Behold, the power of the players-only meeting! Generally speaking, meetings—be they in a conference room, over Zoom, or conducted furtively behind the local gas station—are things we can do without. But it would appear that prior to playing the New York Giants the Bengals’ defensive players got together sans coaches, acknowledged (as Mike Hilton said last week) that they were playing “shitty,” and collectively decided to do something about it.
Whether it was the group kumbaya or the fact they were playing Daniel Jones and the punchless Giants, who cares? Cincinnati at last put together a strong defensive effort and garnered a much-needed win, 17-7, on Sunday night, improving their record to 2-4 and keeping their season alive.
The Bengals at last held a team to fewer than 10 points for the first time after an astounding 74 consecutive games of double-digit points allowed (plus seven in the postseason), dating back to Zac Taylor’s initial season of 2019 when they held the Jets (natch) to 6. That this team, with its previously horrendous D, is the one to snap the streak is ironic, perhaps equivalently unlikely as the porous offensive line unit of the 2021 Bengals being the team that snapped Pittsburgh’s streak of 75 games with a sack.
The key was up front, as a (finally) healthy and complete eight-man D-line rotation controlled the game and dominated a Giants offense that pushed around the Seahawks one week earlier. Sam Hubbard at last looks recognizable, after about a season and a month playing like a shadow of himself due to injury. B.J. Hill had a tremendous game against his old team, while Sheldon Rankins returned to the lineup and played well. And the young ’uns, Kris Jenkins and McKinnely Jackson, both look to be solid contributors now that they’re also back from the injured list and have their feet wet.
As Hubbard put it after the game, it’s important to have a full deck of linemen to avoid what he called “survival mode” in the second half. “Late in the game I was ready to roll,” Hub said. “I think a lot of guys felt that way. Having that rotation going with all the guys back is gonna go a long way.”
Hubbard played a season-low 39 snaps while feeling the best he has all season; those two facts are distinctly related. Indeed, the entire rotation took a socialistic approach, with only Hill even topping 60 percent of the snaps:
Player, Snaps (Percentage)
B.J. Hill, 55 (70%)
Trey Hendrickson, 47 (59%)
Sheldon Rankins, 42 (53%)
Joseph Ossai, 40 (51%)
Sam Hubbard, 39 (49%)
Kris Jenkins, 39 (49%)
Myles Murphy, 32 (41%)
McKinley Jackson, 21 (27%)
That’s a recipe for success going forward. Now, it doesn’t mean they will suddenly start holding every opponent to a lone touchdown, but a large share of the defensive issues this season can be traced to lack of depth on the front line. Now that they’re fully good to go, they need to take advantage of this moment, for of course it won’t last.
Speaking of not lasting, it was probably too much to ask that that offense continue to score 30-plus points every game. They were just good enough at MetLife on Sunday, thanks to Joe Burrow’s wheels on the game’s first drive and and a fortunate bounce—for once—on a late Chase Brown fumble that swerved out of bounds. Brown scored the game-icing TD on the very next play.
In between there was a whole lot of nothing: six punts, a fumble lost, a solitary field goal, and 149 yards of total offense at 3.9 yards per play. Give plenty of credit to that Giants front, with two All-Pro level players, Brian Burns and Dexter Lawrence, doing their thing and Azeez Ojulari filling in for Kayvon Thibodeaux and having a good game. Lawrence drawing a holding penalty that wiped out a Brown TD late in the third quarter prevented what might have been an easier Bengals win.
Lawrence giving the middle of the Cincinnati O-line issues isn’t surprising, and the idea that an excellent D-line gets the better of the Bengals front five isn’t really unexpected either. I thought the line actually played pretty well, all things considered—in the past that would be a scenario where the Big Blue Wrecking Crew truly wrecked the game. They played well and had moments, but it wasn’t a case of Cincinnati being unable to do anything at all.
When they had to have them, Burrow made excellent improv plays. Exhibit A was the crucial throw on third and 12 just before the late Brown TD run. Burrow hit Princeton man Andrei Iosivas, himself coming back to New Jersey with little to no fanfare, for a huge 29-yard gain. Similarly, the 33-yard pass to Ja’Marr Chase that set up the field goal saw Burrow with plenty of time to work through all his progressions and wait until Chase worked open on an ad-lib. And of course, his Lamar Jackson impersonation came thanks to an instant identification that he had an entire side of a field to himself if he took off and ran.
Maybe the overall issue with the puny offense was not enough Erick All? He played just 23 of the 53 offensive snaps, fewer than Drew Sample. Sometimes the matchups dictate personnel, and this appeared to be the case, but it was no coincidence that All was out there on the big Brown run late, throwing a key block and then boosting Brown to the top of the stands to celebrate—the man does it all!
It wasn’t pretty, but we’ll take it. The same will be true this Sunday at the Mistake by the Lake. Just win, baby, as Akeem Davis-Gaither would say. (He coined that phrase, no?)
Now we all know the Browns are getting historically bad QB play from Deshaun Watson, and that’s really a shame. Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy or better organization. But he’s been awful before—not this brutal, but bad—and still had a game or two where he looked competent. I’m sure he and the Browns are thinking this is the matchup where they get well for a week, even after trading wideout Amari Cooper to Buffalo.
The Browns have had Cincinnati’s number for the past several seasons, after all. Cleveland will surely take losing Cooper while adding Nick Chubb back to the lineup for the first time since his devastating knee injury in Week Two last season. Chubb may not be fully back just yet, but his history of cutting through the Bengals D like a hot knife through butter means even a mostly healthy Chubb indicates problems.
The other regular Cincy Killa is Myles Garrett, who some fanbases insanely believe is available for a trade. (Hendrickson, too; get a grip, people.) He was impactful yet again last Sunday, with a blocked field goal that accounted for Cleveland’s lone TD in Philly and has five sacks in five games despite playing (and missing one game) with an injured foot. Orlando Brown has been mostly strong all season, and it’s on him to prevent Garrett from doing what the Giants couldn’t quite do.
Surely, the Browns putrid offense—dead last in the NFL in DVOA, among other standards of ineptitude—has made their defense (21st in the league) look worse than the personnel would indicate. It will be nice to see Burrow rebound with a huge game and put up far too many points for the Browns to keep up. Such a game is in the realm of possibility, but the far stronger likelihood is another ugly game that the Bengals need to win close. And that will be just fine. Style points are meaningless right now. The team needs to stack Ws, and this is one they have to have, against a 1-5 division rival with a minus-46 point differential (not nearly the worst in the league, by the way, or even the AFC, which is an indicator that we shouldn’t expect a rout).
I don’t care about aesthetics at this point, and neither should you.
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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