CINCINNATI (WKRC) – While quarterback Jake Browning certainly didn’t play well in the Cincinnati Bengals lopsided loss at the Minnesota Vikings last Sunday, the biggest issue offensively in the first three games has been in the inability to run the ball. No one seems to be able to put a finger on a quick fix or how that will happen.
After rushing for a season-high 53 yards on 21 carries, the Bengals rank last in the NFL in rushing yards per game (49.0) and yards per carry (2.4). Lead back Chase Brown has only 93 yards on 47 carries, including 64 yards on his 40 rushing attempts.
Bengals head coach Zac Taylor said there is plenty of blame to go around for the lack of success.
“I think it’s everybody involved in that,” said Taylor. “It’s not just the running back, it’s not just the line, it’s not just the tight end, there’s everybody involved in that. There were times, you know, where the other backs were in, there was great opportunity there, and they took advantage of it. And so, I do think that they ran well. I think that’s also you’re going to look at, okay, Chase’s yards per carry, and the other guys, some of it was a little bit opportunity with the scheme we hit versus the front that they had, but again, we got three backs that we believe in, that we think we can all use in different ways, so to put that on Chase is a bit unfair, because it was the unit as a whole.”
So just what are the issues if it isn’t Brown? According to NFL Next Gen Stats, Brown has minus-54 yards rushing before contact, which would be the worst in a season by 24 yards since those stats started getting tracked in 2018.
Could it be the overall scheme in the run game?
“I mean every week, I think, is you have to balance where you are at with your players against what threats the defense poses, and so there’s a danger in ‘Hey, we’re just going to watch a bunch of tape to see what other teams have done well against this defense, and we’re going to go do that,'” said offensive coordinator Dan Pitcher. ‘Well, (what) really is your own identity? Right? The flip side of that is, if you only just say, ‘Hey, we do A, B and C,’ well, these teams are smart, and they know how to, oftentimes, take away A and C and maybe a little B. So, that’s the equation. That’s the every week that you’re trying to figure out, and so I don’t have a clear cut answer. It’s every week just trying to figure out the best way to move the football and put us in position to win.”
Said Taylor: “We have to do a great job identifying the scheme that we’ve got a lot of confidence in to be able to give the running backs opportunity, and our guys need to step up and do a great job with that scheme. I do think that we’ve faced three challenging defenses early in the season. You can’t make an excuse for that. We’ve got to find our way to put pressure on them and stop saying it’s about the defense. There’s got to be moments where we attack the defense and put them on their heels, and we just got to find some momentum in drives to be able to do that.”
Veteran center Ted Karras said part of the issue is the offensive line hasn’t been physical enough at the point of attack.
“You don’t want to have to explain that, but that’s the truth,” said Taylor. “We got to get moving off the ball, increase some displacement, so that there’s some space for these backs to make some hay. We’ve talked to everybody about that up front. Again, whenever you talk about protection and physicality in the run game, you immediately think of just the offensive line. That’s everybody involved, that’s the backs, that’s the tight ends, that’s receivers, that’s the quarterbacks on their fakes trying to pull an extra hat and soften people up. That’s play calling, marrying things together, so you can’t tee off on people and make one phase of the offense difficult. So we all play hand in that. There’s not one person or one one position group you’re going to point to. We all got to own that and be better at it moving forward.”
Some of that lack of physicality may come from some indecisiveness from the likes of rookie guard Dylan Fairchild and Jalen Rivers, and from veteran guard Dalton Risner, who was just signed the week in between the end of the preseason and start of the regular season.
“There’s truth to that, but the first thing is, alignment, assignment, execution,” said Pitcher. “For the offensive line, the alignments are the alignment. What’s my assignment? How does what the defense does potentially modify that assignment? Then go execute the block. If the second part of that, if there’s any hesitation, or the defense is really imposing that hesitation on you, it’s going to hamper your ability to be physical. All of that is our responsibility. I’m not passing that off and saying, ‘Oh, well, all they need to do is this, and we can’t be a physical team.’ That’s nonsense. We have to be physical.”
Brown admits he can do his part to make the run game improve.
“There are always things you can do better like break tackles and make people miss and maximize the opportunity that’s put in front of you,” said Brown. “That’s my mindset is I’m going to go out there and be the best version of myself every single time I go out on the field. Your job is to maximize what’s put in front of you and that’s what I am trying to do.”
The one thing Brown can’t do is start running in an undisciplined fashion hunting to bounce inside runs or always looking for cutback lanes instead of following the tracks of where the run is supposed to take him.
“For sure in the NFL if you do undisciplined stuff you get unpredictable results,” said Brown. “If I were to take the ball on tight zone and just bounce it maybe something would come of it, but most of the time it doesn’t. That’s not where the ball is supposed to go.”
The bottom line is the run game has to improve if the Bengals are going make the playoffs and that would have been true whether Joe Burrow was the quarterback instead of Browning.
“We know we can,” said Taylor. “We’ve done it. Historically, we’ve been better. There’s been a lot of meat on the bone in some of these games we’ve played so far. We can see the opportunity. It’s not always the same person. It can be a different combination. It can be a different single block, it can be a back, it can be a receiver digging out a safety. It can be more strain from a tight end on a pull. There’s just different things that show up that we can all be better.”