CINCINNATI — At 38, Dan Pitcher is enjoying his best life as Bengals offensive coordinator.
He’s led a bit of a charmed football life with Joe Burrow as the quarterback. But in the last several years, he’s been forced to learn what it’s like to not have one of the best quarterbacks of the generation at his disposal running his offense.
But this year, the Bengals made a move on Oct. 7 to strengthen that position while Burrow recovers from his left big toe surgery that put him out on the IR in Week 2. Joe Flacco has been insanely efficient, throwing for over 500 yards, with five touchdowns and no interceptions in two games, something no quarterback has achieved his first two starts with any team in NFL history.
What has Pitcher picked up from the 40-year-old Flacco?
“I think just to reinforce, like, some of the things that I think I already valued in assessing the position, and then to see them again,” Pitcher said. “This is an experience I probably will never have again, right? I mean, this is his guys, two years older than I am. I’m never going to really get to do this again. And so to see somebody as mature as he is, to have his perspective and how he’s approaches preparation at the position, and then just goes out and executes and maintains a level-headedness. And, yeah, I mean, it’s not easy to get to that point, but it’s an affirmation of how important those things are to having the resilience to be able to perform at that position, which we all know is the hardest position in sports. So, yeah it’s been cool.”
What has been even more remarkable than those numbers is the speed at which the ball is coming out of Flacco’s hands. His release time has been timed anywhere between 2.4 and 2.7 seconds. Last week against the Steelers, his release time was 2.44 seconds. Only Patrick Mahomes at 2.27 was faster. Against Green Bay, it was still a stellar 2.63. He is just not allowing defenses, for the most part, to get into the Bengals pocket and deliver blows to the quarterback. This sends a strong message to his offensive linemen that they don’t have to hold their blocks forever, just long enough to let him deliver the ball to the extraordinarily talented group of receivers.
Not that Joe Burrow is opposed to delivering the ball on time, but the regular quarterback of the Bengals offense has one of the best pre-snap minds of any signal-caller in the NFL. He can move pieces around on a chessboard but sometimes it takes time for a certain look to appear before he delivers the ball, forcing him to sometimes hold onto the ball.
So the natural question is could some of Flacco’s habits in quick release rub off on Burrow when he comes back – possibly in mid-December?
“I certainly think it could. You know, Joe Burrow’s a rare talent. He’s a rare player. To your point, he’s never been around somebody, certainly at his position, that has the resume that Joe Flacco has, and probably never will (again). I mean, maybe? I don’t know. Guys like Joe Flacco, there aren’t that many of them and how many times will Joe Burrow get a chance to share a meeting room with that guy, share a practice field with that guy? I don’t know. I know I’ve learned stuff being around him and it’s an experience that will inform how I coach and think about the game and the type of skills and approach that I value at that position. I think, sure, anybody that spends some time with him could take something away.”
Burrow, during his near-MVP season in 2024, was releasing the ball on average at 2.71 seconds. Flacco this season is at 2.74, which includes his four starts with Cleveland, but that number is significantly faster with receivers like Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins on the receiving end of his passes.
“He’s playing very fast, which, again, that kind of goes along with the sense that it feels like he’s been here and has been with us,” Pitcher told me. “And you shouldn’t discount that. I mean, that’s not normal, that someone will be able to come in and play that way. And he is playing very fast. We’re trying our best to set it up for him so that he can do that. But, yeah, I mean, that’s an accurate assessment. He’s seeing the defense. And these are all concepts and things that he’s done a million times in his career. They may be called something different. There’s obviously different guys on the receiving end, but it’s, he’s familiar with this stuff, and it shows.”
What Pitcher has seen from Flacco is not only ability to communicate with him but also Zac Taylor and quarterback coach Brad Kragthorpe, making in-game adjustments.
“Again, it’s just experience. He’s an excellent self-corrector, and I’m not down there,” Pitcher said. “Obviously, Brad’s the one that interfaces with him the most, but I see it at practice as well. He’s basically coached himself on an error before anybody gets to coach him on it. He comes in and says, ‘Okay, yeah, I should have taken the coin route, you know, I should have just got out quick, you know, like he’s, he sees it and is able to correct himself before anybody really needs to correct them. And really, it’s just for us right now. It’s just about, you know, making sure we’re presenting the information in the offense and the plan in a way that he’s able to process it and then go out and execute it. And he’s, you know, he’s doing a good job.
These two weeks have been eye-opening not just for Flacco and the Bengals fan base, but for Pitcher and the Bengals coaches responsible for calling the plays.
