Week 9 “We didn't deserve to win, Cleveland did.” -Taylor
The most disappointing thing that happened to the Bengals so far this season is how they responded after beating the Ravens. When you act like you won the Super Bowl in week 7, the following two weeks' outcome isn’t surprising. With an inexcusable loss to the 1-5 Jets, the Bengals followed it up with an embarrassingly bad performance against the Browns. The Bengals stars played so poorly that the stadium was starting to become empty at halftime. Nothing that happened this week was about coaching but everything to do about the play on the field. Joe Burrow and Ja’Marr Chase seemed out of sorts and the Bengals defense stars looked like average Joe’s - not the top ranked players they’d proven to be in the first games of the season.
At the start of the game everything seems to be working for the Bengals. It looked like they would be scoring on their first drive of the game - which would have been the first time this season. But that quickly came to a halt as Burrow made an Andy Dalton esk predetermined throw, leading to a pick 6. Later in the first half the Bengals go for it on 4th down and have a turnover on downs. The turnover on downs coupled with a Ja’Marr Chase fumble led to 17 points of turnovers for the Browns and a 24-10 game at halftime. The Bengals offense also had another interception and a turnover on downs in the second half which led to 10 more points for the Browns. The Browns scored 27 points off turnovers which is more than the point differential in the 41-16 destruction the Bengals endured. If Joe Burrow wants to make claims that the offense should be scoring 40 points a week; maybe he should make them for his own team and not for the opponent. The one fatal flaw that is coming up for Burrow this season is the crutch Ja’Marr Chase is for him. At times Burrow is not making reads and is just hoping Chase bails him out. When Tyler Boyd has two targets and one catch that’s a problem. If you fail to make reads the defense will start to learn your tendencies. Luckily Sunday was Burrows worst game of the year and hopefully the bye week helps reset this offense. This team needs to reset as they head into their last 8 games of the season.
The Bengals defense was dealt a tough hand this week and they decided to make it even worse with a poor performance. Baker Mayfield had his best game of the season, while Nick Chubb almost averaged 10 yards a carry. Missed tackles and blown coverages were all over the field. The three stars of the Bengals defense were the three worst graded players according to PFF on Sunday. Trey Hendrickson posted a 43.9 grade, Jessie Bates posted a 36.8 grade, and Logan Wilson rounded out the group with a 29.4 grade. The Defense had 11 missed tackles on 46 plays posting their highest missed tackle rate of the season at 24%. As I said last week: if the Bengal’s miss more than 15% of their tackles, they will lose the game. At the halfway point in the season this is now an official trend. As the weather changes this trend will become more apparent as teams begin to run the ball more often. Again as I said with the offense, hopefully the bye week allows the team to reset and finish out the season strong.
Officially at the halfway mark the Bengals get their week off to reset. The team sits at 5-4 and the bottom of the division. If you compare the feeling of this team to two weeks ago, things aren’t great. You went from top of the division to last place. But if you look back to the start of the season, things are pretty good. This team was projected to only win 6 games this season, which would have put their record at 2-7 at this point. Sometimes as Bengals fans we need to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. The playoffs are still a possibility, unfortunately we play in the most competitive division. All we can hope for at this point, is that the bye week leads the team to reset, regroup and get back to winning games in the back half of the season.
