A little too close for comfort, but hey, we’ll take it right? There was nothing pretty about the Cincinnati Bengals 34 - 24 win over the Carolina Panthers on Sunday (at least on defense), but for once, the Bengals did enough of the little things to get their first W of the year.
Before the season began, this was circled as one of those “gimmie” games on the schedule, but Bengals fans had no such illusions after a miserable 0 - 3 start. The Bengals were playing bad football, losing twice at home to underdogs, and after making the switch from Bryce Young to Andy Dalton at quarterback, the Panthers no longer looked like a pushover. Sure, there were plenty of excuses for each loss (rusty Burrow in Week One, ticky-tack call in Week Two, rookie QB jinx in Week Three) but let’s face facts: there’s no excuse for 0 - 3. If the Bengals had started 0 - 4, go ahead and kiss those playoff dreams goodbye. Disaster – at least for one week – has been averted.
In fact, averting disaster was a big theme in this game. On the first drive of the game, Dalton and Carolina drove all the way to the Bengals one-yard line, before being stuffed on 4th down thanks to an enormous effort from defensive end Sam Hubbard and rookie defensive tackle Kris Jenkins Jr. That set the tone for the day. After three weeks of finding ways to blow games, the Bengals were, finally, finding ways to win.
Burrow, for his part, was excellent when the Bengals had to have him at his best. His work in the pocket today was special; Burrow evaded sure-sacks on multiple occasions, keeping drives alive that looked otherwise dead in the water. He did throw his first interception of the year, but outside of that somewhat-flukey play (in which he and Chase weren’t on the same page during a scramble drill), Burrow was brilliant. The Bengals needed all the offense they could get in this one, and Joe Cool provided, throwing for 232 yards and 2 touchdowns.
As is often the case, when Burrow plays well, his star receivers tend to play well too, and that was certainly true today. Tee Higgins was huge in the first half, picking up several first downs and providing Burrow with a much-needed outlet with Ja’Marr Chase seeing extra coverage all day. Speaking of Chase, though the Panthers devoted significant resources to stopping the fourth-year receiver, it wasn’t enough to stop Chase for busting out a game-changing 63-yard catch and run touchdown. It was vintage 2021 Chase. In a lot of ways, this win was vintage 2021.
Think about it – Burrow looking slippery, Chase pinballing his way through defenders, Higgins vacuuming every pass in his direction, and the defense making critical, have-to-have-it stops in the biggest moments – that was the formula for the Bengals run to the Super Bowl. Of course, the Bengals are far from a Super Bowl team (right now), but today was an important and necessary first step.
Let’s be clear: this was a far from perfect win. The defense, the game-opening goal line stand notwithstanding, was a sieve. The Bengals were gashed by the Panthers’ run game all day. Through four weeks, the Bengals have yet to prevent a team from passing the century-mark on the ground. Defensive tackles B.J. Hill and Sheldon Rankins cannot get back soon enough, because Zac Carter and Jay Tufele just aren’t getting it done.
The Bengals weren’t much better in pass defense either, and if it weren’t for three drops today by Panthers receivers, the result today could have been very different. Cam Taylor-Britt, in particular, was absolutely helpless against Panthers top receiver Dionte Johnson. The broadcast mentioned he might have an injury that we don’t know about, and hopefully that’s true, because he had one of the worst games I’ve seen by a Bengals corner in a long time. The pass rush, as has been the case all year, was mostly invisible outside of a key Trey Hendrickson tipped pass in the first quarter which resulted in a Vonn Bell interception.
Still, the Bengals did just enough. They did the big things, like getting a big play from Chase and an epic goal line stand from the defense, but more importantly, they did the little things: converting third downs, running the ball, converting in the red zone, breaking up a fake punt, being perfect in the kicking game, and avoiding back-breaking penalties. These things eluded the Bengals through three weeks, but not today.
Obviously, the Bengals have a long way to go to get back into contention, but this was the first step. The Panthers might not be a great team, but wins – as the Bengals can certainly attest to – are hard to come by in this league. Gotta take ‘em where you can get ‘em.
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