What’s Going On With The Bengals Offense?
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CINCINNATI (PSF) - Through the first two weeks of the NFL season, the once electric Cincinnati Bengals offense has slowed dramatically. Having been top 10 in the league in scoring offense over the past two seasons with no dramatic changes to personnel, it’s unclear what is causing the lack of production from the Bengals offense, but it is certainly a cause for concern.
Led by superstar quarterback Joe Burrow and an extremely talented supporting cast of skill position players including Ja’Marr Chase, Tee Higgins, Joe Mixon, and Tyler Boyd, Burrow has put up excellent stats as well as winning the majority of his starts over the past two years. The Bengals averaged an impressive 26.1 points per game (PPG) last season, which was good for seventh in the league; so far through the first two weeks of the season they have averaged a measly 13.5 points a game, allowing the Bengals to fall to an 0-2 record. The glaring difference so far in the lack of scoring has been an inability for Burrow to effectively move the ball, as he has averaged 152 yards per game (YPG) despite his star-studded receiving cast. Last season Burrow averaged 279.9 YPG and was the catalyst for the seemingly unstoppable passing attack that saw Chase and Higgins both rack up over 1000 yards.
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The running game has been reasonably solid in a low number of attempts due to the Bengals falling behind early in the past two games, and having to throw the ball to make up yardage quickly, and should certainly be a more prominent feature of the offense. Joe Mixon has carried the ball 26 times for 115 yards, averaging a respectable 4.4 yards per carry, although with a “bell cow” running back like Mixon, 13 carries a game is an undeniably low number. If this offense hopes to improve in the coming weeks, setting a larger focus on the running game would definitely be a step in the right direction.
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In terms of the passing game, Burrow not having good enough weapons to throw to is certainly not even the slightest problem. Ja’Marr Chase, who has been widely considered to be a top 5-10 receiver in the league has only put up 70 yards in the first two games, whereas his counterpart Tee Higgins has taken more of a top receiver role. Higgins has racked up 89 receiving yards and two touchdowns, which is noticeably better than Chase, especially in the red zone. Considering that the Bengals possess two of the best young receivers in the league, the passing game needs to take a major step up as the season progresses for the Bengals to turn this rough start around.
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The offensive line has been a recurring problem for the Bengals over the past five or so years, and it looks like it will continue to be unfortunately. On paper, it appears like this should be the best unit they’ve put forward in years, however things still aren’t clicking for the Bengals line. Burrow has taken three sacks in the first two games, and although this is not a crazy number whatsoever, there have been numerous pressures on Burrow that can be attributed to poor blocking that have resulted in either incompletions or throwaways. With this being one of the team's weakest areas at the moment, improved play from the offensive line down the stretch would certainly do wonders to improve the Bengals offense as a whole.
The Bengals are still a young and talented team, especially offensively, and have appeared in two AFC championships and one Super Bowl in the past two years; if they want any hope to turn this poor start to a season around, the offense is going to have to take massive strides of improvement. There is no one unit offensively that is to blame for their struggles out of the gate as all of them have been flawed to say the least, but if the offense doesn’t start to mesh better and take advantage of their list of play-makers, they are going to be in significant trouble.
