CINCINNATI — Perhaps the greatest sign of hope for the Bengals and their altered playoff path is that Zac Taylor and Brian Callahan won’t be simplifying anything for Jake Browning.
And the fact they feel they don’t have to is an encouraging sign.
There have been seven backup quarterbacks who have won games this season, including one – Josh Dobbs – who has done it for two teams.
Browning finished just 8-of-14 for 68 yards and a two-yard touchdown pass to Ja’Marr Chase in his reserve duty for the injured Joe Burrow last Thursday against Baltimore.
Browning did direct a touchdown drive on the last possession of the game. For those who think Browning will just be asked to “manage” the game and not take chances or that Callahan and Taylor will scale down the playbook, Callahan says there’s no time to do that.
And more to the point, Browning, someone who’s led the Washington Huskies to the final four of the college playoff in 2017 as a sophomore, isn’t about to let anyone put a governor on an offense he’s now driving down the road.
“Oh, Jake’s fantastic. Behind closed doors, I think you guys will see his personality a little bit, hopefully, but he’s incredibly confident,” Callahan said. “He’s had a really interesting journey to get to this point. He’s kind of guy you root for, who’s put his time in. He’s had to grind it out.”
"I don't need to tell anything to Jake. We have full confidence in Jake." Sam Hubbard, who is not making any proclamations about his ankle pic.twitter.com/AWVcNNa4sj
— Mike Petraglia (@Trags) November 20, 2023
Browning is someone who – with Jonah Williams protecting him as an offensive lineman at Folsom (Calif.) High School – set record after record.
At Folsom, Browning had a 4.0 GPA and set national and state high school records. In 46 games, he completed 1,191 of 1,708 attempts for 16,775 yards and 229 touchdowns, all California records. The 229 touchdowns also broke the national record held by Maty Mauk.
As a senior, he threw for a national-record 91 touchdown passes. He also passed for a California record of 5,790 yards, which broke his record from his junior year. Browning was the Gatorade Football Player of the Year during his junior and senior years.
“He’s been around a bunch of different really good coaches,” Callahan said. “You see that when you talk to him about football, he’s got great knowledge. A really successful college quarterback, really successful high school quarterback. Obviously most guys get to this point, fit in that category, but he works in incredibly hard at his craft. And I’m excited for his opportunity. I really am. I think he’s earned a right to be able to do the job, and I think he’s very capable of doing it.”
The way Callahan explains it, it’s not about being Joe Burrow’s backup, it’s more about being Jake Browning. And a good Jake Browning will be more than enough to give the Bengals a good chance to win games.
“He may have concepts that he likes better or differently than maybe Joe did,” Callahan said. “But I think they see the game pretty similarly. So, I don’t think there’ll be a lot of that. You try to just make sure he is comfortable with whatever’s in the game plan.
“I don’t think you need to cut anything back. He’s mentally capable of handling the system as it stands. And, that’s a positive, that’s a positive thing. And I think if you were to ask him, he’d probably get irritated if you felt like he had to cut back at all.”
This is something Callahan and Taylor discovered when Browning entered the game in the second quarter.
“He kind of got that way in the game when you’re just asking him what he likes and he said, ‘Just call it, I don’t care. I’ll call it.’ And that’s, you like to see that from guys. So that’s a good thing. I don’t think we’ll have to cut back much at all.”
Before sustaining a strained hamstring while on a kick coverage team drill on Oct. 26, rookie running back Chase Brown was set to become a bigger part of the Bengals offense. This was designed to take some of the load off the shoulders of Joe Mixon. Now, with Burrow out, the Bengals could use a much more balanced offense that has a threatening run game. Brown brings a different style. His window to start practicing began Monday and the Bengals have 21 days to decide if he can help the offense.
Chase Brown is ready to return after persevering through hamstring injury. "The way I'm feeling right now, I'm feeling really good" pic.twitter.com/PpA0pDFFeG
— Mike Petraglia (@Trags) November 20, 2023
“Hard for me to answer that yet,” Taylor said Monday. “I think he’s feeling really good. So it’ll be good to see him get out there full speed. He was a guy we were starting to give more to right before it happened. I mean literally, right as it happened. That practice had been a good one for him, had given him some opportunities.
“So we’ll just see how he responds to this, getting back into the mix of things, getting back into team drills. I think he feels pretty good right now, so we’ll see how quickly we can get him up to speed and use him.”
If there’s one common theme in the losses to the Texans and Ravens, it’s the number of explosive plays in each. On Monday, rookie Jordan Battle and veteran Sam Hubbard – who has missed both losses with an ankle injury – pointed to a lack of communication as a problem. The Bengals allowed 17 against Houston and another seven of at least 20 yards against the Ravens.
“It’s certainly something we’ve gotta shore up,” Taylor said. “Sometimes that happens with plays down the field. You’re in 1-on-1 situations. And it’s not something that we want to have happen. I think our guys are eager to kind of hit the reset button. Not necessarily hit the reset button, but get refocused here when we played Pittsburgh. It was good to have that three-day rest, that extra three days to get healthy and respond the right way. I love the attitude that we’ve had from guys in the building, the energy. I’m excited to watch this team compete this week.”
Yes, there are second-year players like Dax Hill and Cam Taylor-Britt and first-year players like DJ Turner and Jordan Battle in the secondary. But the Bengals need more veterans playing at a much higher level around them. That’s been an obvious area of weakness in the last two weeks. The defensive line has been getting gashed and not getting to the quarterback enough (with the obvious exception of Trey Hendrickson) and the linebackers have been doing far too much chasing instead of converging.
“It’s on everybody at this point,” Taylor told me. “We’re over the halfway point in the season. Everyone’s expected to be up to the standard right now. And again, we’ve played some really talented quarterbacks, some guys that are playing really hot right now — CJ Stroud and Lamar (Jackson). Those guys will test you. But it’s up to our guys to respond. And obviously, as an entire team right now, these last two weeks especially, we haven’t played up to the standard that we’ve held ourselves to. So it’ll be good to get back to that this week.”
When Jordan Battle entered the game in the first quarter for Nick Scott, it became apparent that defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo placed more trust in the rookie out of Alabama to make a play than the free agent signed from the Rams. Battle played 57 of 66 defensive snaps last Thursday while Scott played just 11. That doesn’t mean Scott won’t play a significant role going forward, a point Taylor made Monday.
“I thought he made the most of his opportunities,” Taylor said of Battle. “So we’re going to continue to rely on everybody moving forward. But Jordan did a great job. You saw him play a lot of the snaps in this game. That’s going to continue as we go forward. It’s all about grabbing the opportunity that’s in front of you and I think Jordan’s done a good job of that. He’s gotta continue to be consistent going forward.”
