CINCINNATI (WKRC) – On a day when the Bengals lost starting quartetrback Joe Burrow to a game-ending left toe injury in the first half (and may lose him for even longer) and with his team trailing the Jacksonville Jaguars 17-10 at halftime, Bengals head coach Zac Taylor had an interesting message to his team in the locker room at the halftime break.
“(I told them) that I couldn’t be happier that we were in this position in Week 2, so that we can find out what our team is made of so early in the season,” said Taylor. “We can go ahead and figure out how this team is going to handle some adversity. I saw that in spades today. There was not a second anybody flinched. I looked up as we had the final turnover, they returned it to the 10 (-yard line). I did see people leaving thinking it was over. I don’t blame them. We just threw a pick on the 10-yard line, and all our defense did was rise up, get four stops and we go 90-something yards and win the game. Trust me, I don’t blame anybody. The overall performance today wasn’t what our standard is and what we want. I asked our fans to start off this game hot, and they started off hot. That was the standard you set in a home opener from a fan base in terms of being in their seats when I asked them. I appreciate that. Making life really difficult (for the Jaguars). They had to burn an early timeout just like we had last week, because of the crowd noise, and you could hear them throughout. We just have to do a better job not having to come back in the last two minutes of the game and put ourselves in a better position, but again, I’m proud, and everybody will learn from this and know that the Bengals are never out of it. We’re going to continue to find a way to win.”
The Bengals pulled out a 31-27 win when quarterback Jake Browning moved the Bengals 92 yards and scored the game-winning touchdown on a one-yard leap into the end zone with 18 seconds left. The win improved the Bengals to 2-0 for the first time since 2018 when Marvin Lewis was head coach, and Taylor took the reigns the next season and had not only not been 2-0 in his first six seasons as head coach, but had never won a Week 2 game in his Bengals tenure.
“There are teams that have found ways to do this over the years,” said Taylor. “They didn’t always play exactly how they wanted to play. It’s not the same look they’re going to have in November and December. You just have to find a way to win and create your own chances. I think this team just creates its own opportunities. Jacksonville didn’t gift anything to us. Our guys earned every single thing they have. It’s not like last week with some missed kicks. So, you’re going to win some games that way. I’ll take it. Today was really about the Cincinnati Bengals making the most of these opportunities and finding a way to win, and I’ll take both circumstances however you want to give it to us. I’ll take the win because you’re right, we’ve sat up here so much early in the season saying, ‘What’s wrong? What’s wrong?’ Well, today we just found a way to do it. We are 2-0 and we’ll work like heck to be 3-0.”
That has been made more difficult by the pall of Burrow’s injury in which it’s possible he misses multiple weeks.
It should be noted that Browning did go 4-3 as a starter in 2023 when Burrow suffered a season-ending broken wrist, and those games all came when the Bengals were fighting for a playoff berth before being eliminated in the next-to-last game of that season following a 25-17 loss at Kansas City. Browning also qualified to lead the NFL in completion percentage that season at 70.4 percent.
Browning was far from perfect in Sunday’s win. He completed 21 of 32 passes for 241 yards and two touchdowns, but threw three interceptions and finished with a passer rating of 69.9.
His third interception appeared to quash any hope of the Bengals winning. It came with the Bengals trailing 27-24 and facing 2nd-and-10 from their own 23. Browning tried to hit wide receiver Andrei Iosivas over the middle, but Jaguars linebacker Devin Lloyd intercepted on the Bengals 34 and returned it 22 yards to the Bengals 12.
“I came off the field after my third pick, and he was just like. ‘All right, here we go,'” said Browning of Taylor. “Beating the Jaguars is hard enough, and dealing with a coach yelling at you after a third pick would make it harder. Credit to him — I don’t think I’ve ever seen him lose his cool. It makes it really easy to get thrown into a hard situation when you know he’s got my back and staying steady.”
Still the Bengals had to at least hold Jacksonville to a field goal to have a chance to win, and that seemed dicey on a day when the unit allowed 400 yards total offense.
