Cincinnati Bengals: What we learned in Week 6 win vs. Lions

The Cincinnati Bengals moved to 4-2 after an absolute thrashing of the Detroit Lions on Sunday, winning 34-11. What did we learn about the stripes in this game? 

Don’t pay any attention to the people who try to undermine the Bengals‘ victory with the argument of “Yeah, but it was the Lions”. 

When people say those kind of things to me, I respond with, “You can only play who’s on your schedule.” and that’s what the Bengals did. Not only that, but they were supposed to curb-stomp the Lions and guess what they did? They curb-stomped the Lions!

Let’s take a look at what we learned about the 4-2 Bengals after their 34-11 victory in the Motor City.

Offense is still getting off to a slow start

When looking at the final score, you might think the Bengals were firing on all cylinders throughout this one but that’s not what happened at all. Instead, the Cincinnati offense was performing pretty terribly in the first half, totaling just 10 points as the teams entered the locker room at halftime.

After the Bengals marched down the field and scored on their opening drive (the first time they did that this season), they couldn’t do anything on offense. After that touchdown, here were the results of the rest of the Bengals’ drives leading up to halftime:

• Interception
• Punt
• Punt
• Punt
• Field Goal

That field goal only happened because Joe Burrow and Ja’Marr Chase had another crazy connection down the field to set up that attempt. Otherwise, it’d have been 7-0 and the offense might not have gotten cooking in the second half.

This kind of performance might work against an atrocious team like the Lions but it’s not going to work the rest of the way and especially not against the Ravens, who are up next on the schedule.