not been sacked in the past three games against the Bengals and just twice in the past five.
Former Ohio State WR Santonio Holmes has a career average of 20 yards per catch in Paul Brown Stadium (15 for 300).
