CINCINNATI — The Bengals survived Dexter Lawrence and Brian Burns Sunday night. Now, can they get past nemesis Myles Garrett and the Browns this Sunday?
That is the biggest challenge facing the Bengals this week and the likely barrier between them and a victory in Cleveland for the first time since 2017.
Garrett, the 2023 NFL defensive player of the year, has played 10 games against the Bengals. He has 12 sacks, 21 solo tackles, 10 tackles for loss, two forced fumbles and 25 quarterback hits. No shock that the Browns are 8-2 when he plays against the Stripes.
Cincinnati hasn’t beaten Garrett since 2022 when the Bengals captured a game at Paycor Stadium. He didn’t play in the season finale last year as the Browns were headed to the playoffs in Week 18.
Last week, Joe Burrow took some massive hits, like the one by Brian Burns that sent him to the medical tent in the fourth quarter. Burrow was sacked four times, three of which came in the first half, and hit seven times in total. Dexter Lawrence and Brian Burns got home once each but that hasn’t set off alarms along the offensive line.
“There were some sacks that weren’t on them,” Zac Taylor said. “There was a quarterback pressure where we had a cadence issue, where Amarius looks like he gets beat, so there’s some things that I think when you watch the tape and drill it down to just some procedural things we can be better at.
“Because you do kind of walk off the field, as someone associated with the offense, feeling like, ‘Man there were a lot of things we’ve got to improve there,’ and then you really drill it down and OK, there’s some easily correctable stuff that we’ve got to do a better job managing that will allow us to play more efficiently. So, again, very correctable things that I feel confident we can be better at moving forward, that we have been really good at in the past.”
The Bengals lost some one-on-one battles on the inside but overall, Taylor believes those can be corrected before Sunday in Cleveland.
“Don’t get me wrong, there were some 1-on-1s we didn’t win, but just overall when you look at the big scheme of things, the pressures, the sacks and all those kinds of things, there’s a lot of things we could easily clean,” Taylor added. “But, again, there were a couple snaps where they got the better of us, and they’ve got some really good players and that’s going to happen in games like that. We don’t ever want it to happen, but things we can overcome.”
The Bengals defense emerged as arguably the biggest story from Sunday’s 17-7 win. Taylor had been waiting for the defense to get its full complement of players back. Sheldon Rankins joined BJ Hill for the first time since Week 2. Rookie McKinnley Jackson played 21 of 79 snaps and held his own in the middle of the line. Kris Jenkins Jr. played 39 and Josh Newton played five.
While one could argue they weren’t always tested by Daniel Jones and a Giants offense missing receiver Malik Nabers and running back Devin Singletary, they still stopped two key fourth down conversions, including DJ Turner’s drive-stopping fourth-quarter pass breakup.
“I think they’ve always had that confidence,” Taylor said. “They’ve always known the truth of what we’re capable of, and so again, that’s the reality we’ve seen from our guys throughout the week going into a game. This did not catch us by surprise to see our defense play like that, give up seven points and do a good job with two big fourth-down stops and create a turnover in the red zone, so no surprise to us.
“We’ve got to continue to build off that. That’s why we always sit up here and say it’s a long season. You’re always going to face that stretch of adversity, we hit a pretty big stretch early on and we worked through it and now we’ve got to be the best version of ourselves going forward.”
The Bengals scored on their first drive and took a shutout to the halftime locker room, leading 7-0. It allowed the Bengals to play with an early lead and play complementary football.
“I think we’ll get there,” Taylor said. “I think it was good to see our defense play that way from start to finish. Offensively had some positive moments to build off of. Special teams had some big moments as well. It’s hard in this league to come out in all three phases and feel like, ‘Man, we got them in all three phases,’ because we’re playing some really good teams. Pleased with the environment we went into, find a way to win in the fourth quarter, did some positive things there and build off that going into a division game this week.”
It’s not often a gunner on the punt team earns a game ball but the way Tycen Anderson covered punts Sunday night certainly caught the eyes of special teams coach Darrin Simmons and Zac Taylor. Tycen Anderson was excelling in his special teams role before tearing his ACL last season. He’s come back in this – his third season out of Toledo – and impressed the coaching staff with his effort and preparation.
“Really pleased with Tycen coming off an injury, how he’s worked himself back and just given himself an opportunity to make plays for this team,” Taylor said. “That’s a jolt of energy. Coming off three tough plays offensively, the first one he gets, we have a great punt there by Ryan and Tycen’s in there to really flip the field. It turned into a 55-yard flip, and that’s so critical and brings a lot of life.
“You go from a situation where we went three-and-out, the juice level’s probably down a bit, to all of a sudden you’ve re-energized the team and the defense can go out there and get a stop. And so I’m just proud of Tycen. Tycen’s a fan favorite in the locker room. He’s always worked the right way. He’s come through adversity and just put himself in a really good position to help this team win. I’m just really proud of him, and he was very deserving of it.”
