Bengals need Joe Burrow to be competitive after blowout loss | Pro Football Talk | NFL on NBC

Bengals need Joe Burrow to be competitive after blowout loss | Pro Football Talk | NFL on NBC

Happy players in Denver. And when you look back at the Broncos season so far, we’re only four games in. And one of the things I always say, Devin, about early season losses, you don’t know how good the team is that beat you. Early season wins, you don’t know how bad the team is you’ve beaten. You possibly lost the future Super Bowl champion. You probably beat the team, possibly beat the team that’s going to have the first overall pick in the draft. We don’t know. And here we are for the Broncos now who have climbed their way to two and two. They lost to the Colts, a game they should have won, but for calling for a block on a field goal and a leverage effort. You know, it’s a long field goal. They tried to jump the center and they got called for leverage leverage and Shawn Peyton admitted that they shouldn’t have done that. 15 yards closer. Colts win the game. Walk-off. They they played the Chargers down to the end. late field goal wins it for the Chargers. Both of those teams are very, very good. Three and one each. And so one and two wasn’t indicative of the Broncos. And two and one wasn’t indicative of where the Bengals currently are. And we saw it last night. Two teams moving in very different directions. This one was never close. The Bengals got nothing going. The yardage differential is the most stark that we’ve seen so far this year. And I can’t think of many like this. This is college, like, you know, Ohio State versus Mount Union type of a difference. 512 yards gained by Denver, 159 yards gained by the Bengals. That is an ass kicking. You hear that and you think it was 563, not 283. Yeah. I mean, from right from the beginning, it was just and I think coming into the game, people knew of like, all right, man, how does Cincy manufacture anything to get going in this season? And and I know everyone talked about Jake Browning was a good backup coming in for Joe Borrow, but the truth of the matter is that team is meant for Joe Borrow the quarterback. They’ve built that team in a way that I I’ve been big on. I don’t think the team is built in a way to go compete and win a Super Bowl. Really, I think the team is is it is created and built in a way that only Joe Burrow makes them good. Like they need Joe Burrow out there to be competitive. And like that’s shown the last two weeks. Like you need a guy that can handle not being able to run the ball to take advantage of a Denver defense. We saw this game last year when Cincy was fighting to try to get in the playoffs and the game came down to Joe Burrow was too good throwing the ball to T. Higgins, Jamar Chase, especially T. Higgins and the game he had and you saw like early in the game, Denver came out and they they had the same plan. It’s just Cincinnati couldn’t get the ball to T. Higgins or Jamar Chase and these one-on-one coverage opportunities and Denver took advantage of it. They took advantage of the pass rush being able to get home. And I thought that affected Jake Browning to the point where now he didn’t really have the ability to keep his eyes down the field and make some tougher throws in situations that hey, you got two of the better receivers in the league. Give him a chance. You know, a couple balls out of bounds at T. Higgins, but Denver took advantage of that. And I thought Shawn Payeyton came out and it it feels like early on for a young Bo Nicks. when Boone Knicks and this offense can operate the way Shawn Peyton has drawn it up coming into the game, being able to run the ball, being able to set up, I mean, they must have ran about eight or 10 bootleg plays where Bo Nicks is rolling out and it’s just throwing the ball on the flat to a tight end and that tight end’s catching and running or he’s rolling out, throwing a comeback outside. It’s just they got to the comfort level. Then when you watch Bo Knicks later in the game, he’s in the pocket. He’s firing in cuts 15 to 20 yards down the field. It’s just there’s nothing Cincinnati’s defense could do to get close to stopping them. You know, Harvey had over 100 yards off purpose. JK Dobbins had 100 yards rushing. It was just like, hey, like you just said, this is a college game. We’re dominating. Our starters are getting, hey, hard. Hey, let’s get this guy in. Let’s get him some touches. All right. Oh, man. He’s got 100. It was just like, hey, we’re going to get the ball out to everybody. This is going to be a game that helps recruiting. More guys are going to come next year because they see we get everyone involved. It was that kind of game and we knew Cincinnati it was going to be tough to stop anybody on defense. And that’s exactly what it looked like last night. JK Dobbins was the first player to rush for a 100red or more yards since Shawn Payeyton became the head coach of the Broncos. And that’s no surprise because Shawn Payeyton along with Mike Shanahan, one of the originators of this revolving door of running backs where you don’t have a workhorse. You’ve got multiple guys that you use. So, it’s going to be harder for any one of them to truly explode and have a big game. I have a very important question, though. I just thought of this. Every time you see a final score of 28-3, do you think of Super Bowl 51 every time? Is it like imprinted on your brain? When I see 283, when I see 213 going into the half, I’m like, hey, there’s a chance. There is always a chance. But the only thing is they don’t have Tom Brady. But just anytime I see that score 283 and and I was just at the game. I I mean, you got a ring from it. You experienced the greatest comeback of all time and at least as far as the Super Bowl’s concerned, but I would envision and imagine anytime 283 is a final score of a game, there’s some part of you that’s like, “Yep, 283.” And and if it does that for you, imagine what it does for Matt Ryan. I know. I need to shine that thing up behind me because that’s that’s what it is. if I