Bengals Beat: Forget Haircut, Joe Burrow Knows How To Style A Rebound

CINCINNATI — One of the best quarterbacks in the game didn’t need to go get a new haircut to improve his Week 1 washout.

But Joe Burrow figured it couldn’t hurt.

Vibe and feel has always meant something to Burrow and the feel of Sunday’s 24-3 loss to the Browns, one in which he completed just 14-of-31 passes for 82 yards left him feeling like a shaggy dog left out in the rain too long.

“When you have a game like that on Sunday,” Burrow quipped when asked why the new do.

When Dan Hoard asked if he were joking or being serious, Burrow didn’t miss a beat, “a little of both, a little of both.”

Onto the issues that actually matter to Burrow and his offensive teammates. The communication seemed off at times Sunday. Whether it was along the offensive line with pressures and blitzes, or receivers not running with the precision Burrow has grown accustomed over his first three seasons.

“You just go over those reps. Those things happen early in the year for all teams,” Burrow noted. “You try to limit them as much as you can, but they happen every year, especially when your quarterback doesn’t play in training camp. You just got to work those things out in practice. We had a really good day (Wednesday).”

Burrow agreed with offensive coordinator Brian Callahan that he tries to be the same guy in the office after a win or a blowout loss. But Burrow’s only human and while he may look relatively the same, on the inside he can’t wait to get back on the field and have a practice like he says he and the offense had on Wednesday.

“Yeah, you definitely don’t feel the same after a loss as you do after a win,” Burrow said. “I think that’s what mental toughness is is being able to maintain a steady emotional state when things maybe aren’t going great.”

Burrow is facing a team that gave him fits in back-to-back weeks last year at Paycor. In Week 18, he completed 25-of-42 for 215 yards and a touchdown to Ja’Marr Chase. He was sacked twice. In the Wild Card round the next week, he was sacked four times, passed for just 209 yards and a touchdown but didn’t turn the ball over in the 24-17 win that featured the game-saving Fumble in the Jungle.

The Bengals had just eight possessions and punted on their final three. This is a defense that picked up Jadeveon Clowney to add to linebackers Roquan Smith and Patrick Queen.

“They run the ball really well on offense, so it limits your possessions, and then their defense is tough, physical. They are very sound in their scheme,” Burrow said. “They do a great job of sending blitzes at you that you don’t see on tape before. They have a lot of great week-to-week gameplan stuff so you have to be able to adapt well to it. They’ve got good players, good coach, good scheme. It’s going to be a challenge.”

Part of the improvement has to come on third down, where the Bengals were 2-for-14. The Bengals had four third downs of less than five yards to gain and couldn’t convert in the first half. Three of the four were Burrow incompletions.

The weather played a factor Sunday. The crowd was hostile. The offensive communication was off. The home crowd is anxious to see this version of the Bengals, a team with Super Bowl-or-bust expectations.

“I love playing at home. I always get this energy playing in front of the fans,” Burrow said. “This is a great place to play. We always feel like we have an advantage when we play here. Fans make it tough on their offense to communicate. As a quarterback I know how difficult it is on the road when that happens.”

Field conditions:
Joe Burrow reiterated his belief Wednesday that grass fields are safer and that more of an effort needs to be made for NFL field uniformity.

“Last couple of years studies have come out how much safer grass fields are,” Burrow said. “I think that’s important. Obviously, I think the most important thing is having a standard for the turf fields, having each turf field across the league having a standard and all of them are the same. Everywhere you go that has turf each turf is different. I think having uniformity across the league would be best.”

In the wake of the Aaron Rodgers Achilles injury on a rain-soaked synthetic turf at MetLife Stadium, the NFLPA tweeted Wednesday morning that moving to grass fields “is the easiest decision the NFL can make.”

For the defense:
Lou Anarumo was reasonably pleased with the way his defense answered the bell in Week 1 against Cleveland. And he should be. The Bengals held the Browns to just four third-down conversions in 14 tries. Dax Hill got some looks on the outside in man coverage as well as covering tight end David Njoku on occasion. Hill also produced his first career interception.

“He played the whole game last year at (nickel) against Tampa, I believe. So he had to cover some pretty good slot receivers there. I think Trey (Flowers) missed a game or two last year, and he had to cover some pretty good tight ends,” Anarumo said. “So, I feel like that’s one of his skills he has he can do.”

Yes, the Browns gained 206 yards on the ground, 105 from Nick Chubb, the Bengals for the most part did their job in containing explosive runs. When you play with the lead and you’re the Browns, Chubb is going to get his touches, as will the Browns running backs in general. To wit, the Browns ran the ball 40 times for 206 yards.

The Ravens like to run the ball but have lost J.K. Dobbins for the year to a torn Achilles. That could really hamper the Baltimore run game, with Justice Hill and Gus Edwards getting the bulk of the carries and don’t forget Melvin Gordon III on the practice squad.

“You’re never gonna say you did get you did well, when they get that many yards,” Anarumo said. “They had 40 attempts. We had 25 runs that were four yards or less and and they had 10 runs that were zero or less. They didn’t have any over 20. And we had 12 or 13, whatever it was, where we had some cut-back issues that we could be better at. And you had quarterback draw. We were in zero. Good luck. Third down run. That’s my fault. And we had the reverse reverse where we had them pinned before the half and it spits out. So Nick Chubb is a great back. He got his yards, but we can certainly be better there.

“I thought our D line played terrific. I thought our linebackers played terrific. There’s just every now and again where a guy will not from the secondary get to where he’s supposed to be or guy gets cut out slightly. So we just got to be better in those little areas and we’ll be better. That’s not us. We’ll have to be better.”

Todd Monken has replaced Greg Roman as offensive coordinator in Baltimore. The thinking? Don’t be as reliant on designed QB runs with Lamar Jackson and allow Jackson to throw to his weapons like Odell Beckham Jr., Rashod Bateman and promising rookie Zay Flowers out of Boston College.

“It’s still a lot of unknowns there,” Anarumo said. “Todd has done what he’s done in the league for a while. He’s done what he’s done in Georgia. I know Coach Harbaugh still has his hard feelings on what he likes to do, I’m assuming. The O-Line coach is still there so they still have all those runs that I’m quite sure that Lamar likes to run. So, we’ve got to prepare for it all.”