The Cincinnati Bengals and Cleveland Browns are two bad teams, but the Ohio-based squads appear to be mirror images of one another. Cleveland has one of the league's best defenses and a pitiful offense, while Cincinnati can light up the scoreboard and fail to stop a nosebleed.
Never has this dichotomy been more clear than when one examines the Cincinnati pass rush and compares it to the Myles Garrett-led unit in Cleveland. What Garrett is doing this season might put him on pace for something historic, all while the Bengals look more pitiful by the day.
Garrett recorded four more sacks in Cleveland's loss to the Baltimore Ravens, giving him 15 on the season and also handing him a nonzero chance of challenging the single-season sack record of 22.5 currently held by Michael Strahan and TJ Watt.
Garrett has as many or more sacks than four NFL teams. Garrett's 15 quarterback takedowns are more than the 14 the Bengals have as a team all season. No matter how good Garrett is, it's impossible to build a winning team with this pass rush being as pathetic as it has been.
Myles Garrett has more sacks than the entire Bengals team after Week 11
While the Bengals did look like a respectable defense in a close loss against the Pittsburgh Steelers in Week 11, their performance may have been aided by the fact Aaron Rodgers left the game early with a wrist injury. It's easier to slow down Mason Rudolph. Even then, the Bengals weren't the '85 Bears.
Four of the 14 sacks have come from Trey Hendrickson, who has been in and out of the lineup with injuries and has only managed four sacks this year. If he doesn't get home, no one on this Bengals roster can supplement him.
The poor play from the defensive line is not due to a lack of investment, as Cincinnati has used multiple first-round picks on players like Myles Murphy and Shemar Stewart over the last few years. However, with 2.5 sacks between them, the combination of these two highly-touted picks has fallen flat on its face.
The Bengals' defense has regressed to a point where it might take multiple seasons of good drafting to fix it. In their current state, their inability to get to the quarterback is such a fatal flaw that no offense can be able to turn this team into a winner.