You could possibly be forgiven for getting a way of deja vu watching the Cincinnati Bengals and Los Angeles Chargers final Sunday. For the second week in a row, Joe Burrow torched a protection. He hit one eye-popping throw after one other. Within the closing accounting, he threw for 356 yards, three touchdowns and didn’t flip over the ball. And but the end result was the identical: the Bengals misplaced by one rating.
What Burrow is doing this season is unprecedented. By no means has a quarterback performed at such a excessive degree, with such a heavy workload, whereas being let down by nearly everybody round him. Solely Tony Romo in 2010 and Aaron Rodgers in 2018 have come shut, however even that duo had the advantage of strong safety from their linemen. Burrow doesn’t. Burrow is outpacing each quarterback within the league regardless of these round him flailing.
The defeat to the Chargers marked the third time this season that Cincy have misplaced in a sport by which Burrow has thrown for greater than 300 yards with three touchdowns and 0 interceptions. In accordance with NFL analysis, Burrow is the one quarterback because the league’s merger in 1970 to submit these figures in three losses in a single yr. With the newest effort, he turned the primary quarterback in league historical past to place up that sort of manufacturing in back-to-back video games. To place that in context, Tom Brady solely had two such video games in his complete 23-year profession, in accordance with CBS Sports activities. Woof.
The Bengals are 1-6 in one-score video games this season, a notoriously flaky measure of how good a group truly is, and 4-7 general. A bounce of the ball, sloppy play name, officiating resolution (or non-decision), or defensive cease can tip a one-score sport both approach. After the very fact, we prefer to ascribe virtues to groups that shut out one-score victories. They’re more durable – or smarter. They wished it extra. Their ‘tradition’ obtained them over the road. Typically, these issues are true – nice groups restrict penalties and execute the tiny particulars that may be the distinction in a sport determined by one or two performs. However typically we chase these cliches as consolation meals to masks the apparent: it’s luck. One-score video games are little extra than a toss-up.
Within the case of the Bengals, each are true. They’ve handled dangerous luck and botched performs at essential moments, or too usually dug themselves right into a gap that even Burrow has been unable to tug them out of. There have been missed discipline objectives, decisive holding penalties, mangled coverages, and blows officiating calls on must-have-it downs that, had any of them gone the opposite approach, would have been the distinction between successful and shedding. They’ve misplaced one-score video games towards AFC heavyweights: the Chiefs, Chargers and twice towards the Ravens. In all 4 video games, Burrow was near flawless, throwing for 1,428 yards and 15 touchdowns with one interception.
Shedding six shut video games with a quarterback enjoying this nicely is nearly spectacular. Burrow’s numbers this season are bonkers. He has thrown for 3,028 yards, 27 touchdowns and has solely 4 interceptions to date. He’s on tempo for one of the best speeding season of his profession, scrambling round to make one thing occur. He tops the league in QBR and is third within the RBSDM composite, which measures the worth of a play and the way a lot the quarterback may be deemed liable for the worth. In a standard yr, Burrow would high ballots for the league’s most prestigious {hardware}. As an alternative, he’s left scrapping for the ultimate playoff spot in a awful AFC wildcard race (NFL.com provides the Bengals a 12% probability of creating the postseason). Most probably, the Bengals will probably be on the skin wanting in by the point the postseason rolls round.
Requested after the defeat in LA whether or not it was probably the most irritating season of his profession, Burrow replied: “Sure.” Why? “It’s fairly self-explanatory,” Burrow stated. “Our margin of error is slim … I obtained to make these performs. All of us obtained to make these performs.”
It was solely three season in the past that Burrow led the Bengals on an inconceivable Tremendous Bowl run. Again then, all the pieces coalesced across the quarterback. Cincinnati had a strong run sport, one of the vital dynamic receiving corps within the league, a frisky protection and a clutch kicker. Save for his receivers, all the pieces else has collapsed across the quarterback this season.
