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Henry McKenna
NFL Reporter
Joe Burrow hasn’t changed. He’s still one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL.
He’s still Joe Cool. Under pressure against the Ravens last week, he completed 7 of 9 passes for 104 yards and two touchdowns. In a fierce quarterback duel with Lamar Jackson, Burrow generated .51 EPA per play, the fifth-most of his career.
But the Cincinnati Bengals lost.
And it’s not just one game. The Bengals quarterback is logging a career-best in completion percentage (72.3), touchdown percentage (6.9) and interception percentage (1.2). We’ll see where his production lands in counting stats. But he has been as efficient as ever.
And yet the Bengals are 1-4.
“I’m sick to my stomach for our guys in there,” coach Zac Taylor said after their loss on Sunday. “They fought. I’m proud of them, but we’ve got to find a way to win. We can’t keep coming up one play short, and that’s really what the game came down to.”
In a season in which Burrow might be playing his very best, the Bengals are a mess — and the numbers say they’re likely to miss the playoffs.
The Washington Commanders made it to the playoffs in 2020 after a 1-4 start. But historically, it’s quite rare. Since 1970, just 15 of the 253 teams have made the postseason after opening 1-4. That’s 5.9%. Burrow is an outlier. The Bengals have that going for him. But the defense — oh, man, the defense. That’s another outlier — and for all the wrong reasons.
The issues showed up in overtime on Sunday when Derrick Henry iced the game with a 51-yard run.
“I thought we did a tremendous job against the run until that last run of the game,” Taylor said.
So … yeah, that’s simply not accurate.
This season, the Bengals defense has allowed a successful run on 53% of designed runs. As Yahoo!’s Nate Tice noted, that’s the equivalent of turning every rushing attack into the Ravens, whose offense has a success rate of 51%. In base defense — when the Bengals have plenty…
Source link : https://www.foxsports.com/stories/nfl/how-bengals-wasting-joe-burrows-prime-super-bowl-window
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Publish date : 2024-10-09 20:16:21
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