Bengals’ loss wasn’t about Jake Browning or Joe Burrow, but everyone else

CINCINNATI — As the Bengals’ locker room slowly cleared out in the aftermath of Steelers 16, Bengals 10, the shock and frustration that was palpable 10 days ago in Baltimore didn’t exist anymore.

No, whether the resigned mentioning of the 5-6 record or 0-4 in the division or lack of answers to the questions facing the Bengals team, they were beaten down.

“This is my first time feeling like this,” Ja’Marr Chase said in a series of short answers. “I really don’t know how it’s going to go.”

What’s going through his head at this moment?

“Nothing,” he said.

This was reality setting in.

A magical run to the postseason behind Jake Browning won’t be coming.

The math suggests it. The eye test emphasizes it. Deep down, unquestionably, the players know it.

“There’s still a chance to backdoor our way into the dance,” Ted Karras said, in a tone better suited as a question than fact. “But we need to play a lot better.”

Here’s the thing, though. Don’t go making this about Browning. This new reality wasn’t about him. At least, not on Sunday. Browning was fine. He performed as to be expected by a journeyman quarterback making his first career start against a dominant defense.

Sunday was an indictment on everyone else around him. The depth and variety of a roster that was supposed to be built to win championships, specifically, looked like the reason they won’t be sniffing anything close.

The Bengals said it during the week. Joe Burrow ’s injury was an opportunity. An opportunity for the coaches to prove their worth. For the other pieces on offense to rise up. For the defense to prove it could carry a limited offense in the same fashion the Steelers and Browns have this season.

Instead, they were the same supporting cast as before the Burrow injury. They can’t run the ball with any consistency or explosiveness. The defense allows far too many explosive plays and teams can shove the ball down their throat to choke out wins.

With a backup quarterback in his first start, they needed the defense to provide more drive opportunities and perhaps a short field or two. Instead, they allowed 421 yards of offense to Kenny Pickett ’s embattled crew. That was the most yardage gained by the Steelers offense since Dec. 23, 2018. Their previous high this season was 333.

They needed to stop Pittsburgh from shortening the game on the ground upon taking the lead late in the third quarter. Instead, the Bengals gave up 153 yards rushing on the day. That’s the sixth time they’ve allowed 150 or more on the ground this season. Accounting for more than half their games and every single AFC North game. They allowed that many only six times the previous two seasons combined.

On special teams, two punts from plus-territory in an attempt to play field position failed to land an inside the 10, one with another touchback. Rookie punter Brad Robbins has failed to deliver all season on his supposed strong suit.

More than anything, though, the team needed to lean into and find effectiveness in the run game. How about eight carries for 16 yards for Joe Mixon . He had a long of four yards. No other running back took a handoff. It took three Browning scrambles to reach 25 total rushing yards. Those were the fewest rushing yards in a game in the Zac Taylor era. The Bengals have only totaled less twice in franchise history.

“We’ve got to get more on the ground,” Jonah Williams said. “That is another deal where it felt like we were running uphill a lot. Better scheme, better execution, just better across the board. You can’t rush for 25 yards and play against the Steelers — or really many people.”

This might have been without precedent, but it was not new. The Bengals’ success rate on runs was 9.1 percent, a season low, and every Mixon run was unsuccessful. The 33.6 success rate is eight percent worse than last season and tied for third worst in the NFL .

“That’s kind of been our problem this year,” Karras said. “We’ve obviously very much underachieved in the run game. When you have to have a new quarterback come in you want to be able to lean on the run. We were not able to today.”

It would be easy to point to lack of opportunity. This was the second-fewest rushing attempts in a game in franchise history.

“When you run the ball, we need to get more production out of that,” Taylor said. “It takes the pressure off the pass game. That’s what they rely on, taking off the run. We’ve got to do a better job managing the drives as we go and put ourselves in a little bit more advantageous situations. If you can put yourself in a situation where you call more runs and you’re not at second-and-10, second-and-long, third-and-longer, you get more runs off, and eventually, some of those runs start to get you bigger gains. We didn’t get an opportunity get enough runs off.”

Taylor said you need to compartmentalize the situations to gain a true view of the differential in runs versus pass and success versus failure. And, indeed, it tells a clearer story.

This filters down to neutral play selection with all plays on first-and-10, second-and-7-or-less through the first three quarters of Sunday’s game.

Bengals run vs pass early downs

First and 10

Second and 7 or less

Taylor called 13 passes to six runs, more than double. Yet, consider the results. Should the strategy be to hand the ball off to Mixon for two yards or let Browning keep the team ahead of the sticks with his 10 yards per attempt?

The bigger problem would seem to be the lack of creativity, versatility and execution in the run game. There was no misdirection, no Chase Brown , no tricks. Half of his runs were out of the shotgun and half under center, but all but one went behind a guard. Nothing went outside the tackles, partially because their collection of mammoth individuals up front aren’t designed to move into space. They are designed to move the point of attack in the downhill, gap run game. That just hasn’t happened nearly enough.

Mixon didn’t see a single light box, in fact, 75 percent of his runs came against heavy boxes. The Steelers knew what they were doing, which is a small variation of what they always have.

“Standard Pittsburgh defense is always going to stack the box heavy,” Karras said. “We are going to need to bust a few runs out of there at some point.”

Mixon failed to break free even when the play was reasonably blocked, a continuation of a disappointing year statistically for him. Though, Taylor wasn’t buying Mixon as a scapegoat.

“This has nothing to do with Joe Mixon,” Taylor said. “This is the entirety of the unit coming together. Don’t make this about one person. It’s not like there was missed opportunities there from what I could see. He continues to run hard and he’s given us what we needed this season.”

Only problem, now they need more.

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They need more pass breakups and less of Diontae Johnson and George Pickens catching go balls over DJ Turner and Mike Hilton .

They need more third-down receptions and fewer third-down false starts from Tyler Boyd .

They need more clean pockets and less miscommunication allowing T.J. Watt a free run at Browning on a critical third down in the fourth quarter.

They need more physicality in the trenches and less getting punched in the mouth as they have by every team in the division.

In the aftermath of the third straight loss and a nasty closing schedule that includes four of the current top six teams in the AFC playoff picture, there was no talking around the truth.

Reality was setting in.

The Bengals need more. And they don’t have it.

(Photo: Andy Lyons / )

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