Calling it Ten Things, without numbering it.
Joy in Mudville this AM. The most significant player in the history of the Bengals franchise – said it when he was drafted, will say it when he retires – broke the Bengals record for passing yards. Bengals win in a romp that revealed their strengths, which grow with every game, and one flaw, which needs to be fixed ASAP.
Joe Burrow and Zac Taylor conspired to drop a major butt-whippin’ on the Ravens Sunday. You loved it. Why wouldn’t you? For weeks and years and decades, you’ve watched the Men be on the receiving end of Ls such as the one they delivered Sunday to B-more. Turnabout is fair play. If were a Bengals fan, I’d be delighted, too.
They don’t pay me for that. I’m not a cheerleader. The pay isn’t very good, I’d pull too many muscles and I’d look kinda sketchy in one of those outfits.
What I saw, without the rose-colored shades, exceptional and not so exceptional:
Burrow, given time, playing like he was joy-sticking a video game. Making the Ravens look like everybody’s favorite Homecoming opponent, barely a year after a terrible knee injury. Remarkable.
Higgins, Boyd, Chase, quite possibly the best trio of wideouts in the game.
A 19-play drive that resulted in a field goal. Abject domination.
A team that came not only prepared, but out for serious blood. . .
That barring epic collapse, will win the AFC North.
Which should get Taylor a few COY votes.
What else I saw:
The Bengals, ahead in the 4th quarter by 13 and then 21 points, intending to pass the ball on 14 consecutive plays. Ahead 41-21 with 8:02 left, Burrow intended to chuck it six times in a six-play possession that ended with a missed 50-yard field goal. He was sacked twice on that possession. What if he’d gotten hurt? There wouldn’t have been enough daggers on the planet you’d want to throw at Taylor.
This isn’t how the best teams do things. One, because opponents remember games such as 41-21 and how it was accomplished. And someday, maybe soon, they will return the favor. The Ravens will play the Bengals when the Ravens have a genuine NFL team, not that traveling emergency room that limped into PBS, and they will make it harder on the Bengals than necessary. John Harbaugh won’t have to remind his players next fall of what occurred yesterday. And that’ll be on Zac Taylor.
If this were an isolated incident, we’d chalk it up to a young team’s giddiness and let it slide. It’s more of a trend. Players have said lately how good the team is. Players have congratulated themselves on their great play. Taylor has said no one wants to play the Bengals and that his defense had made the proverbial “statement’’ after beating a sad Broncos offense a couple Sundays ago.
I don’t recall hearing Belichick or Reid say those things. Or Tomlin or Harbaugh, for that matter. Someone asked Harbaugh about the pile-on. “They call their plays, we call our plays,’’ he said. It’s called humility.
I understand how a young coach with a young team trying to overhaul an organizational attitude would do what Taylor’s doing. And good for him. It’s working, at the moment.
But at some point, hopefully soon, the Bengals rein in all this bravado. Or at least save it until they win something. Remember how high we were on them – and how high they were on themselves – at 5-2? At 7-4?
This has been the craziest of seasons. The Bengals are a couple major COVID cases from being the Ravens. They’re a couple big hurts from being Cleveland. They are the best team in the worst division in football. That is remarkable, no snark intended. Now, keep your heads down, assume nothing, play the game and let the rest of the world tell you how good you are.
Now, then. . .
ONE MORE THING. . . Kind readers who ascribed my opinion of yesterday’s game to the idea that I “grew up in Baltimore or DC’’ made me laugh out loud. They’re the same folks who said I “grew up in Pittsburgh.’’ Maybe this week, I will have “grown up’’ in Kansas City.
I grew up in the DC burbs, yes. I loved the Redskins, yes. I couldn’t care less about the Team now and haven’t since Dan Snyder bought them 30-odd years ago. I really don’t care about the Team when they’re in a game I’m writing about. And what the heck does that have to do with a Bengals-Ravens game?
For the record, DC people are snobs, who look down their noses at Baltimore. The notion of a Washingtonian rooting for anything or anyone from Charm City is ridiculous. First, we’d have to know they existed.
And, again, I never lived in Pittsburgh. And I didn’t go to Xavier. Or Elder. I think that about covers it.
TONE DEAF. . . A problem readers had with the game column was, it didn’t mesh with their celebrations after the W. I understand that. If I were them, I’d be hissed at me, too. But here’s the thing: I expected the Bengals to win, from the moment we learned Jackson and his backup Huntley were out. I believed it wouldn’t be close. The decimated Ravens aren’t very good.
I didn’t expect Burrow to have the best game a Bengals QB has ever had. But when the other guys are down to their 8th cornerback. . .
Look at it this way: I thought the Men were the best club in the North coming into the game. Like Burrow says, he “expects’’ to play great.
One of the requirements to sustain success is humility. Thinking you’ve got it made doesn’t work, because you never have it completely made unless you’re Tom Brady. And every Brady teammate would tell you Brady was the hardest worker on their team.
The Bengals won a game they should have won, the way they should have won it. Their postgame was off-putting and ultimately changing that will be as important as any record-setting game Joe Burrow will have.
THE COVID IS MESSING WITH the outcomes of games, and that’s a problem. In a normal NFL season, injuries are an accepted fact of life. Pain is implied in the contract. But this isn’t that. This is teams scrambling simply to fill rosters.
Having just watched a week of games featuring QBs named Garrett Gilbert, Nick Mullens and Josh Johnson – all of whom started crucial games for their Washington, Cleveland and Baltimore teams whose starting QBs were in viral sick bay – could make you question the legitimacy of the whole operation. It’s not necessarily who has the best team, but rather who has the most virus-free group.
Roethlisberger, Rodgers, Mayfield and Goff all have missed time with the virus.
There’s no quick fix. There’s no fix at all. "At some point, you feel like you are fighting a ghost," Falcons owner Arthur Blank mused. "You don't know where to swing."
It comes down to personal responsibility and luck. And of course, if your team plays in a boring city, that helps, too.
ON TO DALLAS. . . I’d booked a flight to Dallas that was leaving today. Then, they put all the Cotton Bowl media stuff on Zoom. No in-person interviews. I re-booked for Thursday. I can watch Zoom pressers from my palatial estate. No point in watching them from a hotel room.
A theme this week will be UC’s supposed need to show well for all of Soup of Five Nation. Being the first team outside the P-5 to make the mini-tournament apparently comes with an obligation to fly the flag for the outsiders. It really shouldn’t.
The Bearcats were told all fall how they had to be perfect even to be considered for the Final 4. That impossible ask affected how they played, especially during the middle of the year. The burden of expectations can be ponderous. Let’s not heap it on them again.
The only responsibility they have is to each other, to prepare to play the best they can. Is Alabama better than UC? How much better? Who really knows?
Meantime, pick your favorite UC descriptive: Are the Bearcats “pesky’’ or “feisty’’? Plucky, gritty, spunky scrappy?
They are David. Definitely. Could they be Davy, as in Crockett, at the Alamo? Man sat in his bed, wounded, firing pistol shots at the marauding Mexicans, until they shot him dead. UC doesn’t want to be that guy.
TUNE O' THE DAY. . . Heard this on Underground Garage, my favorite non-terrestrial music station. Mindless pop is good for the soul.
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