CINCINNATI (WKRC) – Here are five storylines of note in Monday’s Cincinnati Bengals game at the Denver Broncos, which will kick off at 8:15 p.m. in Empower Field at Mile High in Denver:
5. The need to get Tee Higgins going
The Skinny: In last season’s Bengals-Broncos game on Dec. 28 in Paycor Stadium, Bengals wide receiver Tee Higgins had one of the best games of his career when he caught 11 passes for 138 yards and a career-high three touchdowns, including the game-winner in overtime. Perhaps a familiar foe will help get him going this season.
Through the first three games Higgins has only seven catches for 104 yards and a touchdown. At his current pace he would finish the season with 40 catches for 589 yards.
“It’s a long season. I think you can say that for a lot of our guys,” said Bengals head coach Zac Taylor. “It’s been, unorthodox is not the right word, but the first three games of the season have just been a strange thing. You just continue to evolve as the season goes. We don’t look at that as that defines us, that’s what we’re gonna be, (and) statistically it’s gonna continue on this trend. None of that. It’s finding your identity as a team, offense and defense early in the season, trying to find wins while you’re doing that, and again, your team will continue to evolve. Things take shape. Everything evens out. We’ve got great players. Over a 17-game regular season, it’s all gonna take its shape and even out.”
Taylor said he and Higgins have open dialogue, but that Higgins doesn’t plea for more targets. He has been targeted only 14 times in the first three games.
“That’s the thing about our guys, there’s not an ego involved in any of this,” said Taylor. “When it hasn’t gone that way for guys, they really trust where we’ll head, they know this. There’s been games before where some of our main guys have caught a ball or have been targeted once. They know the next game might be 12 targets and 10 catches. We’ve seen that with almost every single guy on our roster. There’s a body of work there that holds up and they don’t have to guess.”
Higgins said his main focus entering this game is putting last week’s 48-10 loss at Minnesota behind him.
“It was a great game (last season against Denver), but it’s a new season,” Higgins said. “Last week was probably, for a lot of the guys in the locker room, their worst loss since they’ve been in the league. We’ve got to bounce back and be a better football team. Just come together as a team. Put that game behind us, learn from it, and get better the next week and execute.”
4. Is Broncos QB Bo Nix in the midst of a sophomore slump?
The Skinny: After starting all 17 games as a rookie and finishing third in the voting for Associated Press Rookie of the Year, Broncos quarterback Bo Nix is off to a bit of a slow start this season, which is perhaps why Denver is 1-2.
Through the first three games Nix has thrown five touchdowns and three interceptions and has a passer rating of 83.4 Last season he threw 29 touchdowns and 12 interceptions and finished with a passer rating of 93.3 to help lead the Broncos to the playoffs.
In last week’s 23-20 loss at the Los Angeles Chargers, Nix overthrew a wide-open receiver three times on deep ball. Questions about whether head coach Sean Payton put too pressure on Nix by talking up his second-year quarterback and the Broncos’ Super Bowl chances
“I don’t think so,” Nix said Thursday, according to The Associated Press. “I think it’s better than him talking about how tough of a season it’s going to be. So, I’d rather have the confidence going in and have the whole season to play and just get to go out there and play it out (rather than) a coach that doesn’t really have the confidence in us.”
Payton said he has no worries about Nix.
“I think you’ve got to be careful you’re not overcoaching the deep ball that’s going off the fingertips,” Payton said, according to The Associated Press. “The more concerning problem would be if you’re leaving those balls inside where they’re susceptible for an interception. So, he climbs the pocket, he’s doing a great job. Both of those are third-and-long situations where there’s a different type of pass rush. That’s not what’s concerning to me this morning after the loss (Sunday), the deep ball misses. That wouldn’t be what’s on my mind.”
While the Broncos rank second in the NFL in explosive run percentage, they haven’t run it consistently well on early downs. In last week’s loss, the Broncos had 17 first down plays that netted only 39 yards, one of which was a 12-yard pass completion, another that was an eight-yard pass completion and another a seven-yard scramble by Nix. The other 14 first down plays went for 12 yards.
The lack of early down success is one reason why Denver ranks 27th in the NFL in third down conversion rate (32.4 percent).
Bengals defensive coordinator Al Golden said he has been impressed with Nix’s body of work over his first 20 regular-season games.
“I think he looks settled in,” said Golden. “He’s a competitor. He’s really good on the move. Makes a lot of different throws on the run, and he’s good on the dash pass, he’s good on the boots, the boot game, as good as any boot game I’ve seen. He can pull the ball (down and run) anytime during the game, so that’s a threat in the scrambles. Obviously, he trusts the guys on the perimeter, he gives them a chance to catch the ball. I think he’s got really good command of the offense.”
3. Chase vs. Broncos CB Surtain a matchup of elite players at their position
The Skinny: Bengals wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase is in the conversation as being the best wide receiver in the NFL, while Broncos cornerback Patrick Surtain is in the conversation as the best at his position, and the two will go at it at least some of the time in this game.
