These Ugly Bengals Wins Are Feeling Good

After breaking their Cleveland hex, the Stripes have another opportunity to muck up a decent team when the Eagles visit on Sunday.
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I told y’all last week it would be ugly, and as you hopefully know by now I’m seldom wrong about these things. Cincinnati got another much-needed victory on Sunday, beating the hapless Browns by a deceptive score of 21-14. Deceptive in both directions: Cincinnati was in total control after getting to 21 points in the third quarter, a mountaintop Cleveland has yet to scale this season. Then they backed it down, at least subconsciously.

There were still plenty of opportunities for the Bengals to lay on more points and win by a more substantial margin than seven. As you know, point differential is more important to me than one if not both of my children, and Cincinnati had a golden opportunity to up it above +12.

It’s certainly frustrating that the team can’t seem to put a good offensive and a good defensive performance together in the same game. But as Joe Burrow said, “I’d rather have everyone talking about how we didn’t execute on offense and win two games in a row than the other way around.”

Exactly. That’s the NFL, folks, and every week is different. We know any game with the Browns is going to be mucked in mire. For once, it was the Bengals who spun their wheels more effectively, even if it didn’t look good for long stretches. It’s hard to believe a team that was 1-4 and in desperation mode wins two straight and fans are concerned it wasn’t aesthetically pleasing enough, but here we are.

Something about the grass on the field in Cleveland is ill conducive to Cincinnati scoring. Ironically, the same lawn rose up and bit Deshaun Watson instead. His Achilles tear is unfortunate, in that it allows the Browns to bury the worst QB in football and go with Jameis Winston (who led them to the garbage time TD Sunday) going forward. He isn’t that good, but compared to Watson he’s Otto Graham. Fortunately, the Browns are so buried in terrible karma and a bad record that a few wins at this point can only hurt their draft placement.

I’m not usually one to spotlight the officials, but there were some garbage calls on Sunday that materially hurt the final score. There was the utterly mind-blowing “uncatchable pass” call where Ja’Marr Chase was held and prevented from running under said long pass, which was likely a TD. There was also a couple of highly dubious holding penalties, one on a Cordell Volson pancake block that was utterly ridiculous. And the injury to Orlando Brown definitely affected the performance and the play calling—he appears to have avoided a major ouchie, but any lower body injury for a player of Big O’s size is worrisome. His status for Sunday’s home game against Philadelphia is unclear as I write this.

It sounds kind of weird to say, but the game’s biggest play might have been Charlie Jones eluding the Browns kicker, Dustin Hopkins, on the opening kick return touchdown. How often have you seen returners rip off a big return but not take it the distance and then the drive stalls without a score or a TD? That could well have been the result Sunday had Jones been brought down around midfield—certainly the way the Bengals offense played in the first half leads you to think that would have been the case. Instead, the all-important lead was taken right away, and Cincinnati never trailed despite their struggles.

Jones now has a punt return and a kickoff return for TDs in his brief career, something only nine other players have done in the last decade (and only the great Lamar Parrish has ever done in Bengals history). No one thinks he is Devin Hester, but returners have been phased out so much from the game that two scores in a season and half should be celebrated. It may also lead to him getting more opportunities in the passing game, as he and Jermaine Burton need to be phased in to the attack as the season progresses.

The Bengals are now 3-4, not great but certainly a hell of lot more fun than 1-4. Cincinnati’s playoff odds are actually over 50 percent now (52%), representative of the soft schedule ahead and the general weakness of the AFC. After losing to the Ravens, Cincinnati was dead last by tiebreakers in the conference; they’re up to ninth now. The Bengals remain 12th overall in the efficiency stat, DVOA and up to 20th on defense and 12th on special teams, a season high mark thanks to Jones. They are sixth in offense, but the run game, which had been a strength through five weeks, has slid now to 23rd after being shut down by the New York Giants and Cleveland.