ever like shine them up, we probably could zoom in and just so everyone could see the final score of that 34 to 28. It would make some people happy. And I’m often in our screening room reminding Maria Taylor, who is a Atlanta native and a a Falcons fan, who was gearing up coming back home to go to the go to the parade and how plans changed quickly. So, um, but I am I’m a Matt Ryan fan. Sorry it had to be you, Matt, but uh good times in New England. There’s a lot of people as soon as they see 283, I think they instantly as Patriot fans like there’s just a a sense of joy that comes over them because they know that their team came back from that that they get they just get so happy inside. Well, the Bengals are facing the equivalent of 283 on their season. So maybe it’s fitting that that was the final score. And it was funny because at one point last night I watched Zack Taylor, the head coach’s press conference before the show began and he was talking about where the team currently is and he’s like well we are two and two. It’s like yeah but but and Jake Browning played a lot in the game where they beat the Jaguars and that is like silver lining here. He came in and beat the Jaguars who are three and one. So, you know, we’re talking earlier about how networks through their PR departments will massage ratings numbers to make them look good even when they’re not. There there at least is some clay to work with if you’re trying to sculpt the the four games of the Bengals season into something that, you know, uh isn’t horrible, but still the momentum right now, but it’s horrible. It’s not on their side. 76-13. It’s not just 28-3. It’s 76-13. They’ve been outscored the last two weeks. And it’s clear to me, hey, Jake Browning was 4-3 as a starter when Joe Burrow had the broken wrist or dislocated, whatever it was. He was out for the rest of the year with wrist surgery in 2023. 4 and three. Fine. Well, now it’s now it’s four and five. And I I was poking around to see whether or not they were going to try to make a play for Cincinnati native Russell Wilson. And what I heard back was they’re just going to throw it up to T. Higgins and Jamar Chase. You don’t need to panic about the quarterback. Just throw it up to those two guys. And that’s what they were doing last night. But there’s a point where you force it. You can’t just say, “I’m going to constantly throw. I’m going to go Jamar Chase this play, T. Higgins that play. Jamar, you like at a certain point the defense is going to react. You got to mix it up. You got to be able to do other things. And it can’t just be down the sideline. I’m gonna throw it up and let my guy go get it because it still has to be close enough for the guy to go get it. It’s not nearly as simple as just throw it up and trust your very expensive and very skilled receiver to go get it. It’s still got to be reasonably close and it can’t be every single play. And early on it felt like this is this is their plan. I was I we’re watching the game. It’s like I heard this is what they’re going to do and hell here’s what it’s going to do. Let’s see if it works. And that’s the bottom line. It didn’t. And that’s the thing of like I think people sometimes forget like when Burrow got hurt people are like man Burrow holds the ball too long. Like that’s some of the issues with it’s not just the offensive line. And I think people forget of like the greatness that comes along with like having these two receivers knowing the coverage you’re going to get, but you and those receivers being on the same page that is they’re running down the sideline. Am I throwing it over the top? Am I throwing a really good back shoulder pass? Like that that’s hard to do week in and week out. And I mean somewhat of their game plan was like that with Burrow depending on the coverage because to me Burrow is the best quarterback in the NFL when it comes to coming out reading coverages and then knowing how to attack them and that’s what they were able to do. But now when you put another guy in there, that’s why I agree it doesn’t make sense to necessarily get another quarterback because you’re just going to be throwing the ball up and like those quarterbacks aren’t going to have the connection with Jamar Chase and T. Higgins either. And I don’t know if their connection will be better than what Jake Browning has throwing them the ball last year and practice sometimes this year so far. It’s just again Troy Aman said it last night. He was like, “Hey, this team’s philosophy hasn’t been to run the ball.” He said, “So to think we’re going to say, hey, Burrow’s out now. We need to run the ball to help Jake Brown.” And you don’t wake up one day and say, “Hey, today we decide we’re going to run the ball.” It’s a mentality. It’s a philosophy that you have that you’re saying we’re a running team. We’re going to run the ball and we know what we’re doing. We know how to block different looks that teams give us. We’re going to stick to the run. Like that’s not who the Bengals are. So now to think that you’re going to just implement that in and be able to do it, it’s going to be a lot harder. And then when you look up for them, you got Detroit, Green Bay, and Pittsburgh the next three weeks. Like those are those are tough games now that how does Jake Brown and figure out how to attack? How does this defense figure out how to be the main? That’s what they need. Like the defense needs to turn in to the reason they win the games. Like but again, they’re not built to do that. So I I just think this gets worse and worse for Cincinnati as the season goes on. Hi, it’s Mike Florio. Thanks for watching PFT on YouTube. Hit subscribe for the latest news and analysis from Pro Football

Mike Florio and Devin McCourty spell out why the Bengals’ offense depends on Joe Burrow and identify expectations while the QB is out. #NBCSports #NFL #ProFootballTalk
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Bengals need Joe Burrow to be competitive after blowout loss | Pro Football Talk | NFL on NBC
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