It’s only about a 3.5-hour drive from Cincinnati to Canton, but no one will be eager to deliver the game tape from Sunday’s slapdash slopfest to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. They would surely refuse to accept it. The Bengals’ 37-27 win over Tennessee counts in the standings as a win, but little else about it was worthwhile.
It sure appeared that both teams partook in the multiple liquid delights on offer in NashVegas the night before deigning to show up for the game. The teams combined for an incredible 10 turnovers and 26 penalties (not to mention a surfeit of comically unflagged plays), which almost doesn’t capture the absurdity of the “football” on display. There was Titans QB Will Levis being so awful that Brian Callahan was seen openly longing to come back to Cincinnati and ride with a real quarterback. There was said quarterback, Joe Burrow, cursing out everything under the sun in the waning moments of what was a relatively easy victory, nauseated by the undisciplined play around him.
And of course, there was Titans running back Tony Pollard fumbling, Cincinnati safety Jordan Battle scooping and (almost) scoring, except for the slight detail of an unforced bobble and fumble of his own, resulting in a touchback that prevented the beleaguered Bengals D from scoring for the second time in the game (and, along with a meaningless touchdown allowed as time elapsed, prevented the team from pumping up their point differential, which as you know I care about far too much).
It was a pre-Christmas sampler of everything you don’t want to see in an NFL game.
There were certainly some bright spots on the Cincinnati side, starting with the Bengals secondary coming away with four interceptions. Cam Taylor-Britt, Geno Stone, Mike Hilton, and Josh Newton all played perhaps their best games of the season—not saying much, given the opposition quarterback perhaps, but nice to see nonetheless. Hilton has been so great in Tennessee over the years that the Titans will undoubtedly sign him in the offseason.
Chase Brown continued his emergence as a lead dog back, running for 97 tough yards against the monster Titans run D, and added 16 yards through the air for 113 scrimmage yards and a touchdown each way. I certainly hope no one is still pining for Joe Mixon. Brown has 78 fewer yards on 26 fewer carries, but all advanced numbers tilt hugely in his favor. I don’t really think anyone who’s watched the 2024 Bengals play is under the illusion that unloading Mixon was a mistake, but dopes in the national media have made it a talking point to illustrate the team’s cheapness and symbol of their folly, so it needs to be slapped down as talking point before it gets solidified into accepted wisdom.
Burrow was Burrow, of course, dominating the game with his pocket movement, a good thing since the O-line was pushed around for the majority of the afternoon, save Amarius Mims on the right side. There was a lot to savor from Burrow’s play: the nine-second scramble before the TD pass to Brown, standing tall as he was popped split-seconds after a long TD bomb to Tee Higgins, and countless crossover steps and wiggles to elude rushers before getting the ball to a receiver.
He also threw two interceptions, one a YOLO bomb into double-coverage that was affected by yet another QB hit and seemed mainly designed to give Ja’Marr Chase some stats, the other on a ball that seemed to slip out of his hands and was picked on a remarkable diving play by Tennessee LB Cedric Gray. Burrow also fumbled away a possession, although I still say his elbow was down first. Combine those turnovers with multiple procedure penalties, timing mistakes, missed blocking assignments, and the aforementioned overall carelessness of play, and it’s small wonder Burrow was caught barking in obscene language on the sideline even as Zac Taylor tried to calm him. (Ignore the dope’s audio commentary on the Youtube link. Taylor wasn’t upset that the Bengals scored to run it up on Callahan.)
I don’t make much of the incident in and of itself. Football is emotional, and these dudes snap and scream at each other roughly 100 times more often than we know about. Seldom does it carry over on a personal level. But the fact that we’re 14 games into the schedule and the Bengals continue to be plagued by a lack of discipline and mental mistakes is worrisome, especially as the team has been among the best at not being penalized in the Taylor Era.
It would scarcely seem to matter, given that we all gave the season up for dead weeks ago. Incredibly, though, Cincinnati is still alive for the playoffs—barely, but tangibly. The most direct path would require the Bengals to win out, of course, and the Denver Broncos to lose out, which would include their Week 16 matchup at Paycor Stadium. Denver plays tonight against the Chargers in a crucial game for all concerned and closes the season at home with Kansas City, who may or may not be playing to maintain the AFC’s top seed and home field advantage. Losing three straight would seem unlikely, but the Broncos have won four in a row and the NFL is nothing if not a great leveler.
If all that happens, both the Bengals and Broncos would be 9-8, and of course Cincinnati would have beaten Denver. (The Colts could also win out and finish 9-8, but the Bengals would advance in a three-way tie scenario thanks to Denver’s win Sunday over Indy.)
Now, you’d be forgiven for asking if you really want to see a Bengals team this painfully flawed actually in the playoffs—you would be laughed at, because of course we want to see them make the playoffs, but be forgiven. Burrow badly wants to make the playoffs, however, and when he sees the team continue to make the same simple, unnecessary gaffes that have hamstrung them all season he turns insane with rage. It takes a special kind of disdain for details to be 6-8 with a quarterback having the kind of season he’s having. The only recent precedent I can think of is Deshaun Watson’s final season in Houston, 2020, when the Texans managed to go 4-12 despite Watson throwing for 4,800 yards and 33 touchdowns. How he found the time between massage appointments is anyone’s guess.
Speaking of Watson, the team he ran into the ground with his horrendous play and unforgivable contract, the Browns, are in town Sunday to take on the Bengals. Neither Watson, injured and lost for the season in the first game between these teams, or Jameis Winston, at last deemed too bizarre and erratic to continue playing, will start. Instead Dorian Thompson-Robinson, who really should just pick one of the surnames and go with it, will attempt to lead the Brownies out of top-10 draft status. Wideout Jerry Jeudy will test the newly confident Bengals defensive backfield, but with Nick Chubb out with a broken foot and Myles Garrett nearly blinded by an eye poke last Sunday against the Chiefs, there is no excuse for Cincinnati to lose to a bunch of backups mostly playing out the string.
Somehow, the scent of prey is in the Bengals’ nostrils. Faint, but unmistakable. Now is the time not to play with their food but to savage their victim, quickly and without mercy.
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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