BALTIMORE — The broken record that is the 2024 Cincinnati Bengals skipped again Thursday night at M&T Bank Stadium.
Joe Burrow threw for 426 yards and four touchdowns. Ja’Marr Chase caught 11 passes for 264 yards. And still Bengals managed to blow a 21-7 third quarter lead and lose 35-34 when Burrow couldn’t make one more play.
Just like they enjoyed on Oct. 6 at Paycor Stadium, the Bengals had a double-digit lead over the Ravens in the second half. And just like that game in Week 5, the Bengals self-destructed thanks to a defense that forgot how to tackle and an offense that made key mistakes at key points.
Burrow is hardly the problem but when your best player makes mistakes at critical moments, they are magnified because there aren’t enough players to pick up the slack, especially on defense.
Consider:
Having the officials miss a pair of critical calls on a two-point try that might have given the Bengals the 36-35 win didn’t help. But the Bengals lost, 35-34, to the now 7-3 Ravens because they again made mistakes that have plagued them all year.
On that two-point conversion, Burrow had his facemask yanked and Mike Gesicki was clearly held on play that for some reason went to Tanner Hudson and not Ja’Marr Chase, who caught three touchdown passes of 67, 70 and a five-yarder with 38 seconds left that left the Bengals on the precipice of a desperately-needed win.
“Yeah, you are not getting those calls in that situation for the most part,” Burrow said with solemn tone of resignation.
Instead, the Bengals didn’t get the call from the officials, they made mistakes that have plagued them all year and answered the same hackneyed questions about blowing leads and not finishing games that has been their M.O. since losing to the Patriots and Chiefs to open the season.
“We lost the turnover battle 1-0,” head coach Zac Taylor said, alluding to Chase Brown’s fumble that immediately changed the complexion in the second half. “I think that was big, you know, it was 21-7 at that point when we gave them seven points right there on the fumble, they had the big play, and then it kind of went back-and-forth from there.
[The Ravens] are just a good football team, but we expected to come in here and win. We did everything we could to do that. [The loss] doesn’t change the fact that I’m proud. I think everyone on the field fought [and] gave us a chance. We also came on the road to a good team, and it is sickening that this has happened twice to us. That’s what it is.”
They have failed to find a way to finish very close games against very good teams. They lost 26-25 on a Harrison Butker kick at the gun. They lost 41-38 in overtime to the Ravens after blowing three 10-point leads and botching what should’ve been the game-winning field goal in overtime. They lost 38-33 to Washington when unable to force an offense led by a rookie quarterback to punt once.
“It’s frustrating because of the work we put in,” Taylor explained. “We sit up here every week and pour our hearts and souls into this thing. We’ve got a good football team. Our record doesn’t yet show that.
“There’s still time. This team is going to hang in there. We are going to be there at the end. This is a tough one because you are right there, and it felt like (you) kind of let that one slip away. But at the same time, I still believe in these guys. They believe in each other. There’s a lot of football left to play.”
We’ve heard the “there’s still time” mantra repeated week after week from Taylor and this group. There comes a time where a team starts to wonder if they’re never really going to find the answers to start winning games against teams like the Chiefs and Ravens.
They’ll have one more shot on Nov. 17 – again in primetime – against the Chargers in Los Angeles. Maybe the Bengals can finally get the needle out of the back groove and convert to MP3 and stop using worn-out excuses for their failures.
