ARLINGTON, Texas — While the confidence is still there, the frustration is quickly mounting among players in the Bengals locker room. And it should. There’s no excuse for what happened Sunday inside AT&T Stadium in a 20-17 loss to the Dallas Cowboys.<\/p>\n
What was projected as an easy part of their schedule has turned into an 0-2 hole against teams led by Mitch Trubisky and Cooper Rush. <\/p>\n
The Bengals have not been able to get out of their own way early on in both losses. The fact that the Bengals have lost games, 23-20 and 20-17, after being down 17-3 at the half in both games is of no consequence or consolation. <\/p>\n
They’ve been miserable to start games. And while the Week 1 loss could be written off as rust, what happened Sunday inside AT&T Stadium was an emasculation of the offensive line. <\/p>\n
The Cowboys played with two safeties high the entire game (2-Tampa look) and dared the Bengals to try and beat them in the trenches. They failed, miserably. The Cowboys defensive front teed off all day, led by Micah Parsons, the player they knew would be after Joe Burrow in the week leading up to the game. <\/p>\n
Dorance Armstrong, like Parsons, had two sacks and just took liberties with the Bengals tackles all day. Joe Burrow has been sacked 13 times in two games with the reconstructed offensive line that the team spent $74 million to fix. He’s been pressured 30 times over the first two games. <\/p>\n
How about run the ball with a purpose? How about do what Dallas did coming into the game and blow teams off the ball to start the game and establish an attitude? There has been no attitude in the trenches. Remember, good teams run the ball effectively when teams are expecting it. This offense is gifted with an elite running back but who has nowhere to run. <\/p>\n
The Bengals have handed the ball off but the holes consistently disappear or don’t even appear for Joe Mixon. Sunday he had 57 yards on 19 carries for three yards a pop, including a long of 10. Take that out, and Mixon averaged less than three yards, not exactly striking fear into teams playing a light box and taking away the deeper passes. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe run game is critical, especially when teams are going to play \u20182 Tampa\u2019 the whole game against us,” Burrow told me. “I thought we were efficient. We lacked the big explosive runs today, but those will come. Thought we were efficient in the run game.\u201d<\/p>\n
“I think last week was probably turnovers,” coach Zac Taylor said. “This week it was more first-and-10 efficiency. We had some false starts. We had a sack on first-and-10 play action. We had a screen that went for negative yards. We had a run that went for negative yards. We were backed up, there. It\u2019s pretty easy in the first half to point to what the inefficiency was. It was our first downs, so now we\u2019re not on schedule anymore and they did a good job of pinning our ears back, which is something we can\u2019t let them do. They really excelled in that area. I thought we settled down better in the second half and we were a lot more efficient.”<\/p>\n
The biggest highlight for the Bengals offense came when they needed it the most. Down 17-9, the Bengals put together a 19-play, 83-yard drive consuming 8 minutes, 54 seconds. <\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s how it\u2019s supposed to look,” Burrow said. “That\u2019s what we need to get the whole game. Whatever we\u2019ve got to do to move the chains on third down, find those completions and get those chains moving, we\u2019re going to have to have a lot of drives like that, the way defenses are playing us. We\u2019ve got to bank that one and remember how that feels.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nJoe Burrow says until Bengals start running the ball better, teams will come after pass game pic.twitter.com\/xJjMKxSrEV<\/a><\/p>\n
— Mike Petraglia (@Trags) September 19, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n