The Cincinnati Bengals are now 1-1 after dropping their first game of the year to the Chicago Bears. It was a frustrating game, to say the least, as the Bengals didn’t look motivated at all until it was too late to do anything about it.
We’ll get more into the fourth quarter of the game in this post but let’s take a look at what we learned about the stripes in their first loss of the 2021 season.
The offensive line still has a long way to go
Despite putting some effort into rebuilding the offensive line this offseason, it’s not anywhere close to being where Cincinnati needs it to be. The left side had a really rough game in Chicago, as Jonah Williams and Quinton Spain got pushed around throughout the matchup.
We all knew that the o-line was one of the team’s biggest weaknesses entering the season and so far, it hasn’t been very good. Joe Burrow has been sacked nine times through two games and the poor o-line play even forced Zac Taylor to call a more “conservative” game until the fourth quarter.
Burrow is tremendous at throwing the ball deep but it’s hard for him to do that when he’s getting pressured on every pass. This o-line has to be better if the Bengals want to come anywhere close to sniffing the playoffs.
Defense looks much better
The defense has not been a strength for the Bengals in recent years but they’ve played well in the first two games of the season. They held Chicago to 20 points in this one and limited the two Bears quarterbacks to just 83 yards through the air and a touchdown while picking them off once.
This is exactly why Cincinnati went out and spent all of that money in free agency on guys like Trey Hendrickson and Larry Ogunjobi and hey, what do you know? It’s paying off!
Hendrickson had an awesome second game as a Bengal, getting his first sack with the team and then adding half a sack to go along with it. D.J. Reader, who was signed last year, also had a big game, getting a sack to add to his stat sheet.
The Bears’ run game totaled 123 yards off of 34 carries, so that’s certainly an area the team could improve but compared to the other recent Bengals defenses, fans feel good about this group moving forward.
Turnovers are costly
Okay maybe that’s an obvious statement, but am I wrong here?
The Bengals lost by three points and had Joe Burrow not thrown three straight picks on three straight passes, this game could have gone much differently. It wasn’t all on Burrow but anytime you throw three picks, that’s always going to be something people hone in on.
Not only did Burrow throw three interceptions, but Tee Higgins also coughed up the football at a crucial time, giving Chicago another possession. Higgins had a good game otherwise but that turnover was yet another blemish on the stat sheet for the good guys.
On the other side of the coin, Chicago turned the ball over just once but it should have been at least twice. The Bears fumbled the football at one point and Logan Wilson missed the chance to scoop it up and run down the field for what would have been an easy touchdown. Wilson landing on that ball was the difference between a win and a loss.
The offense isn’t being aggressive enough
Perhaps this goes hand-in-hand with the abysmal play by the o-line, but this Bengals offense is too good to only be scoring 17 points. The past two weeks there have been times where Taylor is going way too conservative when the team has the ball and it’s frustrating, to say the least.
Taylor might be concerned with Burrow getting hurt again and that could be why he’s been dialing up such laid-back play calling. Whatever the reason is, this offense has to be aggressive if they want to be competitive. That’s why they drafted Ja’Marr Chase in the first round despite already having Tyler Boyd and Tee Higgins on the roster.
We’re only 2 games into the season so there’s still a lot to learn
This is something that needs to be repeated this week. This game wasn’t a great one for the Bengals but we’re only two games into the 2021 season.
Some people said it seemed like Zac Taylor was in over his head and well — Seven wins through less than three seasons proves just that. This loss could definitely be one we look back on later in the year and wonder what could have been for this team had they been able to pull this one out.
For now, however, all we have to go off of is what we’ve seen in the two games so far. Is there anything you learned from the game that I should have mentioned?