According to the NFL, in last year’s game Surtain covered Chase on 36 of his 60 pass routes and limited Chase to three receptions for 27 yards. On his other 24 routes, Chase had six receptions for 75 yards to finish the game with nine catches for 102 yards.
The battle between the two goes back to college when Chase as at LSU and Surtain was at Alabama.
“It’s another matchup that’s in my way,” said Chase. “I’ve been going against Pat my whole life. It’s not something I need to be excited for. I’ve been seeing him my whole life, so it’s not a matchup I’ve got to be ready for. Every matchup is the same, man. Those guys still have respect for me. I’ve got respect for those guys, so I’m treating them like another person.”
Surtain was voted Associated Press Defensive Player of the Year last season.
“Two great players I’m not going to make predictions on what they’re going to do to us, but great corner,” said Taylor. “It’s always good to watch Ja’Marr matched up against great corners. If Tee if gets matched up as well, we always expect our guys to hold their win and find a winning matchup for us. A lot of respect for him. He’s a very willing tackler. He’s a physical corner. He can run. He can cover. He can make plays on the ball. I think he’s a really, really elite corner in this league. I think our guys are always up for that challenge.
2. The Broncos front seven is a major problem
The Skinny: The Broncos are adept at rushing the passer and they are tied for first in the NFL in quarterback sacks (12), lead the league in quarterback hits (34) and pressures (63) and are second in pressure rate (50.4 percent).
There have been eight different players record a sack for Denver, led by outside linebacker Nik Bonitto’s 3.0 sacks.
“They have multiple guys that definitely show up in the pass game as disruptors,” said Browning. “They rotate a decent amount of guys through there that are all very capable of winning and being game-wreckers. I don’t know the exact stats, but last year they were really high up there in sacks. This year, they’re high up there in sacks. They’ve got a good group.”
Taylor said it will be the entire offensive unit responsible for protecting Browning, and way to avoid pressure situations is not being in 3rd-and-long like the Bengals were often last week.
“That’s just part of our game plan, “said Taylor. “That’s not one person helping him. Everyone has to be able to do their job to make his job as easy as possible. Gotta do a great job protecting the football. That’s his No. 1 priority. He’s already done a great job with the plan. He’s had a couple days head start. I think he’s in a really good place there. Really good communication with him. I feel like we’re in a great spot right now.”
Browning said he knows he has take better care of the football after throwing five interceptions in the last two games.
“I’ve got to survive the down,” said Browning. “I watch some other quarterbacks and guys miss throws and guys make bad reads, but they find a way for their bad plays to be incompletions. When you look at my film as a whole, so far there’s been a lot of good and there’s been not a significant amount of bad, but my bad plays are detrimental to the team in the form of turnovers. I need to find a way to either throw the ball away so it’s just incompletions and live to fight another day. That was the main takeaway from that.”
1. Can the Bengals flush last week’s performance or will it linger?
The Skinny: One of the main questions coming out of the blowout loss to Minnesota is will the Bengals be able to put that performance behind them? Taylor said on Thursday he liked the players’ mindset since returning to prepare for the Denver game.
“Good, I really do,” said Taylor. “We had an extra day of meetings, so we had a chance to watch some extra stuff and get an extra walkthrough in. We haven’t done anything physically yet, but I do like where our team is at. I think they’re very realistic of where that game went sideways and what we’ve got to do to improve.”
Browning said he needed to stew in the loss a little longer than usual.
“For me it’s just sitting in it for a little bit, where you’re like, ‘OK, I need to have the takeaways to improve from this and be able to look back a couple weeks from now and say good thing that happened, because I’ve made the changes I need to in my game, made the changes we need to as an offense and as a team.’ ” said Browning. “But as far as the process for that, you get back into your routine and kind of lean on people around you for some support, and then you kind of just have to move on. Once you have your takeaways personally and what my role was in what happened on Sunday and what I need to do differently, once I have the takeaways, you really have to move on. I think that’s the hardest part, is not letting it linger. The sooner you can get back on the field and throwing again and just getting into practice, preparing for a different team, the better.”
Playing on a stage like Monday Night Football also helps.
“Yeah, I think so,” said Browning. “As a team, you obviously want to play in the big games and in primetime games, so we’re excited. Obviously Denver’s a good team, so we’re looking forward to getting back on track against a really good team and executing at a much higher level than we did last game. I think you treat it as another game, just because you have your routine, and I’m not going to change my routine just because we’re playing at night or in a primetime game or whatever. It’s not really on your radar a ton throughout the week, but obviously everybody knows about Monday night, so you can’t deny it.”
PREDICTION: Broncos 23, Bengals 20
The Skinny: Denver has played nothing but close games so far this season (an eight-point win, a one-point loss and a three-point loss), so we’ll stick with the trend of this being close, but the Bengals have issues in the run game that could unless it gets better will leave Browning and the offense in too many tough spots.