CLEVELAND — Slowly but surely, the Bengals are coming together as a team.
That’s the biggest takeaway from their 21-14 sludge match with the Browns in Cleveland.
It was an ugly game that featured 86 total yards of offense from Cincinnati’s offense in the first half. Joe Burrow was sacked three times by the very potent Browns defensive front and fortunately the Browns couldn’t muster anything with their very impotent offense.
The 100-yard return by Charlie Jones, thanks to a great block from Drew Sample and great design from special teams coordinator Darrin Simmons, provided an early spark from special teams. The defense held the Browns in check throughout and never allowed Nick Chubb to get going.
Then the offense did just enough in the second half, scoring 14 points to give the Bengals a cushion to manage the rest of the game on their terms.
“It tells you you’re a good football team,” Taylor said. “When you can find different ways, different units to lean on at different times. Different guys have stepped up big time. Geno (Stone) gets his first pick. Sheldon (Rankins) gets his first sack. Sam (Hubbard) gets his first pick. Charlie (Jones) with the big kickoff return. There were a lot of guys that stood out in this game. It’s good.”
Taylor is right. You don’t win games every week 31-17 like they did in San Francisco almost a year ago to the day, when everything was clicking. You have to find way to work your way through the muck and that’s what the Bengals are doing by finally playing complementary football.
“It feels great to have a (win) here finally, and talk trash and get a dub,” Ja’Marr Chase said. “That’s what we’re excited for. These past two games, the defense has been making a big step up and the offense has been doing just enough to get a win so at the end of the day we could be satisfied.”
This much has been obvious since the Bengals lost a game to the Patriots in the opener they had no business losing – watching the 2024 Bengals is going to require patience.
The Bengals did not start this season looking like a championship team. Joe Burrow acknowledged that after they dropped the 41-38 soul-crusher to Baltimore in overtime.
If you believe in the potential of the Bengals, then the last two weeks give you hope that this Bengals team has found a way to win ugly.
You’d rather win ugly than lose pretty – like they did against Kansas City and Baltimore.
“We played two really good defenses back-to-back weeks, good fronts, good secondary,
good coaching, and we found ways to win,” Burrow said of road wins against the Giants and Browns. “Everybody’s talking about how good our offense was for the first four weeks, whatever it was, and we were 1-3. That’s obviously not ideal. I’d rather have everyone talk about how we didn’t execute on offense and win two games in a row, than the other way around.”
The Bengals are proving they can overcome sluggish play from their offense and their star quarterback and wait for him to warm up and find rhythm. That was the case Sunday in Cleveland when Burrow led the Bengals on touchdown drives of 65 and 50 yards in the third quarter.
The Bengals lost their starting left tackle Orlando Brown Jr. to a right knee injury in the second quarter and Cody Ford came in and did his job admirably.
Arguably the biggest test for the Bengals Sunday came to start the second half. The Browns lost their starting quarterback Deshaun Watson to a right Achilles injury and the stadium sensed new energy with Dorian Thompson-Robinson in at quarterback. He drew a pass interference call on DJ Turner that set up Nick Chubb’s one-yard touchdown run on fourth down that made it 7-6 Bengals at the half.
The Browns were driving and faced fourth-and-2 at the Cincinnati 35. Vonn Bell’s pressure got through and forced DTR to throw too soon. The pass fell incomplete and the Bengals drove 65 yards, highlighted by a 22-yard run from Chase Brown and an 19-yard pass to Zack Moss. Burrow then found Ja’Marr Chase for 18 yards and a touchdown.
“It was huge,” Taylor told me. “It was appropriate for our defense to get that first opportunity in the second half to really set the tone for the team because they had done such a great job in the first half for us. So to get that turnover on downs and allow the offense to respond. It was
just good complimentary football there to start the half.”
The Bengals have already lost starting corner Dax Hill to a knee injury and safety Geno Stone suffered a lower left leg injury in the closing moments Sunday in a violent collision with Vonn Bell. Every team goes through attrition, and the Bengals are no different.
In overcoming adversity the last two weeks, the Bengals are showing signs of the building blocks of a championship-caliber team. That’s what the Bengals feel they can be but aren’t there yet.
“That’s what you have to do. Great teams find ways to win,” Burrow said. “I think we have a chance to be a great team. We’re not that yet, but there’s a lot of season left to play. So come back, learn from today and come back on Wednesday.”
That sequence has summed up Cincinnati’s resurgence, albeit for just two games. But that’s what it’s going to take for the Bengals to make their run as the schedule turns to November. The Bengals have games at home now against Philadelphia and Las Vegas.
There is hope and that’s a lot more than they had at 1-4 after losing to the Ravens on Oct. 6.