“Oh, yeah. I mean, I think everything we do starts with who we have, right? I think that is a statement that I would hope I could make for the rest of my coaching career, because it starts with the players,” Pitcher added. “And obviously, we have a new player that we’re just having our chance to now work our third game with. So we’d be foolish not to see if there are things that his skillset affords us the opportunity to do that maybe we hadn’t planned on doing. So yeah, for sure. I think that’s part of the fun that comes with coaching, is having the openness to reinvent yourself, or maybe not reinvent, but at least see if there’s areas that you can explore.
“I have just been so impressed with he’s just been unflappable. He’s walked in here and it is almost like he walked in here and has known us for a decade. I think that is just the experience and having been in the biggest moments and lived so many highs and so many lows and a life in football. As cool as the other night was and as well as he is playing, it is a guy who started 215 games or whatever it is, he’s started a season’s worth of playoff football games. He’s seen it all, done it all. I think you just feel that from him. There’s very few people in the world that ever gain enough experience to actually live that. He’s in that category. So, to me, I think that’s probably the most impressive thing.”
With the team having already broken down film on Friday, Zac Taylor used the extra day together on Monday to have his team go through a walkthrough for a refresher course on some calls that could be coming up in the coming weeks, with position groups also meeting.
“Mostly just moving forward – things that we think we’ll need this week and moving forward,” Taylor said. “You don’t get a lot of opportunities to get really a bonus day to where what are some things we need to focus on as an offense and a defense. You get it after Thursday games and you get it after a bye week and that’s about the extent of it.”
Taylor was non-committal on tight end Tanner Hudson (concussion) or Trey Hendrickson (hip). Hendrickson and Hudson were both injured in the Green Bay game, and both missed the game against the Steelers.
The Bengals again had issues with missed tackles against the Steelers on Thursday. They had another 16 and lead the NFL with a horrifically high number of 79. The next closest (55) are two of the worst teams in the NFL, including the winless 0-7 Jets they’ll face this Sunday at Paycor. The issue has several root causes, including playing rookies Barrett Carter and Demetrius Knight Jr. at linebacker in nickel coverage packages. Carter replaced Wilson last week in the nickel package and missed a couple of tackles but also at fault are gambles that defensive backs are taking or poor leverage techniques in pursuit, leaving them in poor position to bring the player to the ground.
So what is the key to improving the tackling overall on the defense?
“I would say trusting trusting ourselves, trusting our speed, trusting our athletic ability, trusting our preparation,” Carter told me. “We spent so much time in the offseason, so much time in practice, just working on tackling, working on taking better angles, and so once we clean that up, we still have a long way to go as a defense, but once we clean that up, we’ll be in a really good spot.
“It’s absolutely just technique. Obviously, sometimes playmakers will make plays, but if you look at our missed tackles, we’ve just got to finish. We got to run through the tackle, take better angles and things like that. So it’s all correctable mistakes. It’s nothing, nothing crazy that we can’t fix.”
The Bengals have also allowed the most points in the NFL (214) through seven weeks, another point the Bengals feel they can fix with more home games on the schedule and having survived a rough portion of their schedule.
“It’s just getting at least two turnovers, and we know turnovers are like the most proven stat that leads to wins,” Carter added. “So for us, we just got to get the ball back to our offense and let them do what they do. But we got to stop the run game, guard the receivers, and just fly 11 hats to the football. But the goal right now is get plus two at least plus two turnovers.”
Myles Murphy believes the Bengals defense is turning a corner because they’re starting to see some results of their hard work. They had a glimpse of it on opening day in Cleveland but have struggled ever since. The inconsistency has been what has frustrated the group the most.
“The vibes are high. You want to keep them high. Like (Orlando Brown Jr.) said after the game, he said, ‘Remember this feeling, know what it feels like and repeat it. Know what you did last week to get that feeling and repeat it again.’ So that’s the main message.
“If you complimentary football, it’s hard to lose, to be honest with you, because that’s when turnovers happen, and often in the offense capitalizes off of it. That’s just that is complimentary football, and special teams is involved in that, as well. So you play good, complementary football, you’re not going to lose that many games.”
While the Bengals only recorded two hits (no sacks) on Aaron Rodgers the whole night, Murphy insists that the unit that overcame the loss of Trey Hendrickson for a week due to a hip injury, is starting to fully understand why line coach Jerry Montgomery is preaching. Montgomery has been drilling techniques into the likes of Shemar Stewart, who returned Thursday after missing four games with an ankle injury and played 22 of 57 defensive snaps. The unit of Murphy, Joseph Ossai, Cam Sample, Stewart and Isaiah Foskey filled the void in the absence of Trey Hendrickson.
Where’s the growth?
“Mentally,” Murphy said. “Because I feel like we always had the always had the athleticism, but mentally, I feel like we’re in the film room a little bit more and knowing and being able to anticipate different things that we got coming to us.”