The group’s protection, as soon as a calling card, has fallen off a cliff, coughing up 26.9 factors a sport, the fifth-worst complete within the league. Solely the Panthers – a franchise fielding a CFL roster on protection – have been worse towards the run this yr. The group’s pass-rush has vanished, too, with solely Trey Hendrickson being a dependable risk. They’ve sunk to twenty eighth within the league in sack fee by way of 11 weeks. And it is a unit that the Bengals have prioritized, spending extra on their defensive position than all however three groups this season and drafting extra defensive linemen than another franchise since 2021. As investments go, there hasn’t been a worse return because the NFT bubble.
On offense, they’re simply as raveled. Any makes an attempt to diversify the offense have failed. The group nonetheless flows as Burrow and his receivers, Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins, circulation. They don’t have any run sport, falling to thirtieth within the league in rush success fee (and that regardless of defenses fearing being clipped over the pinnacle by Burrow and Chase!). Is now an excellent time to say they traded away Joe Mixon, again to his greatest in Houston, final offseason for a seventh-round decide?
To high it off, their kicking sport has flat-lined. Evan McPherson, as soon as considered because the inheritor obvious to Justin Tucker because the league’s premier kicker, now appears to be like like, nicely, 2024 Justin Tucker. McPherson has made simply 50% of his kicks from 40-plus yards this season and has missed his final 4 kicks from 50-plus yards, together with whiffs towards the Ravens and Chargers in one-score defeats.
Past that, the Bengals proceed to have safety woes. Burrow has been hit greater than any quarterback since he entered the NFL. A part of that is because of him holding on to the ball and ready to aim deep throws. However most of it has been as a result of a sloppy offensive line. Regardless of chucking money and draft picks on the downside, the Bengals nonetheless can’t put a useful line collectively. Since Week 5, the Bengals have conceded strain on 40% of Burrow’s dropbacks, one of many worst charges within the league. And Burrow continues to get drilled. He has been hit 37 instances this yr, in accordance with Professional Soccer Focus. That’s 12 greater than the closest quarterback. They haven’t been smooth contact, nice-to-meet-you hits, both; they’ve been bone-crushing pictures, together with a pair after the whistle. How for much longer can he stand as much as this bodily toll? He’s already missed chunks of two seasons with severe accidents, tearing his ACL in 2020 and rupturing a ligament in his wrist final season.
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When an offense is targeted on a couple of items – within the Bengals’ case Burrow, Higgins and Chase – it turns into plodding and predictable. But Burrow, regardless of being below siege, has stood in and delivered, placing collectively the best season of his profession. He has not solely saved the Bengals’ offense afloat, he has lifted it into the highest 10 in all of the dorkiest metrics. By factors per sport, they’re sixth within the NFL. Are you able to think about what it could appear like with merely a nasty offensive line or operating sport moderately than among the worst within the league?
If the MVP award is actually about ‘worth’, it’s exhausting to think about somebody who has introduced extra to their unit than Burrow. Put a league-average quarterback – Russell Wilson or Baker Mayfield – in Burrow’s spot, and Cincinnati’s offense would crumble. Neglect a possible late playoff push, with out Burrow enjoying at his present degree, the Bengals wouldn’t even be aggressive.
Any hope that the Bengals can squeeze again into the playoff image depends on the concept that the group’s protection can lastly pull its head above water. However it could additionally require the run sport to begin chugging alongside and Burrow’s safety to enhance.
At this level, they want a minor miracle. However, in some methods, the group has already had that miracle: Burrow enjoying at an MVP degree regardless of the chaos round him. Asking a quarterback to take care of that customary all through a full season is fanciful. Sooner or later, certainly, the chances will tilt towards Burrow. A ball will probably be tipped. He’ll misinterpret a protection – as he did late towards the Chargers. When the margin of error is so small and the quarterback is below fixed duress he’ll ultimately make a mistake. And if the Bengals drop one sport as a result of Burrow falls again to Earth or takes one hit too many, then their playoff hopes will probably be over.
Loads of groups have bungled how the careers of remarkable quarterbacks. However the Bengals are making a case to earn a carving on the Mt Rushmore. From the early profession beatings, to failing to ink Burrow’s key weapons to long-term offers, to botching a defensive rebuild, they’ve hit all of the checkmarks. They’ve to date squandered Burrow’s prime. Now, one of many best quarterback seasons on file will most likely grow to be an afterthought. As group constructing goes, it’s unforgivable.