Up next is the third team in this unusual round-robin, the Eagles, who like the Bengals have defeated the G-Men and the Brownies the last two Sundays. Philly was certainly more impressive in crushing Big Blue than the Bengals were, winning 28-3 behind an elite performance in an actual revenge game (unlike most that are labeled as such) from Saquon Barkley. Barkley ran for 176 yards and a score, earning him NFC Offensive Player of the Week.

As I’ve said often in this space, playing a team coming off a blowout win is infinitely preferable to the inverse, especially this early in the season. It’s becoming a habit: The week before playing the Bengals, their opponents are now 6-1 with a +79 differential (discounting the Patriots on opening day, of course). Only Cleveland lost, and even their four-point loss to Philly was probably their best showing of the season, even more than their lone win over the Jags.

The Eagles somehow piled up 269 yards on the ground against New York while going 1-for-13 on third down, which wasn’t an issue against the Giants’ punchless attack. Barkley’s big runs obviated the need to keep the chains moving, of course. But Cincinnati’s offense will make the Green Birds pay for not keeping the ball more efficiently if the Bengals can get off the field with anything like that kind of consistency.

The Eagles are renowned for the O-line keying the ground game, but like Cleveland their reputation has outweighed their actual play this season. Philly is second in Open Field Yards and eighth in 2nd Level Yards, while the line is just 20th in Adjusted Line Yards, almost a yard and a half behind their RB yards. All that is a way of backing up the fact that Barkley has made the line look better than it is with his ability to get free into the secondary despite pedestrian work up front. Meanwhile, Philly has given up sacks on 10 percent of passing dropbacks, fourth worst in the NFL; by contrast, Cincinnati’s line is 22nd in ALY and midpack with sacks on 8 percent of dropbacks.

The Eagles used some interesting formations to help the line blow open the Giants, including putting converted linebacker Ben Van Sumeren in the backfield as a fullback. The Bengals likewise used some interesting formations, including a diamond-shaped pistol set with twin wingbacks flanking Burrow and Chase Brown behind them. It wasn’t as effective, but then Brown isn’t Barkley.

The Eagles defense has gotten healthy the last two weeks, with 13 sacks, including eight against the Giants. Like Cincinnati, the key to their success has been a strong rotation up front that’s hard to run on. The linchpin player might well be rookie cornerback Quinyon Mitchell, who has been excellent the last two games after Philly struggled mightily against top-flight receivers before their early bye.

Nevertheless, the Eagles are dead last against enemy No. 1 wideouts by DVOA, and a woozy Malik Nabors and Cleveland’s assortment of meh receivers didn’t provide much of a challenge. Chase is a far different animal, of course. Philly has been very good stopping enemy No. 2s, which may be a case of a shifting Mitchell to the featured spot. Obviously, using Tee Higgins to punish defenses worried about Ja’Marr Chase is a large chunk of the Bengals playbook, so not overly focusing on Uno and getting everyone cooking will be key.

Similarly, Philly wide receiver DeVonta Smith somehow had a game last week where he caught just one pass for -2 yards. It didn’t matter as the Eagles rolled on the ground, but you know for the sake of harmony Jalen Hurts will be looking his way early and often, perhaps at the expense of lead dog A.J. Brown. The Bengals are third-best in the league at stopping No. 2 wideouts, but with Dax Hill gone and the last two opponents so weak at that spot it may be fool’s gold. Smith will be a more difficult test, probably the best No. 2 the Bengals will face all year.

In some ways this is a rerun of the Ravens game, in that everyone assumes the opponent will run all over the Bengals D and a shootout is in the offing. But toss out the Derrick Henry run in OT that never should have happened, and Cincinnati did a solid job stopping him: He was 14-41, 2.9 YPC, before the big run. Cleveland’s Nick Chubb wasn’t much of a factor either, for once, though of course it was his first game back from a severe injury. In both cases, the cause was helped by the Bengals scoring and taking a lead, which will once again be a huge key Sunday.

Can the Bengals put together a complete performance on both sides of the ball and win convincingly for the first time all season? It seems unlikely, frankly. Personally, I’ll take another ugly win, which can happen if they contain Barkley and make the winning field goal this time.

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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