The Bengals made it interesting, but in the end the 2023 season will wind up pretty much where we all expected it would on that terrible night in Baltimore when Joe Burrow was lost for the year. Cincinnati will not be in the playoffs, a reality made official after losing to the hated Chiefs 25-17 on Sunday afternoon at Arrowhead Stadium, the site of the last two AFC title games involving Cincinnati and K.C.
A third encounter on Championship Sunday was highly unlikely, but this game had enough playoff intensity to remind us all of those fraught encounters. Sadly, memories of the hard-fought defeat will have to tide us over for what promises to be a long offseason. Unlike the last two seasons, which stretched nearly to Valentine’s Day, Cincinnati will play out the string this coming Sunday against the damn Browns and then disappear. Free agency and the draft are long, long months away.
As with last season’s title game, the key element in this last, crucial defeat in K.C. was the failure of the offensive line to block the Chiefs with any sort of consistency. Unlike last year, however, this time injury was no excuse. The O-line starters somehow made it virtually unscathed through 16 games and were all there on Sunday. And yet when the game was there for the taking, the Chiefs defense poured in on Jake Browning like Comanches.
After scoring 17 points in the first half—helped in part by a strip sack by the redoubtable Trey Hendrickson—the Bengals were unable to score at all in the second. In their final drives they gave up five sacks, were called for an intentional grounding penalty (highly dubious but still), and failed to pick up six inches on fourth down at the K.C. 6-yard line. Once again, this expensive veteran group underwhelmed when the team needed them the most.
By contrast, the defense hasn’t been good all season, so even though Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs have struggled mightily to find big plays this year, it wasn’t too surprising they discovered success at last at the expense of Cincinnati’s D. I was foolishly optimistic at the dawn of the campaign that the young and inexperienced secondary would jell by winter, but here they were again making terrible mistakes in communication, tackling angles, and simple judgment. I admit to thinking the departure of the starting safeties in the offseason wouldn’t be this big a deal.
Even the Chiefs wideouts, a collection so uninspiring it’s turned the usually placid Mahomes into a sideline rageaholic, bested the Bengals secondary for 245 yards and multiple big plays, including the killer 67-yard pass to Rashee Rice with Cincinnati leading by one. Thankfully Marquez Valdes-Scantling dropped yet another big pass, or the yardage allowed would have been worse, most likely along with the final score. Chiefs back Isiah Pacheco also became the latest runner to enjoy the wide-open spaces in Cincinnati’s defense, racking up 130 yards on a whopping 7.2 yards per carry.
Browning played tough, making a few big plays and standing in the pocket despite the beating he was taking. But the difference between him and Burrow was stark in this particular game. Burrow’s key trait is getting the ball to the right guy on more snaps than most, and quickly. Browning had some of these simple but critical passes out there for him but either didn’t pull the trigger in time or didn’t see the field for its possibilities. K.C.’s defense is good and fast, but there were lots of opportunities that went wasted.
The pivot point, of course, was the drive that was stopped with the Bengals trying to go up by two scores midway through the third quarter. I agree with the call to go for it, at least in theory. But the Bengals are 27th in the NFL in Power situations when running the ball. For all the beef up front, they can’t get any push when the defense is lined up to stop the run.
Any time a team passes on third or fourth and short (and fails), the immediate cry from the armchair coordinators out there is “Run the ball!” But despite the short amount of terrain needed to move the sticks, Cincinnati has proven all season to be incapable of moving them in those situations. With Burrow in, a pass would have been a no-brainer; I’d have gone with a fake and a throw with Browning too, given the circumstances. After all, Jake found a way into the end zone in short yardage earlier in the game.
From there, the Bengals mustered just three first downs, two on the desperate final drive, including the miraculous fourth and long conversion on a pass to Tyler Boyd. Every point is crucial in a game like this, and the failure to build on to the lead at 17-13 was killer. Give Harrison Butker credit for nailing six field goals in less-than-ideal conditions, but if Andy Reid was trailing by a touchdown or 11 points with 22 minutes left, he may well have opted to go for it on a couple of those occasions—and perhaps not made it. Cincinnati is tied with the Browns for fewest fourth down conversions allowed and is fourth by percentage, so I’d have liked their chances in those spots, even against Mahomes.
Cincinnati can still escape this season with a winning record if they defeat the hated Browns on Sunday. Cleveland is locked into the fifth seed, and George Blanda, er, Joe Flacco is unlikely to play. Had the Bengals managed to pull out the game in Missourah, they would have been in the catbird seat for a “win and in” victory—but alas. A nine-win season, given Burrow’s absence and the fact the Bengals have played the single toughest schedule in DVOA history (which dates back to the early 1980s) would be an accomplishment, albeit a bittersweet one, especially if all three other AFC North teams make the postseason. Of course the Steelers, written off for dead, are right in the mix, thanks mainly to beating Cincinnati twice.
A win Sunday would also avoid an ignominious 0-6 division mark, for what that’s worth. At this point, whatever draft position Cincinnati winds up in won’t likely have much material difference in the quality of prospect they can select, so rooting against them for draft reasons smacks of smallness.
Saying that, there is no doubt the team is now at a crossroads on multiple fronts—not least given Burrow’s salary jump, which begins in earnest next season before vaulting into the stratosphere in 2025. Top-notch drafting will be critical, and development of those players, an area certainly worth examining with a jaundiced eye, will be as well. But that’s more of a subject for a year-end piece, which I’m saddened to say will be coming next week—not around Groundhog Day, as it did the last two seasons.
Robert Weintraub heads up Bengals coverage for Cincinnati Magazine and has written for The New York Times, Grantland, Slate, and Deadspin. Follow him on Twitter at @robwein. Listen to him on Mo Egger’s show on 1530AM every Thursday at 5:20 p.m.
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