Cincinnati Bengals center and captain Ted Karras called it a “very honest and brutal Monday” following their 22-17 loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Head coach Zac Taylor pointed to both the coaches and players and said the run game “wasn’t good enough in any area.”
And offensive coordinator Dan Pitcher cited “a whole gamut of issues.”
The Bengals were still feeling the effects of being dominated at the point of attack for the majority of their 15 attempts in the run game, resulting in one of the worst rushing performances in franchise history.
“I think everybody had a hand it,” Pitcher added.
The Bengals were 18 inches away from having first and 10 at the Jacksonville 11-yard line with 50 seconds to go.
Had Jaguars safety Rayuan Lane not chopped down running back Chase Brown inches shy of the first down and the Bengals went on to win the game, their record would look much different at 3-1 instead of 2-2, but the feeling would have been the same
“The way we played the game yesterday isn’t sustainable for long-term success,” Pitcher said. “I do think we chose to play the game yesterday in a way that gave us the best chance to win yesterday. We need to look at what we’re doing well and, more importantly, what we’re not doing well, and set us on a course to get better.”
The Bengals rank 11th in offensive success rate, but the expectations were much higher this season with a healthy Joe Burrow and all the other offensive starters returning.
The Cincinnati offense had a lot of success throwing the ball Sunday with 10 explosive completions, moving them to No. 1 in the league in that category with 30, two ahead of the Carolina Panthers.
And that was with the loss of Ja’Marr Chase to a concussion in the second quarter and Tee Higgins to an adductor injury in the fourth quarter.
“He threw us to a chance,” Pitcher said. Of Burrow. “We wanted to give him that opportunity, and up until the last play when we’re a foot and a half short, I think everybody believed that we had a real chance to win the game.”
That Burrow is capable of that type of game is something the Bengals will always embrace.
That he must have that kind of game is what they are trying to avoid.
And Sunday, he had to have that kind of game to give the team even a chance of coming from behind to win because of how poor the run game was.
“I have a pit in my stomach similar to Minnesota last year as an offensive line,” Karras said. “That was not very good. September football is over, so we need to start declaring who we are.”
Who they spent the offseason trying to be was an offense willing to lean into more under-center and play-action usage.
Through four weeks, that hasn’t materialized.
The Bengals lead the NFL in plays out of shotgun with 180.
Through four weeks last year, they ranked 15th, although they finished the year first with 862.
Taylor said the identity is far from set through just four weeks.
“Yesterday was just disappointing. It just wasn’t good enough. That falls on all of us to be better at it,” he said. “Is it a dramatic shift? No. It’s not a dramatic shift. But there are things that we can continue to work in and that will fit us. Part of through four weeks, you’re finding what you identity is going to be for the whole year.
“First quarter of the season, you got a snapshot of ‘OK, here are some things that we can continue to emphasize. Here are some things that we need.’ And so we have to improve at them — we can’t just abandon them — and find what our identity is going to be these last three quarters of the season.”
At times in the past, the Bengals abandoned what they were doing and weren’t afraid to make drastic changes to the scheme.
They are not at that point yet, but it’s not off the table, especially with the bye sitting on the other side of this week’s game against the Miami Dolphins.
“We’ve got a bunch of experience doing that,” Taylor said. “We don’t hesitate to put our ego in front of anything and say, ‘Well, we said this and so this is what we’ll hammer home.’ We’ll be smart enough to adjust and do what’s best for our offense to score points.”
“I think we just need to be a more complementary offense, and we need to execute in the other phases so that we have the continued confidence to call those plays, so that we don’t have to drop back as much as we did (Sunday),” Pitcher said. “But as I mentioned before, in any given game, we’re gonna make the decisions and call the plays that we think give us the best chance to win that game, and then when the clock hits zero and you have a chance to digest it and regroup and really determine the issues with the benefit of level head and hindsight, you move forward.”
For more on the Bengals, subscribe to our YouTube Channel and be sure to check us out on your favorite audio platforms, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, and Amazon. Bookmark BengalsTalk.com for the latest Bengals news, exclusive interviews, film breakdowns, and more! We’re a one-stop shop for all things Cincinnati Bengals! Join the 67,000+ Bengals fans who subscribe to us on YouTube.
Add us as a preferred source on Google
