After Sunday’s 41-24 disposal of the hapless Las Vegas Raiders, the Bengals are now 4-5, having played five crappy teams (and beaten four) and four good ones (and lost to all of them). As we know, the swing game remains the opening loss to the awful Patriots. Were Cincinnati 5-4 with the same “beat the bad, find ways to lose to the good” methodology to their campaign thus far, it would still feel tenuous—but at least we’d feel better with a winning record. It’s amazing how that small margin makes such a psychic difference.
Not that it would to Joe Burrow. Sunday was the closest we’ve seen to a complete teamwide effort, with Trey Hendrickson garnering four sacks and the offense back to its high-octane ways after several weeks of sputtering. Yet it hardly satisfied Burrow, who was scowling from the moment he took the field.
For all the comparisons to Tom Brady over the years, Sunday was really the first time we saw Burrow in full Bradyesque mode: dominant but unfulfilled and letting his teammates (and the world) know it. He threw five TD passes to four different receivers (none of them Ja’Marr Chase or the injured Tee Higgins) and basically dominated the game with his pocket movement and ability to see the field and slice up the defense.
Yet he played angry and only seemed to get more peeved the longer the game went on. He clearly thought, as we probably all did, that Cincinnati should have won the game 49-10. The failure of Andrei Iosivas to properly block a bubble screen that became a pick-six the other way was part of JB’s frustration, a glaring example of the lack of attention to detail that’s hamstrung the team all season.
Everyone wants the bubble screen out of the playbook and sent to a universe far, far away. But it should be noted that the final TD pass, Mike Gesicki’s second of the day, was a walk-in score from half the field away because the Las Vegas defenders crashed hard on a presumed bubble screen, leaving the middle of the field undefended. Like the shovel pass and the end zone fade, the bubble screen is obviously ugly when it doesn’t work. It also requires the sort of timing and body positioning/leverage the Bengals seem unable to regularly conjure this year, for whatever reason.
Gesicki had the best receiving game by a Cincinnati tight end (100 yards and two TDs) since Tyler Eifert did the same back in 2015, also against the Raiders, then still in Oakland. Gesicki is a pure receiving tight, essentially a wideout really, so his ability to fill the targets left open by Higgins was key. Meanwhile, blocking tight end Drew Sample played well too, catching a TD pass and providing some two-way play, crucial given what happened early in the contest to Erick All.
Indeed, the game was nearly overshadowed by two rookies who lived down to the concerns that shadowed them on draft day. All, a fine prospect who slipped to the fifth round because of his long injury history, sure enough suffered a non-contact ACL tear in the same knee he hurt in college. It’s a tough loss for the team, as All was the first high-end, dual-threat tight end the team’s had in some time, and he allowed them to be multiple in their formations and blocking schemes in a way that they were lacking heretofore. All will be missed.
Jermaine Burton, meanwhile, was widely considered a first-round talent but an undraftable knucklehead by many teams. Zac Taylor in particular seemed stoked to grab him in the third round, but he’s scarcely seen the field due to his immaturity and failure to act professionally. On Sunday it seemed his time had arrived, after a sterling week of practice—but Burton somehow skipped the Saturday walkthrough and had to be scratched from the lineup.
As Burrow put it, “Rookies are still adjusting to what an NFL season is like—it’s not for the faint of heart.” No question about that, and Burton hardly needs to set the league on fire in his first year. But the 2025 (and beyond) Bengals were presumed to be relying heavily upon him, not to mention All—at least Burton still has the chance to grow the hell up and contribute. But it’s on him to do so. We need T.J. Houshmandzadeh, who vouched for Burton back in April, to come back and sit on the kid ’til he finds his way.
Fortunately, a third rookie—the one with the highest expectations, right tackle Amarius Mims—had another strong showing Sunday. He essentially blanked the Raiders’ star pass rusher Maxx Crosby, earning Mims a nickname from Ted Karras: “The Shutout King.” Crosby wasn’t rendered invisible exactly, but Mims did the next best thing while playing almost entirely matched up on Double-X; only seven of Crosby’s 74 snaps were on the left side, away from Mims.
“Maxx is a man of many tricks,” Mims said of Crosby, and generally that makes it hard for even veteran tackles to handle him. That the rookie did so with such aplomb is a huge deal—like Mims himself. The kid plays so big, which sounds weird because he’s of course so big. But plenty of the league’s largest specimens don’t play that way because it requires good footwork to properly utilize their size. Mims has that in spades.
So tonight we arrive at a key juncture in this highly frustrating season, another Thursday night encounter with the Ravens, who are fresh off pounding the Broncos. It should be recalled that the last time they met in Week 5, Baltimore had just eviscerated Buffalo, leading many to speculate they were an unstoppable force. But Cincinnati dominated the game with their offense, as they have so often done against the Ravens over the years, and of course should have won. For what it’s worth (perhaps not as much as I usually think), Cincinnati’s opponents are now 7-2 with a point differential of +103 the week before playing the Bengals.
By the way, the NFL putting this exact fixture (Bengals at Ravens on Thursday night to open Week 10) in place one year after Burrow was lost for the season last time it occurred is simply anguishing. Even Burrow himself noted it was no accident. If JB is hurt again at that Charmless City stadium the Ravens call home, I will formally petition the league to at last depart the AFC North.
The Bengals’ offense will have a new weapon to deploy after acquiring running back Kahlil Herbert from Chicago’s doghouse. With Zack Moss likely out for the season with a neck injury, the team desperately needed another back, and adding Herbert is nice for a nothingburger 7th round pick. He gives some vet depth and some extra bang, particularly in the blocking schemes the Bengals tend to employ. He’s a decisive, if not swift, runner who tends to fall forward and get those hidden extra yards, a place where Cincinnati’s backs have come up short this season.
In-season trades are rare in these parts, though we would have a different opinion if the AJ McCarron for a 2nd and 4th rounder from Cleveland deal would have been consummated back in 2017. (Yes, I’m still mad about that.) Many fans were disappointed the team didn’t address the wanting defense with some blockbuster deal, but Crosby and Dexter Lawrence and Jeffrey Simmons simply were not available—that’s all just clickbait and chat show time filler. Cornerback Marcus Lattimore costs a ton of money and has missed 19 games in two-plus seasons. The Browns were highly unlikely to deal us edge rusher Za’Darius Smith, preferring to get him out of the division. New York asked far too much for Azeez Ojulari, indicating they were never serious about dealing him.
Anyway, the main issue with the defense all season (and last) has been missed assignments and communications breakdowns. Seems unlikely that the magic elixir to fix that is bringing in a new player who’d take weeks to get up to speed on the finer points of Lou Anarumo’s defense. The stronger case to be made is that Anarumo should simplify things so the team can simply attack and not be put into thinking mode so often. It’s a risk, but then nothing is going to come of giving up 30+ points to every halfway decent offense we face.
Cincinnati has to play not just the Ravens but the Chargers before their off week, a natural time to futz with the schemes. Losing to Baltimore, incredibly enough, wouldn’t be fatal to the team’s postseason hopes so long as they defeat L.A. and Denver later in the year, two teams in contention with the Bengals for a wild-card slot.
So perhaps it’s a good thing after all to be playing on Thursday. That allows for the mini-bye to tweak the schemes before the full bye arrives. Cincinnati will play just once between November 8 and December 1; the team will either come together at last in this 24-day window or consign themselves to stammering to the finish in the same disconcerting manner as the season’s first two months.
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