They say back at Athens High School that Joe Burrow could have been an astrophysicist. After Sunday’s game left Burrow’s Bengals at 3-5, he crunched the numbers of the playoff probabilities at the speed of one of his third-down rockets that staked Cincinnati to an early lead over the Eagles.
“I think 10 wins usually gets you in, so we’ve got to win seven out of nine,” Burrow said. “That’s doable, so we’ll go from there.”
Sam Hubbard, Burrow’s buddy and fellow captain, mulled the numbers.
“Seven of nine?” Hubbard asked. “That’s the mission then.”
The AFC is being most empathetic to the Bengals’ challenges. It remains as wide open as Sunday’s most recent crash course in the AFC North’s annual demolition derby. The last-place 2-6 Browns pulled the 5-3 Ravens a little closer to the pack Sunday while the Bengals are just two slots removed from the 4-3 Chargers in the last spot at No. 7.
NFL.com says the Bengals are in better shape than seven of the AFC teams, and they play three of them the rest of the way. One of them is Vegas, due in at Paycor this Sunday to start a short week that includes a trip to the Ravens. Then those Chargers loom on the West Coast. All after Halloween and before Thanksgiving.
“Two games back with nine to play,” said Bengals center Ted Karras, who maybe isn’t an astrophysicist, but he has played in 14 postseason games. “There’s a lot of football to be played. The season’s not even half over. I hate to keep saying that.
“We’ve got to get our first home win. We can talk about January all we want. What we need to do is win in Paycor. Right after Halloween.”
The Paycor crowd hung with the Bengals long after it left the building. A crowd of 67,239 made it the second-highest attended home game in Bengals history, just 21 shy of the franchise record set two years ago against Miami.
“We’ve got great fans, great support and haven’t done enough to reward them,” said Bengals head coach Zac Taylor.
Karras and Taylor, veterans of Super Bowl rides, both were ate up by the same play. The fourth-and-one with 45 seconds left in the third quarter trailing, 24-17, two minutes after the Eagles had gone ahead on a big play.
“They score a touchdown, and we come out and go for it on fourth down and don’t get it, and that’s heavy on my mind the entire game,” Taylor said. “Anytime that happens and I make a decision like that and it doesn’t go your way, you’re sick to your stomach about it.”
But Karras wasn’t focused on the fourth-and-one screen to wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase that got blown up for a two-yard loss. He was thinking about the play before.
The third-and-one run to running back Zack Moss for no gain behind a six-man offensive line and double tight-end set. The Bengals were without left tackle Orlando Brown Jr. But they had tight end Drew Sample over there, as well as tight end Erick All Jr. going in motion that way. Linebacker Brandon Graham stormed in and broke it up.
“We’ve to get it on third-and-one. I don’t care about the pass,” Karras said. “The run on third-and-one, we have to have that. That will eat at me for 24 hours.”
The short-yardage issues seemed to be cleared up earlier in the year when the Bengals got off to the best start ever under Taylor running the ball. They went into New York two weeks ago averaging five yards per carry. In the last three games, the backs and wide receivers are at 3.1 per rush. On Sunday, before the last series, it was 2.4.
When the offense goes back to the board Monday, it sounds like that’s they’re beginning with the running game. It’s not an unfamiliar position for Burrow. He’s been answering questions about third-and-one and fourth-and-one since the Super Bowl.
“I would say that, yeah,” said Burrow, when asked if he’s frustrated with the theme.
“After the first game, we ran it well for a couple of weeks in a row there. The last couple of weeks haven’t been good enough. When you play good rushers like we have the last several weeks, you’ve got to keep them off balance and be able to run the ball. If you don’t, then they aren’t going to be quite as worried about it and then their edge guys are going to start getting push, and play action isn’t going to be as good. So, you’ve got to drop back and make plays, and that’s what those kinds of teams want. So, it’s tough when you can’t.”
Karras was left shaking his head. His offense had been so smooth with three dominant possessions to start the game during a passing display that showed why Burrow is dueling for the NFL passing title. He hit his first seven passes. He hit his first seven third-down conversions. Throw in some of his crazy-legs scrambles and it was a No. 9 clinic for much of the day.
(It’s easy to forget how that nimble resourcefulness resulted in an eight-yard run that set up the short-yardage plays from his 39.)
“I thought Joe played a good game. Sometimes that’s what our games turn into. Joe’s going to have to win it for us,” Karras said. “We had three possessions in the first half. That’s kind of AFC North football. I thought we had positive plays. Kudos to Joe on third down. Mike G. (Gesicki). A lot of guys making a lot of big plays. You have to make big plays to have a 10- minute drive to open the game. I thought that was a good start.
“But when games are like that with a team that can also can sustain drives, possessions are a premium. You have to end those drives with touchdowns.”
They came out of those three drives with ten points. Burrow reprimanded himself for a third-down pass from the Eagles 9 that was very nearly a touchdown to rookie wide receiver Jermaine Burton. Evan McPherson ended one of the drives with a missed 54-yard field goal.
Still, at one point in the thing, they were up 10-3, had run 16 more plays than the Eagles, and Burrow wasn’t missing very often. It left Karras thinking not only about the run on third-and-one, but the early runs.
“I think when we dial them up early, we need to do a better job up front executing our assignments so that it creates more confidence to call more,” Karras said. “It’s kind of a volume thing. It kind of adds as it’s going.
“When you have Nine dialed in like that, I don’t know what the volume of runs are going to be anyway. Overall, we’ve got to get a hat on a hat and get the ball downhill … How I was taught to run in the NFL, the two biggest keys to success are a hat on a hat and get the ball downhill. I’m going to check the tape. It probably wasn’t hat on a hat. We’ve got to get that rolling.”
Karras sensed that Burrow had torched the Eagles out of their base defense and put them into their nickel alignments. In the second half, he estimates the Eagles blitzed half the snaps.
“I thought we answered, them right back,” Karras said. “Where the game got busted open was the fourth-and-one.”
But when they go back to the board Monday, they only have to go back a few minutes and look at the drive that tied it at 17 in the middle of the third quarter. It was another monster of a march that went 13 plays and 70 yards in 6:19. Running back Chase Brown started it with a four-yard stretch run to the right edge and ended it with a four-yard touchdown run slashing in untouched as All went in motion one way while left tackle Cordy Ford washed it down the other way.
And Burrow was doing exactly what he had to do against Eagles defensive coordinator Vic Fangio’s stubborn, physical secondary that gives up nothing deep. Burrow overcame a drop to hit five of seven and threw in an eight-yard scramble.
“We’ve done it before. I know the players we’ve got in there,” Burrow said. “You’ve just got to treat it week by week. Any game is winnable. You’ve just got to go and do it.”
That third-and-one is going to gnaw at Karras. But he’s giving it a 24-hour limit.
“Then we’ve got to get on Vegas. We’ve got to win at Paycor,” Karras said. “We owe it to these fans. Unbelievable crowd yet again. We want to give them a better show.”
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