3 winners, 2 losers in Bengals' Week 6 win vs. Seahawks
Winning ugly still results in a win but for the Cincinnati Bengals, a lot needs to be improved on as they enter the bye week at 3-3. They might have taken down the Seattle Seahawks in a 17-13 final on Sunday but it's not all sunshine and sprinkles.
The good news is that the Bengals are back to .500 after their difficult start. The bad news is that they're still in the cellar of the AFC North.
Let's get to this week's winners and losers. We'll start with the losers.
Losers
Second-half offense
On the Bengals' first two drives of the game, they scored touchdowns and were up 14-7 over the Seattle Seahawks. While the defense did its part in keeping the Seahawks out of the end zone for the rest of the game, the Bengals offense could have put this game away much earlier but instead, it came down to the final 40 seconds or so.
The Bengals offense just could not get anything going in the second half and it was frustrating, to say the least. We need to see this unit play better consistently and not just for one game and a quarter. The games are only going to get more difficult from here, so this offense needs to figure out what's ailing them quickly.
Playcalling
This has been a frequent issue throughout the season and it's worrisome, to say the least. When the Bengals had the ball on their own 18-yard line with 1:53 to go and owning a four-point lead, they opted to have Joe Burrow drop back to pass. The pass sailed incomplete and the team had to punt the ball back to Seattle.
The issue is that by throwing there and the pass going incomplete, the Seahawks didn't have to burn a time out because the clock stopped. Had the Bengals gone on to lose this one, this would have been a heavily scrutinized decision by Zac Taylor and the offense.