A brutal night for the Cincinnati Bengals.
The Cincinnati Bengals traveled to Mile High to take on the Denver Broncos. These two teams met in Week 17 last year competing for a playoff spot. This year, the Broncos are 1-2, and the Bengals are without quarterback Joe Burrow coming off one of their worst performances in the team’s history when they lost 48-10 against the Minnesota Vikings.
This doesn’t need to be too long-winded. Cincinnati’s offense showed up for the first drive, where they were able to move the ball fairly well and settled for a field goal. Then the defense was able to get Denver off the field quickly.
From there, it was pretty much the Bronco show. The Bengals couldn’t move the ball, their defense couldn’t stop anything, and they had 11 penalties called on them in the first half.
Rookie Linebacker Demetrius Knight Jr. got the first interception of his career when Bo Nix threw an ill-advised pass from the one-yard line. That was about one of the few bright spots after those initial drives.
When it was all said and done, Denver had scored 21 before the first half ended, and it was 21-3.
Well, the third quarter happened. If you like flags and sloppy offense, then it was a good time. Neither team was able to move the ball effectively, as both were dealing with penalty yardage. 21-3 it remained.
Running back J.K. Dobbins was the first running back to get over 100 rushing yards in Sean Payton’s time with the Broncos. Then the defense left rookie running back RJ Harvey all alone for an easy receiving touchdown. The first touchdown of his career, and making it 28-3. A nail in a coffin that there was never enough fight from the inside to need to worry about even covering up…
Well, we can hang the banner for starting the season fast. Unfortunately, it looks like things aren’t going to get any better any time soon. What can be said at this point? Browning is unable to get the ball to these receivers consistently, the offensive line can’t run block, the defense can’t stop a leaky sink, and after having two weeks to prepare without Burrow, this offense has looked horrendous. It is unacceptable for an NFL team to be in this state.
The question becomes whether Cincinnati may make some calls around for more of a proper bridge quarterback or borderline starter. You can’t sit back and watch this for what will probably be 13 more games and not get some actual competition for Browning. Not that it would fix everything, but at this point, the front office has set so much up for this season. To simply just sit back and say “well, Burrow is out for a while, guess this year is over, and we just run it back next year,” just isn’t okay.
This team has been outscored 76-13 in the last two games. Those are two games knowing they would be without Burrow. They faced Carson Wentz and Nix.
This team is closer to needing a complete coaching overhaul and some roster gutting than it is to being just a few pieces away.
Category: General Sports
