It turns out the light at the end of the tunnel was an oncoming train.
Only we did not expect that train to be the 0-7 New York Jets.
Sunday’s game at Paycor Stadium was supposed to give Cincinnati a chance to boost the win column, build some momentum after beating the Steelers and maybe get the defense off the naughty step for a minute.
Instead, the Bengals contrived to lose 39-38 to a team staring down the barrel of an eighth straight loss.
The Jets were without their top receivers, Garrett Wilson and Josh Reynolds, and their best cornerback in Sauce Gardner. Aaron Glenn was yet to taste victory as head coach.
Quarterback Justin Fields was so bad last week against the Panthers he was benched midway through the game. But with backup Tyrod Taylor injured, Fields had to shut out all the criticism – including from the team’s owner Woody Johnson – and suit up.
All the signs suggested a comfortable afternoon for the hosts. Or a trap game, depending on your point of view and levels of clairvoyancy.
Starting off in cruise control
From the start, this looked like it might be a walk in the park. Cincy jumped out to a 10-0 lead, built it out to 24-10, then 31-16 and eventually 38-24. With 10 minutes left, the statisticians claimed they had a 97.5% chance of victory.
The offense did everything you could reasonably ask of them. Joe Flacco threw for two touchdowns, bagged another on the ground with a Cincy-style tush push and, once again, avoided any turnovers.
Ja’Marr Chase caught 12 passes for 91 yards, Tee Higgins reeled in a 44-yard touchdown catch, Samaje Perine rumbled in for a score and Chase Brown chipped in with two of his own – one a reception, one rushing.
Those 38 points, a season high, should have been enough for victory. But if your defense collapses like a cheap deckchair…
Hall steals the show
On Sunday, the Bengals defense shipped 502 yards. The last time the Jets piled up a total like that was in the infamous ‘Mike White’ game against Cincy exactly four years ago, in Week 8 of 2021.
To give him his dues, Fields was quietly competent after a season of being anything but. His numbers were not amazing – 21 of 32 for 244 yards and a touchdown – but they did not need to be. That was because over 250 yards came on the ground.
Isaiah Davis, Isaiah Williams and Fields himself chipped in but Breece Hall was the star, with 133 rushing yards and two touchdowns. But because the football gods have a dark sense of humour, he also threw the winning pass to rookie tight end Mason Taylor with two minutes on the clock.
Hall becomes the first NFL player ever to score multiple rushing touchdowns and throw a TD pass in the fourth quarter of a game. Of course he does.
Defensive woes once again
The key narrative of the game was that every time the Bengals scored and looked like they might pull away, the defense let their opponents back in.
Missed tackles, missed gap assignments, bad angles. No pass rush. Could not stop the run. Everything about the defense was atrocious. No wonder Gang Green racked up 23 points in the final quarter.
That was not a comeback, it was a mugging. And it was not a one-off. In the last three seasons, Cincinnati has gone 1-3 when scoring at least 38 points. The rest of the NFL is 86-6-2.
Who is to blame?
To be frank, no one escapes a share of the responsibility for this one.
Obviously, the players are culpable for such a pitiful effort. Safety Jordan Battle was quoted afterwards saying, “Somebody needs to lead the team.” Sure but who will put their hand up? And when?
Head coach Zac Taylor is also taking a lot of heat for presiding over a defense that looks like it was assembled from a clearance bin in a closing-down sale.
He is not a leader. Even he said: “Somebody needs to step up.” Surely that is his job?
He is not a play-caller either. There are too many examples to quote here but suffice to say, I have less hair this morning.
Defensive coordinator Al Golden’s schemes seem mostly theoretical. In 2024, under Lou Anarumo, this unit arguably cost Joe Burrow the MVP title and wasted a triple-crown year from Ja’Marr Chase. This year, it looks even worse.
And we must not forget Director of Personnel Duke Tobin’s role in all this. He cannot draft for toffee, with recent picks like Myles Murphy and Shemar Stewart proving to be no help whatsoever, and has also ignored key areas of need in free agency.
In short, the defense still sucks. Quelle surprise!
So what now?
In the short term, fans are quite rightly baying for blood. They want heads to roll, if not now, then next week when the Bengals have their bye.
But that is not the Mike Brown way. I expect Taylor, Golden and Tobin to still be in post come Week 18, even if this defense remains the worst in the league by any metric you care to pick: points allowed, total yards given up, rushing yards conceded.
If everyone is saying “someone needs to do something”, it sounds like they are all passing the buck. Where is the accountability? What is the plan?
Unless something changes, and fast, this season risks dissolving into another toxic mess of finger-pointing and scapegoating as the playoffs elude the Cincinnati Bengals once again.