“You just keep reiterating to find a way,” said veteran linebacker Logan Wilson, who had never been 2-0 in his Bengals career, which began in 2020. “Whatever happened the last few plays, or everything that happened in that game to that point, it doesn’t matter anymore. Just keep finding a way. Everyone understands that, and we’re going to find a way to execute. Just keep having that mindset every time and things will work out for you.”
The defense got that stop when Jacksonville coach Liam Coen opted to try and get the first down on 4th-and-5 from the Bengals 8, but the Jaguars turned the ball over on downs with 3:42 left.
“We still had a lot of confidence,” said Taylor. “For our defense to get the four stops down there inside the 10 (-yard line) was huge. Again, that let us know we have a chance not only to go tie it but to go win it. So, that to me is the whole mentality. We’re down three, but we are going to go win the game. I never even gave Jake a field goal landmark because that really was not our mentality. Our mentality was we’re going to go score and win the game and not just kick a field goal. Obviously if the circumstances had come to that, I would have done that. But that was not the conversation. The conversation was, let’s get down the field and try to go score.”
Browning shook off the three interceptions and then marched the Bengals 92 yards in 15 plays and scored the game-winning touchdown. He completed a 13-yard pass to running back Chase Brown on 4th-and-3 from the Bengals 15, and then drew a 25-yard pass interference penalty on rookie and No. 2 overall draft pick Travis Hunter against wide receiver Andrei Iosivas that moved the ball to Jaguars 42.
“I think there was just a lot of poise by the whole offense and the defense, getting the ball back to the offense and giving us an opportunity to make the plays,” said wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase, who caught 14 passes, one short of his single-game career high, for 165 yards and a touchdown. ““We’ve been here before with Jake. We’ve got to let him be himself at the end of the day. We’ve all got to push him to better, push us to be better and just execute.”
Browning completed 9 of 12 passes for 65 yards on the game-winning drive.
“It’s never been too big for him,” said Taylor. “He’s always known that he’s ready. He just wanted an opportunity. That’s all he wants, and I think he comes in the building every day knowing something like this can happen today. His career — I don’t want to get this extreme — but it could end if he’s not prepared. If you walk out there and you have a really bad performance and everybody sees that tape and they say, ‘Okay, that’s enough of that.’ I think as a backup quarterback, he lives that life. He knows he has to be prepared. It could be at any moment. We could be down a touchdown and he has to lead this team back to win. We’ve had that confidence every step of the way with Jake. He’s proven that for us time and time again and again. Just like Minnesota (two years ago) — he threw a pick against Minnesota that he knew was a bad decision. And what do you do? He came back and found a way to win. Today, he threw a pick that he knows he’d like to have back and he comes back and finds a way to lead us to victory, so I couldn’t be prouder of Jake Browning.”
Browning was asked what he was thinking heading into that final drive.
“Be delusional,” said Browning. “I had thrown three picks, and somehow we had a chance to win the game. I can’t be afraid of the fourth in that situation. The defense did a good job forcing a turnover on downs, so I had to be delusional and aggressive, because the moment called for it.”
It has left the Bengals 2-0, without a doubt an ugly 2-0, but still 2-0. It’s significant considering the fact they were 1-11 in the first two games of Taylor’s first six seasons combined and 1-9 in Burrow’s first five.
“Well, the resilient group found a way,” said Taylor. “It feels like that’s what this year is turning into already. Just a group that believes in each other and never flinches even when things are difficult. Early in the season, it’s always been about finding your footing and it’s never going to be easy. You want to put yourself in a position in games five and 12 and 16 to be in a good spot. It wasn’t as clean as we wanted it to be all around. When we watch the tape, there’s going to be corrections, but I couldn’t be prouder of our group. They just looked each other in the eye in the second half and said, ‘We’re going to figure out a way to win this game.’ And that’s exactly what they did, and I’m really proud of them.”