I had many thoughts/excuses about the Cincinnati Bengals’ loss to the Kansas City Chiefs last week. It was a bad loss, I said to myself, but the Bengals can still bounce-back. The Bengals have been 0 - 2 under Zac Taylor a few times. It’s not necessarily a death-sentence. Besides, the Bengals looked like the better team last Sunday. They are a couple lucky breaks from being 2 - 0. It wasn’t even close to panic time.
Well, better rethink that. After watching that 38 - 33 debacle on Monday Night courtesy of rookie sensation Jayden Daniels and the Washington Commanders, you’d be crazy not to panic. The Bengals aren’t unlucky to be 0 - 3. They aren’t victims of a few bad calls. They aren’t slow-starters.
They’re bad.
Just. Plain. Bad.
They're asleep at the wheel.
And frankly, there aren’t many signs that improvement is on the horizon. In three weeks, the Bengals have gone from would-be Super Bowl contenders to league laughingstock. The Commanders had their way with the Bengals defense. Here’s a quick rundown of Washington’s unprecedented success:
The Commanders scored a touchdown on their opening drive for the first time since 2015 (also the first opening-drive touchdown of Jayden Daniels’ career), and scored touchdowns on their first four drives of the game
Including last week against the New York Giants, the Commanders have now gone two consecutive games in which they’ve scored on every drive that didn’t end with a kneel down.
Daniels completed 21 of 23 passes on the night, good for a 91.3% completion percentage, the best mark of any rookie since at least 1950.
Washington had its highest-scoring first half (21 points) since 2018, and last night was their highest-scoring game since 2015.
Even though this loss falls on everyone in the organization, the Bengals offense did manage to score 33 points on offense. Joe Burrow can still sling it, and Ja’Marr Chase can still humble any cornerback. The offense isn’t the problem. The utter inability to win at the line of scrimmage, the nauseating lapses in coverage, the atrocious tackling – that’s what’s killing the Bengals right now.
It’s mystifying. These issues were supposed to be dealt with in the offseason. That’s why Von Bell and Geno Stone were signed to be the new safeties, right? Bell has been totally invisible this year. Stone, meanwhile, has been pretty visible, but for all the wrong reasons – last night was a prime example. Stone found himself out of position on a 55-yard bomb to Commanders’ star receiver Terry McLaurin, and would have been on the receiving end of another big-play ass-whooping had Daniels not overthrown his receiver in the first quarter thanks to pressure from Trey Hendrickson.
And that’s just the safeties. The cornerbacks have been just as bad. Dax Hill looks just as inconsistent and uncomfortable at corner as he did at safety, and Cam Taylor-Britt’s comments earlier this week about the Commanders having a “nice college offense,” turned the Bengals into a national punchline. Mike Hilton isn’t having a throwback season either, and the fact that last year’s second-round pick D.J. Turner II can’t see the field is hardly a good sign.
And that, right there, is probably the biggest culprit of the Bengals current defensive woes: miserable drafting. Taylor-Britt, a 2022 second-rounder, and Hill, a 2022 first-rounder, aren’t dependable at corner. Last year’s first-round pick Myles Murphy has, up to this point, been a bust at defensive end. Yes, he’s injured right now, but availability matters, and that goes double for the two defensive tackles the Bengals drafted in the second- and third-rounds this offseason, Kris Jenkins Jr. and McKinnley Jackson, respectively, both of whom have missed nearly the entire season up to this point.
It doesn’t stop there. 2022 third-round pick Zach Carter is being called upon to start at defensive tackle following injuries to starters B.J. Hill and Sheldon Rankins, and he’s been one of the most ineffective players in the league. Same goes for fellow emergency starter at nose tackle Jay Tufele, but at least he wasn’t drafted by the Bengals. Carter was supposed to be an impact player, and he is – just in a negative sense. Defensive end Joseph Ossai, a third-round selection in 2021, has been absolutely dreadful through three games as well. The front office's recent track record in drafting defense is abysmal.
And though he was drafted before the Zac Taylor/Joe Burrow era began, the Sam-Hubbard scrutiny cannot be avoided. He’s a beloved Bengal and a hometown hero, but lately, he’s become a massive liability. He’s no longer providing an impact in the run game (his calling card), and the minimal impact he used to make as a pass rusher has completely vanished. He shouldn’t be seeing the field on three-quarters of the defensive snaps – but then again, is seventh-rounder Cedric Johnson really the answer? Ossai certainly isn’t.
No. Sadly, the best the Bengals can hope for is improved health, but that doesn't guarantee much. The Bengals weren’t stout against the run with Hill and Rankins in the lineup, and the little we’ve seen in Murphy’s brief career has been mostly as a pass rusher. Unless Murphy, Jenkins, or Jackson is a secret-superstar, the Bengals are probably destined to be manhandled at the line of scrimmage for the entire season. Is anybody missing D.J. Reader? Hey, at least Hendrickson is here for the long-haul…right?
Uh oh, he’s a free agent after 2026, and given the unfulfilled trade request earlier this year and the subsequent lack of traction on any long-term deal, the chances Hendrickson returns feels slim to none. Ditto for Tee Higgins, who was put under the franchise tag in lieu of a long-term deal. Burrow and Chase notwithstanding, those are the two best players on the roster. The Bengals are built to win now, but the direction of the season so far, they might be lucky to get to .500. With that realization, I may need to take a 90-minute hot shower…
It should be impossible for a team with a quarterback this good and a team with this impressive of a resumé to be this embarrassing, but here we are. The Bengals are 0 - 3, and head on the road to face the Carolina Panthers and old friend Andy Dalton. Despite being a fellow NFL laughingstock, the Panthers 1 - 2 and cannot be underestimated, especially after Dalton shredded the Las Vegas Raiders this past weekend. If the Bengals defense is better than the Raiders D, it’s by the slimmest of margins.
Two weeks ago, my head was flooding with thoughts/excuses when the Bengals lost close to the Chiefs, but not following the Commanders game. Today, I was consumed by a singular idea: that the Bengals might not have it anymore. This used to be, as recently as last year, a team that found ways to win games. This year, they’ve invented incredible new ways to lose them.
Time waits for no one in the NFL. The league is passing the Bengals by, and watching LSU’s most recent Heisman quarterback explode onto the NFL scene on Monday Night Football by beating the Bengals’ own Heisman-winning LSU quarterback clarified the Bengals’ place in the NFL hierarchy. This team isn’t hanging on by a thread – it’s already in free-fall.
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