Bengals’ win over Steelers last year helped recruit free agents like Mike Hilton

A year ago, the Cincinnati Bengals took down the Pittsburgh Steelers on prime time, a game that infamously featured Vonn Bell popping JuJu Smith-Schuster in a legendary moment.

And future free agents kept that in mind when deciding to sign with the Bengals this offseason.

Take new starting corner Chidobe Awuzie, who says that exposure to the Bengals defense on national television was something he kept in mind during his trip to the market, as he told Geoff Hobson of Bengals.com:

“I definitely thought about it. I remember watching it and a lot of the guys were like, damn, they’re having fun. They’re playing real hard, they’re playing with energy. Obviously that wasn’t a deciding factor, but that was the time that I got to see the Bengals on prime time on national TV and really learned about the current state of them and I really saw something special.”

Former Steelers standout corner Mike Hilton was standing on the opposite sideline that night with a raised eyebrow, too: “It played into it. Just seeing how physical those guys were and knowing that they were a couple of pieces away from turning the corner, and that attracted me here and I’m still excited to be here.”

Hilton says he thinks the Bengals will take that same energy into Pittsburgh this weekend as they hope a changing of the guard can keep happening in the AFC North.

Of course, many things go into a player deciding to sign with a certain team. But it was easy to see how the Bengals beating the Steelers in front of a national audience caught the attention of the league — and doing it again and moving to 2-1 this weekend might make similar waves.